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: Are solar loans dead in California?
Speaker: Are they dying in other markets?
Speaker: We're going to answer that question and much more on today's podcast.
Speaker: Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong, here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: We're coming at you, and I am excited because I'm here actually in under construction, building a little new podcast studio in the crib, thanks to my wife helping out with it.
Speaker: Anyone that knows me knows I am like the least handy person in the world.
Speaker: And you hand me some of that IKEA furniture, it's going in the trash unless someone else does it.
Speaker: So this stuff drives me nuts.
Speaker: I am helping out a little bit, but...
Speaker: Got the wife here who is giving me some VIP support, building out a little podcast studio.
Speaker: So I'm excited.
Speaker: If you can see on a video version, got a little new background here.
Speaker: You can see some of it's undone.
Speaker: So it's a work in progress, but we're getting it going here.
Speaker: So today's podcast is all about...
Speaker: different types of financing, and a lot of people are asking me, is financing done for in California?
Speaker: Are loans done for in California?
Speaker: We're here in NetMeeting 3.0, which means we got to do batteries with the majority of our systems, and it presents some different challenges.
Speaker: So we're going to be jamming on that, but before we get into it, wanted to give a special shout out to our latest review over on iTunes.
Speaker: We got Mr. John Hancock,
Speaker: Sorry, John Hancock is probably your uncle.
Speaker: but Jared Hancock rather.
Speaker: He gave us five stars.
Speaker: He said, thank you for this podcast.
Speaker: I'm brand new to solar with a smaller company out of Salt Lake City, Utah, and just started doing it after work, but I'm trying to become full-time solar.
Speaker: And this podcast has been so helpful and so many little gold nuggets.
Speaker: And I've listened to every episode and through this podcast and the help of the Lord.
Speaker: I'll be a solar dog.
Speaker: Thank you for your time and keep it up.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: My name is Jared Hancock.
Speaker: Jared, thank you.
Speaker: You will soon be a solar dog.
Speaker: All the solar dogs listen to the podcast.
Speaker: And I agree with the help of the Lord.
Speaker: The Lord helps us all.
Speaker: Hallelujah.
Speaker: Keep sticking in there.
Speaker: And my advice to Jared and any other people is to go full time as soon as possible.
Speaker: Because let's be honest, if you work solar part time, you're going to get part time results.
Speaker: The riches, the fortunes go to those that go all in, burn the bridges, burn the boats, and are all in.
Speaker: So that would be my advice, Jared.
Speaker: Go all in as soon as possible.
Speaker: That's how you're going to make it rain in solar and truly become a solar dog.
Speaker: So let's get into the topic today.
Speaker: And the topic is, again, is solar financing dead in California?
Speaker: So I want to start this out with a little experience, a little story that happened to me just recently, actually last week.
Speaker: So last week I closed this deal, get him rolling.
Speaker: I signed him up under a PPA, which is power purchase agreement.
Speaker: If you're not familiar, we'll talk a little bit about that.
Speaker: A little bit more about that if you're not familiar with what that is.
Speaker: But the husband's super excited about it.
Speaker: He convinces his wife.
Speaker: The wife is wanting to like, think about it, wanting to not sign all the documents quite yet.
Speaker: But the husband's like, honey, we got to do this.
Speaker: Like it makes absolutely no sense to stay with the utility.
Speaker: Let's get this rolling.
Speaker: And Scottum signed up.
Speaker: Everything was good.
Speaker: But then two days later, I get a call from the wife.
Speaker: And sure enough, she's like, Taylor, yeah, you know what?
Speaker: After talking about it more and more, I think we just jumped the gun too much.
Speaker: We actually just want to buy a system if we're going to do it.
Speaker: Just want to buy it.
Speaker: Like, okay.
Speaker: And turns out this lady, she's in real estate.
Speaker: So a lot of real estate people sometimes think that buying is the way to go, which I agree, buying is a great option and generally a little bit better for people.
Speaker: But what happens is she's...
Speaker: The good news is she doesn't say like, hey, we don't want to go solar.
