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 how 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 solopreneur, you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Speaker: Hey, what's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Today, we're going to talk about a costly reminder, costly mistake I made that lost me a deal last week.
Speaker: Hopefully, y'all can learn from my mistakes and some of the stories behind that.
Speaker: But first, welcome to the show.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: I'm actually just coming back from a closed deal myself.
Speaker: We're 11 o'clock, 10.50 at night.
Speaker: So apologize if I'm sounding a little bit exhausted.
Speaker: Got out of three appointments today.
Speaker: I guess two and a half.
Speaker: But hey, that's
Speaker: part of the solar coaster.
Speaker: That's part of the grind.
Speaker: You got to work till the job's done, right?
Speaker: Job's not finished till the docs are signed, till the welcome calls are complete, until you have the utility bill.
Speaker: You got to make sure you get everything in.
Speaker: So that's what I'm coming from.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But before we get into the costly mistake I made,
Speaker: Just wanted to thank everyone that has supported this podcast over the years.
Speaker: I looked at some stats today and this should be the 449th episode.
Speaker: And that's absolutely insane.
Speaker: Almost 450 episodes we've been at this.
Speaker: I don't know if I'm crazy.
Speaker: I don't know if, I don't know how long this is going to go.
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: Maybe we'll only do 10 more episodes.
Speaker: Hopefully we keep it going until a thousand.
Speaker: But just wanted to thank all of our listeners because I was looking at some stats and I
Speaker: Check this out.
Speaker: There's currently around 3.2 million podcasts out there.
Speaker: Super interesting.
Speaker: It says 44% of podcasts have less than three episodes.
Speaker: Crazy.
Speaker: 44% have less than three.
Speaker: And then out of that, only 720,000 podcasts have more than 10 episodes.
Speaker: And then out of 720,000, only 156,000 are releasing a weekly episode.
Speaker: So we're coming at you with two episodes.
Speaker: I don't know how many podcasts are doing that out there, but I definitely would not be doing this if y'all weren't sharing the show, if you weren't reaching out, saying how much it's helped you.
Speaker: If you weren't encouraging me and other guests to get on the show.
Speaker: So just really appreciate for all those that have left us comments, reviews, shared the show.
Speaker: It means so much to us.
Speaker: And that's really what has allowed this podcast to keep it going for nearly 450 episodes.
Speaker: So appreciate you.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: And if you haven't, feel free to leave us a review.
Speaker: Or share the podcast.
Speaker: That's the price of a mission.
Speaker: That's all we're asking.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so back to the costly mistake.
Speaker: So here's the scoop.
Speaker: Last week, I closed the deal.
Speaker: It was just a single... She's like 32, I think.
Speaker: Just a single lady, single girl.
Speaker: Had a couple roommates.
Speaker: And this deal was a complete laydown.
Speaker: Probably the easiest deal I've had in a long time.
Speaker: But if you have been in solar for a while, you will find that sometimes the deals that appear to be laydowns and that give you a little resistance, a lot of times those ones can come back to bite you.
Speaker: And I did probably make some mistakes because it was such a laydown.
Speaker: I think I did possibly skip some steps, probably went through the contract a little bit quicker than I should have, was a little less thorough.
Speaker: So lesson learned from that.
Speaker: But the major mistake I made, and here's the theme of the episode, topic of the episode, is, and spoiler alert, this deal did cancel today, actually, the time I'm recording this.
Speaker: So a big reason why this deal called me today and canceled is because I did not get all the parties involved.
Speaker: And by parties, I mean that come to find out this girl, she co-signed with her parents and she over the weekend, she had a conversation with them.
Speaker: And even though she was the one paying the bills, she was the one living in the house.
Speaker: Her parents talked her out of it.
Speaker: They were on the title and they just basically said, you're not doing this and discouraged her.
Speaker: So she canceled.
Speaker: So lesson learned.
Speaker: Make sure you get every party involved that needs to be, right?
Speaker: Because if you do not, so often these will come back to bite you.
Speaker: And especially when you're closing older folks, you have retired folks, you have people that seem like maybe they're a little too quick to agree.
