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 here with another episode.
Speaker: I'm your host, and I'm here to help your life be much easier as a solar pro, and as usual, help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: Hope you're doing awesome.
Speaker: Hope you are slinging lots of deals lately.
Speaker: We are coming to the time where the daylight is
Speaker: is becoming shorter and shorter out here in California.
Speaker: It's dark by like 645 now.
Speaker: So I'm just trying to take advantage of the daylight hours while we still have them.
Speaker: If you're not listening to this during the fall, then enjoy the time while it's not dark super early.
Speaker: I'm from Utah, so I'm used to it being darker later, but out here in California,
Speaker: It does get dark pretty early, one of the downsides.
Speaker: But remember, when it does start getting dark, you can knock in the dark.
Speaker: And we've actually done some podcasts on this.
Speaker: Maybe we'll republish it, update it, be in search for that.
Speaker: We have done some podcasts about knocking in the dark.
Speaker: Or you can make calls in the dark.
Speaker: A lot of stuff you can do once it's dark.
Speaker: Follow-ups, referrals, online leads.
Speaker: No excuse to not work just because it's a little bit dark.
Speaker: But anyways, I digress.
Speaker: Let's jump into the topic.
Speaker: The topic today, we're going to be talking about some electrical content.
Speaker: The reason we're talking about this, I recently did a training or attended a training rather with J. Kess and Solar Joe.
Speaker: They did this a few months back.
Speaker: I meant to do it sooner while it was fresh on my mind, but got caught up in a few other topics.
Speaker: But they did a great electrical training and just gave us...
Speaker: some knowledge, things we can do to avoid electric panel upgrades, things we can do to differentiate ourselves from the competition and just sound like an expert when we're out selling a solar.
Speaker: And I would highly recommend just gaining a basic understanding of some electrical terms, some electrical, just topics that relate to solar.
Speaker: We have done some podcasts on this.
Speaker: We'll try to link to them in the show notes.
Speaker: Hopefully my assistant is hearing this and she'll link to them.
Speaker: But we've done a couple of
Speaker: basic episodes on just some electric stuff.
Speaker: And today I'm going to talk about a few of the takeaways that I thought were really cool that I gained from attending this training.
Speaker: I know they're doing another one here pretty soon, I think a battery training.
Speaker: So it's good stuff if you want to check it out.
Speaker: But that's Jcast Solar Joe over at Solar Academy.
Speaker: They are my go to guys for anything electrical.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: I say Solar Joe, but I actually think he may have started working with Lumio.
Speaker: So I'm actually not sure if he's involved with Solar Academy, if you didn't hear the news.
Speaker: So if you're listening to Solar Joe, congrats on the new position.
Speaker: Hopefully I'm not wrong on that, but I saw some stuff on social media.
Speaker: But as usual, his group is great.
Speaker: It's Solar Advice, I think, is the Facebook group.
Speaker: That is a great resource for anyone that's over on Facebook.
Speaker: So let's jump into some electrical training and this stuff gets kind of dull.
Speaker: I'll be honest.
Speaker: That is why I never liked the electrical stuff is because to me it was just like, you know, the geeky stuff, the engineers stuff that I don't care about.
Speaker: And really, a lot of it you don't need to sell solar.
Speaker: I know a ton of guys that are selling a ton of solar that know nothing about this.
Speaker: But I think it will help you sell even more and it will help you differentiate yourself.
Speaker: So if you can learn at least the basics, definitely a little cherry on top as you're out there selling.
Speaker: So we've talked about it before, but a couple of things, if you know some basic electrical, it will help you possibly avoid main panel upgrades.
Speaker: Hey, and you can go listen to the episode.
Speaker: We'll link to it where I talk more about that.
Speaker: But I want to give you a little story that happened to me recently that tied directly in with this training that, um,
Speaker: jkess and solar joe did and so what happened i had a customer sold them about a month back and hooked them up with high efficient panels 440 watt panels the micro inverters emphase and was selling them a ton of value on it saying look we're giving you the most efficient panels all the other companies were doing like 350 to 400 watts
Speaker: So we got them the 440 watts.
Speaker: So I was selling them hard on that.
Speaker: Look, you're getting more bang for your buck.
Speaker: And you also got limited roof space.
Speaker: So we're just trying to fit as many panels as we could.
Speaker: So I thought that would help using the higher efficient panels, which who knows, maybe I know they are bigger panels.
Speaker: So it could have been the same using less efficient panels.
Speaker: But
Speaker: That was my angle on it.
Speaker: I was just going to say, look, you don't have as much space.
Speaker: Let's use the most efficient panel up there, the highest wattage panel.
Speaker: So what ended up happening, we sign him up.
Speaker: Then I get a text from him a couple of days later and he says, hey, Taylor, I talked to my engineer friend and these inverters aren't going to work with the 440 watt panels.
Speaker: And I'm like, no.
Speaker: I'm like, no, you're fine, man.
Speaker: We've done tons of jobs with this.
Speaker: Never had issues.
