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How To Prevent Permit Poachers
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In this episode, we go through ways that you can protect your deals from the swooping and unapologetic force of permit poachers. It's time to take control and make sure that the trust that you've built doesn't go to waste from bad actors in the industry.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong. 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.
00:00:18
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.
00:00:30
Speaker
What is a solopreneur, you might ask? 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.
How to Prevent Permit Poachers
00:00:40
Speaker
Hey, what's happening, solopreneurs? Today, I'm going to be talking about how you can prevent those nasty permit poachers from stealing your deals. I'm going to tell you a story of how I almost lost a deal to a permit poacher and how you can prevent it from happening to you. So welcome to podcast. 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 time in the solar industry. Hope you're ramping up for the spring and summer selling, or whenever you're listening this, I hope you are crushing your sales, finding some great momentum in solar. That's what it's all about. We got some road bumps behind us, and now it's all smooth selling, right? Let's get rid of this solar coaster thing once and for all. But um hopefully this podcast can help you learn how to go over the speed bumps and learn how to ah go through the solar coaster a little bit more smoothly. Sometimes you're going run speed bumps like myself.
00:01:32
Speaker
I almost lost the deal to a permit poacher. so I'm go to tell you some things I did and how I was able to save that deal. Before we get into it. Would appreciate it if you have not left us a review or a rating comment. Please go leave us a comment, review rating on Spotify, Apple, iTunes, YouTube, wherever you're listening this podcast.
00:01:51
Speaker
Would love to see your feedback and any ah suggestions you have for the show. That is all we ask. Let's jump into the content.
Challenges with Permit Poachers
00:01:58
Speaker
I had a deal that this was going for about two, two and a half months. had a panel upgrade and we finally got this thing ready to install, got the panel upgrade taken care of, the MPU main panel upgrade, and it was ready to install. We had it on the calendar and then I get a call from the customer and she says, yeah, you know what, Taylor, we're going to to hold off I think we're moving. We're going to move out of the house and it's just we don't want to deal with it if we're moving. And I explained to her, oh, well, we've helped lots of homes. So on this program should be fine. And she's like, we don't feel comfortable. And I explained to her, I'm like, hey, look, we spent lots of money on the project. We've already paid for permits. We've already gotten in the panel.
00:02:41
Speaker
ah main panel upgrade ready to go. it's just let's figure out what what your concerns are and let's um let's figure this out. So I did get her to meet with me again. And actually, ah as I'm recording this podcast, I just got done with meeting with her about an hour ago. So fresh on the mind, hence why we're talking about this subject today. And go back and I start asking her questions and explaining her how the process works, if she sells the home. Then she proceeds to tell me, hey, you know what? The reason why we're having some doubts is because we actually had another company stop by. These guys, they were they were coming by every day for a couple of weeks. Told them no multiple times, but they kept coming.
00:03:21
Speaker
And then they told us that um one of our neighbors signed up with you guys. and that they're still in the house because they had a lien on their home, they had a big loan, and they couldn't sell their home.
00:03:32
Speaker
So yeah that's why we decided to cancel it. And all of a sudden became clearer. I'm like, okay, that's why they had those concerns. That's what triggered this hesitation. i don't even think they're planning on moving. It's just something that they got put in their heads and you know they thought, oh, well, could be something we think about next year. Let's just call this
Ethical Practices in Solar Sales
00:03:53
Speaker
thing off. So it made me realize, especially where I'm at here in Southern California, there's a lot of competition and there's people that are willing to do horrendous things to go switch your deals over. We've all seen it at Permanent Poachers. If you're new to the podcast, if you're new to Solar permit poacher is just someone that waits to see till the permits have been submitted for a solar project. Then they go back and they ah have the information on the account and they try to undercut the deal by saying, hey, we'll get you a better price.
00:04:22
Speaker
We'll get you you know better equipment. They just use whatever they can to get in the house. And sometimes they have all the exact details of the project. And, um ah you know, I've even seen it to where they claim to be with the company, with our company or with whoever, whatever company signed them up. And they use some pretty deceptive tactics. So hopefully if you're listening to this, you would never resort to these type of scumbag tactics, okay? Because there's plenty of deals out there. We should not have to resort to these shady tactics to go on and train to undercut people.
00:04:53
Speaker
If you run into them and it's not through permit poaching, then fair game, right? You can train. you know, get them another get them another quote and see what they say. But do not be one of these people that goes and finds the permits and ah try just uses it to undercut deals. Such a shady practice.
