Transcript
Speaker: The Solarpreneur Podcast will reteach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
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 become one.
Speaker: Okay, what's up, everybody?
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.
Speaker: So I'm excited to introduce him here, but a little bit about his story.
Speaker: But Jonathan Wilson is here with us today.
Speaker: Thanks for coming on the podcast, my man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It'll be fun.
Speaker: And we're going to be jamming on a lot of stuff.
Speaker: Jonathan, he's been with Sunrun Direct for six years now, right?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I've been crushing a lot of deals with him.
Speaker: But this guy, I know he's kind of a pro-J of Matt Crowther.
Speaker: I know you guys work together.
Speaker: And for our listeners, if you remember Matt Crowther, he is kind of known as the referral guy.
Speaker: So I think today, Jonathan, he's implemented a lot of those same things, but sort of developed his own process.
Speaker: Yeah, so we're going to jam on referrals.
Speaker: He's got a cool story.
Speaker: So on, Kawhi Leonard's grandma, I'm excited to hear.
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?
Speaker: Yeah, I'll go back a little bit here.
Speaker: I'll keep it brief.
Speaker: But basically, I was the kid with the lemonade stand.
Speaker: I was the kid who was an entrepreneur from a young age.
Speaker: I started off when I was 14.
Speaker: My uncle Kenny out in Ohio taught me how to do address painting door to door.
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.
Speaker: And by the time I graduated high school, I had knocked probably close to 10,000 doors already.
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.
Speaker: At that time, I didn't know that there was a whole career in industry based around direct-to-home sales.
Speaker: So yeah, I went into college for a little bit, ended up dropping out, realizing I'm a salesperson.
Speaker: You don't really need to go to school to be a salesperson, right?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And, yeah, I got into, started my own company, gutter cleaning company, actually, out in Ohio.
Speaker: Recruited a few friends, went out, built that for about a year, built it to six figures.
Speaker: But it was kind of boring, to be honest.
Speaker: You're selling $150 gutter cleans.
Speaker: It was kind of like I got bored fast.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: So I have a really extensive background in home energy auditing and efficiency.
Speaker: That's another thing that I would say that makes me unique in the solar space.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Got BPI certified, which is basically a building analyst.
Speaker: Less than 1% of contractors have it.
Speaker: I can, you know, do...
Speaker: Duck blaster, blower door, infrared camera, all these types of kind of comprehensive energy tests.
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...
Speaker: intimate things about how your home works.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, um, and then, yeah, basically transitioned in 2014 pretty quickly, about less than a year into in-home sales.
Speaker: What happened there was my boss at the time, he came in at 6am and saw me there making calls.
Speaker: And he said, what are you doing?
Speaker: You don't start for another couple hours.
Speaker: And I said, well, it's 9am in Ohio and I have a team of guys out there still cleaning gutters for me.
Speaker: And he's like, well, I thought you closed your business.
Speaker: And I said, no, no offense, but this energy auditing job is not paying my bills.
Speaker: And so he said, well, what about getting into sales with us?
Speaker: And I said, sure, a sale is a sale.
Speaker: So I created, I've always been a person that, you know, as a entrepreneur, I create my own opportunities.
Speaker: And so they didn't have an opening for a consultant at that time.
Speaker: But I asked him, I said, what are you guys charging for these energy audits?
Speaker: You know, we're spending a lot of company resources.
Speaker: And he said, oh, we give those out for free.
Speaker: And I said, for free?
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?
Speaker: And he said, oh yeah, we make money on the back end.
Speaker: I said, well, how about this?
Speaker: We need to get these customers with some skin in the game.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so he said, okay, well, I'm open to that.
Speaker: We've got a lot of leads.
Speaker: We were doing a lot of Angie's List and Home Advisor and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: So just lots of volume, but low quality.
Speaker: And so the first week I made calls, sold a little over $1,500 in audits.
Speaker: I told him I wanted at least 25% of the commission.
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.
Speaker: And I was like,
Speaker: This is good money.
Speaker: Not bad.
Speaker: He got me into the residential space shortly thereafter, actually selling the whole house retrofits.
Speaker: And he said, well, this is a way bigger sale than an energy audit sale.
