Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: What's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Taylor Armstrong back with another episode.
Speaker: As usual, we're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better experience in the solar industry.
Speaker: Hope you're doing awesome.
Speaker: Hope you're doing great as we kind of start wrapping up the summer here.
Speaker: I hope you're using the extra daylight hours.
Speaker: that we have to crush it.
Speaker: I'm starting to see it get darker a little bit earlier now, but it's no excuse.
Speaker: Push hard, finish the summer strong, and whatever you're doing, don't let off the gas until you've hit your goals.
Speaker: I want to thank everyone that has shared the podcast, left reviews as usual.
Speaker: If you have not left us a review, it's time.
Speaker: Go leave a review on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you're listening to the podcast.
Speaker: If you have listened to more than one episode or something, we'll give you a free pass if you're new to the show.
Speaker: But it would be much appreciated if you haven't taken the time to do so or share the podcast with someone.
Speaker: Would be very much appreciated.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: So today we're going to be talking about really just some reminders that I had in this last week.
Speaker: I'll be blunt.
Speaker: I'll be honest.
Speaker: It was a tough week for me.
Speaker: One of the toughest weeks I've had in a while.
Speaker: And that's just part of the solar coaster.
Speaker: And I'm trying to not let it get me down.
Speaker: He can never be too high, never be too low in this job.
Speaker: But some of you know, sometimes that's hard to do.
Speaker: And last week, I only had one close on the week, which has been unusual.
Speaker: Usually I've been getting three, four throughout most of the summer here.
Speaker: So it was a little bit slower week for me, but I did learn some important lessons.
Speaker: And that's what I'm going to share here with you today is, you know, mistakes I made that hopefully you can avoid as well.
Speaker: Hopefully you don't fall into some of these same situations and traps I fell into.
Speaker: And that's what I'm all about.
Speaker: Sharing with you the mistakes I made so you guys don't have to go, you know, experience it yourself.
Speaker: Hopefully give you a little shortcut.
Speaker: The main topic that we're going to be talking about is really just setting the expectations.
Speaker: And it's something that I talk about in the show quite frequently, but I think all of us could do better at it.
Speaker: And so what do I mean by setting the expectations?
Speaker: A couple of stories I'm going to give you, a couple of situations that I ran into this last week that I think there were a lot of lessons to be taken from.
Speaker: So the first deal was this.
Speaker: Their name were Christy and Justin went to their house.
Speaker: It was actually a lead from my friend Micah that's been out here setting some appointments for us.
Speaker: And these people, they really should have been a lay down sell.
Speaker: They're like, you know what, Taylor, we've been thinking about solar for a long time.
Speaker: Our bill's like four to 500 a month.
Speaker: We've just never pulled the trigger on it.
Speaker: So I'm thinking sweet.
Speaker: All I need to do is get them something good here.
Speaker: This is going to be a quick, easy close.
Speaker: So I go through all my typical questions.
Speaker: What stopped you from doing it before?
Speaker: They're just like, oh, we just, I don't know, always had heard stories about just never heard really taking the time.
Speaker: But now we're ready.
Speaker: We want to do it.
Speaker: And yeah, we're basically ready to sign up as long as you can save us some money.
Speaker: I'm like, sweet.
Speaker: And then I start asking them, is the credit good?
Speaker: Would you want to use more energy?
Speaker: The questions you should be asking as you're starting to frame up the sale, getting them what they want.
Speaker: And everything was good.
Speaker: Smooth selling.
Speaker: Got them an awesome deal.
Speaker: But then my problem was this.
Speaker: As we were going to sign them up, we run credits.
Speaker: They fell credits.
Speaker: So I'm like, dang it.
Speaker: Okay, try a different lender.
Speaker: I try another late lender.
Speaker: I think I went with a dividend first.
Speaker: Then I tried Mosaic.
Speaker: And then I try the Goodleap low credit option, which it's like a 20 year 2.99 loan.
Speaker: And they cut it off at 600.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, no way they're going to fail this too.
Speaker: Submit it.
Speaker: Boom, they fell again.
Speaker: Like, what is going on here?
Speaker: And you get a little bit of explanation from some of these lenders, but it just said that debt to income was high.
Speaker: It said they had like previous collections, something like that.
Speaker: I'm like, oh my gosh.