00:05:12
Speaker
So let's talk about what you can do to prevent this. You know, longs just to finish up my story, I was able to explain to her, hey, this happens a lot. But yeah, you guys have it in writing that this is not a loan. You know, we signed you her up for a power purchase agreement here. And this is something that you can transfer to the new owners.
00:05:30
Speaker
And I'm right here. I'm local. I promise I will help you guys anything that comes up. So let's get this taken care of. They had actually referred their nephew to me. So I said, I've got your referral bonus too. So I gave them something to kind of sweeten things up and i was able to get them to agree to proceed to install their solar.
00:05:50
Speaker
So it turned out to be a um happy ending, but sad to see that a lot of people do not have a happy ending. And um what's even worse is I think I've lost account. I've for sure seen people lose accounts to where they don't go with the first company.
00:06:07
Speaker
and they don't go with a new company. And that's what was going to happen to mine too. If I didn't jump in and save it, they weren't even going to sign up with the other guys that came to their door. They were gonna cancel our solar and then they just weren't going to do anything.
00:06:18
Speaker
So that's the worst possible scenario, right? How sad is it that people just would rather cancel the whole project and not go solar at all just because some people try to meddle with the deal and just spread lies.
00:06:30
Speaker
So whoever this was, I hope they're listening this. Shame on you. stay away from my projects and don't be spreading lies about customers. This person that came in the door claimed that we had signed people up, put a lien on their home and ah said that they were going to have a massive debt that they're to to keep paying if they sold the home.
00:06:50
Speaker
So just sickening to see scumbag would go and spread these lies and get the customer to try to cancel. Let's get into how you can prevent this.
Building Customer Trust
00:06:59
Speaker
Number one, I'm going to give you two, three tips here. If you are closing, make sure to do these things without fail. If you are setting appointments out there, then you should be able to help your closer and do this. And you should also help manage your accounts.
00:07:13
Speaker
So the first advice is make sure to always set the expectations of what's going to happen. Particularly, make sure you set the expectations that they will have people come to the door, that there will be these solar gypsies, as I like to call them. And I know I've heard this from ah i heard this from someone else, I'm drawing a blank on the name. But he's the one that told me this line.
00:07:37
Speaker
And the way it goes is, hey, after you sign up for solar and get a permit, that information becomes public. And there are people we like to refer to them as solar gypsies.
00:07:49
Speaker
These people, they come by, they claim to know what's going on with the project. And a lot of times they'll say, hey we can get you much better deal. We can get you better pricing. Or even in some cases, they'll even say that they're with us, that they just need you to sign off on a form.
00:08:05
Speaker
And they'll switch you to something completely different, oftentimes a loan or something that does put a lien on your house and just not good at all. So i give i just want to give you guys a heads up. um If you have someone come to the door,
00:08:18
Speaker
that you don't know who it is or we didn't give you a heads up about, just please give me a call because we just don't want you guys getting scammed. And even if it is someone that comes and says they have better numbers or pricing or whatever, nine times out 10, they're using inferior equipment. They're not giving a warranties.
00:08:38
Speaker
on ah the the roof, they're cutting corners to get to that price. So just give me a heads up and we want to make sure that we're on the same page and having good communication.
00:08:49
Speaker
Sound good? And when you set the expectation like that, what it does is number one, it makes them think, okay, anyone that comes the door, that could be a scam. So I better not listen to him. Okay, so put some on the defensive for people coming to their door their door and hopefully they just, you know, don't entertain anyone that comes the door because they're automatic. That's going to trigger them. Oh, this could be someone scamming me. He's talking about solar.
00:09:11
Speaker
Hey, um and but then even if they do listen to him, then hopefully they, you know, remember that you told them about, it's lesser warranties, lesser product. There's a reason that the price is going to be lower, right?
00:09:27
Speaker
Hey, and if you do that, that solves your issue. I think most of the time, just setting those proper expectations and getting them, giving them the heads up that, hey, people are to come, people are gonna say some crazy things. And I can't tell you, I've have had so many people come and say, hey, um Taylor, I got someone coming to that door, just wanted to give you a heads up. I told them no, I told them we're already good to go.
00:09:50
Speaker
And that's all because I prepped them, right? You set the expectation. If you tell them what's going to happen, then it's going to save yourself massive headaches. Okay, but occasionally you will have people um you know still entertain other things. And that's what happened with this specific deal is I did prep them.
00:10:08
Speaker
but they still you know had someone come to the door and bugging them. So this is where the second piece of advice comes in clutch. And that is just having a great communication with your customer.