Speaker: So you're selling 40, 50, 60 K energy retrofits, right?
Speaker: HVAC systems and all that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he trained me for about a month or so.
Speaker: And then one night I remember he goes, you know, I am I'm just tired of I can't go out.
Speaker: We had a Santa Ana close and it was 7 p.m.
Speaker: and he didn't want to go out there.
Speaker: So he's like, you know, just call me if you need me.
Speaker: It was my first at bat.
Speaker: So I pull up to this guy's house, right?
Speaker: It's four story house.
Speaker: Still to this day, I've never been in a four story house.
Speaker: Huge house at the top of the hill in Santa Ana.
Speaker: And I remember super nervous.
Speaker: Like I was shaking and I was so like, you know, really nervous.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I'm, you know, 20 years old at the time.
Speaker: I go in and I pitch the guy, do about an hour long presentation, give him a really detailed breakdown.
Speaker: I remember his name is Steve.
Speaker: He sits back and goes, Jonathan, you know how I paid for all this house and lifestyle you see?
Speaker: He goes, I'm a commercial roof salesperson.
Speaker: I sell two or three roofs a year and it affords me all of this that you see.
Speaker: And he said, how do I get that job?
Speaker: And he goes, this is the best sales presentation I've ever heard.
Speaker: I want to do everything.
Speaker: It was a $75,000 sale as my first sale.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: I then said, please excuse me.
Speaker: I stepped outside, called my boss and said, I don't know how to fill out the contract paper.
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.
Speaker: So he goes, okay, we're going to give you a shot at this consulting position.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, remember?
Speaker: So yeah, I got into that, then started selling.
Speaker: We would do retrofits.
Speaker: Then we started doing solar.
Speaker: Around that time, I would say probably like early 2015 is when I started selling solar.
Speaker: And to be honest with you, at that time, it was about one in 20 jobs, about 5% or so of our jobs.
Speaker: We would add solar.
Speaker: So we would.
Speaker: Okay.
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.
Speaker: Back then, we used to do what's called peak power shaving for any of the OGs in the industry.
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.
Speaker: So anyways, I got into that and then did that, sold a little over $5 million in energy retrofits plus solar.
Speaker: And then in 2018, decided to venture off, start my own company called Go Green, which I still have to this day.
Speaker: That's my entity.
Speaker: And Go Green, I was doing sales, but it really wasn't good enough to pay my bills and actually keep up.
Speaker: And so I started looking for a solar opportunity.
Speaker: I got super lucky.
Speaker: found out about Vivint Solar two months after BlackRock acquired them.
Speaker: So this is now April 2018.
Speaker: And yeah, man, the rest is kind of history from there.
Speaker: I started building referrals right off the bat off of a lot of my old energy retrofit customers.
Speaker: I kind of went back to those old customers and said, hey, there's a new program.
Speaker: You can get solar.
Speaker: We've already made your house efficient, right?
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.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: So I just pulled on that.
Speaker: And then I've been doing referrals ever since I started.
Speaker: On the Vivint culture, it wasn't popular.
Speaker: In fact, I was told by leadership to kind of keep your mouth shut.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And like, oh, that's going to camp.
Speaker: Don't ask for referrals.
Speaker: Deals will cancel and stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah, there's a lot of fear at that time.
Speaker: And I remember I met Matt Crowther and he told me about his referral program.
Speaker: And we were sitting at Cafe Rio and
Speaker: And we're eating with the team and he starts telling me about his referral program.
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.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: Because I saw it right away.
Speaker: And I started doing it and I've been 100% referral ever since.
Speaker: You know, full disclosure, I'm not like some crazy high performer.
Speaker: I average about 40 installs a year, but it's all 100% referral.
Speaker: I haven't knocked any doors.
Speaker: So it's awesome.
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.
Speaker: It's nice.
Speaker: I don't really work a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: Like I'm always looking for ways to do more referrals.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like as much as people say they love knocking on doors.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, why wouldn't you do that?
Speaker: Well, it was kind of funny because once COVID hit in 2020, all of a sudden everybody started coming to me.
Speaker: Yeah, it went from 360 from everybody from leadership being like, hey, man, keep your mouth shut about it.
