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How To Master The Art Of Referrals - Jonathan Wilson
115 Plays2 years ago
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Taylor's Journey to Solar Sales Success
00:00:03
Speaker
The Solarpreneur Podcast will reteach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
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.
00:00:19
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.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
00:00:33
Speaker
A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to
Introducing Jonathan Wilson
00:00:40
Speaker
become one.
00:00:40
Speaker
Okay, what's up, everybody?
00:00:43
Speaker
We are here, Salt Lake City, Utah, and we've got someone that I've been hitting up for a while, excited to finally have on the podcast.
00:00:50
Speaker
So I'm excited to introduce him here, but a little bit about his story.
00:00:53
Speaker
But Jonathan Wilson is here with us today.
00:00:56
Speaker
Thanks for coming on the podcast, my man.
00:00:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:59
Speaker
It'll be fun.
00:01:00
Speaker
And we're going to be jamming on a lot of stuff.
00:01:02
Speaker
Jonathan, he's been with Sunrun Direct for six years now, right?
00:01:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:07
Speaker
And I've been crushing a lot of deals with him.
00:01:09
Speaker
But this guy, I know he's kind of a pro-J of Matt Crowther.
00:01:14
Speaker
I know you guys work together.
00:01:15
Speaker
And for our listeners, if you remember Matt Crowther, he is kind of known as the referral guy.
00:01:22
Speaker
So I think today, Jonathan, he's implemented a lot of those same things, but sort of developed his own process.
00:01:29
Speaker
Yeah, so we're going to jam on referrals.
00:01:32
Speaker
He's got a cool story.
00:01:33
Speaker
So on, Kawhi Leonard's grandma, I'm excited to hear.
00:01:38
Speaker
But yeah, man, do you want to kind of introduce yourself a little bit more and tell our listeners just your backstory, how you got into solar and all that good stuff?
00:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, I'll go back a little bit here.
Jonathan's Entrepreneurial Beginnings
00:01:46
Speaker
I'll keep it brief.
00:01:47
Speaker
But basically, I was the kid with the lemonade stand.
00:01:49
Speaker
I was the kid who was an entrepreneur from a young age.
00:01:52
Speaker
I started off when I was 14.
00:01:54
Speaker
My uncle Kenny out in Ohio taught me how to do address painting door to door.
00:01:59
Speaker
And so throughout high school, recruited like five different friends that I would just go out with on the weekends and after school late in the evening.
00:02:09
Speaker
And by the time I graduated high school, I had knocked probably close to 10,000 doors already.
00:02:13
Speaker
And so I had a ton of experience, thought it was just something to make a little extra money, never really thought it would be a career.
00:02:17
Speaker
At that time, I didn't know that there was a whole career in industry based around direct-to-home sales.
00:02:23
Speaker
So yeah, I went into college for a little bit, ended up dropping out, realizing I'm a salesperson.
00:02:28
Speaker
You don't really need to go to school to be a salesperson, right?
00:02:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:02:32
Speaker
And, yeah, I got into, started my own company, gutter cleaning company, actually, out in Ohio.
00:02:38
Speaker
Recruited a few friends, went out, built that for about a year, built it to six figures.
00:02:43
Speaker
But it was kind of boring, to be honest.
00:02:46
Speaker
You're selling $150 gutter cleans.
00:02:48
Speaker
It was kind of like I got
Transition to Energy Auditing
00:02:50
Speaker
bored fast.
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker
So I got an opportunity when I was 20 to fly back to California, which that's a whole story I'll skip, but basically flew back to California to take an opportunity as an energy auditor for a home performance company.
00:03:06
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:03:06
Speaker
So I have a really extensive background in home energy auditing and efficiency.
00:03:10
Speaker
That's another thing that I would say that makes me unique in the solar space.
00:03:14
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:03:15
Speaker
Got BPI certified, which is basically a building analyst.
00:03:18
Speaker
Less than 1% of contractors have it.
00:03:19
Speaker
I can, you know, do...
00:03:21
Speaker
Duck blaster, blower door, infrared camera, all these types of kind of comprehensive energy tests.
00:03:27
Speaker
And so I would go into usually two homes a day and spend four to six hours in each home testing the home and reviewed over a thousand different homes, energy efficiency, and really became familiar with, you know, utility bill disaggregations, heating and cooling load versus baseload energy, a lot of really...
00:03:44
Speaker
intimate things about how your home works.
00:03:46
Speaker
Right.
00:03:47
Speaker
And, um, and then, yeah, basically transitioned in 2014 pretty quickly, about less than a year into in-home sales.
Success in Energy Sales
00:03:56
Speaker
What happened there was my boss at the time, he came in at 6am and saw me there making calls.
00:04:01
Speaker
And he said, what are you doing?
00:04:01
Speaker
You don't start for another couple hours.
00:04:03
Speaker
And I said, well, it's 9am in Ohio and I have a team of guys out there still cleaning gutters for me.
00:04:08
Speaker
And he's like, well, I thought you closed your business.
00:04:10
Speaker
And I said, no, no offense, but this energy auditing job is not paying my bills.
00:04:15
Speaker
And so he said, well, what about getting into sales with us?
00:04:18
Speaker
And I said, sure, a sale is a sale.
00:04:21
Speaker
So I created, I've always been a person that, you know, as a entrepreneur, I create my own opportunities.
00:04:26
Speaker
And so they didn't have an opening for a consultant at that time.
00:04:30
Speaker
But I asked him, I said, what are you guys charging for these energy audits?
00:04:33
Speaker
You know, we're spending a lot of company resources.
00:04:35
Speaker
And he said, oh, we give those out for free.
00:04:38
Speaker
And I said, for free?
00:04:40
Speaker
I said, we're spending four to six hours in somebody's home with $10,000 of testing equipment and we're doing it for free?
00:04:46
Speaker
And he said, oh yeah, we make money on the back end.
00:04:48
Speaker
I said, well, how about this?
00:04:49
Speaker
We need to get these customers with some skin in the game.
00:04:52
Speaker
So how about we just start charging a minimal fee just to see if they're actually serious of, you know, 99 bucks or 150, just something small.
00:04:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:00
Speaker
And so he said, okay, well, I'm open to that.
00:05:02
Speaker
We've got a lot of leads.
00:05:02
Speaker
We were doing a lot of Angie's List and Home Advisor and all that kind of stuff.
00:05:05
Speaker
So just lots of volume, but low quality.
00:05:08
Speaker
And so the first week I made calls, sold a little over $1,500 in audits.
Record-Breaking Sales Achievements
00:05:14
Speaker
I told him I wanted at least 25% of the commission.
00:05:17
Speaker
And in the first month, sold over $4,000 in energy audits and made an extra $1,000, which for me at the time, I was just about to turn 21.
00:05:26
Speaker
And I was like,
00:05:27
Speaker
This is good money.
00:05:28
Speaker
Not bad.
00:05:30
Speaker
He got me into the residential space shortly thereafter, actually selling the whole house retrofits.
00:05:36
Speaker
And he said, well, this is a way bigger sale than an energy audit sale.
00:05:38
Speaker
So you're selling 40, 50, 60 K energy retrofits, right?
00:05:42
Speaker
HVAC systems and all that.
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:45
Speaker
So he trained me for about a month or so.
00:05:47
Speaker
And then one night I remember he goes, you know, I am I'm just tired of I can't go out.
00:05:54
Speaker
We had a Santa Ana close and it was 7 p.m.
00:05:56
Speaker
and he didn't want to go out there.
00:05:58
Speaker
So he's like, you know, just call me if you need me.
00:05:59
Speaker
It was my first at bat.
00:06:02
Speaker
So I pull up to this guy's house, right?
00:06:03
Speaker
It's four story house.
00:06:05
Speaker
Still to this day, I've never been in a four story house.
00:06:09
Speaker
Huge house at the top of the hill in Santa Ana.
00:06:12
Speaker
And I remember super nervous.
00:06:15
Speaker
Like I was shaking and I was so like, you know, really nervous.
00:06:17
Speaker
Right.
00:06:17
Speaker
And I'm, you know, 20 years old at the time.
00:06:20
Speaker
I go in and I pitch the guy, do about an hour long presentation, give him a really detailed breakdown.
00:06:27
Speaker
I remember his name is Steve.
00:06:28
Speaker
He sits back and goes, Jonathan, you know how I paid for all this house and lifestyle you see?
00:06:32
Speaker
He goes, I'm a commercial roof salesperson.
00:06:34
Speaker
I sell two or three roofs a year and it affords me all of this that you see.
00:06:38
Speaker
And he said, how do I get that job?
00:06:41
Speaker
And he goes, this is the best sales presentation I've ever heard.
00:06:44
Speaker
I want to do everything.
00:06:46
Speaker
It was a $75,000 sale as my first sale.
00:06:47
Speaker
What?
00:06:50
Speaker
I then said, please excuse me.
00:06:51
Speaker
I stepped outside, called my boss and said, I don't know how to fill out the contract paper.
00:06:57
Speaker
So he's scheduled a time for me to come back and with my boss and we fill up the paperwork and this guy's telling my boss how great I am.
00:07:06
Speaker
So he goes, okay, we're going to give you a shot at this consulting position.
00:07:09
Speaker
Within the first six months, I broke the company record and sold over a quarter million in energy retrofits in one month of November of 2014.
00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, remember?
00:07:19
Speaker
So yeah, I got into that, then started selling.
00:07:22
Speaker
We would do retrofits.
00:07:22
Speaker
Then we started doing solar.
Founding Go Green and Joining Vivint Solar
00:07:24
Speaker
Around that time, I would say probably like early 2015 is when I started selling solar.
00:07:29
Speaker
And to be honest with you, at that time, it was about one in 20 jobs, about 5% or so of our jobs.
00:07:34
Speaker
We would add solar.
00:07:35
Speaker
So we would.
00:07:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:36
Speaker
retrofit it, sell the HVAC installation, make it efficient, and then say, hey, we'll put on a small two or three kilowatt system to help.
00:07:44
Speaker
Back then, we used to do what's called peak power shaving for any of the OGs in the industry.
00:07:50
Speaker
We would sell systems that were just to get rid of those top tiers of energy, and they would just buy back tier one.
00:07:56
Speaker
So anyways, I got into that and then did that, sold a little over $5 million in energy retrofits plus solar.
00:08:03
Speaker
And then in 2018, decided to venture off, start my own company called Go Green, which I still have to this day.
00:08:10
Speaker
That's my entity.
00:08:11
Speaker
And Go Green, I was doing sales, but it really wasn't good enough to pay my bills and actually keep up.
00:08:18
Speaker
And so I started looking for a solar opportunity.
00:08:21
Speaker
I got super lucky.
00:08:22
Speaker
found out about Vivint Solar two months after BlackRock acquired them.
00:08:29
Speaker
So this is now April 2018.
00:08:30
Speaker
And yeah, man, the rest is kind of history from there.
00:08:34
Speaker
I started building referrals right off the bat off of a lot of my old energy retrofit customers.
00:08:38
Speaker
I kind of went back to those old customers and said, hey, there's a new program.
00:08:40
Speaker
You can get solar.
00:08:41
Speaker
We've already made your house efficient, right?
00:08:43
Speaker
And at that time, I had probably 400 or 500 retrofit customers that I had accumulated over the past four and a half years.
00:08:50
Speaker
Nice.
00:08:51
Speaker
So I just pulled on that.
00:08:54
Speaker
And then I've been doing referrals ever since I started.
00:08:57
Speaker
On the Vivint culture, it wasn't popular.
00:09:01
Speaker
In fact, I was told by leadership to kind of keep your mouth shut.
00:09:03
Speaker
Right.
00:09:05
Speaker
And like, oh, that's going to camp.
00:09:06
Speaker
Don't ask for referrals.
00:09:07
Speaker
Deals will cancel and stuff like that.
00:09:08
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of fear at that time.
00:09:11
Speaker
And I remember I met Matt Crowther and he told me about his referral program.
00:09:15
Speaker
And we were sitting at Cafe Rio and
00:09:17
Speaker
And we're eating with the team and he starts telling me about his referral program.
00:09:19
Speaker
And I remember I just met him and I looked at him and I said, Matthew, you made me tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars off what you're teaching me right now.
