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 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 up, solarpreneurs?
Speaker: Taylor Armstrong here with another podcast.
Speaker: As usual, we're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: Welcome back to the podcast, or if this is your first time, a very cordial welcome to you.
Speaker: You are in for a treat.
Speaker: Today we're going to be talking about why you should be charging what you're worth on your solar accounts.
Speaker: There's too many people that are lowballing their deals.
Speaker: There's too many people that are making pennies when they should be making fortunes.
Speaker: So we're going to talk about that.
Speaker: But before we get into the topic, I have two special announcements.
Speaker: And I guess before that, if any of you are watching the video version of this, I actually am going
Speaker: in the middle of a move right now so I'll be honest I almost didn't do a podcast because um our whole apartment is filled with boxes literally had nowhere to record this thing but I'm like hey
Speaker: Let's make it work.
Speaker: So I'm in here in a closet recording this.
Speaker: So if the audio sounds different or if you're looking and seeing video of this and looks like I'm in a closet, that's because I'm in a closet doing this podcast coming at you.
Speaker: We're here nonstop Tuesday and Fridays bringing you the heat, bringing you the fire.
Speaker: And the announcements are this.
Speaker: Number one, we have SolarCon coming up.
Speaker: Which is, in my opinion, the best event for solar.
Speaker: For solarpreneurs, that is until we run our own event, which is going to be soon.
Speaker: But SolarCon is an amazing event.
Speaker: It is the second time they are running it.
Speaker: Your boy is going to be there.
Speaker: All the top dogs in solar that I know are going to be there.
Speaker: And if you have not gotten your ticket yet, what are you doing?
Speaker: Go grab it.
Speaker: And if you do decide to grab it, I have an exclusive Solrepreneur discount.
Speaker: All you got to do is put in the promo code SOLREPRENEUR.
Speaker: You're going to get a 40% whopping 40% discount.
Speaker: But make sure you do it soon because that discount expires, I believe, the 10th of March.
Speaker: So at the time of this recording, you've got about 10 days to go grab your ticket.
Speaker: So get on it.
Speaker: Get on it quick.
Speaker: And if you do decide to use our coupon code, I want to give you even more value for deciding to come.
Speaker: So go grab your ticket.
Speaker: Shoot me an email that you're coming and that you use the coupon code.
Speaker: And I'm going to hook you up with free access to our Soul Society program.
Speaker: And we're going to add some more value to you.
Speaker: Shoot me an email.
Speaker: We're going to get you access to that.
Speaker: We're going to get you access to our private solopreneur recording group where we send in our recordings, get feedback from our coaches.
Speaker: So you're not going to want to miss out.
Speaker: Definitely grab your ticket.
Speaker: Enough about SolarCon.
Speaker: And the second thing is, if you are going to the Setter Closer Tour, that's Danny Pesce's event, mentioned on last podcast.
Speaker: I'm going to be there.
Speaker: I'm going to be in LA at that event.
Speaker: They're doing it in, I think, eight or nine different locations.
Speaker: So hit me up if you want the details or Danny Pesce.
Speaker: But that's going to be a great event, too.
Speaker: He's bringing in the top setters, top closers from all these different markets.
Speaker: Let's jump into the topic.
Speaker: So the topic is start making what you're worth.
Speaker: And it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately out here in California, especially.
Speaker: There's so many reps I see that are charging pennies when they should be making a lot more.
Speaker: And don't get me wrong.
Speaker: I'm not saying that we should be overcharging customers.
Speaker: I'm not saying that we should be screwing people over.
Speaker: But I'm saying we should be making healthy commissions.
Speaker: That's why we're all in solar to be making good money, to be making great money.
Speaker: We shouldn't be knocking on doors if we're not making great money.
Speaker: There's easier things to do out there to make 100 grand in a year.
Speaker: We should be making great money.
Speaker: Hey, and so just some specific examples that things that have come up for me that I feel like I've handled well.