Speaker: Those are all red flags.
Speaker: Those are all signs that these people...
Speaker: probably are going to consult with others.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: They're social buyers.
Speaker: And so just make sure if you do see people just really eager to sign, quick to it.
Speaker: And especially if they're like the only one in the home, you got to keep in mind that these people often will consult with other parties.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so two things I should have done is, and this was probably the biggest mistake, is I actually notice in our knocking app, okay, and I'm using SolarScout, which is one of our sponsors right now.
Speaker: But if you're using SolarScout or that would for sure have it, or even a lot of other knocking apps that show the homeowner data, okay,
Speaker: I clicked on the homeowner data.
Speaker: It shows who's on the title.
Speaker: And it did show her parents on there.
Speaker: I did notice this before I went in the deal, but my mistake was I didn't bring it up to her.
Speaker: I'm just like, okay, this is a complete load lay down.
Speaker: I'm not going to say anything.
Speaker: It's a done deal.
Speaker: What I should have done is realize that, hey, there's more people on the title here.
Speaker: Do these people need to be brought in?
Speaker: Are you going to talk with them?
Speaker: Who are these people, right?
Speaker: First of all, ask who they are.
Speaker: Then finding out it's the parents.
Speaker: Hey, are you going to consult with your parents about this?
Speaker: Is this something you guys talk about things together for the home?
Speaker: Maybe she would have said yes.
Speaker: Maybe she would have said no.
Speaker: But it would have given me at least a chance at possibly getting in front of the parents because now I lose control.
Speaker: She talks to him.
Speaker: And they kill the deal.
Speaker: And then, yeah, just the second thing in general, I should have at the end of the deal just done a better job at wrapping it up, asking more questions.
Speaker: I think I could have maybe through the discovery process figured out, hey, is there anyone else that needs to be involved in this decision?
Speaker: Which, you know,
Speaker: a younger lady, younger girl would have been a smart thing to do.
Speaker: So if you see younger people, if you see older people, I guess that's the two themes, you know, different age groups.
Speaker: If they're really old or if they're really young, then there's a much higher chance that they're going to consult with other people, whether it's their parents, whether it's their kids.
Speaker: Funny how their roles are reversed.
Speaker: The younger are going to talk to their parents.
Speaker: Old are going to talk to their kids.
Speaker: But make sure you check for other decision makers.
Speaker: Hey, and then the flip side, continuing this story, here's where I did apply the lessons.
Speaker: So hopefully if you have mistakes you make and reasons that people cancel, take note of that because you can recover and you can make it a learning experience instead of just making it a loss.
Speaker: And so what I did today, I actually had two chances to redeem myself.
Speaker: And I will play, I'm going to play part of a recording of one of them.
Speaker: And funny enough, this was actually the neighbor of the younger girl that canceled on me.
Speaker: Hey, because I went into this appointment today,
Speaker: Ended up closing it, but you'll hear in this recording shortly, she had to talk to her brother, who was actually one of the trustees of the home.
Speaker: The home was their mom, and then she died, left to the trustees, which was her, this lady, and then her brother.
Speaker: And then the second one, I didn't get a recording of this one, but...
Speaker: This was a lady that her husband was in the Navy and he was actually deployed.
Speaker: I guess I was like blessed from, from God above on this one.
Speaker: But, uh, she said that she wasn't going to be able to talk to her husband and,
Speaker: Her husband at right is we're pulling up the docks.
Speaker: I kid you not.
Speaker: She gets a Facebook messenger call from her husband on the ship he was on.
Speaker: And when this was the first time she talked to him in, I think, weeks, she said that she didn't even think she'd be able to talk to him because before it was just like through email.
Speaker: So this was definitely like a blessing.
Speaker: I don't think this is going to happen again.
Speaker: But it gave us the opportunity to now talk to her husband.
Speaker: I was able to explain the whole thing, keep control of it, figure out what his concerns were, and then just really ask, hey, is there any reason you wouldn't want your wife to start this process or get involved in this?
Speaker: and just check for their concerns.