00:10:19
Speaker
You should be sending your customer weekly updates. What's been working for our teams really great is just doing a group text with our project manager. with the sales rep to set them up. And then ah if you had a setter on the deal that set set the appointment with them and then sending weekly updates in that chat. And another pro tip is make sure you include the spouse in it. Right. If you sign up the husband, include the wife. okay Because you want to make them feel like they're part of the project and have them involved in it.
00:10:49
Speaker
Because if not, then maybe someone talks the wife, you know, well, the husband's gone and meddles with the deal. So make sure you have that group chat, um send weekly updates, and especially when it's a project that you know is going to get delayed because of a panel upgrade, which is what happened to us. Even more so, you need to be on top of It's just the longer the time to install the the more likely it is that they're going to get cold feet or have people come to the door and just overthink
Using Gifts to Secure Deals
00:11:18
Speaker
things. So make sure to take special care on those accounts that are going to take a little bit longer for whatever reason. Okay, and then tip number three, do a little bit of customer gifting.
00:11:29
Speaker
We have a great process now at our company is we we have automatic gifts that go out right after signing. They get there within two days of the customer signing up. Just a little gift basket, like some treats that they send and it comes in a custom branded, um you know, logo box with our company logo. It has a note. What's really cool in the note looks handwritten. We customize it It's like a template, note template. But then we're able to go and add some customization to it.
00:11:57
Speaker
um Even if your company isn't doing something like this, um I've recorded many podcasts on services that you can do this yourself. So I'd recommend if your company isn't doing something like this, set up your own system to use. There's services like send out cards.
00:12:13
Speaker
um There's been a few others I've used in the past. You can reach out if you want more recommendations, but something like send out cards where you can send a custom letter with a little gift goes so far in just keeping the customer satisfied and then creating that social pressure that hey,
00:12:32
Speaker
It's the law of reciprocity, right? If you do something nice for them, they feel like they got skin in the game with you. They feel like they need to do something nice for you. And we've had so many stories at our company of people just, um you know, they're having some doubts and where so some of those doubts would have caused a cancellation, right? When they're thinking the doubts, they get this box in the mail with these treats and a nice letter.
00:12:56
Speaker
They're like, ah you know what, I was just going to cancel it and forget about But you know what I'm going to reach out to the sales rep now. He's a good guy. That's so nice of him to send this. And I'm just going to tell him what what my concerns are. And then we've had countless stories um of guys able to sound send save accounts just by that law of reciprocity.
00:13:13
Speaker
So shout out to um my guy, Jason Allen. We're going to have him on the podcast soon, but he's the one that helped our company um set up this gift gifting process with his company.
Ethical Standards in Solar Sales
00:13:24
Speaker
It's called Sales Caddy.
00:13:26
Speaker
So if you implement those three pieces of advice, number one, setting expectations that they're going to permit poachers. They're going to people come to the door after and say sometimes crazy stuff or even try to scam you to ah get you to not do this. And then number two, having a weekly group text communication.
00:13:45
Speaker
Weekly updates, even if there's no update, just say, hey we're still waiting for the permit or whatever it is. And then number three, sending out a customer gift. If you do those three things, you are going to eliminate, I would say by 90% any meddling permit poachers, any solar gypsies.
00:14:03
Speaker
So do those. I hope you you don't have to deal with that wherever you're selling, but if you're in a semi-saturated area, then it's become a big problem. So let's do our parts. I hope everyone listening to this will rise above and get rid of the permit poaching, um put those scumbags on blast, and let's put an end to this deceptive and shady practice in our industry.
00:14:25
Speaker
Okay, so I hope you found something useful in this episode today. Please, again, leave us a comment or a review. And then also let us know your suggestions. What what topics do you want us to cover? Who do you want us to have on the show next? We're always looking for killers to come on, shoot me a message. If you think you have a cool story to tell in solar or you know someone that is crushing, dominating in solar and would want to be
Introduction to SolarScout
00:14:48
Speaker
featured. And we will see you on the next episode So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
00:14:55
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 SolarScout.
00:15:09
Speaker
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. 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.
00:15:25
Speaker
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. But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need to give my listeners a great deal. And they did.
00:15:40
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. That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
00:15:53
Speaker
Okay, back to the show. What's up, solopreneurs? Hope you enjoyed the episode. Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created it specifically for you in mind.
Top Podcast Episodes Cheat Sheet
00:16:08
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start? What episodes should I listen to in the podcast? You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:16:23
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.
00:16:36
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. So go download it right now. It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com. Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com. Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:16:58
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes. Go download it right now. And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them. That's going to show you how. So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.