00:09:27
Speaker
That's cool.
00:09:27
Speaker
Because I saw it right away.
00:09:29
Speaker
And I started doing it and I've been 100% referral ever since.
00:09:32
Speaker
You know, full disclosure, I'm not like some crazy high performer.
00:09:35
Speaker
I average about 40 installs a year, but it's all 100% referral.
Adopting a Referral-Based Sales Model
00:09:39
Speaker
I haven't knocked any doors.
00:09:40
Speaker
So it's awesome.
00:09:41
Speaker
I would say if you're out there knocking doors, maybe take what I'm going to talk about today and see if you can add an extra 30 or 40 installs a year just based upon referrals.
00:09:49
Speaker
It's nice.
00:09:50
Speaker
I don't really work a lot.
00:09:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:52
Speaker
Well, that's like I think what most people dream of is like, you know, especially when you have wife, kids and all that.
00:09:58
Speaker
Like I'm always looking for ways to do more referrals.
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:02
Speaker
Like as much as people say they love knocking on doors.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:05
Speaker
I think like if you told anyone, hey, why not knock doors, but get an extra 30, 40 installs on top of that just by building out a referral system.
00:10:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:13
Speaker
It's like, why wouldn't you do that?
00:10:15
Speaker
Well, it was kind of funny because once COVID hit in 2020, all of a sudden everybody started coming to me.
00:10:21
Speaker
Yeah, it went from 360 from everybody from leadership being like, hey, man, keep your mouth shut about it.
00:10:27
Speaker
We just want our guys knocking doors.
00:10:28
Speaker
No offense, like do what you're going to do.
00:10:29
Speaker
But we don't want you to kind of mess up the culture of door knocking in the office.
00:10:33
Speaker
That's OK.
00:10:33
Speaker
That's fair.
00:10:33
Speaker
I get it.
00:10:35
Speaker
And then 2020 hit and that's really all we could do.
00:10:38
Speaker
And so it was neat to kind of be able to shine during that time.
00:10:41
Speaker
And now referrals are a regular part of our office trainings and part of the culture.
00:10:46
Speaker
So, yeah, I hope we can get into that today.
00:10:48
Speaker
Yeah, no, for sure.
00:10:49
Speaker
And I'm excited to hear your take on it.
00:10:50
Speaker
But yeah, I know, you know, Matt's, you know, I know other guys from your office, too.
00:10:56
Speaker
That's like crushed a ton of referrals.
00:10:59
Speaker
At least they tell me, you know, some people can talk and all that.
00:11:01
Speaker
I would say our top guy, Louis Gutierrez, I'll shout him out.
00:11:05
Speaker
Love you, Louis.
00:11:06
Speaker
We call him Louis the legend.
00:11:07
Speaker
He did.
00:11:08
Speaker
So do the numbers here with me.
00:11:10
Speaker
He got 1.6 million in commission last year, all off referrals.
00:11:15
Speaker
He max rated every single person he sold
Building Referral Partnerships
00:11:18
Speaker
with an average commission of 20K per deal.
00:11:20
Speaker
He sold 79 installs and made 1.6 million.
00:11:23
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:11:26
Speaker
He's kind of perfected it.
00:11:28
Speaker
Him, Matt and myself are the top three referral people in our office.
00:11:32
Speaker
And so, you know, we kind of train the guys as they come in of how to start building that.
00:11:36
Speaker
And
00:11:37
Speaker
A lot of the stuff, I don't want to be too redundant, right?
00:11:39
Speaker
Because I know Matt's been on here and you probably had other guys that have talked about referrals.
00:11:43
Speaker
And so, yeah, let's talk about some kind of maybe differences that I do that are different from other people.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah, let's do it for sure.
00:11:50
Speaker
And yeah, we'll post, for those that haven't listened to it, we will post Matt's podcast in the show notes so you can go in.
00:11:56
Speaker
So I mean, that's a good episode.
00:11:57
Speaker
And this will kind of build off of a lot of things that he talked about.
00:12:01
Speaker
But yeah, before we get into that, just a couple of things I heard you say.
00:12:05
Speaker
It's really cool how you talked about how you took from your previous customers, previous people you served, and then you just added solar onto that.
00:12:14
Speaker
So I think that's a big mistake I made is like I started, I didn't have previous, you know, energy out of job like that.
00:12:22
Speaker
But even all the leads I'd got,
00:12:24
Speaker
For my first two, three years in solar, I didn't keep track of any of them.
00:12:28
Speaker
I didn't stay in touch with any of my cells.
00:12:31
Speaker
I came from pest control, so I just thought it was like, you sell them, you never talk to them again.
00:12:35
Speaker
Just go knock more doors.
00:12:37
Speaker
I think that's huge.
00:12:39
Speaker
Maybe you are, whoever's listening, maybe you're in a background where you had previous customers, previous home service, or maybe you're just knocking doors for solar.
00:12:47
Speaker
I think that's a good principle to build off of, keep track of the people you talk to and
00:12:52
Speaker
CRM, just keep track of those leads.
00:12:55
Speaker
So for you, did you store them?
00:12:56
Speaker
Did you have like a CRM or something?
00:12:58
Speaker
Just a spreadsheet.
00:12:59
Speaker
Yeah, I took from Matt.
00:13:01
Speaker
Matt does spreadsheets too.
00:13:02
Speaker
So we're both kind of, you know, I just copied his system in that way.
00:13:05
Speaker
But I will say that's what I loved about solar versus other stuff I've sold.
00:13:11
Speaker
Because that was the same way I used to sell energy retrofits.
00:13:13
Speaker
And usually once it's sold, that was kind of it.
00:13:18
Speaker
And I love that the solar space provided an opportunity for genuine long term relationships.
00:13:23
Speaker
And I still believe that wholeheartedly.
00:13:24
Speaker
I think that's what's, you know, kind of built this foundation of customers that is really just going to keep growing indefinitely as long as I keep nurturing it.
00:13:34
Speaker
So, yeah, another thing I'll say, too, is that any of the listeners who even come from a background, but also let's say you you're trying to get referral partners that are contractors.
00:13:44
Speaker
So like one of my favorite referral partners, I've partnered with two different roofing companies in Southern California.
00:13:49
Speaker
where they don't really want to bog down their roofing sales guys with a whole other product that they don't really know about.
00:13:56
Speaker
And they know that I close at a high enough conversion that it's more beneficial to just send me the business and I split the commission with them.
00:14:04
Speaker
And so I would say I'll just give you guys a quick script that you can apply to any industry.
00:14:10
Speaker
It's real simple.
00:14:11
Speaker
There's two steps to it.
00:14:12
Speaker
I like to keep it super simple.
00:14:14
Speaker
The first step is whatever the product or service is,
00:14:19
Speaker
The company calls, let's say, a representative from that company.
00:14:22
Speaker
Hey, this is Jonathan from so-and-so roofing company.
00:14:25
Speaker
I just wanted to call and check in on you guys and see how your roof's been working out for you.
00:14:29
Speaker
We've had some rains recently.
00:14:30
Speaker
Have you guys noticed any leaks or anything like that?
00:14:33
Speaker
They're going to be most of the time, no, right?
00:14:35
Speaker
Oh, no, it's been great.
00:14:36
Speaker
We've loved the roof.
00:14:37
Speaker
It's been great.
00:14:37
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:14:38
Speaker
Cool.
00:14:39
Speaker
Hey, the second reason why I'm calling is that I wanted to let you know about a program that you
Tiered Referral System and Incentives
00:14:44
Speaker
might be eligible for since you've gotten a roof in the past five years.
00:14:47
Speaker
So there's actually a new program available for solar.
00:14:51
Speaker
Have you guys ever looked into it?
00:14:52
Speaker
Right.
00:14:53
Speaker
A lot of times people are going to say, yeah, we have or yeah, we don't.
00:14:55
Speaker
We're not interested.
00:14:56
Speaker
They're going to give all the common objections.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:59
Speaker
No, totally.
00:14:59
Speaker
I get it.
00:14:59
Speaker
That's why we're actually calling you, because in the past you could only buy or lease the panels.
00:15:04
Speaker
There's actually a new third option available.
00:15:06
Speaker
It's called a power purchase agreement.
00:15:07
Speaker
Have you guys heard about it?
00:15:09
Speaker
most people are going to say no to that.
00:15:11
Speaker
I always joke a lot of people, my customers who have a PPA think it's a lease, even if I told them a million times.
00:15:19
Speaker
They don't know.
00:15:21
Speaker
That's good.
00:15:21
Speaker
That gives you an opportunity to educate them and become the expert.
00:15:26
Speaker
Basically from there, I just transition and say, hey, great.
00:15:29
Speaker
Well, that's what we're doing.
00:15:30
Speaker
We're actually scheduling free consultations to see if your home might be eligible for a reduced power bill.
00:15:35
Speaker
And so it's really simple.
00:15:36
Speaker
All I need from you is to send me a copy of your most recent Edison statement.
00:15:40
Speaker
Do you get that paper online?
00:15:43
Speaker
Okay, great.
00:15:43
Speaker
After we hop off this phone call, I'm going to send you a text message and then just do me a favor, respond with the utility bill attached.
00:15:50
Speaker
I'll also put my email if you want to send it via email.
00:15:54
Speaker
And then we'll go ahead and schedule a time for one of our consultants to come out and spend at least 30, 40 minutes with you.
00:15:59
Speaker
Just see if it's a good fit or not.
00:16:00
Speaker
If not, no worries, but we just wanted to give you that opportunity.
00:16:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:16:05
Speaker
So that's the basic pitch, right?
00:16:06
Speaker
And you can do that for roofing, for pretty much any kind of contracting or, you know, past alarm, right?
00:16:11
Speaker
Hey, how's your service?
00:16:13
Speaker
And then just transition into the offer.
00:16:15
Speaker
That's good.
00:16:15
Speaker
That's good.
00:16:16
Speaker
So are you telling your referral partners, you're giving them that script and telling them to call their customers with it?
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah, I don't like it.
00:16:24
Speaker
I found I've done that where people say, oh, I have a huge list of people and they try to give me a list.
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:30
Speaker
I basically say, no, you have to earn this referral money, right?
00:16:33
Speaker
It's not a free money.
00:16:34
Speaker
Like you actually have to put in the work, but I'll help coach you.
00:16:37
Speaker
So that's my job, right?
00:16:38
Speaker
Is to coach you on what to say and how to overcome some of these initial objections and then just get the appointments set for me.
00:16:45
Speaker
And then I give them my Calendly link where it has, they can actually schedule directly onto my calendar for me.
00:16:51
Speaker
So when they're talking to the customer, they can schedule and book on my calendar.
00:16:54
Speaker
Oh, smart.
00:16:55
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:16:56
Speaker
That's cool, man.
00:16:57
Speaker
So how do you approach these companies?
00:16:59
Speaker
Do you just cold call these companies and say, hey, are you interested in setting up some sort of partnership or what's the best way to approach them?
00:17:08
Speaker
I don't.
00:17:08
Speaker
I think that there probably is people who do that and probably have a lot of success.
00:17:11
Speaker
I haven't done that at all.
00:17:13
Speaker
I've actually, my entire six years, past six years, every single connection I have...
00:17:18
Speaker
came from somebody who was already a customer or just we had some kind of a relationship.
00:17:24
Speaker
And then I asked for a connection.
00:17:27
Speaker
So I said, hey, do you know anybody who's in the roofing space to a customer?
00:17:32
Speaker
Right.
00:17:32
Speaker
And then they'll say, you know, it's a customer.
00:17:34
Speaker
Obviously, I have really good rapport with where I'm just like buddies and friends.
00:17:38
Speaker
And I can ask for that.
00:17:39
Speaker
And they say, oh, yeah, you know, actually, I have somebody in the roofing space or I have somebody in this space.
00:17:43
Speaker
And then I go from there.
00:17:46
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, I've never cold called a company and tried to do it that way, but you probably could.
00:17:51
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool.
00:17:53
Speaker
That's cool.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, well, so because I know some people have those referral partnerships, but yeah, probably don't coach them up, probably don't set it up the best way.
00:18:03
Speaker
So when they give you these referrals, do you tell them, hey, we're just going to split the commission or what's like your... How do I do it?
00:18:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:11
Speaker
So I have three tiers of partnerships.