Speaker: You'll be fine.
Speaker: Then he didn't say anything for a little bit.
Speaker: Then he texts me again the next day, says, Taylor, you know what?
Speaker: No, I talked with my engineer friend again.
Speaker: And yeah, he explained to me that these inverters, I'm going to be losing power if I use these inverters.
Speaker: And I'm like, what?
Speaker: Okay, well, let me talk to our guys, do some digging on this.
Speaker: So I'm like, okay, I've sold lots of jobs with these inverters.
Speaker: And I was using the Enphase microinverters.
Speaker: If you're new to the solar industry, you got your microinverters, you got your string inverters.
Speaker: That's a topic for a different day.
Speaker: But microinverters, each panel has its own inverter.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And we were selling them the IQ seven pluses, I believe, which are they have the IQ eight model, which is the newest model, I believe, at the time of this recording, at least.
Speaker: So I hooked them up with these.
Speaker: And I in my head, I'm like, these are fine.
Speaker: They're like, basically the newest model, there's no way they're not going to work with the panel.
Speaker: So I do some digging, talk to Jake Hess again.
Speaker: And he tells me, yeah, Taylor, your customer's right.
Speaker: You need to be using the newest model of microinverter.
Speaker: You need to be using the IQ8Ms, he told me, which is like basically the highest, you know, the best one they offer and the newest one.
Speaker: And I'm like, are you serious?
Speaker: why?
Speaker: What's going on?
Speaker: And this was actually after he did this electrical training.
Speaker: So he's like, Taylor, were you not on the electrical training we did?
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, turns out he explained all this, but I think I was finishing up an appointment or something.
Speaker: So I missed the entire section where he explained all this.
Speaker: I had to go back and rewatch it.
Speaker: But this was one of the topics he covered in the training.
Speaker: And that is that your inverters have to match up with the wattage of the panel because they have a max continuous output, I believe.
Speaker: And keep in mind, I'm still learning this stuff.
Speaker: So some of you guys that might know a lot of this advanced stuff, I'm still just a beginner in it.
Speaker: But I'm sharing with you my experience, what I learned and how it related to my customer.
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Speaker: If I were to use this model microinverter with the 440 watt panel, on their max production days, the most alternate current that they could take in, I think would have been like 380 watts when maybe their capacity was 400 watts.
Speaker: And I'm probably explaining it wrong, but bottom line is they were going to be losing power.
Speaker: It's called clipping.
Speaker: They're going to be losing power on some days when they're taking a lot of energy if I were to use these inverters.
Speaker: I had no idea.
Speaker: I was ready to sign them up and be done with it.
Speaker: And end of the day, it probably wouldn't have been a huge deal.
Speaker: And I'm pretty sure I've already signed up or installed a decent amount of these people with higher wattage panels that probably didn't match the correct inverter that they could have been using.
Speaker: But end of the day, I had no idea.
Speaker: And I was doing something for my customer that maybe wasn't in their best interest.
Speaker: So I, of course, had to go to this customer.
Speaker: I'm like, hey, found out you're right.
Speaker: We're going to use the IQ8Ms and get you hooked up.
Speaker: That way you're not losing any power.
Speaker: And he was happy.
Speaker: End of story.
Speaker: But it did make me not look the best, right?
Speaker: I didn't look like an expert in that moment.
Speaker: So the lesson is, is that you should know more than your customer.
Speaker: Okay, I could have lost the deal.
Speaker: Luckily, this guy was chill.
Speaker: But how many engineer types, how many people after finding this out that you signed them up not having a superior product knowledge?
Speaker: A lot of people would take that as a sign, not want to do business with you, go with someone else.
Speaker: So it's these little things that if you can know them individually,
Speaker: If you can explain your customers, which, by the way, if you Google your Enphase microinverter, it's going to show you the max capacity of them.
Speaker: OK, but it's like the max.
Speaker: So I think the IQ7s that said max was like 400.
Speaker: But really, it was like, I don't know, 20 less than that, 380.
Speaker: Jake has explained this to me, so I'm still figuring it out.
Speaker: But you can Google the sheets, Google the spec sheets of your inverters, of your panels, a lot of the stuff you can figure out for yourself.
Speaker: So I'd recommend doing that, especially the panels and inverters that you're offering.
Speaker: I would have those just bookmarked, handy, ready to show your customers the details if you need to.
Speaker: You know, you shouldn't have to get in that too often, but maybe you're selling an engineer type that wants to have the spec sheet right there.
Speaker: Makes you look like an expert.
Speaker: And after this, I went back through my accounts.
Speaker: I found like four others that I had sold the exact same thing.
Speaker: Four 40 watt panels with IQ7 plus inverters.
Speaker: And I went and changed all of them to the IQ8Ms.
Speaker: Did the good thing.
Speaker: Maybe you're doing the same thing.
Speaker: Maybe you made this mistake.
Speaker: And end of the day, your installer, they're probably not going to tell you this.
Speaker: They don't care.
Speaker: They're just like a factory.