Speaker: We just want our guys knocking doors.
Speaker: No offense, like do what you're going to do.
Speaker: But we don't want you to kind of mess up the culture of door knocking in the office.
Speaker: That's OK.
Speaker: That's fair.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: And then 2020 hit and that's really all we could do.
Speaker: And so it was neat to kind of be able to shine during that time.
Speaker: And now referrals are a regular part of our office trainings and part of the culture.
Speaker: So, yeah, I hope we can get into that today.
Speaker: Yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker: And I'm excited to hear your take on it.
Speaker: But yeah, I know, you know, Matt's, you know, I know other guys from your office, too.
Speaker: That's like crushed a ton of referrals.
Speaker: At least they tell me, you know, some people can talk and all that.
Speaker: I would say our top guy, Louis Gutierrez, I'll shout him out.
Speaker: Love you, Louis.
Speaker: We call him Louis the legend.
Speaker: He did.
Speaker: So do the numbers here with me.
Speaker: He got 1.6 million in commission last year, all off referrals.
Speaker: He max rated every single person he sold with an average commission of 20K per deal.
Speaker: He sold 79 installs and made 1.6 million.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: He's kind of perfected it.
Speaker: Him, Matt and myself are the top three referral people in our office.
Speaker: And so, you know, we kind of train the guys as they come in of how to start building that.
Speaker: And
Speaker: A lot of the stuff, I don't want to be too redundant, right?
Speaker: Because I know Matt's been on here and you probably had other guys that have talked about referrals.
Speaker: And so, yeah, let's talk about some kind of maybe differences that I do that are different from other people.
Speaker: Yeah, let's do it for sure.
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.
Speaker: So I mean, that's a good episode.
Speaker: And this will kind of build off of a lot of things that he talked about.
Speaker: But yeah, before we get into that, just a couple of things I heard you say.
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.
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.
Speaker: But even all the leads I'd got,
Speaker: For my first two, three years in solar, I didn't keep track of any of them.
Speaker: I didn't stay in touch with any of my cells.
Speaker: I came from pest control, so I just thought it was like, you sell them, you never talk to them again.
Speaker: Just go knock more doors.
Speaker: I think that's huge.
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.
Speaker: I think that's a good principle to build off of, keep track of the people you talk to and
Speaker: CRM, just keep track of those leads.
Speaker: So for you, did you store them?
Speaker: Did you have like a CRM or something?
Speaker: Just a spreadsheet.
Speaker: Yeah, I took from Matt.
Speaker: Matt does spreadsheets too.
Speaker: So we're both kind of, you know, I just copied his system in that way.
Speaker: But I will say that's what I loved about solar versus other stuff I've sold.
Speaker: Because that was the same way I used to sell energy retrofits.
Speaker: And usually once it's sold, that was kind of it.
Speaker: And I love that the solar space provided an opportunity for genuine long term relationships.
Speaker: And I still believe that wholeheartedly.
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.
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.
Speaker: So like one of my favorite referral partners, I've partnered with two different roofing companies in Southern California.
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.
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.
Speaker: And so I would say I'll just give you guys a quick script that you can apply to any industry.
Speaker: It's real simple.
Speaker: There's two steps to it.
Speaker: I like to keep it super simple.
Speaker: The first step is whatever the product or service is,
Speaker: The company calls, let's say, a representative from that company.
Speaker: Hey, this is Jonathan from so-and-so roofing company.
Speaker: I just wanted to call and check in on you guys and see how your roof's been working out for you.
Speaker: We've had some rains recently.
Speaker: Have you guys noticed any leaks or anything like that?
Speaker: They're going to be most of the time, no, right?
Speaker: Oh, no, it's been great.
Speaker: We've loved the roof.
Speaker: It's been great.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Hey, the second reason why I'm calling is that I wanted to let you know about a program that you might be eligible for since you've gotten a roof in the past five years.
Speaker: So there's actually a new program available for solar.
Speaker: Have you guys ever looked into it?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: A lot of times people are going to say, yeah, we have or yeah, we don't.
Speaker: We're not interested.
Speaker: They're going to give all the common objections.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, totally.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: That's why we're actually calling you, because in the past you could only buy or lease the panels.