Speaker: I had a deal, I think it was a week and a half ago.
Speaker: This guy went to his house, sold him his panels, and actually it was funny.
Speaker: He didn't even want it on his own house.
Speaker: He decided he wanted it on a secondary home that he's going to move into probably in a couple of years.
Speaker: So I'm like, all right, I thought we were meeting about this deal, but let's get it done.
Speaker: So we got him hooked up.
Speaker: I, of course, wasn't at the house he's putting it on, so I couldn't really see the roof condition.
Speaker: I couldn't see the panel, the electric panel outside.
Speaker: So the site survey was done on this house.
Speaker: Turns out he needed a main panel upgrade.
Speaker: And this, of course, out here in California lease costs $2,500, $3,000.
Speaker: It's kind of the standard for it out here.
Speaker: And so what I've done in the past and what I've seen a lot of people do is they just take a hit on this.
Speaker: Some companies cover it.
Speaker: But I decided to go back.
Speaker: I'm like, you know what?
Speaker: Customers should be paying for this.
Speaker: It's his house.
Speaker: He should be getting this done.
Speaker: So I went back, sold them, and I was a little nervous.
Speaker: Is this guy going to cancel if I tell him he's got to pay an extra $3,000 for a main panel upgrade?
Speaker: Called him.
Speaker: He understood.
Speaker: We got it done.
Speaker: He's going to take care of that in cash.
Speaker: We're going to continue the deal how it was originally written up, and he's paying $3,000 out of his pocket to take care of it.
Speaker: And so how many times has it happened where you have...
Speaker: sold an account, something unexpected came up, which by the way, don't have unexpected things come up.
Speaker: If you are a true solopreneur, if you're an expert, then things shouldn't be surprises.
Speaker: You should know how many amps is this electric panel?
Speaker: What's the condition of their roof?
Speaker: And again, I didn't know that because I wasn't at the house, right?
Speaker: It was for a different property, okay?
Speaker: But maybe you're selling virtually, maybe you have situations like this.
Speaker: If at all possible, see if you can figure out how many amps is this panel.
Speaker: Is it going to need a main panel upgrade?
Speaker: What's the roof condition in?
Speaker: And ideally you want to know these things beforehand because it's going to create holds, it's going to make you go back.
Speaker: It's going to make you charge the customer.
Speaker: Sometimes they're going to be upset.
Speaker: So that's, I guess, rule number one.
Speaker: But if they do need these things, go back.
Speaker: Don't be afraid to charge what you're worth.
Speaker: To not just have these things come out of your commission, but have the customer pay for these things.
Speaker: Or if you're going to cover part of it, work out a deal.
Speaker: I had another guy who, this was actually the first time I've ever heard of this.
Speaker: Hit me up if this has happened to you, but I had an account.
Speaker: He was about to get installed.
Speaker: The installer got up on the roof.
Speaker: They started slipping around, falling all over.
Speaker: I don't know if they fell, but started slipping around, and apparently this roof had all this moss up there where they did not want to install it.
Speaker: They said, hey, you got to get this roof cleaned.
Speaker: There's too much moss up there.
Speaker: And so we have to send a roofer out to basically spray down the roof, get the moss off, and make sure it's not too slippery for these guys.
Speaker: First time it's ever happened to me in seven years.
Speaker: And I was shocked.
Speaker: If this has happened to anyone else, it's costing us, I think, $1,200 to do it.
Speaker: This was the cheapest quote we found to go spray some moss off the roof.
Speaker: Apparently it's a bigger project than I thought.
Speaker: They have to like harness themselves up there.
Speaker: There's liability.
Speaker: It's kind of an all day thing.
Speaker: But I was getting rude for just asking for like 2200 bucks to do this.
Speaker: I'm like, wow, I'll get up there myself, get a power spare.
Speaker: But what do I know?
Speaker: That's why we're talking solar, not roofs.
Speaker: But he's, yeah, he's paying for this.