00:18:14
Speaker
So I would say about 90% of my customers, I just do a thousand dollar referral fee, which is kind of the industry standard.
00:18:21
Speaker
So that's nothing special.
00:18:23
Speaker
But then if I find somebody who is kind of one of those five percenters or people that I think could be more than just a one or two time referral, and they actually, so typically what I'm looking for is people who are in or moving towards retirement.
00:18:38
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:18:39
Speaker
I found those people are the best.
00:18:40
Speaker
They've got a lot of time.
00:18:41
Speaker
All their friends and family are homeowners generally.
00:18:45
Speaker
They want some extra income on top of their whatever social security, whatever they're making.
00:18:49
Speaker
And so those are the people that I'm typically looking for and saying, hey, you know, do you want to be a partner where you can make more than a thousand dollars?
00:18:59
Speaker
And I attach work and kind of effort behind it.
00:19:03
Speaker
So like if you give me a name and a number or put me in a group text, like I ask, then I'll give you a thousand bucks for the introduction.
00:19:10
Speaker
If you get their utility bill for me and you schedule the appointment, I will give you 30%.
00:19:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:19
Speaker
I like that.
00:19:20
Speaker
Making them put them to work.
00:19:22
Speaker
So put them to work because then it makes it more real.
00:19:23
Speaker
Like they actually have to do something to get that 30% because that's how it works in business, right?
00:19:28
Speaker
You know, they got to put in the effort if they're going to make two or three grand on average per deal instead of a thousand.
00:19:33
Speaker
That's a lot extra.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:35
Speaker
So I have right now I have about six or seven people that are at that level.
00:19:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:42
Speaker
And then I have four people right now that are at a 50-50 split.
00:19:45
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:19:47
Speaker
So these are people who are contractors who already sell things like roofs or very similar products and have the ability to sell solar themselves and so could directly compete with me if they wanted to.
00:20:00
Speaker
But I just say, look, I'm going to close at a higher rate.
00:20:03
Speaker
We're both going to make more money if you just send them directly to me and we'll just split it 50-50.
00:20:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:07
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:20:09
Speaker
Right.
00:20:10
Speaker
That's cool.
00:20:10
Speaker
So do you have them give you a couple referrals before you kind of introduce this 30%?
00:20:16
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:16
Speaker
Because, yeah, imagine like if you're like everyone's going to want the 30 percent.
00:20:20
Speaker
But I'm like, right.
00:20:22
Speaker
So I should tell them a thousand and then maybe they'll give you a couple.
00:20:26
Speaker
Then you'll approach them again and say, hey, it looks like you're doing, you know, people.
00:20:30
Speaker
That's exactly how I do it.
00:20:31
Speaker
And this year, I would say my biggest focus for the beginning of 2024 is I want to get to a dozen.
00:20:39
Speaker
So basically double my 30 percent referral category of, you know, of
00:20:44
Speaker
partners and then stay in consistent communication with them.
00:20:49
Speaker
And this has been a problem that I've struggled with is where like you get some referrals, you kind of communicate and maybe you lose touch for a month or something like that.
00:20:56
Speaker
Right.
00:20:57
Speaker
And then the momentum kind of dies.
00:21:00
Speaker
And so for me, my focus this year is to just be more consistent with my communications and then also making more offers and kind of leveling up some of these people who've given me a few referrals who could become 30% partners.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:12
Speaker
And then sitting with them at lunch and casting a little bit of vision for what's possible for how much extra income they could make.
00:21:18
Speaker
So my biggest referral partner last year made $60,000.
00:21:21
Speaker
So not bad, right?
00:21:25
Speaker
And so I basically show people like, hey, look, I have three people who are making $30,000 to $60,000.
00:21:32
Speaker
And if you want to make an extra $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, that's totally doable.
00:21:35
Speaker
And here's how we're going to do it.
00:21:37
Speaker
And then I coach them.
00:21:38
Speaker
And I basically give them essentially what the equivalent to like a door pitch would be, but I do it, everything over the phone.
00:21:44
Speaker
So it's the same process.
00:21:46
Speaker
And, you know, I say, look, you know, kind of the three steps that I make a simple form.
00:21:50
Speaker
I say like the first thing is, and this is my favorite one liner that I, I think I, I don't know if I got it from somewhere I created it, whatever, but it just, it works.
00:21:58
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:21:59
Speaker
I say, let's say you're the homeowner.
00:22:01
Speaker
I would say, hey, Taylor, just so you know, when you reach out to your friends and family, they're going to have the same questions and concerns that you had before you met me.
00:22:10
Speaker
Right.
00:22:11
Speaker
It's a kind of an obvious statement.
00:22:13
Speaker
But really what it's doing is it's saying there's going to be objections.
00:22:16
Speaker
There's going to be concerns.
00:22:18
Speaker
So be expecting that.
00:22:21
Speaker
So because a lot of times I think people in the industry, they ask for referrals, they get a referral.
00:22:26
Speaker
It's a low quality referral.
00:22:27
Speaker
It doesn't convert.
00:22:28
Speaker
It never goes anywhere.
00:22:30
Speaker
They never get an appointment set or even a utility bill.
00:22:33
Speaker
And so kind of what I've focused on is how do I increase the percentage of my customers that are referral partners and then the quality of those referrals.
00:22:43
Speaker
Because in the early days, I found out, I think it was December 2018, I got over 100 referrals in the month of December.
00:22:50
Speaker
But they were crap.
00:22:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's my problem.
00:22:53
Speaker
It's tough to find the needle in the haystack sometimes.
00:22:59
Speaker
It is.
00:22:59
Speaker
And I think it can be almost honestly as time consuming as knocking doors if you're doing it the wrong way.
00:23:06
Speaker
And I think a lot of people don't know that.
00:23:07
Speaker
I think, oh, this is great.
00:23:08
Speaker
This guy just gets referrals all the time and he's just closing every single person.
00:23:11
Speaker
It's like, no, I struggle with the same stuff everybody else does.
00:23:14
Speaker
But I try to be more strategic to go, okay, well, how can I get, for instance, the customer?
00:23:20
Speaker
I found names and numbers aren't what I want.
00:23:22
Speaker
So I don't ask for that ever.
00:23:24
Speaker
Okay.
00:23:24
Speaker
What I say to my customer or my partner is I say, hey, I don't want to be that guy who cold calls your friends and family.
00:23:31
Speaker
Trust me, like I've got better things to do with my time.
00:23:34
Speaker
What I found is more effective is if you just get permission to put me in a group text message and introduce me over text.
00:23:39
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:23:40
Speaker
So what does that do?
00:23:41
Speaker
Takes off the pressure, accountability, now they have to respond because their friend or family member is on the text with me.
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:48
Speaker
Right?
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's fire.
00:23:50
Speaker
So now they're in a group text.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:53
Speaker
Right?
00:23:53
Speaker
And so from there, that increases the likelihood you're actually going to even have a conversation.
00:23:57
Speaker
Right.
00:23:58
Speaker
And then it's real simple.
00:23:59
Speaker
My sales approach is very laid back, right?
00:24:03
Speaker
And so I just jump on the text after they introduce me and say, hey, thanks for the referral.
00:24:06
Speaker
Super appreciate it.
00:24:08
Speaker
Hey, so-and-so, when's a good time to hop on a quick five-minute phone call so I can kind of explain some of the basics to you?
00:24:13
Speaker
That's it.
00:24:14
Speaker
Real simple.
00:24:15
Speaker
You know, two, three sentences.
00:24:16
Speaker
And then...
00:24:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:18
Speaker
And then they'll say, oh, I'm working and I'll be off at six.
00:24:20
Speaker
Call me, you know, call me after six.
00:24:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:22
Speaker
Perfect.
00:24:22
Speaker
I'll call you then.
00:24:22
Speaker
Thumbs up.
00:24:23
Speaker
Nice.
00:24:24
Speaker
Sweet.
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:25
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:26
Speaker
That's cool.
00:24:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:27
Speaker
No, I like that you simplify it all and all that.
00:24:30
Speaker
Cause yeah, that's, I was telling Matt this too.
00:24:32
Speaker
And we did the podcast.
00:24:33
Speaker
It's like, I did the whole, you know, cut co thing where you take out the list.
00:24:36
Speaker
It's like, okay, right.
00:24:38
Speaker
I'll write everyone you can think of.
00:24:39
Speaker
Give me at least 10 names, numbers.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yep.
00:24:41
Speaker
And I would get so stoked that I just got some of these people, even 15 sometimes.
00:24:46
Speaker
Like, oh my gosh, this has got to be at least like five sales.
00:24:49
Speaker
It's as good as a cold call, man.
00:24:51
Speaker
And then it's like you call them, half of them are renters, you know, and then the other half doesn't even pick up.
00:24:57
Speaker
and there's no accountability right and the problem is is that you have to be able to kind of infuse accountability with the person who's referring you in a good way right not like you're their boss or something right but it's in a way where it's like hey i want to make sure you can get as many thousand dollar checks as possible so what i found that makes you more effective is instead of just giving me a name and a number do me a favor
00:25:21
Speaker
Talk to them a little bit about it.
00:25:22
Speaker
Stay out of the weeds.
00:25:23
Speaker
Just say, hey, there's a new program you're not buying, you're not leasing.
00:25:26
Speaker
It's a really cool program.
00:25:28
Speaker
I want to introduce you to Jonathan over text if that's cool with you.
00:25:31
Speaker
Usually people are going to say yes just because they don't want to say no to their friend or family.
00:25:36
Speaker
And it's an easy yes because it's a text.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's good.
00:25:41
Speaker
So do you kind of like maybe get the names and follow up with them or do you just say, hey, have the conversation and then I'm going to talk to you later about it?
00:25:48
Speaker
Exactly.
00:25:49
Speaker
That's the key.
00:25:49
Speaker
It's always in the follow up is.
00:25:51
Speaker
So what do you do is after you get in the group text, you do the phone call, you make the attempt to schedule the appointment.
00:25:58
Speaker
A lot of times if you just get on the call and you're good at the phone pitch and which is the door pitch.
00:26:03
Speaker
I don't want to confuse that.
00:26:04
Speaker
It's really simple.
00:26:06
Speaker
Hey, did they tell you about the program at all?
00:26:08
Speaker
No.
00:26:08
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:26:09
Speaker
Here's the problem.
00:26:09
Speaker
Here's the solution.
00:26:10
Speaker
Do a pullback takeaway.
00:26:12
Speaker
And then the transition is basically my soft close is what city are you in?
00:26:17
Speaker
Are you in the same city as your friend, you know, Highland, whatever city?
00:26:20
Speaker
And they go, actually, no, I live in the city next door.
00:26:22
Speaker
I live, you know, I live a little further away.
00:26:23
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:26:24
Speaker
What city?
00:26:24
Speaker
Oh, there.
00:26:25
Speaker
Okay, great.
00:26:25
Speaker
Let me look at my schedule here.
00:26:27
Speaker
And then I always schedule the appointment within a 48 hour window.
00:26:30
Speaker
That's a key to it.
00:26:32
Speaker
Right.
00:26:32
Speaker
So just, hey, you know what?
00:26:33
Speaker
I'm actually going to be in the area around this time tomorrow evening.
00:26:36
Speaker
Are you going to be around this time?
00:26:38
Speaker
OK, perfect.
00:26:39
Speaker
So I'll just swing by to be 20, 30 minutes before.
00:26:41
Speaker
After we hop off this call, I'm just going to have you text me a copy of your most recent Edison bill.
00:26:45
Speaker
Just it'll save us some time in the initial meeting so I can have some numbers prepared for you.
00:26:50
Speaker
And and that's it.
00:26:51
Speaker
Schedule the appointment.
00:26:52
Speaker
And then the key, like I said, this year for me is follow up communication.
00:26:56
Speaker
So, for instance, and I've done this before and it works well, but it's just more of a discipline thing.
00:27:03
Speaker
So I'll then text, hop off the phone, text the person who referred me privately and say, hey, I just talked to so-and-so.
00:27:09
Speaker
They seemed pretty interested.
00:27:10
Speaker
I scheduled an appointment for tomorrow.
00:27:12
Speaker
They're sending me their bill tonight.
00:27:14
Speaker
Thanks for the referral.