Speaker: She just says, Taylor, we don't want to do the power purchase agreement.
Speaker: Can you come back?
Speaker: And we want to figure out the options for owning it, finance it or just buy it.
Speaker: So I'm like, okay, not a big deal.
Speaker: We reschedule, we go back, all is good.
Speaker: And then I get back in the house.
Speaker: We go over some of the options with financing, which those of you that are listening right now, we're recording.
Speaker: Summer of 2023.
Speaker: Can I say summer now?
Speaker: What are we, May?
Speaker: Yeah, summer of 2023.
Speaker: Been doing this seven years now.
Speaker: Jeez.
Speaker: But anyways, we go over all the options.
Speaker: And as you know, dealer fees are high right now.
Speaker: Interest rates are pretty high.
Speaker: So we're going through this and she's like, I want a different option.
Speaker: She didn't want to just pay cash for it.
Speaker: She wanted to finance it.
Speaker: But then she goes, the rates are too high.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Let me see if I can get like my own financing.
Speaker: Let me go to my credit union.
Speaker: And on and on it goes.
Speaker: And this deal just gets more and more complicated.
Speaker: And long story short, she gets paralysis by analysis.
Speaker: And what's funny is the husband, he's there.
Speaker: But all of a sudden, he's way less excited about it.
Speaker: He's like, this is just a lot of money.
Speaker: Yeah, now we got to wait for a payoff.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: Like, we know we want to own it, but this just gets too complicated now.
Speaker: It's too much money.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: We're going to have to really think about this.
Speaker: In my head, I'm thinking, wow, that's crazy.
Speaker: They went from being super stoked about a power purchase agreement to now they're questioning everything.
Speaker: And now they're ready to just stick with the utility for the rest of their lives just because they have to fork out some money, just because there are some obstacles with the financing.
Speaker: So the lesson in this story and the lesson I learned and was reminded of is, yes, I
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I think owning presents more benefits than doing a power purchase agreement or a leasing seller.
Speaker: I agree with that 100%.
Speaker: But at the end of the day, these people, now that there's some extra complications with the financing and the ways to own it, they're like ready to throw in the towel.
Speaker: So this just reaffirmed my stance on power purchase agreements and leases.
Speaker: It is 100% better than
Speaker: to go with a PPA or a lease, lease than it is to stick with the utility every time, 10 out of 10.
Speaker: And if that's the option, if it's between them doing a PPA or not going solar at all, then I'm gonna give it to them every time.
Speaker: I'm gonna let them do a PPA.
Speaker: And it just goes to show that, yeah, I think at times I hear people in the industry bash on people that only do PPAs, that are all about these leases, and don't even bring up the option of ownership.
Speaker: But maybe there's a reason for that.
Speaker: Is it because they believe that that's the option?
Speaker: People are gonna overcomplicate the ownership.
Speaker: People are gonna overcomplicate these loans.
Speaker: So why not just give them a PPA?
Speaker: They're gonna be happy.
Speaker: They're not gonna get quite as many benefits, but hey, they're gonna go solar.
Speaker: And they have the option, every PPA that I know of has the option to buy it out at some point during the term.
Speaker: So I just thought that was a funny little story, funny thing that happened.
Speaker: They went from being 10 out of 10 excited, at least the husband, the wife, she was a little on the fence the whole time because she's in real estate.
Speaker: But the husband went just from being through the roof excited to now with the ownership options, even though he thought that was the best option, he just went to like a four out of 10 excited.
Speaker: Like not sure if this is the best way to go slower, even if they should still go slower.
Speaker: So learning lesson right there.
Speaker: But how does that tie in with is financing debt in California?
Speaker: As I mentioned, across the board, across the country, rates are insanely high right now.
Speaker: Dealer fees are insanely high.
Speaker: So what do we have in a lot of options?