Speaker: There's actually a new third option available.
Speaker: It's called a power purchase agreement.
Speaker: Have you guys heard about it?
Speaker: most people are going to say no to that.
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.
Speaker: They don't know.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: That gives you an opportunity to educate them and become the expert.
Speaker: Basically from there, I just transition and say, hey, great.
Speaker: Well, that's what we're doing.
Speaker: We're actually scheduling free consultations to see if your home might be eligible for a reduced power bill.
Speaker: And so it's really simple.
Speaker: All I need from you is to send me a copy of your most recent Edison statement.
Speaker: Do you get that paper online?
Speaker: Okay, great.
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.
Speaker: I'll also put my email if you want to send it via email.
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.
Speaker: Just see if it's a good fit or not.
Speaker: If not, no worries, but we just wanted to give you that opportunity.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: So that's the basic pitch, right?
Speaker: And you can do that for roofing, for pretty much any kind of contracting or, you know, past alarm, right?
Speaker: Hey, how's your service?
Speaker: And then just transition into the offer.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: So are you telling your referral partners, you're giving them that script and telling them to call their customers with it?
Speaker: Yeah, I don't like it.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I basically say, no, you have to earn this referral money, right?
Speaker: It's not a free money.
Speaker: Like you actually have to put in the work, but I'll help coach you.
Speaker: So that's my job, right?
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.
Speaker: And then I give them my Calendly link where it has, they can actually schedule directly onto my calendar for me.
Speaker: So when they're talking to the customer, they can schedule and book on my calendar.
Speaker: Oh, smart.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: That's cool, man.
Speaker: So how do you approach these companies?
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?
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: I think that there probably is people who do that and probably have a lot of success.
Speaker: I haven't done that at all.
Speaker: I've actually, my entire six years, past six years, every single connection I have...
Speaker: came from somebody who was already a customer or just we had some kind of a relationship.
Speaker: And then I asked for a connection.
Speaker: So I said, hey, do you know anybody who's in the roofing space to a customer?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then they'll say, you know, it's a customer.
Speaker: Obviously, I have really good rapport with where I'm just like buddies and friends.
Speaker: And I can ask for that.
Speaker: And they say, oh, yeah, you know, actually, I have somebody in the roofing space or I have somebody in this space.
Speaker: And then I go from there.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, I've never cold called a company and tried to do it that way, but you probably could.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: That's cool.
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.
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?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I have three tiers of partnerships.
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.
Speaker: So that's nothing special.
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.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: I found those people are the best.
Speaker: They've got a lot of time.
Speaker: All their friends and family are homeowners generally.
Speaker: They want some extra income on top of their whatever social security, whatever they're making.
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?
Speaker: And I attach work and kind of effort behind it.
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.
Speaker: If you get their utility bill for me and you schedule the appointment, I will give you 30%.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Making them put them to work.
Speaker: So put them to work because then it makes it more real.
Speaker: Like they actually have to do something to get that 30% because that's how it works in business, right?
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.
Speaker: That's a lot extra.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I have right now I have about six or seven people that are at that level.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then I have four people right now that are at a 50-50 split.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
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.
Speaker: But I just say, look, I'm going to close at a higher rate.
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.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: So do you have them give you a couple referrals before you kind of introduce this 30%?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Because, yeah, imagine like if you're like everyone's going to want the 30 percent.
Speaker: But I'm like, right.
Speaker: So I should tell them a thousand and then maybe they'll give you a couple.
Speaker: Then you'll approach them again and say, hey, it looks like you're doing, you know, people.
Speaker: That's exactly how I do it.
Speaker: And this year, I would say my biggest focus for the beginning of 2024 is I want to get to a dozen.
Speaker: So basically double my 30 percent referral category of, you know, of
Speaker: partners and then stay in consistent communication with them.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then the momentum kind of dies.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: So my biggest referral partner last year made $60,000.
Speaker: So not bad, right?
Speaker: And so I basically show people like, hey, look, I have three people who are making $30,000 to $60,000.
Speaker: And if you want to make an extra $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, that's totally doable.
Speaker: And here's how we're going to do it.
Speaker: And then I coach them.
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.