00:27:15
Speaker
Boom.
00:27:15
Speaker
Nice.
00:27:16
Speaker
Right?
00:27:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:17
Speaker
And then basically throughout the process, as they move through to permitting and install, you just give a little text communications to the partner.
00:27:23
Speaker
Because then they're constantly thinking of you.
00:27:25
Speaker
And then they're like, oh, wait, wow, this is actually happening.
00:27:28
Speaker
More people.
00:27:29
Speaker
I'm going to get a thousand bucks.
00:27:30
Speaker
Now, who else can I think of?
00:27:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:32
Speaker
No, that's good.
00:27:33
Speaker
And so I always say the most important referral is the first referral because once they see the money in their hand, then they go, you know what?
00:27:39
Speaker
I could talk to some more people about this.
00:27:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:42
Speaker
That's good.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:43
Speaker
And I think it's kind of like, you know, just a setter too.
00:27:47
Speaker
I see some closers, they get, they close a deal for their setter and then the setter never hears it.
00:27:51
Speaker
hears from him again.
00:27:52
Speaker
It's like the deal's going through or whatever.
00:27:55
Speaker
All the time.
00:27:55
Speaker
Same concept.
00:27:56
Speaker
I know.
00:27:56
Speaker
It's like the same thing.
00:27:57
Speaker
You got to keep these people motivated and then if they hear, it's like, okay.
00:28:00
Speaker
Because that's basically what these referral partners, they're all just, they're a bunch of setters.
00:28:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:04
Speaker
Right.
00:28:05
Speaker
And they're just not knocking.
00:28:06
Speaker
They're just calling their network.
00:28:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:08
Speaker
Right.
00:28:10
Speaker
But yeah, I'm excited to tell you about my, my rockstar referral partner.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:14
Speaker
No, I'm excited.
00:28:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:16
Speaker
Well, before I forget, and I'm sure I'll think of more questions too, but with like tax purposes, how do you deal with that?
00:28:22
Speaker
So I do 1099.
00:28:24
Speaker
So I tell them I'm going to W9 them.
00:28:26
Speaker
So after I give them their first check, I give them a W9 form.
00:28:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:28:30
Speaker
And then I 1099 them because I'm not paying the taxes on that.
00:28:34
Speaker
Some people do cash and don't record it.
00:28:38
Speaker
I don't want to pay taxes on all that extra income.
00:28:42
Speaker
Especially if you're paying out like 30% commissions.
00:28:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:48
Speaker
And maybe with a thousand, it's not a huge deal.
00:28:50
Speaker
But, yeah, if I'm doing over $1,000, 100%.
00:28:52
Speaker
Like $60,000 that you paid out?
00:28:55
Speaker
No, that's insane.
00:28:56
Speaker
You better W-9.
00:28:57
Speaker
I'm W-9ing all those people.
00:29:00
Speaker
So, for sure do that.
00:29:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:02
Speaker
And then the other thing before I forget.
00:29:05
Speaker
So, with your people that you already sold, does it ever get like, you know, because obviously once you bump them up to 30% commission, maybe there's some people you just sold at max rate or whatever, and then they're finding out how much commission is...
Commission Transparency with Partners
00:29:19
Speaker
Like in the deal and all that, does that ever cause any like friction or be like, oh, well, you made this this much when you sold me my system or anything like that?
00:29:27
Speaker
You know, no, actually.
00:29:29
Speaker
And I think part of that's because I don't really max rate very often.
00:29:34
Speaker
So I don't ever do low rate either.
00:29:36
Speaker
I would say my average when I would say my average commission this last year was $8,000.
00:29:42
Speaker
I know a lot of people have higher averages than that, but on an $8,000 deal, even at 30%, you know, about 2,500 bucks or so is not that obscene amount of money.
00:29:51
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:29:52
Speaker
It's a good amount of money, but it's for them, but it's not like they don't feel like weird about it.
00:29:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:59
Speaker
And so I've never had that issue.
00:30:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:01
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:30:02
Speaker
Maybe that Louie guy, he's making $20,000.
00:30:04
Speaker
You're making $20,000 and then you're giving people a huge... You know what's crazy too?
00:30:09
Speaker
He actually only gives people a $200 referral fee.
00:30:12
Speaker
Are you serious?
00:30:12
Speaker
I don't know how he does it.
00:30:13
Speaker
You got to have him on the podcast.
00:30:15
Speaker
That'll be level three.
00:30:19
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:30:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:21
Speaker
That's cool.
00:30:23
Speaker
Well, yeah, I think it's important just whatever process that people have, you got to stick to a system and you got to try it more than once because that's the other thing.
00:30:32
Speaker
Some of these things I try one time, but it takes a while to build out the process, I would think.
00:30:38
Speaker
So for you, when did you transition from Doors to sort of doing this full-time?
00:30:43
Speaker
So immediately.
00:30:44
Speaker
So what happened was, well...
00:30:46
Speaker
My first, my combine, they call it, right?
00:30:48
Speaker
Your first 60 days.
00:30:49
Speaker
So from April to June of 2018, when I first started with Vivint, back then the standard to get your plus one for a cruise vacation was you had to get 10 closed deals in your first 60 days.
00:31:02
Speaker
That was kind of like the gold standard back then.
00:31:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:31:05
Speaker
And my first six came from past customers.
00:31:10
Speaker
And then the other four came from neighbors that I knocked on of those customers that were getting site surveyed.
00:31:15
Speaker
And I said, hey, our trucks are right there.
00:31:17
Speaker
We're surveying your neighbor.
00:31:18
Speaker
I just want to let you know what's going on.
00:31:19
Speaker
And then pitched them, closed them.
00:31:22
Speaker
So those first 10, only four of them were knocks and they were warm knocks.
00:31:26
Speaker
I always tell people if I'm going to knock a door at this point in my career, it's going to be a warm door or I'm going to have a strategy to make it a warm door.
00:31:33
Speaker
I'm not just going to go cold knock a random neighborhood personally.
00:31:36
Speaker
Some people do that and they're great and I respect them.
00:31:39
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:31:40
Speaker
It's hard work.
00:31:41
Speaker
It's hard work.
00:31:41
Speaker
But yeah.
00:31:42
Speaker
Yeah, it was all warm doors, essentially, at that point.
00:31:45
Speaker
And then those 10, one of them being the one we're going to talk about, was the seeds of the next, you know, 250 installs.
00:31:54
Speaker
Wow.
00:31:55
Speaker
That's incredible.
00:31:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:57
Speaker
That's cool.
00:31:57
Speaker
All right, well, let's give the people
Unlikely Referral Partner: Kawhi Leonard's Grandmother
00:31:59
Speaker
what they want.
00:31:59
Speaker
Like, we all want to hear how you sold Kawhi Leonard's grandma.
00:32:03
Speaker
So, yeah, can you tell us the story?
00:32:05
Speaker
How did you...
00:32:06
Speaker
Yeah, so Kawhi's grandma, she's out in Moreno Valley, you know, in her 70s, just a kind of a quiet, you know, really kind of analytical, monotone kind of a person.
00:32:22
Speaker
So pretty much like Kawhi?
00:32:23
Speaker
Like Kawhi, yeah, right, just dry, just so dry like Kawhi, dude.
00:32:26
Speaker
And you're just like, oh, I see where he gets here.
00:32:31
Speaker
And so I didn't know that it was Kawhi's grandma at the time.
00:32:33
Speaker
It was actually...
00:32:35
Speaker
My second, it was actually one of my, so I found out through a friend that gave me a referral really early on.
00:32:42
Speaker
And they said, oh, yeah, you should talk to this lady.
00:32:44
Speaker
You know, she's great or whatever.
00:32:45
Speaker
And it was this random kind of referral.
00:32:47
Speaker
And I think it was like the second or third pitch that I'd ever done for Vivint.
00:32:50
Speaker
Wow.
00:32:52
Speaker
I was nervous.
00:32:53
Speaker
I just started.
00:32:54
Speaker
It was a new pitch.
00:32:55
Speaker
And I kind of, I don't know, I felt like I bombed it personally.
00:32:59
Speaker
I tried to reach out to her, didn't close it on the spot because I was just new, didn't really know and didn't hear from her for like a month or so.
00:33:08
Speaker
And then I reached out again, finally got through to her because, you know, follow up is key, right?
00:33:13
Speaker
And just got a hold of her and said, hey, I want to let you know there's been a couple changes, which there hadn't been, just made that up.
00:33:19
Speaker
Like,
00:33:20
Speaker
But there's been a few changes.
00:33:21
Speaker
We actually got you a slightly lower rate.
00:33:23
Speaker
Back then it was like, I think the max you could sell was 19 cents at that time.
00:33:27
Speaker
And so I said, we got you a rate of 17 and a half cents.
00:33:30
Speaker
Right.
00:33:31
Speaker
And I said, so I just wanted to let you know about it.
00:33:33
Speaker
And she said, okay, well let's, you know, she'd be scheduled an appointment.
00:33:36
Speaker
We sat down, I closed it.
00:33:38
Speaker
I thought she was going to cancel.
00:33:40
Speaker
She didn't seem like she was that serious stone face, no emotion, nothing.
00:33:44
Speaker
I was just like, okay, well it's a, it's a deal.
00:33:46
Speaker
We'll see.
00:33:47
Speaker
Got installed pretty quick.
00:33:49
Speaker
It was actually, I think, also my second install or something.
00:33:53
Speaker
It was really early in 2018.
00:33:55
Speaker
And then I started pitching the referral program that Matt taught me immediately.
00:34:00
Speaker
And back then it was $250 that I would give people for a referral.
00:34:04
Speaker
And so I went and sat with her.
00:34:06
Speaker
Here's the thing a lot of people don't do.
00:34:07
Speaker
they'll schedule a close to sign contract paperwork and sometimes they'll even show up at the install but they don't schedule a time to go and intentionally pitch the referral program right okay if you're not spending 20 to 30 minutes pitching your referral program then it's not gonna work it's not gonna work yeah they're just there's not bought in enough you know okay and you can't do that in the same cell if you tried it or you find it more effective to go back
00:34:32
Speaker
I plant the seed.
00:34:33
Speaker
I always say with referrals, talk about them early and often.
00:34:37
Speaker
So for instance, let's say the first sit down we do, typically I one call close.
00:34:42
Speaker
So at the end of the close, I'll say, hey, and by the way, we have this really cool referral program.
00:34:47
Speaker
It's a thousand dollars if you refer somebody.
00:34:49
Speaker
But right now we still have to survey your house to see if it's eligible.
00:34:52
Speaker
So I do a pullback.
00:34:52
Speaker
So we'll talk about that at a later time.
00:34:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:34:55
Speaker
Right.
00:34:55
Speaker
So I plant the seed, pull back.
00:34:57
Speaker
We're not really going to get into it today.
00:34:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:34:59
Speaker
So then they're like, okay, but they're thinking about it.
00:35:02
Speaker
And then typically where I harvest the referrals personally is a strategy that I made up in 2018 that worked really well.
00:35:08
Speaker
Hmm.
00:35:10
Speaker
So one of the risks with referrals for new people is you sell somebody, they're in permitting, they're waiting, you start trying to mine referrals, they start calling their friends and family and getting all the negative feedback about the solar, and then they cancel before it's installed.
00:35:26
Speaker
So I found a system to prevent that.
00:35:30
Speaker
Here's the system.
00:35:31
Speaker
Within 48 hours of the install, you do an unannounced pop-by.
00:35:35
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:35:36
Speaker
And you just swing by, oh, hey, how's it going, Taylor?
00:35:38
Speaker
I was in the neighborhood, just wanted to swing by, super excited for your install in a couple days, but wanted to let you know about a new promotion that Sunrun just announced or whatever company, right, just announced.
00:35:47
Speaker
You have a couple minutes.
00:35:48
Speaker
Cool.
00:35:48
Speaker
Transition into the house.
00:35:51
Speaker
And hey, I wanted to let you know, I know we talked a little bit when we first sat down about that $1,000 referral.
00:35:56
Speaker
Well, they're actually doing an additional incentive right now.
00:35:59
Speaker
If you give me just a name and a phone number of a homeowner before your install happens, you get an extra 20 bucks for just giving me a name and a number.
00:36:08
Speaker
Nice.