Speaker: Because a lot of times I think I see it where people just tell, explain it to the other party or to the other decision maker, but they don't even check to see what they think about it.
Speaker: So the key with this is when you are explaining it to other people who are going to have a strong influence, you got to ask them.
Speaker: You want to keep it in control.
Speaker: You want to keep the ball in your court.
Speaker: So you explain it and say, hey,
Speaker: So knowing what you know now, now that I explain it to you, would you recommend, is this something that you would recommend to your daughter to do, to your son to do, to your mom to do?
Speaker: Do you see any reason why you don't think she should get involved in something like that versus staying with their current situation?
Speaker: Hey, you got to isolate their objections and check to make sure they actually overcame them.
Speaker: Because if not, they're just going to say, okay, leave this as a paperwork.
Speaker: Then they're going to share their true opinions when you leave, which may or may not be good.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So you need to tackle it head on when you're with these people.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I'm going to share with you a little clip of how I was able to tackle this.
Speaker: And I felt like it went pretty well.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But this is how I handled it.
Speaker: Check it out.
Speaker: do you think if your brother if you called your brother do you think you'd pick up right now and we could um i'm not sure because he just came back last night from a trip to canada so um i should check okay just because that way while i'm here we could answer any questions he had you know right yeah he he may prefer to talk later but
Speaker: Okay, so she ended up calling her brother.
Speaker: And then the line that's been working really well for me, and I actually use this when I'm setting appointments, works really well as well, is just, you heard me say it.
Speaker: So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
Speaker: And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
Speaker: But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Speaker: Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout.
Speaker: But it's not a door knocking app.
Speaker: It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
Speaker: It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
Speaker: I'm going to be one of the first to use Solar Scout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
Speaker: But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about Solar Scout on my show.
Speaker: You need to give my listeners a great deal, and they did.
Speaker: So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them, and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up.
Speaker: That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show.
Speaker: hey, if you called your brother, do you think you'd pick up right now?
Speaker: And I like this because you're not saying, hey, call your brother, let's go ahead and see if he can talk right now.
Speaker: Which a lot of people are like, no, I'll call him later, do this, that.
Speaker: But I like this because it's kind of like indirectly squeezing your way in there, getting your foot in the door to them agreeing that they're, you know,
Speaker: spouse, whatever brother, loved one would answer.
Speaker: And then from there, if they say, yeah, he would answer, then you got him.
Speaker: So it's kind of the same concept of, I don't know if you do this when you all are booking appointments.
Speaker: It's like...
Speaker: giving them the option, hey, are you particularly more afternoons or evenings?
Speaker: And then they say evenings, be like, okay, does seven o'clock work?
Speaker: You're catching them.
Speaker: They're basically feeding you ammo here, right?
Speaker: It's like you're catching them in the act.
Speaker: So this is why I like this because you're not saying, hey, call your brother right now.
Speaker: You're just asking them if they would pick up.
Speaker: And this line has been working really well, just setting appointments and getting other parties involved.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then, yeah, you hear me just say, yeah, well, um, if he would answer, let's call him real quick.
Speaker: Then he, then we could just answer any questions he had while I'm here.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So she ends up calling him.
Speaker: I'll play just a little clip of that.
Speaker: It goes on for a while.
Speaker: So I explained the whole process, but let me explain a quick clip.
Speaker: Um, you know what I'm calling because, um, I'm, I don't think I mentioned this last night, but
Speaker: I met today with a young man who, um, you know, is, um, selling a solar installation package.
Speaker: Okay, and so this is exactly why you should be in control of talking to other folks because look, she's already butching the explanation, right?
Speaker: Saying, hey, he's selling solar.
Speaker: Hey, like when you're setting appointments too, I guarantee you if you're setting up appointments with the wife, they're going to their husbands and saying, hey, someone's coming in to sell us solar.
Speaker: Do you want it?
Speaker: These people, they're not trained in the dark arts of selling solar, of explaining to people.
Speaker: So we need to take matters into our own hands and make sure that we can control that process.
Speaker: So that's why we're there.