Speaker: So it's the same process.
Speaker: And, you know, I say, look, you know, kind of the three steps that I make a simple form.
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.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: I say, let's say you're the homeowner.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's a kind of an obvious statement.
Speaker: But really what it's doing is it's saying there's going to be objections.
Speaker: There's going to be concerns.
Speaker: So be expecting that.
Speaker: So because a lot of times I think people in the industry, they ask for referrals, they get a referral.
Speaker: It's a low quality referral.
Speaker: It doesn't convert.
Speaker: It never goes anywhere.
Speaker: They never get an appointment set or even a utility bill.
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.
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.
Speaker: But they were crap.
Speaker: Yeah, that's my problem.
Speaker: It's tough to find the needle in the haystack sometimes.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: And I think it can be almost honestly as time consuming as knocking doors if you're doing it the wrong way.
Speaker: And I think a lot of people don't know that.
Speaker: I think, oh, this is great.
Speaker: This guy just gets referrals all the time and he's just closing every single person.
Speaker: It's like, no, I struggle with the same stuff everybody else does.
Speaker: But I try to be more strategic to go, okay, well, how can I get, for instance, the customer?
Speaker: I found names and numbers aren't what I want.
Speaker: So I don't ask for that ever.
Speaker: Okay.
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.
Speaker: Trust me, like I've got better things to do with my time.
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.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: So what does that do?
Speaker: Takes off the pressure, accountability, now they have to respond because their friend or family member is on the text with me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Yeah, that's fire.
Speaker: So now they're in a group text.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: And so from there, that increases the likelihood you're actually going to even have a conversation.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then it's real simple.
Speaker: My sales approach is very laid back, right?
Speaker: And so I just jump on the text after they introduce me and say, hey, thanks for the referral.
Speaker: Super appreciate it.
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?
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Real simple.
Speaker: You know, two, three sentences.
Speaker: And then...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then they'll say, oh, I'm working and I'll be off at six.
Speaker: Call me, you know, call me after six.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: I'll call you then.
Speaker: Thumbs up.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Sweet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I like that you simplify it all and all that.
Speaker: Cause yeah, that's, I was telling Matt this too.
Speaker: And we did the podcast.
Speaker: It's like, I did the whole, you know, cut co thing where you take out the list.
Speaker: It's like, okay, right.
Speaker: I'll write everyone you can think of.
Speaker: Give me at least 10 names, numbers.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And I would get so stoked that I just got some of these people, even 15 sometimes.
Speaker: Like, oh my gosh, this has got to be at least like five sales.
Speaker: It's as good as a cold call, man.
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.
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
Speaker: Talk to them a little bit about it.
Speaker: Stay out of the weeds.
Speaker: Just say, hey, there's a new program you're not buying, you're not leasing.
Speaker: It's a really cool program.
Speaker: I want to introduce you to Jonathan over text if that's cool with you.
Speaker: Usually people are going to say yes just because they don't want to say no to their friend or family.
Speaker: And it's an easy yes because it's a text.
Speaker: Yeah, that's good.
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?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's the key.
Speaker: It's always in the follow up is.
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.
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.
Speaker: I don't want to confuse that.
Speaker: It's really simple.
Speaker: Hey, did they tell you about the program at all?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Here's the problem.
Speaker: Here's the solution.
Speaker: Do a pullback takeaway.
Speaker: And then the transition is basically my soft close is what city are you in?
Speaker: Are you in the same city as your friend, you know, Highland, whatever city?
Speaker: And they go, actually, no, I live in the city next door.
Speaker: I live, you know, I live a little further away.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: What city?
Speaker: Oh, there.
Speaker: Okay, great.
Speaker: Let me look at my schedule here.
Speaker: And then I always schedule the appointment within a 48 hour window.
Speaker: That's a key to it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So just, hey, you know what?
Speaker: I'm actually going to be in the area around this time tomorrow evening.
Speaker: Are you going to be around this time?
Speaker: OK, perfect.
Speaker: So I'll just swing by to be 20, 30 minutes before.
Speaker: After we hop off this call, I'm just going to have you text me a copy of your most recent Edison bill.
Speaker: Just it'll save us some time in the initial meeting so I can have some numbers prepared for you.