00:36:09
Speaker
And I say for five, right?
00:36:10
Speaker
So I have a hundred dollar bill ready in my pocket.
00:36:13
Speaker
I sit down with them, go through, get five names and numbers, and then I give them a little coaching, right?
00:36:18
Speaker
These are the three things you need to be aware of, right?
00:36:20
Speaker
Go through that with them.
00:36:21
Speaker
So the whole thing's 20 to 30 minutes.
00:36:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:24
Speaker
And then I say, but don't worry.
00:36:26
Speaker
Then I do.
00:36:26
Speaker
I take the pressure off.
00:36:27
Speaker
I say, but don't worry.
00:36:29
Speaker
Don't even reach out to these people until after it's installed, because I want to make sure we can take some pictures and you can have something to send your friends and family.
00:36:35
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:36:36
Speaker
So now they're giving me names and numbers, but I'm specifically telling them to not reach out yet because we're not there yet.
00:36:43
Speaker
So it takes the pressure off.
00:36:44
Speaker
I get them.
00:36:44
Speaker
And then after I'm done, pull out the hundred, they go, oh, you're going to pay me not a thousand get paid later.
00:36:47
Speaker
No, it's a hundred bucks.
00:36:48
Speaker
You're good.
00:36:49
Speaker
And I say, I'm all referral based.
00:36:51
Speaker
So like, this is literally my entire business.
00:36:54
Speaker
I don't knock doors.
00:36:55
Speaker
Thank God anymore.
00:36:56
Speaker
I don't cold call anymore.
00:36:57
Speaker
Thank God.
00:36:58
Speaker
Right.
00:36:59
Speaker
So this is my business.
00:37:00
Speaker
So I appreciate it.
00:37:01
Speaker
And, and I'm going to take good care of these people just like I took care of you.
00:37:04
Speaker
Right.
00:37:05
Speaker
Nice.
00:37:06
Speaker
So then this is the follow up part.
00:37:09
Speaker
So then the install happens.
00:37:11
Speaker
And then once you're at the install, you show up, right?
00:37:14
Speaker
Bring the whatever you bring for your installers.
00:37:16
Speaker
You know, I usually show up towards the end of the day, kind of take pictures of the finished product, fly a drone over, take a few aerial shots.
00:37:23
Speaker
And then I will send that to them within a day or so after install and say, hey, you know, super excited for your install.
00:37:30
Speaker
So I have these five names and numbers of these people.
00:37:34
Speaker
Do me a favor in the next couple of days.
00:37:35
Speaker
Can you start reaching out to them and then putting me in group text messages with them after you talk to them?
00:37:40
Speaker
Nice.
00:37:41
Speaker
That's good.
00:37:42
Speaker
So you don't do this.
00:37:43
Speaker
You always do this after the install?
00:37:45
Speaker
You never do it before?
00:37:47
Speaker
I used to do it before.
00:37:48
Speaker
You could do it before.
00:37:50
Speaker
And there's good, especially I would say if you're new to solar and you're trying to build a base of customers, do it before because you don't have time.
00:37:59
Speaker
But if you're more advanced and seasoned,
00:38:01
Speaker
I've just found it works a little bit better once people are more committed and bought in and they have the system on their house.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:07
Speaker
And less risk, I guess, to hear about the negatives.
00:38:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:12
Speaker
That's good.
00:38:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:14
Speaker
No, that makes sense.
Using Customer Videos for Credibility
00:38:16
Speaker
All right.
00:38:16
Speaker
So yeah, back to, I guess we went on a tangent there.
00:38:19
Speaker
But yeah, so you closed Kawhi's grandma.
00:38:22
Speaker
What happened after that?
00:38:23
Speaker
Yeah, sorry.
00:38:23
Speaker
So what happened was,
00:38:26
Speaker
I tell her about this 250, right?
00:38:29
Speaker
And again, no emotion.
00:38:32
Speaker
Just her response is, okay, I'll start sending you some people.
00:38:35
Speaker
And I was like, okay, that was it.
00:38:38
Speaker
And I didn't have really a lot of the nuance that I just shared right now.
00:38:41
Speaker
My system was...
00:38:43
Speaker
not that, right?
00:38:43
Speaker
It was no system really at all.
00:38:45
Speaker
I was just kind of telling people.
00:38:47
Speaker
And I just kind of got lucky with her, to be honest.
00:38:50
Speaker
She starts sending me people.
00:38:52
Speaker
And some of the people she starts sending me, they're like, oh, you know who that is, right?
00:38:56
Speaker
And I'm like, what?
00:38:56
Speaker
And they're like, that's Kawhi Leonard's grandmother.
00:38:59
Speaker
And I'm like, wait, what?
00:39:00
Speaker
So I found out from her referrals who she was, right?
00:39:06
Speaker
And so after I found out about that, I brought it up to her.
00:39:10
Speaker
I said, oh, it's Kawhi, you know, your grandson.
00:39:12
Speaker
And at the time she goes,
00:39:13
Speaker
yeah and he just got injured and he better not you know waste his career and all his potential he's has we worked so hard to get him to where he's at and she was kind of like a little salty about it and like I don't know just kind of like whatever quietly and and sounds like oh well like that's super cool so um I have solar yet exactly I'm like I would I would love to meet him sometime she's like oh yeah he's not around very much but whenever you I'll let you know and blah blah so I
00:39:41
Speaker
just to pop the bubble i still have not met kawaii leonard okay so so that's that's kind of a bummer there but and have you sold him solar i have not sold him solar okay i've sold some of his some of the other leonards solar okay um but the crazy thing is is that over the course of 2018 to 20 basically the beginning of 2020 before covid she sent me 67 referrals and i think it was like 23 or 24 made it to install
00:40:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:12
Speaker
That's some good ratios right there.
00:40:14
Speaker
is a pretty solid referral partner and she was my first.
00:40:16
Speaker
And then also one of the things that I did that worked and I know you do this too.
00:40:20
Speaker
So, um, you know, basically I showed up with her first pay.
00:40:25
Speaker
It was a, she actually had two installs that happened.
00:40:27
Speaker
So I gave her 500 bucks in cash.
00:40:30
Speaker
I showed up to her house and with her house, the solar just happens to be on the front of the house.
00:40:35
Speaker
And I had a buddy shoot with my iPhone camera and it's a 42nd video.
00:40:41
Speaker
She's holding the $500 cash.
00:40:43
Speaker
I'm standing next to her.
00:40:44
Speaker
I'm like, hey, I'm here with Miss Bernstein is her name.
00:40:48
Speaker
Miss Bernstein, she got solar on her house.
00:40:50
Speaker
She's loving it.
00:40:50
Speaker
She just got her first referral cash, $500.
00:40:53
Speaker
Bernstein, what do you have to say about the program?
00:40:54
Speaker
Nice.
00:40:56
Speaker
And she goes, real dry again.
00:40:59
Speaker
She goes, if you're thinking about getting solar, don't wait, just do it.
00:41:04
Speaker
It was just like perfect.
00:41:05
Speaker
I mean, it was like a 40 second clip.
00:41:09
Speaker
But what I did with that clip was every referral that she sent me to during the course of my sit down with them, I would say, oh, yeah, Bernstein's awesome.
00:41:18
Speaker
Actually, here's a video of her.
00:41:18
Speaker
And I pull it out and I show them the video.
00:41:20
Speaker
And they're watching the video of their friend or whoever that, you know, that like.
00:41:24
Speaker
or their family member like you know getting cash and then I would use that to say yeah and you know we have a referral program too so full disclosure if you get it you know she's gonna get 250 bucks but if you know anybody too you can get 250 bucks right and try to like tie it in so I would say that's a good one to do I need to do that more I kind of stopped doing that and got lazy with it but I noticed you're pretty religious about it which is awesome I like it it's good for like social media and stuff I'm all about those little customer videos
00:41:52
Speaker
It's good.
00:41:53
Speaker
But I don't think I've actually done one for referrals, really.
00:41:56
Speaker
So it's a good day because you're saying she's like for referrals.
00:41:58
Speaker
It's for cash and stuff and kind of makes it more real for people, maybe.
00:42:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:02
Speaker
The ones that I'm doing aren't as much, yeah, like here's like social media or to show like a sold customer.
00:42:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:08
Speaker
They're more to show the referral partners or referrals.
00:42:11
Speaker
Like, hey, like this is real.
00:42:12
Speaker
You can make money doing referrals, too.
00:42:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:15
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:42:16
Speaker
That's cool, man.
00:42:17
Speaker
And hopefully someday she'll refer you to Kauai.
00:42:20
Speaker
That's like the next step in all this.
00:42:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:22
Speaker
So I'd lost kind of touch there during COVID.
00:42:26
Speaker
I wasn't working a whole ton out in the field.
00:42:29
Speaker
I was doing a lot of over-the-phone stuff.
00:42:31
Speaker
And in 2021, I swung by and I left a basketball there at her house to sign.
00:42:38
Speaker
And I haven't been over in a while.
00:42:40
Speaker
And the problem is, is like, I have so many different referral partners that have kind of had peaks and valleys and they do really well and they stop.
00:42:47
Speaker
But I think if I'm honest, a lot of that's my responsibility or my fault because I just stopped regular communication with them.
00:42:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:55
Speaker
And so that's kind of my goal this year is to have more intention and structure around consistent communication and then to increase the number of those 30% referral partners that are more vested and more bought in.
00:43:07
Speaker
So I can increase leverage because I don't want to knock doors and I'm trying to make at least 600K this year.
00:43:13
Speaker
So I'm doing that all referral based.
00:43:14
Speaker
That's good.
00:43:15
Speaker
Well, that's a good point too because I know for me and a lot of people probably listening to this is maybe like I haven't been very good about keeping touch before.
Maintaining Customer Relationships
00:43:24
Speaker
Especially my customers from like three, four years ago.
00:43:26
Speaker
Like, yeah, they basically haven't heard from me since I sold them the first time.
00:43:30
Speaker
So do you have any advice?
00:43:33
Speaker
How do you do it?
00:43:34
Speaker
The people that go, yeah, and stop giving me referrals.
00:43:37
Speaker
How do you like bring back up the conversation without it being like weird and like salesy?
00:43:42
Speaker
Just kind of like start back up in the conversation and lead them back in.
00:43:45
Speaker
Great question.
00:43:45
Speaker
Do you have any tips on that?
00:43:46
Speaker
Great question, dude.
00:43:47
Speaker
I love it.
00:43:47
Speaker
That's why you're a good podcast fan.
00:43:48
Speaker
That was a great question.
00:43:49
Speaker
I just keep it real with what I don't do good.
00:43:52
Speaker
No, that's what that's.
00:43:53
Speaker
And that's, that's true.
00:43:54
Speaker
So what I do right now and what I'm currently doing this month and for the next couple months is contacting all of my past customers and always lead with service.
00:44:03
Speaker
Okay.
00:44:03
Speaker
Right.
00:44:04
Speaker
So it's always, Hey, how's, how's it doing?
00:44:08
Speaker
Um, you know, how's solar?
00:44:09
Speaker
Can you do me a favor and download a recent copy of your Edison bill?
00:44:12
Speaker
I'm going to do an analysis to see how much credit or how much you owe.
00:44:15
Speaker
Have you got a true up bill?
00:44:17
Speaker
Right.
00:44:17
Speaker
And I think a lot of reps, myself included, we avoid these conversations because maybe we anticipate there being bad news or negativity, or they have a true up bill or something like that.
00:44:26
Speaker
And I'm going to steal from my boy, Tony Robbins.
00:44:28
Speaker
He has the, one of the best quotes I got, um, from his business event in 2015.
00:44:33
Speaker
He said, the number one time to create a raving fan customer is at the peak of their disappointment.
00:44:40
Speaker
Wow.
00:44:41
Speaker
And I thought that's money.
00:44:42
Speaker
That's money because a lot of people and I've gotten some of those, even Kawhi, she had Kawhi Leonard's grandmother.
00:44:47
Speaker
She had a bunch of issues shortly after install.
00:44:50
Speaker
Her inverter went down.
00:44:51
Speaker
She had a leak.
00:44:52
Speaker
And the first year was kind of rough.
00:44:55
Speaker
But the fact that I made sure that we got solutions to those that just solidified every time I solve the problem, I got another couple referrals.