Speaker: So at that point, I actually walked out of the house.
Speaker: I thought the deal was done.
Speaker: But then I remembered that there are PACE options here in California, which that's for those that aren't familiar, that's just where you can add it onto their property tax.
Speaker: And it takes part of that assessment.
Speaker: And then they pay it through their property tax.
Speaker: And it goes off the equity of the home instead of the actual credit.
Speaker: And then there's a few other qualifications.
Speaker: So I go back and I'm like, hey, good news.
Speaker: I think we actually have one more option.
Speaker: And we run this option.
Speaker: They ended up getting approved, but with conditions.
Speaker: And then it wasn't approved for the right amount.
Speaker: We have to send an income verification.
Speaker: We just kept on running into all these hurdles, all these obstacles.
Speaker: And what had happened is every single time I saw submit an application and they failed, their, I don't know what you call it, their countenance went down a little bit.
Speaker: Their desire to go solar went down each time I've had them fill out credit.
Speaker: And long story short, once we approved them through this, they were just so burned out.
Speaker: It took so long.
Speaker: And they're just like, all right, well, you know what?
Speaker: I think we'll still do this, Taylor, but we're just kind of questioning it.
Speaker: We didn't know our credit was that bad.
Speaker: We didn't know we're going to have so many hurdles.
Speaker: Just let us think about it.
Speaker: Just let us take the night before we sign this last document here.
Speaker: Couldn't get him a sign.
Speaker: And then sure enough, as it's probably happened to you before the next morning, they text me, they say, hey, we decided not to do it.
Speaker: So I was shattered.
Speaker: I'm like, come on.
Speaker: Well, I wasn't too surprised because I mean, in this job, this happens.
Speaker: You can't get people to pull the trigger.
Speaker: And then a lot of times that's what ends up happening.
Speaker: Unfortunately,
Speaker: And so what was the lesson from this?
Speaker: First of all, I think my mistake I made is I just believed that their credit was fine and I started giving them numbers based on what I thought their credit was.
Speaker: What does that do?
Speaker: That creates the expectation of what it's going to be in their head.
Speaker: And then when you don't meet that expectation, when you tell them they should be fine, when you tell them it should be approved and it's not, it just starts beating.
Speaker: It's like a wave beating against the wall.
Speaker: And if that wave beats against the wall so many times, eventually it's going to break.
Speaker: So same thing with this.
Speaker: What I should have done is just, you know, be a little more vague with the numbers until I figured out exactly what we can get them approved on.
Speaker: And not only that, I should have really just not, you know, I don't want to say not tell them that they weren't approved, but I was making a bigger deal that they weren't approved on the specific applications than I should have.
Speaker: One of my friends, his name's Manny Renteria.
Speaker: He actually does this in his company.
Speaker: But rather than submit a new application every time, he just gets the social and the date of birth for all his customers.
Speaker: He has them sign a form saying they're okay with seeing what they're approved for.
Speaker: And then that way, he's not just saying, oh, you know what?
Speaker: They didn't approve you.
Speaker: They didn't approve you.
Speaker: They didn't approve you.
Speaker: Oh, here's one.
Speaker: So he goes and figures out what they're approved for first, and then he presents it to him.
Speaker: And I thought that's a great idea because that's what ends up happening.
Speaker: If you get people excited for one option, they're not approved.
Speaker: Then sometimes it just causes people to forget about it altogether.
Speaker: So that's an important lesson I learned from that account.
Speaker: Make sure you don't, you know, have them fail over and over and over.
Speaker: Make sure you get what their expectations are.
Speaker: Okay, and then a second one I had this week.
Speaker: Their name was... I got so many dills running through my head.
Speaker: Sometimes that happens.
Speaker: But this was Hilde and Caesar, and they had looked into solar just a little bit,
Speaker: Didn't have any quotes or anything yet.
Speaker: Another one I thought was going to be a slam dunk.
Speaker: I go in there, start laying it out for them, do the T chart, which we've talked about in the show.
Speaker: That's just putting the utility on one side and the solar on the other side, giving them an exact comparison between what they're getting.
Speaker: And as I was going through these numbers, I could tell that it just wasn't like that exciting for them.
Speaker: It wasn't what they were hoping.
Speaker: And I get to the end of the deal.