Speaker: lot of markets um texas included i just heard i assume that most companies in texas are getting lease options but um that means a lot of us can start transitioning to these lease options these power purchase agreements and i'm just going to go through a couple reasons why i think especially if you're in california but even if you're not i think these things also apply in most markets but especially if you're in california here's a couple reasons why you need to highly consider doing more
Speaker: PPAs or leases right now number one kind of like what happened in the story I just told you with when you do the loans the financing you're adding debt you're adding you know debt to income you're adding a loan on there people get scared away by these things and if you're an expert and explain it right you should be able to present these things as not scary but sometimes no matter what you do people are like oh man
Speaker: $70,000 to go slower and it's going to be on my credit report now?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Cause you can explain it over and over, but some people, maybe the analytical types, some people are, do get held up by these things.
Speaker: So with the PPA, don't have to worry about any of that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's the first reason.
Speaker: Number two, all the maintenance, all the service covered.
Speaker: And I get it.
Speaker: A lot of loan options these days, you know, you got service covered, you got a maintenance covered, but I hear from a lot of people that
Speaker: If something happens, you own the system.
Speaker: A lot of these companies, they take time to get out there and service them.
Speaker: And in the meantime, these people still got to pay their loans, still got to make their monthly payments.
Speaker: So if you lease it, if you do a PPA, you don't have to worry about that nearly as much.
Speaker: Like they're only paying for the power that produces in the case of a PPA.
Speaker: And at least in my experience, the PPAs I've done, people have gotten their system service way quicker.
Speaker: Okay, and by the way, I am not someone that has done a ton of PPAs out here in California.
Speaker: I know you look at bigger companies, Sunrun, a lot of the bigger solar dealers and everything.
Speaker: People are slamming PPAs like crazy.
Speaker: That's all they do.
Speaker: And all these people, that's all they know how to do.
Speaker: But I'm not coming at this...
Speaker: biased towards PPAs because I've done mostly loans for my entire career.
Speaker: I would say I'm probably like 80% loans of all the systems I've sold.
Speaker: That's probably 300 plus systems, probably close to 400, 350 to 400 systems, 80% loans is what I've done.
Speaker: But that being said, I am liking much more right now, especially with the higher rates, with the higher dealer fees, I am liking a lot more.
Speaker: the PPA options.
Speaker: And then a few other reasons on top of that.
Speaker: Number three, you got it's easier for beginners.
Speaker: There's a reason all these bigger companies get new sales reps in and they teach them PPAs first because they're easy to get easier to present.
Speaker: Hey, you're not attaching the loan.
Speaker: You're not attaching debts.
Speaker: You just attach a lower monthly payment, at least in California.
Speaker: I know some of you listen to this in other markets.
Speaker: Maybe you're jealous.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: but you don't have to explain any of the other stuff a lot easier to get people through the door teach them this little cookie cutter script on how to sell ppa and boom you're good to go another thing that i didn't write down but i just thought about this spur of the moment here is a lot easier to make higher commissions on these things hey people are making insane commissions selling ppas because again you're not jacking the price up
Speaker: and showing that you're even though maybe you're price gouging people okay um i think there's a point where you shouldn't jack the price up too much on a ppa either but on a loan on financing it can be really obvious if you're charging way more than what the market is because people can go do a google search they can look up average pricing and you're done for you're getting a call to cancel where ppas you're not going to get as many people like it's just a lower rate
Speaker: People don't generally think, oh, I need to go shop out this lower rate and make sure I'm getting the best deal, right?
Speaker: Can happen, but not as often.
Speaker: Hey, and then number four, and stay tuned at the end.
Speaker: I've got the most important point coming up right after this pertains to mostly California, but stay tuned here.
Speaker: But number four is it's great for people with a lower tax liability.
Speaker: Hey, I just had a deal last week where I did a prepaid PPA, where that's just people pay the full cost of the PPA in advance.
Speaker: But not only did she get it way cheaper than what she was going to pay cash, because she had no tax liability, she wasn't going to get a tax credit.
Speaker: So all she does, she writes the check for a lower, you know, prepaying the system, prepaying the PPA,
Speaker: And she gets all the benefits of it.
Speaker: Next 25 years, everything's covered.
Speaker: Great option for her and great option for people that maybe they're retired, maybe they're not paying much in taxes on social security, whatever.