Speaker: And and that's it.
Speaker: Schedule the appointment.
Speaker: And then the key, like I said, this year for me is follow up communication.
Speaker: So, for instance, and I've done this before and it works well, but it's just more of a discipline thing.
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.
Speaker: They seemed pretty interested.
Speaker: I scheduled an appointment for tomorrow.
Speaker: They're sending me their bill tonight.
Speaker: Thanks for the referral.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: Because then they're constantly thinking of you.
Speaker: And then they're like, oh, wait, wow, this is actually happening.
Speaker: More people.
Speaker: I'm going to get a thousand bucks.
Speaker: Now, who else can I think of?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, that's good.
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?
Speaker: I could talk to some more people about this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think it's kind of like, you know, just a setter too.
Speaker: I see some closers, they get, they close a deal for their setter and then the setter never hears it.
Speaker: hears from him again.
Speaker: It's like the deal's going through or whatever.
Speaker: All the time.
Speaker: Same concept.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: It's like the same thing.
Speaker: You got to keep these people motivated and then if they hear, it's like, okay.
Speaker: Because that's basically what these referral partners, they're all just, they're a bunch of setters.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they're just not knocking.
Speaker: They're just calling their network.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But yeah, I'm excited to tell you about my, my rockstar referral partner.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I'm excited.
Speaker: Yeah.
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?
Speaker: So I do 1099.
Speaker: So I tell them I'm going to W9 them.
Speaker: So after I give them their first check, I give them a W9 form.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then I 1099 them because I'm not paying the taxes on that.
Speaker: Some people do cash and don't record it.
Speaker: I don't want to pay taxes on all that extra income.
Speaker: Especially if you're paying out like 30% commissions.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And maybe with a thousand, it's not a huge deal.
Speaker: But, yeah, if I'm doing over $1,000, 100%.
Speaker: Like $60,000 that you paid out?
Speaker: No, that's insane.
Speaker: You better W-9.
Speaker: I'm W-9ing all those people.
Speaker: So, for sure do that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then the other thing before I forget.
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...
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?
Speaker: You know, no, actually.
Speaker: And I think part of that's because I don't really max rate very often.
Speaker: So I don't ever do low rate either.
Speaker: I would say my average when I would say my average commission this last year was $8,000.
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.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
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.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so I've never had that issue.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Maybe that Louie guy, he's making $20,000.
Speaker: You're making $20,000 and then you're giving people a huge... You know what's crazy too?
Speaker: He actually only gives people a $200 referral fee.
Speaker: Are you serious?
Speaker: I don't know how he does it.
Speaker: You got to have him on the podcast.
Speaker: That'll be level three.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's cool.
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.
Speaker: Some of these things I try one time, but it takes a while to build out the process, I would think.
Speaker: So for you, when did you transition from Doors to sort of doing this full-time?
Speaker: So immediately.
Speaker: So what happened was, well...
Speaker: My first, my combine, they call it, right?
Speaker: Your first 60 days.
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.
Speaker: That was kind of like the gold standard back then.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And my first six came from past customers.
Speaker: And then the other four came from neighbors that I knocked on of those customers that were getting site surveyed.
Speaker: And I said, hey, our trucks are right there.
Speaker: We're surveying your neighbor.
Speaker: I just want to let you know what's going on.
Speaker: And then pitched them, closed them.
Speaker: So those first 10, only four of them were knocks and they were warm knocks.
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.
Speaker: I'm not just going to go cold knock a random neighborhood personally.
Speaker: Some people do that and they're great and I respect them.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: It's hard work.
Speaker: It's hard work.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it was all warm doors, essentially, at that point.
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.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's incredible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: All right, well, let's give the people what they want.
Speaker: Like, we all want to hear how you sold Kawhi Leonard's grandma.
Speaker: So, yeah, can you tell us the story?
Speaker: How did you...
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.
Speaker: So pretty much like Kawhi?
Speaker: Like Kawhi, yeah, right, just dry, just so dry like Kawhi, dude.
Speaker: And you're just like, oh, I see where he gets here.
Speaker: And so I didn't know that it was Kawhi's grandma at the time.
Speaker: It was actually...