00:45:02
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:45:03
Speaker
That's good.
00:45:04
Speaker
So I think that's something to keep in mind is, you know, and I don't get me wrong, I get fearful or whatever about sometimes calling certain customers because I think we get in our heads and we kind of make up a story that maybe something bad did happen or there is something negative and maybe we don't want to deal with it.
00:45:21
Speaker
So we'd rather just go to a fresh customer that doesn't have any negative experience.
00:45:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:25
Speaker
And so in certain ways, knocking is actually easier in that regard.
00:45:28
Speaker
Right.
00:45:29
Speaker
Right.
00:45:29
Speaker
Because it's like you have no past relationship.
00:45:31
Speaker
There's no baggage.
00:45:32
Speaker
There's no issues.
00:45:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:34
Speaker
Right.
00:45:34
Speaker
And so I think a lot of people, they they lean on the door knocking because they don't have to be as to be honest, they don't have to be as accountable.
00:45:40
Speaker
Right.
00:45:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:41
Speaker
To their existing customers.
00:45:42
Speaker
True.
00:45:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:43
Speaker
No, I can, I can relate.
00:45:44
Speaker
And probably a lot of people listening, um, have had experiences where you had a pissed off customer issues.
00:45:51
Speaker
I remember I had like a cop in San Diego that I sold and similar stuff to Kauai's grandma had some roof leaks, issues with the invert or whatever.
00:45:59
Speaker
And I got some like pretty nasty texts to her.
00:46:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:01
Speaker
It's like, these are the texts.
00:46:04
Speaker
You never want to talk to this person again.
00:46:05
Speaker
Right.
00:46:06
Speaker
Um, but yeah, like I helped him out and then sure enough, he referred to his dad.
00:46:09
Speaker
He referred like three people from his, uh, police department, whatever.
00:46:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:15
Speaker
And, um, but yeah, I was like, man, I never want to talk to this guy again and there's no way he's going to ever give me referrals, but, but yeah, it did work.
00:46:22
Speaker
It works.
00:46:23
Speaker
So yeah, that, that is a good point.
Extra Incentives for Referrals
00:46:26
Speaker
But yeah, like another thing I know Matt does, he's all about like, you know, some, he does like the vacation incentives, things like that.
00:46:34
Speaker
Do you tie in, do that at all?
00:46:35
Speaker
Or you're just doing the thousand dollars?
00:46:37
Speaker
You know, I haven't.
00:46:38
Speaker
I've been considering doing that vacation incentive this year.
00:46:42
Speaker
But really what I'm more focused on than that is those.
00:46:47
Speaker
So let's go back to those 30%.
00:46:49
Speaker
So I have about five, six right now that are solid that are giving me business that are on that 30% compensation category.
00:46:56
Speaker
And I'm trying to double that in the next few months.
00:46:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:00
Speaker
So my strategy there is, so here's, this is one of the things I wanted to talk about.
00:47:05
Speaker
It's kind of two parts, the referral side, and then just how to increase the number of customers that can be referral partners.
00:47:11
Speaker
So I would say in my personal case study, roughly 5% of the population has some basic sales ability, right?
00:47:21
Speaker
Now, I don't want to just
00:47:26
Speaker
I mean, I focus on the 5%, but I want to convert a larger percentage of those non-salespeople into salespeople.
00:47:31
Speaker
So I thought about, well, how do you do that?
00:47:34
Speaker
This is what I found.
00:47:35
Speaker
The easiest way to get a non-salesperson to give you quality referrals is give them an offer that they can give to their friends and family.
00:47:43
Speaker
So what that looks like is this.
00:47:45
Speaker
So I'll call a past customer.
00:47:47
Speaker
Maybe they've given me a referral.
00:47:48
Speaker
Maybe they haven't.
00:47:49
Speaker
Doesn't necessarily matter one way or the other.
00:47:51
Speaker
And I'll say, hey, so-and-so, again, just wanted to check in with you, see how your system's doing.
00:47:55
Speaker
Great, cool.
00:47:56
Speaker
So lead with service.
00:47:57
Speaker
The second thing I wanted to call about is there's actually a promotion going on that I wanted to let you know about.
00:48:02
Speaker
So from right now until the end of January, anybody that you send me on top of that $1,000 referral fee that you get, the person that you send me, we're actually going to cover their first six months of electricity.
00:48:14
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:48:15
Speaker
That's good.
00:48:16
Speaker
Because now, even if they're not a good salesperson, they can just say, hey, I know you've looked into solar before and you're not really that interested, but you might be able to get your six months of electricity paid for it.
00:48:26
Speaker
At least take a look.
00:48:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:28
Speaker
Right?
00:48:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:48:29
Speaker
So it kind of, I'll even say that.
00:48:31
Speaker
I'll say maybe you've talked to some friends and family that are on the fence about it and they don't really know if they want to meet with me or not.
00:48:36
Speaker
Just let them know if they meet with me from now until the end of the month.
00:48:40
Speaker
You know, again, I'll be super low pressure, not a big deal.
00:48:42
Speaker
But if they meet with me now at the end of the month, we're going to cover their first six months of electricity just for sitting down with me.
00:48:48
Speaker
Okay, that's good.
00:48:49
Speaker
And you've done that before and it's worked well in the past?
00:48:51
Speaker
Really well.
00:48:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:53
Speaker
Because, because again, like you can get people who aren't necessarily salespeople to go out and do it because salespeople, what I mean by salespeople, let me clarify that.
00:49:03
Speaker
Salespeople are the 5% of the population that are more money motivated and that will go kind of sell out their friends and family for a thousand bucks, if you will.
00:49:11
Speaker
Right.
00:49:12
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:49:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:13
Speaker
But most people, I would say, in my experience, aren't motivated by that.
00:49:18
Speaker
They're motivated by helping their friends and family out.
00:49:21
Speaker
So if you can give them a resource to go help their friends and family out, now they're actually motivated.
00:49:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:27
Speaker
And they get a thousand bucks too.
00:49:28
Speaker
Great.
00:49:28
Speaker
That's just kind of a side thing.
00:49:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:31
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:49:32
Speaker
Yeah, no, and I think it's just like in sales, too.
00:49:34
Speaker
There's so many different personality types and all that.
00:49:36
Speaker
And you talked about you got to sell their buying stuff.
00:49:39
Speaker
I guess, yeah, I don't even know if we talked about that in the podcast yet.
00:49:42
Speaker
We haven't.
00:49:42
Speaker
We'll touch on it.
00:49:44
Speaker
But yeah, it's like you got to sometimes we just sell how we want to be sold to.
00:49:48
Speaker
And you got to like think, okay, what is this personality type?
00:49:51
Speaker
And I'm sure most people here have heard the different trainees, you know, like the tigers, the owls, the different personality types and all that.
00:49:58
Speaker
But it's like, I know for me, I didn't really think of referral being a sell.
00:50:02
Speaker
I just thought like, you get a referral, you call them, say, hey, your friend referred you to solar.
00:50:06
Speaker
When can you meet?
00:50:08
Speaker
That's like what you're saying.
00:50:09
Speaker
It's a different mindset you're having because you're basically like, you're treating them almost as like a cold lead that you have to create a problem for them.
00:50:16
Speaker
You have to give them a solution.
00:50:17
Speaker
Yep.
00:50:18
Speaker
And it's not just like calling them and expecting that they're going to be laid down sells.
00:50:22
Speaker
I didn't even think about that, but you're right.
00:50:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:25
Speaker
Because, yeah, I'm sure there's people on here making that mistake.
00:50:28
Speaker
It's like.
00:50:28
Speaker
It's a mistake if you are, but you're skipping a lot of steps.
00:50:30
Speaker
Don't skip steps.
00:50:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:33
Speaker
And so what I'll do is I'll take that 30% to kind of tie that in too.
00:50:36
Speaker
I'll take those 30% partners and I will give them offers to give.
00:50:42
Speaker
So I almost created, it's like almost like a little mini kind of MLM essentially.
00:50:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:46
Speaker
So what they'll do is I'll say, hey, anybody that you refer me, you get 30%, right?
00:50:52
Speaker
But then if you can work with that person directly to get them to give referrals, we'll give that person $1,000 and that'll come off the top of the net commission.
00:51:04
Speaker
And you'll still get 30% of their network and they'll get $1,000.
00:51:09
Speaker
Right?
00:51:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:10
Speaker
That's where it starts to get to layers.
00:51:12
Speaker
Yeah, there's levels to this.
00:51:14
Speaker
There's levels.
00:51:15
Speaker
So on a simple math, let's just say the commission is a $10,000 commission.
00:51:19
Speaker
$1,000 referral would go to the person who is referring.
00:51:24
Speaker
But then...
00:51:25
Speaker
So then now it's at 9,000.
00:51:27
Speaker
And then so the 30% of that, right, would go to kind of the partner who brought that one in.
00:51:33
Speaker
But now they're incentivized to start working with that person to mine referrals, not me.
00:51:38
Speaker
So it takes more leverage.
00:51:40
Speaker
It takes it off me.
00:51:41
Speaker
So now I'm not trying to target that person and go, hey, like we get you going with referrals, this and that.
00:51:45
Speaker
Now I've put that task on the 30% partner to work with their network to get more referrals.
00:51:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:52
Speaker
Well, that's fire.
00:51:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:54
Speaker
Um, then with, cause yeah, I know what you have so many customers at this point, I know it can get pretty, uh, you got a lot of people to contact and everything.
00:52:01
Speaker
So you're saying you just have all these people in spreadsheets and do you have a system for like going back?
00:52:06
Speaker
Like how often?
00:52:07
Speaker
I think Matt kind of talked about some of this too, but so like some of you identify the top 5% and most people you're touching base more often and the rest is maybe just like once a month or what's your system for that?
00:52:19
Speaker
I have thought about it for a long time and I probably will have to hire somebody to help me just with like a basic CRM, just something not too complicated, just because I'm not complicated as a person.
00:52:31
Speaker
I couldn't.
00:52:31
Speaker
And that's part of the reason why I haven't complicated it and just kind of kept it on a spreadsheet.
00:52:36
Speaker
but there's limitations to the organizational ability that you can get on a spreadsheet.
00:52:41
Speaker
So a lot of times, I'll be honest, it's mostly on feel and it's on results, right?
00:52:46
Speaker
If they've given me business in the past, if I already feel like I have a good rapport with them, then I'm going to focus on them more.
00:52:51
Speaker
But sometimes that's led me astray, right?
00:52:53
Speaker
I've maybe spent time with people who I've had a good rapport with, but they never really produced anything.
00:52:58
Speaker
Just like a rep, right?
00:52:59
Speaker
Same kind of concept.
00:53:00
Speaker
So you kind of have to just get better at gauging, you know, what's actually producing and what's not.
00:53:06
Speaker
But yeah, I don't have a specific system other than I basically have tabs for each of my partners in a spreadsheet and then all the referrals that they've given me and then the amounts that are owed and then where they're at in the process.
00:53:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:19
Speaker
You know, just simple.
00:53:20
Speaker
yeah we not have to complicate it um yeah i know people have crms and all that but yeah it just goes to show you can do this with just spreadsheet google sheets and you're good to go yeah um yeah and then um i keep popping up with questions but um like how do you because i know you talked about i know you're in leadership at sunrun right now and i know you said in the beginning you were kind of like had some friction they're like i don't even tell other reps about this just do your thing and
00:53:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:47
Speaker
Keeping on the DL.
00:53:49
Speaker
So now it sounds like it's, especially with COVID and everything, sounds like they've sort of opened up to that.
00:53:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:55
Speaker
But you're saying you don't really knock.
00:53:57
Speaker
So like, what's your thing now?
00:53:58
Speaker
Because I know Sunrun, they're still huge on knocking doors and all that.
00:54:02
Speaker
So how do you, yeah, like, what's your, how did you get them to be okay with that?
00:54:06
Speaker
And how do you teach people to like, okay, still knock, but like, here's how you can kind of tie this in and everything.
00:54:11
Speaker
So I will...
00:54:13
Speaker
Be honest, that's a limitation that I have put on myself within leadership.
00:54:18
Speaker
I don't know how much higher I can go in the organization with my skill set.
00:54:24
Speaker
And we'll leave it at that for now.