Speaker: They said they knew to think about it.
Speaker: They said they'd gotten cards, recommendations from other people, didn't want to do it.
Speaker: And I don't think there was any like huge mistakes per se.
Speaker: But what I realized is I didn't even ask them what they expected from solar.
Speaker: What was their expectations?
Speaker: Did they expect to save a ton of money?
Speaker: Did they expect X, Y, Z?
Speaker: They did say they wanted to build equity in their home.
Speaker: But as we're going through the numbers, usually I'm like getting people.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's some good savings.
Speaker: Looks a lot better than what my current situation is.
Speaker: With them, I just got crickets.
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: And so I think it's important to ask your customers, hey, what do you expect to save?
Speaker: Do you expect to save money going solar?
Speaker: If so, how much do you expect to save?
Speaker: 50 bucks?
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Well, let me ask you, if I could get you 30% off your bill right now, would that be a win for you?
Speaker: figure out what they're expecting because in their head, maybe they're expecting to save, I don't know, 150 a month.
Speaker: I'm talking California numbers here.
Speaker: California, you typically get a lot of savings on solar, right?
Speaker: But in their head, maybe they're expecting huge savings.
Speaker: I only save them 20 bucks a month.
Speaker: What are they going to think?
Speaker: They're going to think, oh, well, I thought I'd save a lot more.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I should probably go look at other companies because I heard a friend that saved way more than this.
Speaker: This guy must not be giving me a good deal.
Speaker: And that's what happened in this.
Speaker: They had their expectations.
Speaker: I didn't meet it.
Speaker: They didn't sign with me.
Speaker: They had to go get more quotes.
Speaker: So another lesson learned, make sure you get what their expectations are with saving and
Speaker: Hey, what do you guys want out of going solar?
Speaker: The three main reasons people like to build equity in their homes.
Speaker: People like to save money and then people like to use more energy for you guys.
Speaker: What would be the most important out of those three?
Speaker: Another line that I've been using.
Speaker: Got that from my buddy, Travis, by the way, if you're listening.
Speaker: But yeah, two lessons right there.
Speaker: And then just a lot of examples.
Speaker: And then the one bright side, the one deal I did close, I did do some good things during it.
Speaker: This guy, his name was James.
Speaker: He had five different quotes, got him to sign with us when all the other quotes were cheaper.
Speaker: The way I did this, same thing, you do a T-chart comparing solar to the utility.
Speaker: For people that have these quotes, you just got to get...
Speaker: their quotes.
Speaker: If they think they've already got some good options, get what they got.
Speaker: I broke it down for him.
Speaker: He told me, you know what, Taylor, before deciding, I'm just going to sit down and look at all of them, compare.
Speaker: I said, well, hey, this is my job.
Speaker: I just help people compare.
Speaker: So here, can you pull that up real quick?
Speaker: Pull up the other quotes you got.
Speaker: Got him to pull them up.
Speaker: We wrote down all the equipment he's getting, all the pricing, all the warranties, did the T-chart with like five different companies and then put ours.
Speaker: And I said, well, hey, ours, we got the better warranty.
Speaker: We got the better panels.
Speaker: We got the better equipment.
Speaker: And we're, you know, the company that's been around the longest.
Speaker: Okay, hopefully you can back it up.
Speaker: That's why I like having multiple options because typically you can find something that, you know, can compete.
Speaker: But I just broke it down for him.
Speaker: I came across as the expert and he picked us.
Speaker: Okay, so that was one of the bright sides, one of the positives from the week.
Speaker: So I think it's useful for all those that are listening, go through your week, especially if you had a rough week.
Speaker: It helps to really analyze what went wrong.
Speaker: As I was preparing for this podcast, I just went through every single account and I just wrote like almost a little journal entry of what happened.
Speaker: What do I think I could have done better?
Speaker: What do I think were the reasons that the customer didn't do it?
Speaker: And you'd be amazed as you do this and as you really self-analyze, you don't even, a lot of times it's not even asking for help.
Speaker: You can see things right off the bat that you could have done better.
Speaker: You can see reasons that maybe the customer would have been skeptical.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Obviously, if you want to take it to another level, record yourself.
Speaker: And that's when you can really break down these deals, really break down the accounts and get help from your manager or other people.