Speaker: And especially in other markets, when I did a blitz in Texas, we were at times knocking in lower income areas.
Speaker: People weren't paying a ton in taxes.
Speaker: And if you know Texas, you know people are getting generally huge systems, which means they've got huge tax credits coming.
Speaker: So if they're not going to get these huge tax credits,
Speaker: It's not as beneficial.
Speaker: Hey, and here's the last point and most important of all, especially in California, which I think is awesome and for me is the number one reason why you should consider selling these PPAs is, drumroll, because the battery is covered for 25 years.
Speaker: Okay, people need a battery.
Speaker: I'm speaking the PPAs I've sold.
Speaker: Maybe there's some lenders that don't cover this.
Speaker: I'm talking Sunrun specifically.
Speaker: I know Sunnova does.
Speaker: I'm not sure Everbright is another one we use.
Speaker: I'm not sure about that.
Speaker: But in general, to my understanding, 25 years of battery coverage, where you think about a loan, people are getting these expensive batteries, paying an extra $10,000, $15,000.
Speaker: And then what do they got to do?
Speaker: 10 years, they're buying a new one.
Speaker: So this is my top reason why
Speaker: You should be starting to sell PPAs, why you should be doing more at leases.
Speaker: On top of all the other things, they're not evil.
Speaker: I think they are one of the better ways to do it right now.
Speaker: And matter of fact, funny story, people that follow me on social media, you saw this.
Speaker: I was knocking a door.
Speaker: This guy comes out and crazy never happened to me before.
Speaker: But he goes, oh, wait, are you Taylor Armstrong, the solar printer guy?
Speaker: This is just a cold door I'm knocking.
Speaker: And the guy comes out like that.
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, how'd you know, man?
Speaker: And turns out this guy was in solar for I don't know how long, not very long, but he didn't have solar on his house.
Speaker: Crazy.
Speaker: I don't know why.
Speaker: But we have a conversation.
Speaker: He tells me he loves the podcast.
Speaker: He helped him out a lot when he was the short time he was in solar.
Speaker: And he's like, hey, you know what?
Speaker: I'm going to go solar with you.
Speaker: Let's do this.
Speaker: And we're locking down an appointment time.
Speaker: This guy's like a business owner, insanely busy.
Speaker: But he has been responding to me.
Speaker: And one of the first things he said is, hey, I don't want to buy the solar, though.
Speaker: I want to do a PPA.
Speaker: This is coming from someone that's educated about solar.
Speaker: And one of my good friends out here, he just put a PPA on his home.
Speaker: Got a lot of friends that put PPAs on their homes instead of buying the system.
Speaker: So I don't feel bad about offering it to people.
Speaker: I think it is a great option.
Speaker: So hope that helps.
Speaker: Whatever market you're in, if you don't have access to power purchase agreements, to leases, I'm sure you will soon at some point.
Speaker: But consider those benefits.
Speaker: Consider the other options and...
Speaker: remember, always love the families you meet with.
Speaker: Always do what's best with present to them the best options.
Speaker: It shouldn't be all about what's making us the most money, but it should be a win-win, right?
Speaker: Win for the customer, win for us, and win against the utility or lose.
Speaker: Utility loses, right?
Speaker: But we all win.
Speaker: Win for the company.
Speaker: So that's the podcast today.
Speaker: Hope it helps.
Speaker: Go out, sell some PPAs or some leases today.
Speaker: Remember those benefits and unique offerings with them.
Speaker: And we'll see you guys on the next episode.
Speaker: Hey Solarpreneurs, are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your sales increase?
Speaker: Well so was I and the truth is I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going wrong.
Speaker: So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time we are doing a free sales diagnostic.
Speaker: We'll break down your sales process, figure out the holes in your business and see how we can help you improve.
Speaker: So at now we have six bucks for this month.
Speaker: So book a call now.
Speaker: Don't miss out.
Speaker: What you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: That's taylor at solarpreneurs with an S dot com.
Speaker: I'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out the time that works best.
Speaker: So shoot that email and let's increase your sales.
