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An Important Reminder For Your Solar Sales
58 Plays3 years ago
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
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.
00:00:19
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.
Listener Appreciation and Community Building
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
00:00:42
Speaker
What's going on, solopreneurs?
00:00:44
Speaker
Taylor Armstrong back with another episode.
00:00:46
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.
00:00:54
Speaker
Hope you're doing awesome.
00:00:55
Speaker
Hope you're doing great as we kind of start wrapping up the summer here.
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Speaker
I hope you're using the extra daylight hours.
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that we have to crush it.
00:01:03
Speaker
I'm starting to see it get darker a little bit earlier now, but it's no excuse.
00:01:07
Speaker
Push hard, finish the summer strong, and whatever you're doing, don't let off the gas until you've hit your goals.
00:01:14
Speaker
I want to thank everyone that has shared the podcast, left reviews as usual.
00:01:18
Speaker
If you have not left us a review, it's time.
00:01:22
Speaker
Go leave a review on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you're listening to the podcast.
00:01:25
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.
00:01:31
Speaker
But it would be much appreciated if you haven't taken the time to do so or share the podcast with someone.
00:01:37
Speaker
Would be very much appreciated.
Overcoming Sales Challenges and Learning from Mistakes
00:01:39
Speaker
Thank you very much.
00:01:39
Speaker
So today we're going to be talking about really just some reminders that I had in this last week.
00:01:46
Speaker
I'll be blunt.
00:01:48
Speaker
I'll be honest.
00:01:48
Speaker
It was a tough week for me.
00:01:51
Speaker
One of the toughest weeks I've had in a while.
00:01:52
Speaker
And that's just part of the solar coaster.
00:01:54
Speaker
And I'm trying to not let it get me down.
00:01:57
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He can never be too high, never be too low in this job.
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But some of you know, sometimes that's hard to do.
00:02:02
Speaker
And last week, I only had one close on the week, which has been unusual.
00:02:07
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Usually I've been getting three, four throughout most of the summer here.
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So it was a little bit slower week for me, but I did learn some important lessons.
00:02:15
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.
00:02:23
Speaker
Hopefully you don't fall into some of these same situations and traps I fell into.
Dealing with Client Credit Issues
00:02:27
Speaker
And that's what I'm all about.
00:02:28
Speaker
Sharing with you the mistakes I made so you guys don't have to go, you know, experience it yourself.
00:02:33
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Hopefully give you a little shortcut.
00:02:35
Speaker
The main topic that we're going to be talking about is really just setting the expectations.
00:02:39
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And it's something that I talk about in the show quite frequently, but I think all of us could do better at it.
00:02:45
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And so what do I mean by setting the expectations?
00:02:48
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.
00:02:55
Speaker
So the first deal was this.
00:02:57
Speaker
Their name were Christy and Justin went to their house.
00:03:00
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It was actually a lead from my friend Micah that's been out here setting some appointments for us.
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And these people, they really should have been a lay down sell.
00:03:09
Speaker
They're like, you know what, Taylor, we've been thinking about solar for a long time.
00:03:12
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Our bill's like four to 500 a month.
00:03:14
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We've just never pulled the trigger on it.
00:03:16
Speaker
So I'm thinking sweet.
00:03:17
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All I need to do is get them something good here.
00:03:19
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This is going to be a quick, easy close.
00:03:21
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So I go through all my typical questions.
00:03:24
Speaker
What stopped you from doing it before?
00:03:25
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They're just like, oh, we just, I don't know, always had heard stories about just never heard really taking the time.
00:03:32
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But now we're ready.
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We want to do it.
00:03:33
Speaker
And yeah, we're basically ready to sign up as long as you can save us some money.
00:03:37
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I'm like, sweet.
00:03:38
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And then I start asking them, is the credit good?
00:03:40
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Would you want to use more energy?
00:03:42
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The questions you should be asking as you're starting to frame up the sale, getting them what they want.
00:03:47
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And everything was good.
00:03:48
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Smooth selling.
00:03:49
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Got them an awesome deal.
00:03:51
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But then my problem was this.
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As we were going to sign them up, we run credits.
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They fell credits.
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So I'm like, dang it.
00:03:57
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Okay, try a different lender.
00:03:59
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I try another late lender.
00:04:01
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I think I went with a dividend first.
00:04:03
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Then I tried Mosaic.
00:04:05
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And then I try the Goodleap low credit option, which it's like a 20 year 2.99 loan.
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And they cut it off at 600.
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I'm like, okay, no way they're going to fail this too.
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Submit it.
00:04:17
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Boom, they fell again.
00:04:18
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Like, what is going on here?