Speaker: But what I did in this instance is I wanted to help this dude out.
Speaker: Like, it's taking a little bit longer.
Speaker: Then he should have.
Speaker: And so use your best judgment.
Speaker: I guess I'm saying don't you don't have to necessarily charge the customer every time for everything.
Speaker: You can have them help out.
Speaker: What I'm doing is I'm paying for half of this roof cleaning.
Speaker: He's paying for the other half.
Speaker: But as I do this, I make sure he knows this is coming out of my commission.
Speaker: This is coming from me.
Speaker: It's not the company covering it.
Speaker: This is coming from me.
Speaker: So I said, hey, Joe, Mr. Customer, I want to help you out with this.
Speaker: I know it's taking a little bit longer.
Speaker: And so what I'd ask, I'm going to go ahead and cover half of it for you.
Speaker: So you're going to pay the remaining $600.
Speaker: What I'd ask is just that if you can refer us to a few friends, if you can give us testimonials, some reviews,
Speaker: That would really help out, and I'd be happy to cover that for you.
Speaker: But do you mind doing that once we go ahead and get this done?
Speaker: He says, sure.
Speaker: So it's always a give and a take.
Speaker: Whatever you're doing, ask and ye shall receive, as the scriptures tell us, right?
Speaker: And so make sure you're not neglecting this in solar.
Speaker: And then the other just kind of thought, sorry, I'm kind of random today, throwing stuff out here.
Speaker: If customers cancel after their three-day ready rescission, every standard contract has the three days, can think about it, do whatever, but if you cancel after that...
Speaker: There should be a consequence.
Speaker: And so I had an account.
Speaker: This was four months ago, maybe.
Speaker: But the installer we were using at the time, not to mention names.
Speaker: Okay, so I'll leave them out of this.
Speaker: But they don't charge the customer for canceling.
Speaker: Apparently, they charge the sales rep for any work that's been done.
Speaker: And then they just deduct it on future installs going in.
Speaker: But I didn't know this at the time.
Speaker: So what I thought was standard, okay, the customer cancels, I'm going to make them pay their cancellation fee.
Speaker: There's got to be consequences.
Speaker: And the reason for that's twofold.
Speaker: I mean, number one, there's a good chance that you save in that account if you actually do go and try to charge them.
Speaker: Because unless they have an extremely valid reason for canceling, which that's very rare for someone to have a good reason to cancel, unless it's like they found out they're moving next week or, I don't know, their husband got cancer or something crazy, death in the immediate family, stuff like that.
Speaker: Okay, I get it.
Speaker: Can't really argue that.
Speaker: But if you have a customer, no reason, makes no logical sense to just call you up and say, hey, we decided we don't want to do this.
Speaker: Two weeks into their contract, there should be consequences for that.
Speaker: People should not just be allowed to cancel whenever they don't want.
Speaker: And so what I did, what I thought was a good idea, what I typically do is first I call the installer and say, hey, can we charge these people a cancellation fee?
Speaker: They said no.
Speaker: They said, no, we don't really do that.
Speaker: We just charge it back to the sales rep.
Speaker: I thought that was ridiculous, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.
Speaker: I create my own invoice.
Speaker: I send it to the customer.
Speaker: I said, hey, we're going to need this from you.
Speaker: There's been work done on this project.
Speaker: Let me know how you want to take care of it.
Speaker: I think I tried to charge him like $600.
Speaker: Nothing insane, but enough that it hopefully hurts a little bit.
Speaker: And this is what I did wrong.
Speaker: I still learned from my mistake too, is I didn't just put me charging cancellation fee.
Speaker: I put that the installation company was charging a cancellation fee.
Speaker: and I sent it to them in a document and I made it look a little official.
Speaker: So this was obviously not the right thing to do.
Speaker: I misrepresented the installation company.
Speaker: The customer called the company and was all pissed off saying, oh, I'm being charged a cancellation fee.
Speaker: What is this?