Speaker: And this is something we went over in the electrical training.
Speaker: What they're doing, they have all this pressure.
Speaker: How many people are begging your installer, hey, get these jobs in quick, move on to the next one.
Speaker: I want to get paid.
Speaker: So what they're doing, they're just trying to get these things on a conveyor belt and move them through.
Speaker: A lot of these things, even though it's electricians that they have, at least in my case, our installers, they have an electric
Speaker: electrician working through them, but he's not spending tons of time.
Speaker: He's got so many jobs to manage, so many projects that sometimes they're not paying attention to these things.
Speaker: And I've gone through, it's a good idea to look at all the CAD designs that come through because I've seen where panel types have been wrong.
Speaker: I've seen where they're using the wrong inverter.
Speaker: I've seen where they want to do a main panel upgrade, but they don't need one.
Speaker: So I would definitely recommend take a look at that.
Speaker: know how to read a CAD design.
Speaker: And again, I know Solar Academy has all sorts of trainings on this, but you can always shoot me a message.
Speaker: I can share what I know with my beginner knowledge, with my caveman knowledge of the topic.
Speaker: So that was a big takeaway.
Speaker: Make sure your inverters match up with the wattage of the panels.
Speaker: And then just a couple other things.
Speaker: I'm not going to get super geeky with this here, but a couple other things that I thought were interesting takeaways I had is really just making sure you know how to read your main panels, the main panel rating, and then the bus bar.
Speaker: So the breaker, the way you figure out how many amps the main panel is, you go, you look at the main breaker, which that is the big one with the big switch.
Speaker: And then you look at the number on that.
Speaker: Pretty straightforward.
Speaker: And so that is the rating here.
Speaker: of the main panel and then the bus bar that's like the spine of the leco panel that's the back part of it the way you find that is you go look um on the sticker as you're opening the panel there should be a sticker there and you go and look in the fine print the sticker will say max rating and usually it's 100 amp 125 150 200 etc
Speaker: That's how you find it.
Speaker: So those two things are key to know the panel rating and then the bus bar rating.
Speaker: And besides that, there's a bunch of different equations where you can figure this stuff out, which I'm not going to get into.
Speaker: Part of it is because I'm still figuring out myself.
Speaker: So as I learn more of this, I will share on the podcast.
Speaker: but what you should do is just know those things and keep in mind if it is a 100 amp panel and then a 100 amp bus bar there is a pretty good chance that you're gonna need a main panel upgrade so something to consider there's equations for this and there is a cheat sheet you can hit me up i think i'd be okay to share this cheat sheet with you but um the max amount of panels you can fit typically let's say it's a 100 amp panel 100 amp bus bar then you're looking at
Speaker: Let me just make sure I got the number right here.
Speaker: Okay, here it is.
Speaker: 100 amp.
Speaker: And so if you have your IQ7 micro-invirtors, you can fit 16 panels up to 330 watt.
Speaker: And then if you have higher wattage panels, you can fit 13 panels on your IQ7 pluses.
Speaker: Not a lot of panels.
Speaker: Hey, that's in San Diego.
Speaker: You can find some accounts.
Speaker: You can find some customers that only need, you know, 10 to 13 panels.
Speaker: But most people, they're going to need more than 13 panels typically, right?
Speaker: And so something to keep in mind.
Speaker: And then from there, as the bus bar rating goes up,
Speaker: and the main panel ampage goes up, you can fit more.
Speaker: So definitely if you're starting out, just make sure you look to see how many amps the panel and the bus bar is.
Speaker: And a good idea, something that we were taught is to just take pictures of that main panel and of the sticker inside of it.
Speaker: Hey, so just a few takeaways.
Speaker: I know it gets a little dry.
Speaker: That's why we started with the story of my customer, how I almost screwed some people over a little bit.
Speaker: But remember those things and get yourself a cheat sheet, write it, write this stuff down, and then just know a couple of the key electrical terms so you can sound knowledgeable, at least when you're coming up versus engineers or people that do know a little bit, a lot of electrical, you want to know, you want to sound like you know something.
Speaker: So I hope that inspires you.
Speaker: Go learn as much as you can about the electrical.
Speaker: Obviously, learn sales first and supplement it with some electrical knowledge.
Speaker: But some great things to know to just help you avoid panel upgrades and make sure you go through all the options.
Speaker: You can check out our other episodes where we have gone through more, you know, different options you can use instead of a main panel upgrade out here in San Diego.
Speaker: We have.
Speaker: renewable meter adapters.
Speaker: There's other terms like sub as main, probably missing some, but a D rate, a couple of different things you can do.
Speaker: So it's a good idea to just ask your installers if they've considered all the options before doing a main panel upgrade, especially if you're trying to save time and money.
Speaker: So hope that helps.
Speaker: Go use this in your closes.
Speaker: Use this as you're knocking doors.
Speaker: Sound like an expert and keep learning about electrical.
Speaker: Hope that inspires you.
Speaker: So we'll see you guys on the next episode.
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 Solrepreneur.
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.
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.