00:54:27
Speaker
But I don't want to get too much into my personal thoughts on kind of that stuff.
00:54:31
Speaker
But basically, yeah, I mean, you can make a lot of money and do well for yourself off of referrals.
00:54:36
Speaker
And I hope that's what people get from this is that you can...
00:54:40
Speaker
You can make millions of dollars literally off of referrals and being strategic and like having a system in place.
00:54:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:54:48
Speaker
That's good.
00:54:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:49
Speaker
And you can tie it in.
00:54:50
Speaker
It's like, cause I know Matt Crowley, he's a great example.
00:54:53
Speaker
Like I know he still knocks a lot, gets the referrals.
00:54:56
Speaker
Um, but yeah, anyone, I think it's worth definitely developing your process and starting to hit some of these referrals cause money left on the table for a lot of people for sure.
00:55:04
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:55:05
Speaker
Well, cool, man.
00:55:06
Speaker
It's been awesome chatting with you.
00:55:07
Speaker
And I don't want to take the whole day here.
00:55:09
Speaker
But the last thing I know we were talking about before this show, before we hit record here, is just, yeah, like selling to these different personality types.
Adapting Sales Strategies to Personalities
00:55:19
Speaker
And I know that's something that's something you do a little bit different, too, than probably a lot of folks.
00:55:24
Speaker
So just to kind of wrap up here, what's your take on that?
00:55:27
Speaker
How have you sort of learned to sell these different people and get referrals from different people?
00:55:32
Speaker
And you touch on that a little bit.
00:55:34
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:55:35
Speaker
So I would say that most salespeople sell based upon their buying style, not the customer's buying style.
00:55:44
Speaker
And so rather than I like I love the archetype training of the owl and the lamb and all that, that stuff's great for sure.
00:55:49
Speaker
But we'll save that, you know, for a different podcast.
00:55:52
Speaker
But basically, in a simple way, most salespeople, their buying style is how they sell, which is they minimize the negative aspects or the potential pitfalls in the solar process.
00:56:07
Speaker
And then they kind of maximize the benefits and try to be really positive.
00:56:11
Speaker
And I think that's one of the reasons why salespeople as a whole kind of get a bad rap for being not a trustworthy profession.
00:56:18
Speaker
Because if you're kind of minimizing the negatives, you're assuming that that's how everybody buys.
00:56:26
Speaker
And that's not.
00:56:27
Speaker
Generally speaking, I would say in my experience, more of the population maximizes the negative in their mind and minimizes the positive benefits that they're going to get.
00:56:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point.
00:56:38
Speaker
And so I think if you're trying to be able to cater a pitch more to the masses, I mean, you know, if you're skilled and you can discern, maybe you can kind of read the situation.
00:56:48
Speaker
But I think if you're just teaching somebody who doesn't know anything about sales, I think it's wise to teach them to actually sell a little bit more, I would say, negatively is the way I call it.
00:56:59
Speaker
Um, so I always kind of say in my office, we've got a big team, you know, about 160 reps currently.
00:57:05
Speaker
Um, and I have probably one of the most negative sales pitches in the entire office, you know, and what I mean by that's like, I mean, you know, people have kind of got a sense for my personality already.
00:57:16
Speaker
It's not like I'm a super negative person per se, but yeah.
00:57:19
Speaker
It's that I try to be honest and I try to be transparent.
00:57:22
Speaker
That's anybody who's sat with me and seen me close and seen me pitch.
00:57:27
Speaker
That's always feedback that I get from people.
00:57:28
Speaker
They'll say that was the most transparent and honest and even blunt sales pitch that I've ever heard.
00:57:34
Speaker
That's good.
00:57:35
Speaker
You know, and I'm like, great.
00:57:36
Speaker
That's my goal.
00:57:38
Speaker
I hit it.
Addressing Solar Negatives Upfront
00:57:39
Speaker
And one of the things that I do specifically is towards the end of the pitch without actually like drawing it out.
00:57:46
Speaker
But we'll just say towards the end.
00:57:48
Speaker
I actually write down on our little packet, right?
00:57:51
Speaker
A lot of people write down or they'll kind of have a presentation.
00:57:54
Speaker
I actually write down on their packet.
00:57:56
Speaker
It's one of the last things I say.
00:57:57
Speaker
I put the three negatives of solar.
00:58:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:58:02
Speaker
I don't know anybody who does that.
00:58:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:04
Speaker
You can probably build some trust with that.
00:58:06
Speaker
They're like, well, I've never seen a solar guy.
00:58:08
Speaker
Start with the three negatives.
00:58:10
Speaker
I have people tell me they're like,
00:58:13
Speaker
I can't believe you told me all these negative things about salt.
00:58:16
Speaker
They almost can't believe it because maybe they've sat with multiple other salespeople and they got the sense that maybe the salespeople was almost trying to cover up the horror stories in the industry.
00:58:24
Speaker
And I'll even say that to them.
00:58:25
Speaker
I'll say, hey, I'm not going to be that sales guy that's going to try to cover up the horror stories in our industry.
00:58:30
Speaker
I think it's better that you know worst case scenario.
00:58:32
Speaker
So that case, God forbid, it does happen.
00:58:34
Speaker
At least we were prepared.
00:58:35
Speaker
Right?
00:58:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:37
Speaker
And so I approach it from like, like I'm trying to help you.
00:58:40
Speaker
I'm on your side.
00:58:41
Speaker
Right.
00:58:41
Speaker
And I am.
00:58:42
Speaker
I mean, ultimately, I don't want to have a pissed off customer.
00:58:45
Speaker
I've had plenty of cussing out and we're going to sue you and that kind of stuff.
00:58:48
Speaker
Like, like everybody who's been in the industry.
00:58:50
Speaker
But you want to minimize that for your own mental health.
00:58:52
Speaker
That's good.
00:58:54
Speaker
And so one of the ways is to talk about it.
00:58:56
Speaker
So I write down the three negatives.
00:58:57
Speaker
So here's what I said.
00:58:59
Speaker
I say the number one biggest negative you hear about in solar is the true up bill, right?
00:59:05
Speaker
I say, so what's a true up bill?
00:59:06
Speaker
We already talked about it during the net metering part of the presentation, but let me just go a little bit deeper.
00:59:11
Speaker
Basically, here's a common story that happens in the solar industry.
00:59:15
Speaker
Somebody gets solar...
00:59:17
Speaker
They think everything's going great.
00:59:18
Speaker
They're paying that $5 to $10 a month connection fee.
00:59:21
Speaker
It's on auto pay.
00:59:22
Speaker
They're not reading their statements.
00:59:24
Speaker
They don't see the additional energy charges that are accruing until the 12th month of their first true up cycle.
00:59:31
Speaker
Then they get hit with some big $500,000, $2,000, whatever crazy bill from the utility company.
00:59:37
Speaker
Now they're pissed.
00:59:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:38
Speaker
Right.
00:59:38
Speaker
And I say, so there's a couple of ways that we're going to avoid that.
00:59:41
Speaker
I said, one, and I talk about sizing and all that and strategy there with batteries now.
00:59:45
Speaker
And, you know, that's kind of changed a bit.
00:59:47
Speaker
But I talk about that.
00:59:48
Speaker
I said, but the second thing is I'm going to do at least two, if not three check-ins with you in the first 12 months of your billing.
00:59:54
Speaker
And we're going to have you check.
00:59:55
Speaker
I'm going to have you, I'm going to text you.
00:59:56
Speaker
I'm going to say, hey, Taylor, do me a favor.
00:59:58
Speaker
Download a copy of your recent Edison statement for me.
01:00:01
Speaker
Send it to me.
01:00:01
Speaker
I'm going to review it and then report back to you what I find.
01:00:04
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:05
Speaker
right good so keep them in the loop and you're touching base with referrals hey also by the way there's a new promotion a new promotion there's always a new promotion and you kind of rotate them out a thousand dollars six months of power you know whatever it is like you can I've even done like swag like a jacket or extra little things just things you throw on top okay but um
01:00:32
Speaker
Yeah, so that's kind of the process.
01:00:34
Speaker
I kind of got lost in the train.
01:00:36
Speaker
What was I kind of saying right before that?
01:00:37
Speaker
Just telling them the three bad things.
01:00:39
Speaker
Oh, yeah, so that's the first one.
01:00:40
Speaker
The cheer up.
01:00:42
Speaker
Yeah, the second one is, so I talk about customer service specifically.
01:00:46
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:47
Speaker
I say, so here's the reality of the solar industry in California.
01:00:51
Speaker
Roughly 50% of everybody who has solar has been abandoned by their original installer.
01:00:56
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
01:00:57
Speaker
Now those other 50%, a lot of them have had terrible experiences with the companies that are servicing their systems.
01:01:04
Speaker
I said, so that's a reality.
01:01:05
Speaker
Unfortunately, it's still something that's an ongoing issue.
01:01:08
Speaker
So in order to avoid that, I'm your customer service rep for any problems you'll have.
01:01:13
Speaker
I will help be a liaison between you and corporate to make sure we can get somebody out to address whatever the issue is.
01:01:20
Speaker
That's awesome.
01:01:22
Speaker
And again, it's another touch point and it's another trust point.
01:01:25
Speaker
But I will say that because if people go and they do look for reviews, most of my customers don't anymore and they haven't for years, but they were in the beginning because I wasn't saying this stuff.
01:01:33
Speaker
So they felt like they had to go find out, well, why isn't Jonathan telling me the negatives?
01:01:36
Speaker
I know there's negatives about this.
Confirmation Bias in Solar Reviews
01:01:38
Speaker
So confirmation bias exists.
01:01:40
Speaker
People always go to what I want to believe.com and they look for whatever they want to believe.
01:01:44
Speaker
And that's what they do with solar.
01:01:46
Speaker
And I'll tell them straight up.
01:01:48
Speaker
We don't talk about referrals typically, but let's say somebody brings up
01:01:52
Speaker
reviews and they say, oh, well, I've heard there's a lot of bad reviews and blah, blah, blah.
01:01:56
Speaker
And I said, look, here's the reality.
01:01:59
Speaker
Sunrouse, speak to them because that's the company I work for.
01:02:01
Speaker
I said, we have a little over 900,000 customers.
01:02:06
Speaker
we have a little over 2,500 one-star reviews.
01:02:11
Speaker
The people that are happy don't go on the internet.
01:02:15
Speaker
And people agree, they're like, oh yeah, it makes sense.
01:02:17
Speaker
So my experience, 98% or more of my customers had a great experience.
01:02:23
Speaker
So if you wanna find that kind of stuff, all the stuff I'm talking about is right here in these negatives.
Simplifying PPA Transfers
01:02:28
Speaker
It's the true up bill, it's the customer service was bad, and then the third one is the transferability, they're trying to sell their home.
01:02:35
Speaker
That's good.
01:02:36
Speaker
So I talk about that and that one's pretty simple with PPA because as we know, the PPA is easier to transfer than other types of finance products.
01:02:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:02:44
Speaker
And so I just say it's one page transfer, easy to qualify for, you know, it's a utility, you know.
01:02:50
Speaker
And so the way I say it is I kind of frame it in this way.
01:02:54
Speaker
I'll say, so just like when you moved into your house, you had to call Edison and turn on your utility service, right?
01:02:59
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:00
Speaker
They're going to do the same thing when they move in, and then they're going to get grandfathered in at that lower utility rate with the PPA.
01:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's so good.
01:03:07
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:07
Speaker
That's
Handling Customer Concerns Preemptively
01:03:08
Speaker
awesome.
01:03:08
Speaker
Well, yeah, I love that, too, because if they call with your referral process, too, some of these people, they're probably the ones that bring up negative experiences.
01:03:18
Speaker
Probably 99% of them are going to be one of those three issues.
01:03:21
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:21
Speaker
So it's like you already just handled those three.
01:03:23
Speaker
Covered them.
01:03:24
Speaker
So now when their friend says, oh, this happened to me.
01:03:26
Speaker
My Uncle Joe or whatever.
01:03:28
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:28
Speaker
Like, oh, he told me that.
01:03:29
Speaker
I've heard it.
01:03:30
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:30
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:31
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:31
Speaker
So that's awesome.
01:03:32
Speaker
So that it's all in a process.