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And you get a little bit of explanation from some of these lenders, but it just said that debt to income was high.
00:04:25
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It said they had like previous collections, something like that.
00:04:28
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I'm like, oh my gosh.
00:04:30
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So at that point, I actually walked out of the house.
00:04:32
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I thought the deal was done.
00:04:33
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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.
00:04:42
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And it takes part of that assessment.
00:04:44
Speaker
And then they pay it through their property tax.
00:04:46
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And it goes off the equity of the home instead of the actual credit.
00:04:49
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And then there's a few other qualifications.
00:04:51
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So I go back and I'm like, hey, good news.
00:04:53
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I think we actually have one more option.
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And we run this option.
00:04:57
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They ended up getting approved, but with conditions.
00:05:01
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And then it wasn't approved for the right amount.
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We have to send an income verification.
00:05:05
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We just kept on running into all these hurdles, all these obstacles.
00:05:08
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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.
00:05:17
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Their desire to go solar went down each time I've had them fill out credit.
00:05:22
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And long story short, once we approved them through this, they were just so burned out.
00:05:27
Speaker
It took so long.
00:05:29
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And they're just like, all right, well, you know what?
00:05:31
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I think we'll still do this, Taylor, but we're just kind of questioning it.
00:05:35
Speaker
We didn't know our credit was that bad.
00:05:37
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We didn't know we're going to have so many hurdles.
00:05:39
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Just let us think about it.
00:05:40
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Just let us take the night
Managing Client Expectations
00:05:42
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before we sign this last document here.
00:05:44
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Couldn't get him a sign.
00:05:45
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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.
00:05:51
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So I was shattered.
00:05:52
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I'm like, come on.
00:05:53
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Well, I wasn't too surprised because I mean, in this job, this happens.
00:05:57
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You can't get people to pull the trigger.
00:05:59
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And then a lot of times that's what ends up happening.
00:06:01
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Unfortunately,
00:06:02
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And so what was the lesson from this?
00:06:04
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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.
00:06:13
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What does that do?
00:06:14
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That creates the expectation of what it's going to be in their head.
00:06:17
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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.
00:06:25
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It's like a wave beating against the wall.
00:06:27
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And if that wave beats against the wall so many times, eventually it's going to break.
00:06:31
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So same thing with this.
00:06:32
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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.
00:06:39
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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.
00:06:52
Speaker
One of my friends, his name's Manny Renteria.
00:06:55
Speaker
He actually does this in his company.
00:06:57
Speaker
But rather than submit a new application every time, he just gets the social and the date of birth for all his customers.
00:07:04
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He has them sign a form saying they're okay with seeing what they're approved for.
00:07:09
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And then that way, he's not just saying, oh, you know what?
00:07:11
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They didn't approve you.
00:07:12
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They didn't approve you.
00:07:13
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They didn't approve you.
00:07:14
Speaker
Oh, here's one.
00:07:15
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So he goes and figures out what they're approved for first, and then he presents it to him.
00:07:19
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And I thought that's a great idea because that's what ends up happening.
00:07:22
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If you get people excited for one option, they're not approved.
00:07:25
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Then sometimes it just causes people to forget about it altogether.
Clarifying Client Expectations on Savings and Benefits
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So that's an important lesson I learned from that account.
00:07:32
Speaker
Make sure you don't, you know, have them fail over and over and over.
00:07:35
Speaker
Make sure you get what their expectations are.
00:07:37
Speaker
Okay, and then a second one I had this week.
00:07:41
Speaker
Their name was... I got so many dills running through my head.
00:07:46
Speaker
Sometimes that happens.
00:07:47
Speaker
But this was Hilde and Caesar, and they had looked into solar just a little bit,
00:07:53
Speaker
Didn't have any quotes or anything yet.
00:07:55
Speaker
Another one I thought was going to be a slam dunk.
00:07:57
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I go in there, start laying it out for them, do the T chart, which we've talked about in the show.
00:08:03
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.
00:08:10
Speaker
And as I was going through these numbers, I could tell that it just wasn't like that exciting for them.
00:08:15
Speaker
It wasn't what they were hoping.
00:08:16
Speaker
And I get to the end of the deal.
00:08:18
Speaker
They said they knew to think about it.
00:08:19
Speaker
They said they'd gotten cards, recommendations from other people, didn't want to do it.
00:08:23
Speaker
And I don't think there was any like huge mistakes per se.
00:08:27
Speaker
But what I realized is I didn't even ask them what they expected from solar.
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Speaker
What was their expectations?
00:08:33
Speaker
Did they expect to save a ton of money?
00:08:35
Speaker
Did they expect X, Y, Z?
00:08:37
Speaker
They did say they wanted to build equity in their home.