Speaker: And the installation company tells the customer, we don't do that.
Speaker: Where'd you get that?
Speaker: Basically ends up coming back to me and they're pointing fingers at me saying that I'm trying to charge them this fee.
Speaker: It didn't even come from them.
Speaker: Made me look bad.
Speaker: Was a learning experience.
Speaker: Shouldn't have done it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So that's the first thing.
Speaker: Do not misrepresent.
Speaker: Your company don't be saying one thing and it's not going to happen.
Speaker: But second thing, which I think is more important here is if your company does not charge a cancellation fee or if they don't normally send out invoices, work with your company or figure out how can you charge these customers back?
Speaker: Because if anything, you put time, energy, effort into this.
Speaker: I have gone back.
Speaker: I have collected from customers.
Speaker: And I have at least, you know, I've gotten like 500, 600 here and there from customers that have canceled because like we are worth, our time is worth something.
Speaker: We're not just going, we're not just dropping off quotes.
Speaker: We're not just starting applications.
Speaker: And that's another thing.
Speaker: Make sure your customers know, hey, when we sign this, this is intending to do it.
Speaker: Yeah, obviously you're going to do your takeaway.
Speaker: You're going to do your pullback.
Speaker: There's a chance we might not even get your home approved.
Speaker: But make sure people understand, hey, if you guys decide to cancel after this, after it's been fully approved, then yeah, there is, we do typically charge you for, you're not going to come out and say that, but you're not going to try and like scare people, obviously, but yeah.
Speaker: Just make sure it's clear that like, hey, there is work being done here.
Speaker: If we get your home fully approved and there's work that has taken place, then yeah, we will, you know, charge you for the work that's been done because we're not just here to do.
Speaker: We're a business, right?
Speaker: We're a for-profit organization.
Speaker: So that's, I guess, the end of my stories today.
Speaker: Number one, just like make sure you're getting paid what you're worth.
Speaker: Make sure you're charging a healthy margin, especially if you're in California.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: People save so much money here.
Speaker: Don't overcharge the customer, but make what you're worth.
Speaker: And then number two, have the customers pay their adders.
Speaker: You're not just handing out main panel upgrades.
Speaker: You're not just doing electrical work.
Speaker: You're not just doing roofs for free.
Speaker: And I'm not saying never help out, but if you do, do the give and the take.
Speaker: Give them a little bit.
Speaker: and then have them give you something, make it a win-win.
Speaker: If you're taking from your commission, then the customer can give you a referral.
Speaker: They can give you a testimonial.
Speaker: They can help you create more business, get more business.
Speaker: And number three, don't be afraid to charge these cancellations.
Speaker: I have saved a lot of deals by telling the customers it's going to cost, you know, a thousand bucks to cancel and don't like lie about it.
Speaker: Don't do what I did in the previous story, but
Speaker: Work with your company and make sure there is consequences for people to cancel.
Speaker: Neither collect that money from them or use it as leverage.
Speaker: Preferably use it as leverage to get them to stick with the deal, to stick with solar.
Speaker: Because 99% of the time, solar is a much better choice, much better option.
Speaker: And there should never be a reason to cancel going solar.
Speaker: So that's my little rant, my little story time today.
Speaker: A little bit random, I know, but just had to tell a few stories.
Speaker: Had to get some things off my chest.
Speaker: Hopefully that's helpful to somebody out there.
Speaker: Go make what you're worth.
Speaker: This is an incredible industry.
Speaker: We're all here to make great money, not just average money.
Speaker: Go out there, be great, close deals, and we'll see you at hopefully SolarCon coming up soon.
Speaker: Remember, solar printer is the code for it.
Speaker: And we'll see you maybe at the set or closer tour that's coming up.
Speaker: And we'll see you as well on the next podcast.
Speaker: Peace out.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
Speaker: 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?
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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: And it's called Solcite.
Speaker: This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors and
Speaker: 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 a day.
Speaker: Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
Speaker: So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