01:03:33
Speaker
I talk about that negativity right before I get to the referrals.
01:03:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:36
Speaker
Because then once I talk, I usually end with referrals because people remember the last thing that you said to them.
01:03:41
Speaker
And so I end with that to kind of keep that at the top of their mind.
01:03:45
Speaker
But yeah, like you said, because right before I talk about referrals, I kind of end with the negatives of solar.
01:03:49
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:50
Speaker
Now they're equipped when they go talk to their friends and family.
01:03:53
Speaker
And again, I'm going to say it again because I love this.
01:03:55
Speaker
I feel like it's my favorite one liner to say.
01:03:58
Speaker
So again, say you're the customer.
01:04:00
Speaker
I'll go, Taylor, all of your friends and family are going to have the same questions and concerns that you had before you met me.
01:04:07
Speaker
That's fire.
01:04:09
Speaker
Save that one.
01:04:10
Speaker
That's the one.
01:04:10
Speaker
Save that one.
01:04:11
Speaker
Save that one.
01:04:12
Speaker
I'm telling you, I've said it hundreds or I don't know, hundreds and hundreds of times.
01:04:15
Speaker
That's so good.
01:04:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome, man.
01:04:18
Speaker
Well, yeah, and then just, like, the trust
Building Trust by Discussing Negatives
01:04:20
Speaker
that that builds.
01:04:20
Speaker
Because, yeah, I just think of, you know, like, especially with the PPA, I'm sure you get this all the time.
01:04:26
Speaker
Well, what's the catch?
01:04:27
Speaker
Sounds too good to be true.
01:04:29
Speaker
So just by you telling them the negatives, I mean, I think of a deal that I went to just Monday before we came to Utah here and...
01:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's just like I could tell he just... The trust wasn't there.
01:04:43
Speaker
And I didn't go over the negatives like that.
01:04:45
Speaker
So I think just like going over that negative, yeah, most reps aren't doing these things.
01:04:50
Speaker
I would agree.
01:04:51
Speaker
Most reps are not doing these things.
01:04:53
Speaker
Maybe they've thought about, but they would avoid it because maybe they have...
01:04:56
Speaker
Because it is, it does take a little bit of courage to bring up the negatives, right?
01:05:00
Speaker
Just like it takes courage to knock on a door or ask for a referral.
01:05:03
Speaker
All those things take courage to do, right?
01:05:06
Speaker
But if you get yourself to do them and you're consistent, just like knocking or anything else, like it will produce results, I guarantee.
01:05:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's fire.
01:05:15
Speaker
That's fire.
01:05:15
Speaker
I'll say one more thing, actually.
PPAs vs. Loans in California Market
01:05:17
Speaker
I just popped into my head about the negatives.
01:05:19
Speaker
So about the PPA specifically, because especially if anybody's listening in the California market, I'm going to try to drop one last nugget here before we hop off.
01:05:25
Speaker
All right, that's all right.
01:05:26
Speaker
So here's my latest pitch.
01:05:29
Speaker
It's a little bit, I'm working on refining it.
01:05:30
Speaker
So don't judge it too much if it's a little clunky, but basically what it is, is I'll say, after I explain the net metering, I'll talk about, I'll go a little bit deeper about loan versus PPA.
01:05:42
Speaker
I'll go before NEM3 happened,
01:05:45
Speaker
Basically, my biggest competitor was a loan.
01:05:48
Speaker
I would show, let's say, a customer $150 payment with a 2.9% escalator, and then they would go shop it for a loan.
01:05:54
Speaker
They would get a $99 loan at a flat payment locked in.
01:05:58
Speaker
And they're like, what the heck?
01:05:59
Speaker
I'm going to pay double for a PPA.
01:06:02
Speaker
And I said, those days are gone because of two things.
01:06:05
Speaker
One, batteries are now involved.
01:06:07
Speaker
And so whenever you buy a system, you're now going to have to buy the battery twice because about, you know, 10 to 15 years in, it's going to need to be replaced.
01:06:15
Speaker
So you have to account for those costs.
01:06:17
Speaker
With the PPA, all the PPAs now have battery replacement built into the 25-year term.
01:06:22
Speaker
So you don't have to pay again for the system.
01:06:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's so good.
01:06:25
Speaker
pay there.
01:06:26
Speaker
The second thing, and I tell people real transparently to kill the loan in their mind, I say, currently, any solar loan in the industry, doesn't matter what company, they're charging 30% to 40% dealer fees on the back end, and the cost of money is, and I just say this, the cost of money is more expensive than it's ever been.
01:06:44
Speaker
Am I right?
01:06:44
Speaker
They go, yeah, it's crazy.
01:06:46
Speaker
Interest rates, I go, yeah.
01:06:47
Speaker
So now with interest rates and dealer fees, the PPA is actually a better option than the loan is on paper.
01:06:54
Speaker
Great.
01:06:55
Speaker
And so, you know, just let people like, and it's true.
01:06:58
Speaker
If you look at the numbers and you want to actually put it on a spreadsheet and you factor in the cost of the battery replacement, PPA is superior now.
01:07:06
Speaker
And so I say, my job just got way easier in the past nine months because now I don't have to worry about competing with all these loan people, these little small dealers out there anymore who are doing loans because a loan doesn't make sense in California anymore.
01:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, that is true.
01:07:21
Speaker
I was one of those dealer people that would just
01:07:22
Speaker
bash on sunroom ppas all day oh yeah well a lot of a lot of you guys did yeah so and yeah even if you're in a different market like a lot of things you can apply from that just being transparent and yeah maybe you're in a market where it's still uh one for one net metering and all that and you still can't bash on the ppas and stuff like that yeah yeah no it's true they some people and i'm sure it's like whatever product you're gonna sell you're gonna bash and i bash on loans all the time obviously so yeah you know it
01:07:52
Speaker
It can work.
System for Getting Referrals and Incentives
01:07:53
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, you know, if anything, just transparent, honest, you know, don't be afraid to be negative.
01:08:00
Speaker
Have a system, get your referrals, you know, incentivize people, give them promotional offers so they can, you know, become salespeople.
01:08:08
Speaker
Because again, 5% or less of people are actual salespeople.
01:08:13
Speaker
If you don't give them an offer to give, they're not going to go sell for you.
01:08:17
Speaker
Yeah, true.
01:08:18
Speaker
So true.
01:08:19
Speaker
That's awesome.
01:08:20
Speaker
Well, yeah, so many things here.
01:08:22
Speaker
And I know I'm going to re-listen to this one for sure.
01:08:25
Speaker
But whoever's listening to this, yeah, just start developing your own referral process.
01:08:29
Speaker
And it doesn't have to be super complicated, but you just got to stick with it and see it out.
01:08:33
Speaker
Because, yeah, how long would you say was it until you started seeing consistent referrals come in?
01:08:38
Speaker
Did it take a little bit?
01:08:38
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:39
Speaker
So like I said, in the very beginning, it was fairly quick because I was mining the referrals at the close, but the quality wasn't there as much.
01:08:47
Speaker
So I had to work a lot harder to essentially convert what was a cold lead into a warm lead.
01:08:53
Speaker
So there was more work and more time that I was putting in the beginning.
01:08:57
Speaker
I would say as the years have gone on, I've just gotten more efficient and more systematized.
01:09:01
Speaker
And so I work less hours for the same results.
01:09:03
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:04
Speaker
Okay.
01:09:05
Speaker
So that's good.
01:09:05
Speaker
That's good.
01:09:06
Speaker
That's awesome.
01:09:07
Speaker
And then last question, Jonathan, I know you're a little bit different than these guys grinding the doors every day.
Managing Referrals through Conversations
01:09:13
Speaker
So for you, that's just basically purely working these referrals.
01:09:16
Speaker
What is your typical day look like?
01:09:18
Speaker
Because most people it's like, okay, we're going to knock from four hours today, maybe do some referrals a little bit.
01:09:23
Speaker
What is your typical day look like?
01:09:25
Speaker
So my goal in any given day is pretty simple is 10 conversations a day.
01:09:32
Speaker
Okay.
01:09:33
Speaker
That's it.
01:09:34
Speaker
So now I found that I divide them up between three different pots of conversations.
01:09:40
Speaker
So my goal is to have at least one conversation per day over the phone with a referral partner.
01:09:48
Speaker
Okay.
01:09:49
Speaker
So just one partner contact per day.
01:09:51
Speaker
I'm probably going to have to bump that to two as I get to 12, right?
01:09:54
Speaker
So I usually work like six days a week.
01:09:56
Speaker
So right now I've got five, six people, so I can do one a day, but bump that to two.
01:10:02
Speaker
And then the other, the remaining eight or nine is split in half between referral pitches to existing customers to basically reach out to an existing customer, check on them, see how they're doing, give them an offer that they can go give to generate referrals.
01:10:21
Speaker
And then the other four or five calls are to that referral prospect list that's constantly growing from those other conversations to actually get a hold of them
01:10:31
Speaker
Get the utility bill, set the appointment.
01:10:33
Speaker
Okay, cool.
01:10:34
Speaker
And that's it.
01:10:34
Speaker
And the rest of it is just going to the appointments, closing appointments, and that's it.
01:10:39
Speaker
Okay, cool.
01:10:41
Speaker
Yeah, and so, yeah, I think for people, because myself, I know I'm going to still knock and everything, but it's like maybe you can reduce that to...
01:10:48
Speaker
okay, I'm going to go out and have 10 conversations on the doors and then maybe like two conversations or just like start small.
01:10:55
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:55
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, easily can be built up for sure that way.
01:10:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:59
Speaker
So, um, yeah, man, no, it's cool to hear you're doing it and you're definitely unique.
01:11:03
Speaker
Not a lot of people are just like running with peer referrals, at least that I talked to on the podcast.
01:11:08
Speaker
No, not really.
01:11:08
Speaker
Yeah.
Referral-Driven Business Model
01:11:09
Speaker
I don't come across anybody who really does it.
01:11:11
Speaker
A few people who do that, but very few, but, um, yeah,
01:11:14
Speaker
I think that is the dream though, right?
01:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, seriously.
01:11:17
Speaker
My goal this year is to hit 80 installs just purely off what I've shared today.
01:11:23
Speaker
So I think it's doable.
01:11:25
Speaker
We'll see.
01:11:26
Speaker
Okay.
01:11:26
Speaker
All right, man.
01:11:27
Speaker
Well, yeah.
01:11:27
Speaker
Hopefully we can have you on again once you hit 80 installs.
01:11:30
Speaker
Sounds good, brother.
01:11:31
Speaker
Hear what you're doing.
01:11:32
Speaker
All right,
Networking for Referral Insights
01:11:33
Speaker
guys.
01:11:33
Speaker
So go hit up Jonathan.
01:11:34
Speaker
Are you on social media?
01:11:35
Speaker
People want to reach out to you or hear them?
01:11:37
Speaker
Yeah, I'm on every single platform under the same long name, Jonathan Charles Wilson.
01:11:43
Speaker
So that's where you can find me.
01:11:45
Speaker
Okay.
01:11:46
Speaker
The one, the only.
01:11:47
Speaker
So guys, go hit him up if you want to get more tips and hear more about his referral process.
01:11:53
Speaker
And then reach out to us if you want to come to the number one market, California.
01:11:56
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:11:57
Speaker
Learn how to sell solar for real.
01:11:58
Speaker
Yes.
01:11:59
Speaker
Okay.
01:12:00
Speaker
And yeah, appreciate you coming on the show today, Jonathan.
01:12:02
Speaker
Thanks, brother.
01:12:03
Speaker
It's been fun and excited to hopefully have you on again in the future.
01:12:06
Speaker
Absolutely, brother.
01:12:07
Speaker
Sounds good.
01:12:07
Speaker
All right, man.
01:12:08
Speaker
Peace.
01:12:09
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
Top 10 Podcast Episodes Cheat Sheet
01:12:10
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
01:12:12
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.
01:12:23
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
01:12:30
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
01:12:33
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
01:12:37
Speaker
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01:12:50
Speaker
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01:12:53
Speaker
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01:12:59
Speaker
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01:13:01
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
01:13:05
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
01:13:10
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
01:13:12
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
01:13:14
Speaker
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01:13:16
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
01:13:21
Speaker
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01:13:23
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.