00:08:39
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But as we're going through the numbers, usually I'm like getting people.
00:08:42
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:08:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:43
Speaker
That's some good savings.
00:08:45
Speaker
Looks a lot better than what my current situation is.
00:08:47
Speaker
With them, I just got crickets.
00:08:49
Speaker
Nothing.
00:08:49
Speaker
And so I think it's important to ask your customers, hey, what do you expect to save?
00:08:53
Speaker
Do you expect to save money going solar?
00:08:55
Speaker
If so, how much do you expect to save?
00:08:57
Speaker
50 bucks?
00:08:58
Speaker
Cool.
00:08:58
Speaker
Well, let me ask you, if I could get you 30% off your bill right now, would that be a win for you?
00:09:02
Speaker
figure out what they're expecting because in their head, maybe they're expecting to save, I don't know, 150 a month.
00:09:08
Speaker
I'm talking California numbers here.
00:09:10
Speaker
California, you typically get a lot of savings on solar, right?
00:09:14
Speaker
But in their head, maybe they're expecting huge savings.
00:09:16
Speaker
I only save them 20 bucks a month.
00:09:18
Speaker
What are they going to think?
00:09:18
Speaker
They're going to think, oh, well, I thought I'd save a lot more.
00:09:21
Speaker
You know what?
00:09:22
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I should probably go look at other companies because I heard a friend that saved way more than this.
00:09:27
Speaker
This guy must not be giving me a good deal.
00:09:29
Speaker
And that's what happened in this.
00:09:30
Speaker
They had their expectations.
00:09:32
Speaker
I didn't meet it.
00:09:33
Speaker
They didn't sign with me.
00:09:34
Speaker
They had to go get more quotes.
Successful Sale Strategies Despite Competition
00:09:36
Speaker
So another lesson learned, make sure you get what their expectations are with saving and
00:09:40
Speaker
Hey, what do you guys want out of going solar?
00:09:43
Speaker
The three main reasons people like to build equity in their homes.
00:09:46
Speaker
People like to save money and then people like to use more energy for you guys.
00:09:50
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What would be the most important out of those three?
00:09:52
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Another line that I've been using.
00:09:54
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Got that from my buddy, Travis, by the way, if you're listening.
00:09:57
Speaker
But yeah, two lessons right there.
00:10:00
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And then just a lot of examples.
00:10:02
Speaker
And then the one bright side, the one deal I did close, I did do some good things during it.
00:10:08
Speaker
This guy, his name was James.
00:10:09
Speaker
He had five different quotes, got him to sign with us when all the other quotes were cheaper.
00:10:14
Speaker
The way I did this, same thing, you do a T-chart comparing solar to the utility.
00:10:19
Speaker
For people that have these quotes, you just got to get...
00:10:22
Speaker
their quotes.
00:10:22
Speaker
If they think they've already got some good options, get what they got.
00:10:26
Speaker
I broke it down for him.
00:10:27
Speaker
He told me, you know what, Taylor, before deciding, I'm just going to sit down and look at all of them, compare.
00:10:32
Speaker
I said, well, hey, this is my job.
00:10:34
Speaker
I just help people compare.
00:10:35
Speaker
So here, can you pull that up real quick?
00:10:38
Speaker
Pull up the other quotes you got.
00:10:39
Speaker
Got him to pull them up.
00:10:40
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.
00:10:48
Speaker
And I said, well, hey, ours, we got the better warranty.
00:10:51
Speaker
We got the better panels.
00:10:53
Speaker
We got the better equipment.
00:10:55
Speaker
And we're, you know, the company that's been around the longest.
00:10:59
Speaker
Okay, hopefully you can back it up.
00:11:00
Speaker
That's why I like having multiple options because typically you can find something that, you know, can compete.
00:11:06
Speaker
But I just broke it down for him.
00:11:08
Speaker
I came across as the expert and he picked us.
00:11:11
Speaker
Okay, so that was one of the bright sides, one of the positives from the week.
00:11:14
Speaker
So I think it's useful for all those that are listening, go through your week, especially if you had a rough week.
00:11:20
Speaker
It helps to really analyze what went wrong.
00:11:23
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.
00:11:30
Speaker
What do I think I could have done better?
00:11:32
Speaker
What do I think were the reasons that the customer didn't do it?
00:11:34
Speaker
And you'd be amazed as you do this and as you really self-analyze, you don't even,
Analyzing Sales for Improvement
00:11:39
Speaker
a lot of times it's not even asking for help.
00:11:41
Speaker
You can see things right off the bat that you could have done better.
00:11:43
Speaker
You can see reasons that maybe the customer would have been skeptical.