Speaker: And speaking of that, if you do want to take that to the next level, you can get in our Soul Society program where we will go down, help you break down your closes, help you analyze what went wrong and help you make improvements from it.
Speaker: So those were some of the lessons I learned from the week.
Speaker: Hey, remember, number one, there's any doubts on credits.
Speaker: Make sure, just don't tell them specific numbers.
Speaker: Try to get the credit piece figured out before you go.
Speaker: Tell them exact numbers and getting excited they're going to be approved.
Speaker: And then just make it worse than it is.
Speaker: So that way when you run the credit, whatever happens, it can be better.
Speaker: For example, if you have, I don't know, 1.99% interest rate, maybe a 0.99% interest rate,
Speaker: If they ask what the rate is, you say, I don't know, anywhere from 2.9 to 4.9.
Speaker: Then what happens when you can get them approved for 1.99?
Speaker: They say, oh, wow, you guys must have great credit.
Speaker: You actually got approved for even a better rate.
Speaker: It's all about creating.
Speaker: We've talked about framing in the show a couple episodes back.
Speaker: It's the same concept.
Speaker: Create the expectation.
Speaker: make it a little worse than it is.
Speaker: So that way, if it ends up not being approved, then you're not going to look like a bad guy.
Speaker: Okay, you kind of told them.
Speaker: And then if it is approved for exactly what you want and exactly what you're hoping for, then it looks even better because you didn't set these massive expectations in their head.
Speaker: So that's lesson number one.
Speaker: And then lesson number two, see what their expectations are.
Speaker: If they're expecting to save a bunch of money, how much?
Speaker: How much are you expecting to save?
Speaker: What else are they expecting from going solar?
Speaker: Figure out what those are and then you can really tell them from the beginning if you can meet those expectations.
Speaker: If you or not, you know what product you need to offer them, what program you need to get them hooked up with.
Speaker: And then number three, just know how to pivot from failed credits.
Speaker: Okay, make sure you don't do what I did.
Speaker: Don't make a big deal.
Speaker: Say, ugh,
Speaker: dang it, this bank, they didn't approve you.
Speaker: These guys are just, and then just know how to pivot instead.
Speaker: If you don't have a system set up where you can just like go from one lender to the next and not really have to say anything, like I was telling you, my friend Manny Renteria does.
Speaker: If you don't, if you can't set something up like that, then at the very least, when they do fail credit, be like, okay, this lender, they actually kicked us to another one.
Speaker: Let me just pull this up real quick.
Speaker: Last thing you want to do is make a big deal and be like, oh, I'm so sorry, guys.
Speaker: It must be so rough having bad credits.
Speaker: Must suck to be you.
Speaker: You don't want to say stuff like that.
Speaker: Make sure you're setting those expectations and figuring out a way to not disappoint them.
Speaker: Because if they feel like they're just getting beaten down, not getting approved from anything, then most of the time they're just going to back out of the deal altogether.
Speaker: So hopefully you can learn something from the mistakes I made.
Speaker: Hopefully you can analyze yourself, continually get better.
Speaker: That's what this job is all about.
Speaker: And that's what we're all about in the industry.
Speaker: That's how you can maximize your income.
Speaker: Really, you just got to be obsessed.
Speaker: So whatever you do, be obsessed with this craft, learn to sell more, teach others what you're learning from the show.
Speaker: That's really how you're going to digest it more and make sure to tune in for the next episode as we keep talking about ways we can all improve.
Speaker: Hopefully that helps.
Speaker: And then again, guys, shoot me a message.
Speaker: If you haven't interacted, would love to hear from you.
Speaker: Feedback, guests you want to hear on the show, topics you want to talk about.
Speaker: And I can't wait to hear your improvements.
Speaker: That's what makes doing this podcast way better is hearing how it helps you guys in hearing feedback.
Speaker: So I'll see you on the next one.
Speaker: Go crush it this week and have a good time.
Speaker: Happy selling.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker: Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
Speaker: One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
Speaker: What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
Speaker: You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
Speaker: So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and I would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solopreneur.
Speaker: We put them together all in one sheet.
Speaker: So you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet.
Speaker: So go download it right now.
Speaker: It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We will have that in the show notes.
Speaker: Go download it right now.
Speaker: And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
Speaker: That's going to show you how.
Speaker: So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.
