Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Closing Mistakes You Didn't Know You Were Making
0 Plays1 second ago
Closing is an extremely crucial part of the sale, but sometimes we do things that not only hinder us from closing faster, but also reduce our chances of getting that opportunity with other homeowners. This episode gives you straightforward changes towards making appointments more comfortable and viable for closes.
CLICK HERE: https://apply.solarpreneurs.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Personal Story
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong. went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you 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.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur you might ask? 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. Hey, what's going
Three Sales Mistakes Overview
00:00:42
Speaker
on, solopreneurs? Today, we're going to be talking about three lesser known mistakes you're probably making in your clothes. So if you've been in a funk lately, this episode is for you. These are some things that a lot of people forget about.
00:00:53
Speaker
so we're going to be going through them and help you improve your solar clothes. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Taylor Armstrong. We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better experience in the solar industry.
Podcast Availability and Schedule
00:01:06
Speaker
Hope you're doing well and hope you were able to tune in every Tuesday and Friday where we have exciting new content coming to you free and available on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts.
Invitation to Blitz Event
00:01:20
Speaker
Before we jump into the topic of the day, wanted to um invite you to join us on our next Blitz. We had some insane results.
00:01:30
Speaker
First blitz of the year, had a lot of setters have some breakthroughs. and We had a lot of closers get ah just more deals than they've gotten in a long time. i was able to lock down eight deals myself in the week on our last blitz.
00:01:44
Speaker
So ah please come join us and ah fill out the link application below and someone on our team will be in touch or I will be in touch. So I hope to see you on our next Blitz Hour.
00:01:57
Speaker
Hey, and so that being said, let's jump into the
Mistake 1: Emphasizing Customer's Utility Pain
00:02:00
Speaker
topic. That is some mistakes that you've probably been making in your clothes. So I got to give credit to where credit is due. We had a call for all of the closers on our ah team here and shout out to my friend Jake Ransom.
00:02:15
Speaker
He yeah went through a lot of these mistakes and reminded me of some of them that I'm making myself. And sometimes I get a little relaxed on. So he actually went through 10 different mistakes.
00:02:26
Speaker
And if you follow me on social media, you probably saw me post. He had a graphic that I ah shouted out on social media. So go shoot me a follow on Instagram or Facebook. You can get the behind the scenes content. But I want to focus on three in specific today. And these are three that I often find myself forgetting to do.
00:02:45
Speaker
Maybe you do too. So the first one is number one, just skipping the pain. So what do we mean by pain? That means really helping the customer feel the pain of the utility.
00:02:57
Speaker
And I know most people know, okay, yeah, you got to give them pain to be able to present a problem. But if you look back in your closes, are you really digging deep on what the problem is?
00:03:08
Speaker
Are you going through their bills with whether whatever utility you have in your area? and are you showing them the actual rate? Do people know what rate they're paying for electricity? If you don't know how to get that, all you do is you divide the ah costs by the kilowatt hours they're using for the month.
00:03:26
Speaker
right So if they use 500 kilowatt hours and they paid 300, three hundred It's just it's probably a little high, but you would divide the cost by the kilowatt hours. Then you're going to know the price per kilowatt hour and it makes it worse. So primarily power purchase agreements here in Southern California. But wherever you're at it makes it thing that's easy to see. This is what you're paying. You're paying 15 cents. You're paying 20 cents per kilowatt hour. Mr. Homeowner, do you know what it was five years ago? And as far as I know, every utility is having a lot of increases. And then it makes it easy to show all the different taxes and fees on there.
00:04:01
Speaker
um how they're buying energy from out of state, whatever the problem is with your specific utility. Now the big problem that we've got going on that you should be focusing on is all the AI data centers. And I heard a stat the other day that 5% of the country's energy is going towards AI data centers. I haven't verified if that's true. and That's a stat I heard. But it is a massive problem. Most people know about AI. Most people know chat GPT and all that. So we should be leveraging that and using that to create a bigger problem, a bigger reason why people should go solar now.
00:04:33
Speaker
So that's the first mistake you need to figure out if you're making is are you presenting a big enough problem to the customer? You get to the end of the close and the customer is like, ah well, you know what? I haven't really seen my rates go up that much. You know you didn't do a well enough job. on um creating this problem. Happened to me recently where I was you know going through my final numbers and the homeowner actually questions if the rates have gone up. And that's when I know I didn't focus on the problem enough. Okay, so let's mistake number one.
Mistake 2: Avoid Appointments 5-7 PM
00:05:04
Speaker
Number two is and don't set appointments between a five and seven. I guess this is kind of a setting problem. This is something i don't think I had heard this for maybe my first six, seven years in solar. And it actually makes a lot of sense. Five to seven, why would you set appointments between then?
00:05:21
Speaker
If you can be talking to people because everyone's home in those hours. Five to seven, that's prime time for knocking doors, for contacting people. So whenever possible, try to not set appointments between those hours. I know sometimes, I mean, that's the only time people can do it. Maybe seven o'clock, they're putting their kids to bed, so they have to do it at six. But whenever possible, try to keep those hours free because you're maximizing your production, you're maximizing your time. and in order to master this job, you need to be a pro at maximizing the time you do have. So I first heard this actually from Ashton Buswell, I believe. you know Give Ashton a follow, but he's the master. he
00:06:00
Speaker
sets and closes almost all of his deals. And so he has really figured out how to maximize the time he has on the doors. And in appointments, he knows that, hey, if a homeowner can meet at five o'clock, they can probably also meet at seven o'clock or 730. And he just gave himself an extra two hours to knock on doors because you go to that appointment at five, you're getting out at seven, 730, probably not going to have a lot of time to knock after.