00:11:46
Speaker
And
00:11:47
Speaker
Obviously, if you want to take it to another level, record yourself.
00:11:50
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.
00:11:56
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.
00:12:07
Speaker
So those were some of the lessons I learned from the week.
00:12:10
Speaker
Hey, remember, number one, there's any doubts on credits.
00:12:14
Speaker
Make sure, just don't tell them specific numbers.
00:12:17
Speaker
Try to get the credit piece figured out before you go.
00:12:19
Speaker
Tell them exact numbers and getting excited they're going to be approved.
00:12:22
Speaker
And then just make it worse than it is.
00:12:25
Speaker
So that way when you run the credit, whatever happens, it can be better.
00:12:28
Speaker
For example, if you have, I don't know, 1.99% interest rate, maybe a 0.99% interest rate,
00:12:36
Speaker
If they ask what the rate is, you say, I don't know, anywhere from 2.9 to 4.9.
00:12:40
Speaker
Then what happens when you can get them approved for 1.99?
00:12:43
Speaker
They say, oh, wow, you guys must have great credit.
00:12:45
Speaker
You actually got approved for even a better rate.
00:12:48
Speaker
It's all about creating.
00:12:49
Speaker
We've talked about framing in the show a couple episodes back.
00:12:52
Speaker
It's the same concept.
00:12:53
Speaker
Create the expectation.
00:12:55
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make it a little worse than it is.
00:12:57
Speaker
So that way, if it ends up not being approved, then you're not going to look like a bad guy.
00:13:01
Speaker
Okay, you kind of told them.
00:13:02
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.
00:13:10
Speaker
So that's lesson number one.
00:13:11
Speaker
And then lesson number two, see what their expectations are.
00:13:14
Speaker
If they're expecting to save a bunch of money, how much?
00:13:18
Speaker
How much are you expecting to save?
00:13:19
Speaker
What else are they expecting from going solar?
00:13:21
Speaker
Figure out what those are and then you can really tell them from the beginning if you can meet those expectations.
00:13:26
Speaker
If you or not, you know what product you need to offer them, what program you need to get them hooked up with.
00:13:32
Speaker
And then number three, just know how to pivot from failed credits.
00:13:35
Speaker
Okay, make sure you don't do what I did.
00:13:37
Speaker
Don't make a big deal.
00:13:38
Speaker
Say, ugh,
00:13:39
Speaker
dang it, this bank, they didn't approve you.
00:13:41
Speaker
These guys are just, and then just know how to pivot instead.
00:13:43
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.
00:13:52
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.
00:14:00
Speaker
Let me just pull this up real quick.
00:14:01
Speaker
Last thing you want to do is make a big deal and be like, oh, I'm so sorry, guys.
00:14:05
Speaker
It must be so rough having bad credits.
00:14:07
Speaker
Must suck to be you.
00:14:09
Speaker
You don't want to say stuff like that.
00:14:11
Speaker
Make sure you're setting those expectations and figuring out a way to not disappoint them.
00:14:16
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.
Encouragement for Passion and Continuous Learning
00:14:23
Speaker
So hopefully you can learn something from the mistakes I made.
00:14:27
Speaker
Hopefully you can analyze yourself, continually get better.
00:14:29
Speaker
That's what this job is all about.
00:14:31
Speaker
And that's what we're all about in the industry.
00:14:33
Speaker
That's how you can maximize your income.
00:14:35
Speaker
Really, you just got to be obsessed.
00:14:36
Speaker
So whatever you do, be obsessed with this craft, learn to sell more, teach others what you're learning from the show.
00:14:42
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.
00:14:50
Speaker
Hopefully that helps.
00:14:51
Speaker
And then again, guys, shoot me a message.
00:14:53
Speaker
If you haven't interacted, would love to hear from you.
00:14:56
Speaker
Feedback, guests you want to hear on the show, topics you want to talk about.
00:15:00
Speaker
And I can't wait to hear your improvements.
00:15:02
Speaker
That's what makes doing this podcast way better is hearing how it helps you guys in hearing feedback.
00:15:07
Speaker
So I'll see you on the next one.
00:15:09
Speaker
Go crush it this week and have a good
Top Episodes Cheat Sheet Announcement
00:15:11
Speaker
time.
00:15:11
Speaker
Happy selling.
00:15:13
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
00:15:14
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:15:16
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.
00:15:26
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:15:33
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:15:36
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:15:41
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.
00:15:54
Speaker
We put them together all in one sheet.
00:15:56
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.
00:16:03
Speaker
So go download it right now.
00:16:05
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:16:09
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:16:14
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:16:16
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:16:18
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:16:20
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:16:25
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:16:27
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.