Speaker: For you to talk, it sounds like you're busy because otherwise, as co-owner, I think it's a good arrangement, John, but are you interested to talk to this young man now or would you prefer to talk to this?
Speaker: do so later.
Speaker: Um, it is right here right now.
Speaker: And if this is not the best time for you, I understand.
Speaker: Cause I'm sort of springing this on you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, yeah, we'll
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's what I remember.
Speaker: How about if I hand the phone over because yeah, we did review a proposal and
Speaker: So and then, yeah, I should be able to email it from you because I can see you up on my phone.
Speaker: I can email.
Speaker: I'll hand the phone over.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: OK, I can only talk like 10 minutes.
Speaker: I don't want to put you under pressure.
Speaker: This is not a good time for you to understand.
Speaker: Okay, this is Taylor or John.
Speaker: I was just going to give you a super quick rundown if you h ave a couple minutes.
Speaker: Is that okay?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay, so you can hear what went on.
Speaker: And I don't want to drag it on too much.
Speaker: But basically, it comes a point where you got to take control, right?
Speaker: We're going back and forth a little bit.
Speaker: Hey, I don't know if this is a good time.
Speaker: So I eventually just had to jump in there.
Speaker: Otherwise, it was getting to the point where he might have been like, oh, I don't want to talk to him right now.
Speaker: Hey, so that's the key.
Speaker: You want these people to put it on speakerphone.
Speaker: You want to just jump in when you can, take control of it.
Speaker: Just say, hey, I'll just give you the rundown, the quick version.
Speaker: And then I explained the process to him.
Speaker: And yeah, he had his questions, concerns, probably went on for like 10 minutes, 15 minutes.
Speaker: But I got to the point where I emailed him over the proposal, explained it all pretty in depth to him, all the common questions, concerns.
Speaker: And it just gives me a way higher chance of this deal actually sticking.
Speaker: Is it going to get installed for sure?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Maybe the brother will come back and overthink things he did by his systems.
Speaker: That's another thing.
Speaker: You have to get these people out of the mindset that, hey, there are different ways of going solar.
Speaker: This is why for your sister and her situation, this is why we chose that for her.
Speaker: And this is why it's beneficial to her versus buying.
Speaker: Okay, because that's another thing.
Speaker: If you don't like explain to people, they think that the way they went slower is the best way, the only way to do it.
Speaker: A lot of times is what I've experienced.
Speaker: Hey, so this allowed me to get the deal in to make it way stickier and hopefully prevent it from canceling.
Speaker: And then the other one, a similar situation.
Speaker: Tonight's these deals were practically back to back.
Speaker: Close this one.
Speaker: It's two o'clock.
Speaker: Close the Navy one at like six o'clock.
Speaker: And so, yeah, very similar situations.
Speaker: I had to get the husband on the phone.
Speaker: He's on the ship.
Speaker: Had to walk through everything, answer his questions and just solidified it way more than if I had just kept it a one legger deal, even though I could have.
Speaker: close both and could have just been like, oh, I hope they don't cancel to run away.
Speaker: No, you need to tackle these problems head on.
Speaker: You want to make sure you stay in front of anything that could keep that deal from going to install.
Speaker: So I hope that helps someone out there.
Speaker: Make sure you're presenting to all parties.
Speaker: Don't make the mistake like I did of just talking to the person that's not in charge.
Speaker: And remember, if it is too easy of a close,
Speaker: then it could be too good to be true, right?
Speaker: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.
Speaker: That applies to pretty much everything except for solar.
Speaker: But yeah, make sure if someone's like a lay down close, hey, you probably got to, you got to go make sure you're not skipping steps, make sure you're going in depth and make sure there's no one else involved in the decision making process.
Speaker: Because if they close that easy, then a lot of times they can be talked out of their decision just as easy as when they sign the documents.
Speaker: So I hope that helps.
Speaker: Stay tuned.
Speaker: We got some exciting episodes coming out for y'all.
Speaker: Thanks again for being a loyal listener.
Speaker: And we'll see you on the next ones.
Speaker: Peace.
Speaker: What's up, solarpreneurs?
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 so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet.
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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.