00:06:24
Speaker
right? Depending on you know how late you're going to knock and everything. So try to maximize those hours, try to set yourself up to be as efficient as possible. And if you do keep those hours free, going to find yourself stacking appointments rather than just having one appointment at five. You're going to line up appointments for the afternoon and appointments after seven. and I think the point main point of this is a lot of people are afraid. Ask the homeowner for a different time So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
00:06:53
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. But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage. Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:07:13
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. It's been working for a lot of teams across the country and now I'm on board too. I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego so I decided to partner up.
00:07:32
Speaker
But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, can give my listeners a great deal. And they did. 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.
00:07:48
Speaker
That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor. Okay, back to the show. right? When I started in Soul Wars, like homeowner said five o'clock, oh yeah, we'll make that work, right? I was so scared of losing the appointment that I wouldn't ask to change it to a different time.
00:08:03
Speaker
But what I didn't know is I mean, two ways. Number one, i wasn't maximizing my time. But number two, I wasn't seeing myself as the prize. We should see ourselves as the prize. We're the ones with the busy schedule. We're the ones helping so many people out in the neighborhood.
00:08:18
Speaker
And if you have that um frame of of thought, if you think that way, then really the homeowner is going to see you as as the needed, not the needy. right So make sure you are maximizing those hours and seeing yourself as a the prize that you control when the appointment is not the other
Mistake 3: Client Decompression Post-Sale
00:08:34
Speaker
way around. Hey, and then number three, last but not least, don't leave immediately after the close.
00:08:41
Speaker
hey And some people when I first heard this, I'm like, what do you mean? Doesn't seem like a big deal. So what I mean by that is when you close, right after you sign docs with someone, right after you get them all excited about the panels, people get, you know depending on the person, but a lot of people, they get you know there's this pressure that builds up. and As they're signing documents, they're nervous.
00:09:02
Speaker
I mean, put themselves in your shoes. They're signing something. They're probably taught sitting down with you for the first time. and what are the thoughts that could be going through their head? They're nervous that they're going to get screwed. and They're nervous that they're not seeing something in all these documents. They're probably not taking the time to read every single word of it.
00:09:18
Speaker
which that's another topic for then another day. You should be the one that makes them feel comfortable with what they're signing and what they're authorizing and just go through it with them. But ah they're feeling all these thoughts and feelings. and what happens is if you leave right after the documents are signed, you've wrapped all that up.
00:09:36
Speaker
then they still have those thoughts on their head. and they're still They're still thinking of things that could go wrong, you know having that fear. So what you want to do is decompress.
00:09:48
Speaker
I first heard that term from my guy, Ricardo Ritchie. hey If you've seen ah Ricardo Ritchie present, one of the top closers in solar, had him on the show a few times. closes, you know, four or 500 plus deals a year. This guy, he's all about closing it and then taking the time to decompress. And so what you do is, you know, start talking about things that you enjoy.
00:10:10
Speaker
Maybe ah you take them outside, even if they are trying to wrap up the conversation, maybe you take it outside. maybe you get them on their feet. Motion creates emotion, right? So maybe you take them out say, hey, before I go, You guys have the sick pool out there.
00:10:24
Speaker
Is that okay if I go take a look at your pool before I head out? Or maybe you use that you need to take a look at their roof. yeah You can get outside. But whatever you do, do something. Even it's just talking about um the dogs again.
00:10:38
Speaker
or the family again. i mean, you're probably doing that in the beginning, right? But bring back up something else to talk about. Try to get them to lower the stress off their backs. You know, you can physically see this. Sometimes people get so worked up and the minute you start talking about something else, de-escalating the situation, you can see just the stress lifted off their shoulders a lot of times.
00:11:00
Speaker
And if you don't do this, it's at a much higher risk of canceling because again, they're thinking of all the things that could go wrong. They're thinking that you just sold them and headed out. lot of people will think that. So you want to be the one that shows that you're going show up. You're not just signing them and then heading out and they never see you again. You want to create the relationship that, I'm your guy for this. If you guys have any other questions, you come to me. You want to create that group text thread with them and get that communication going through the text. And then deescalate. If you do that, it will help you save deals. It will help you reduce cancels.
00:11:35
Speaker
And ah it will help you have a better experience, create better relationships with people and get
Review and Recommendations to Improve Sales
00:11:41
Speaker
referrals as well. That's another thing. So I hope these are three things that you can put into implementation. If you're not already, don't forget to do these three things. These are mistakes that I find myself making and I find myself forgetting about. So hopefully you can learn from them too. So just to review, number one, don't skip the pain. Make sure you are diving into the bill, really killing the bill as we call it. Number two, don't set the appointments between five and seven.
00:12:06
Speaker
use those science us those hours to go out and prospect to get more appointment sets. And if you're you're running a team, by the way, you can train your people to do this, right? and Say, hey guys, um let's maximize our hours between then. So as much as possible, try to not set appointments during those times.
00:12:24
Speaker
And then um get as many appointments as we can outside of those hours. Then number three, don't leave right after the close. Decompress. Make sure you're talking about something else before you head out, even five, 10 minutes just to show that hey, you're here to build the relationship, not just sign them and leave.
00:12:41
Speaker
So I hope these things helped you today. Hope this is something you can share with your team and train your guys on. And if you do these things, you will increase your close ratio.
00:12:52
Speaker
You will find yourself having less cancels and you will find yourself getting more referrals. can promise you that. So thank you for tuning in the podcast today. i love you. Go crush this week and we'll see you on the next one.
00:13:05
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day.
Introduction to Solcitee Community
00:13:16
Speaker
For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called Solcitee.
00:13:41
Speaker
This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 day. Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to SoulCity.co to learn more.
00:14:10
Speaker
and join the learning experience now. This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to solcity.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.