Speaker: My second, it was actually one of my, so I found out through a friend that gave me a referral really early on.
Speaker: And they said, oh, yeah, you should talk to this lady.
Speaker: You know, she's great or whatever.
Speaker: And it was this random kind of referral.
Speaker: And I think it was like the second or third pitch that I'd ever done for Vivint.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I was nervous.
Speaker: I just started.
Speaker: It was a new pitch.
Speaker: And I kind of, I don't know, I felt like I bombed it personally.
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.
Speaker: And then I reached out again, finally got through to her because, you know, follow up is key, right?
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.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: But there's been a few changes.
Speaker: We actually got you a slightly lower rate.
Speaker: Back then it was like, I think the max you could sell was 19 cents at that time.
Speaker: And so I said, we got you a rate of 17 and a half cents.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I said, so I just wanted to let you know about it.
Speaker: And she said, okay, well let's, you know, she'd be scheduled an appointment.
Speaker: We sat down, I closed it.
Speaker: I thought she was going to cancel.
Speaker: She didn't seem like she was that serious stone face, no emotion, nothing.
Speaker: I was just like, okay, well it's a, it's a deal.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: Got installed pretty quick.
Speaker: It was actually, I think, also my second install or something.
Speaker: It was really early in 2018.
Speaker: And then I started pitching the referral program that Matt taught me immediately.
Speaker: And back then it was $250 that I would give people for a referral.
Speaker: And so I went and sat with her.
Speaker: Here's the thing a lot of people don't do.
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
Speaker: I plant the seed.
Speaker: I always say with referrals, talk about them early and often.
Speaker: So for instance, let's say the first sit down we do, typically I one call close.
Speaker: So at the end of the close, I'll say, hey, and by the way, we have this really cool referral program.
Speaker: It's a thousand dollars if you refer somebody.
Speaker: But right now we still have to survey your house to see if it's eligible.
Speaker: So I do a pullback.
Speaker: So we'll talk about that at a later time.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I plant the seed, pull back.
Speaker: We're not really going to get into it today.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So then they're like, okay, but they're thinking about it.
Speaker: And then typically where I harvest the referrals personally is a strategy that I made up in 2018 that worked really well.
Speaker: Hmm.
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.
Speaker: So I found a system to prevent that.
Speaker: Here's the system.
Speaker: Within 48 hours of the install, you do an unannounced pop-by.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And you just swing by, oh, hey, how's it going, Taylor?
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.
Speaker: You have a couple minutes.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Transition into the house.
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.
Speaker: Well, they're actually doing an additional incentive right now.
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.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And I say for five, right?
Speaker: So I have a hundred dollar bill ready in my pocket.
Speaker: I sit down with them, go through, get five names and numbers, and then I give them a little coaching, right?
Speaker: These are the three things you need to be aware of, right?
Speaker: Go through that with them.
Speaker: So the whole thing's 20 to 30 minutes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then I say, but don't worry.
Speaker: Then I do.
Speaker: I take the pressure off.
Speaker: I say, but don't worry.
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.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
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.
Speaker: So it takes the pressure off.
Speaker: I get them.
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.
Speaker: No, it's a hundred bucks.
Speaker: You're good.
Speaker: And I say, I'm all referral based.
Speaker: So like, this is literally my entire business.
Speaker: I don't knock doors.
Speaker: Thank God anymore.
Speaker: I don't cold call anymore.
Speaker: Thank God.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So this is my business.
Speaker: So I appreciate it.
Speaker: And, and I'm going to take good care of these people just like I took care of you.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: So then th is is the follow up part.
Speaker: So then the install happens.
Speaker: And then once you're at the install, you show up, right?
Speaker: Bring the whatever you bring for your installers.
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.
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.
Speaker: So I have these five names and numbers of these people.
Speaker: Do me a favor in the next couple of days.
Speaker: Can you start reaching out to them and then putting me in group text messages with them after you talk to them?
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: So you don't do this.
Speaker: You always do this after the install?
Speaker: You never do it before?
Speaker: I used to do it before.
Speaker: You could do it before.
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.
Speaker: But if you're more advanced and seasoned,
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And less risk, I guess, to hear about the negatives.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: No, that makes sense.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So yeah, back to, I guess we went on a tangent there.
Speaker: But yeah, so you closed Kawhi's grandma.
Speaker: What happened after that?
Speaker: Yeah, sorry.
Speaker: So what happened was,
Speaker: I tell her about this 250, right?
Speaker: And again, no emotion.
Speaker: Just her response is, okay, I'll start sending you some people.
Speaker: And I was like, okay, that was it.
Speaker: And I didn't have really a lot of the nuance that I just shared right now.
Speaker: My system was...
Speaker: not that, right?
Speaker: It was no system really at all.
Speaker: I was just kind of telling people.
Speaker: And I just kind of got lucky with her, to be honest.
Speaker: She starts sending me people.
Speaker: And some of the people she starts sending me, they're like, oh, you know who that is, right?
Speaker: And I'm like, what?
Speaker: And they're like, that's Kawhi Leonard's grandmother.
Speaker: And I'm like, wait, what?
Speaker: So I found out from her referrals who she was, right?
Speaker: And so after I found out about that, I brought it up to her.
Speaker: I said, oh, it's Kawhi, you know, your grandson.
Speaker: And at the time she goes,
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
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
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's some good ratios right there.
Speaker: is a pretty solid referral partner and she was my first.
Speaker: And then also one of the things that I did that worked and I know you do this too.
Speaker: So, um, you know, basically I showed up with her first pay.
Speaker: It was a, she actually had two installs that happened.
Speaker: So I gave her 500 bucks in cash.
Speaker: I showed up to her house and with her house, the solar just happens to be on the front of the house.
Speaker: And I had a buddy shoot with my iPhone camera and it's a 42nd video.
Speaker: She's holding the $500 cash.
Speaker: I'm standing next to her.
Speaker: I'm like, hey, I'm here with Miss Bernstein is her name.
Speaker: Miss Bernstein, she got solar on her house.
Speaker: She's loving it.
Speaker: She just got her first referral cash, $500.
Speaker: Bernstein, what do you have to say about the program?
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And she goes, real dry again.
Speaker: She goes, if you're thinking about getting solar, don't wait, just do it.
Speaker: It was just like perfect.
Speaker: I mean, it was like a 40 second clip.
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.
Speaker: Actually, here's a video of her.
Speaker: And I pull it out and I show them the video.
Speaker: And they're watching the video of their friend or whoever that, you know, that like.
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
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: But I don't think I've actually done one for referrals, really.
Speaker: So it's a good day because you're saying she's like for referrals.
Speaker: It's for cash and stuff and kind of makes it more real for people, maybe.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're more to show the referral partners or referrals.
Speaker: Like, hey, like this is real.
Speaker: You can make money doing referrals, too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: That's cool, man.
Speaker: And hopefully someday she'll refer you to Kauai.
Speaker: That's like the next step in all this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'd lost kind of touch there during COVID.
Speaker: I wasn't working a whole ton out in the field.
Speaker: I was doing a lot of over-the-phone stuff.
Speaker: And in 2021, I swung by and I left a basketball there at her house to sign.
Speaker: And I haven't been over in a while.
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.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
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.
Speaker: So I'm doing that all referral based.
Speaker: That's good.
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.
Speaker: Especially my customers from like three, four years ago.
Speaker: Like, yeah, they basically haven't heard from me since I sold them the first time.
Speaker: So do you have any advice?
Speaker: How do you do it?
Speaker: The people that go, yeah, and stop giving me referrals.
Speaker: How do you like bring back up the conversation without it being like weird and like salesy?
Speaker: Just kind of like start back up in the conversation and lead them back in.
Speaker: Great question.
Speaker: Do you have any tips on that?
Speaker: Great question, dude.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: That's why you're a good podcast fan.
Speaker: That was a great question.
Speaker: I just keep it real with what I don't do good.
Speaker: No, that's what that's.
Speaker: And that's, that's true.
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.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's always, Hey, how's, how's it doing?
Speaker: Um, you know, how's solar?
Speaker: Can you do me a favor and download a recent copy of your Edison bill?
Speaker: I'm going to do an analysis to see how much credit or how much you owe.
Speaker: Have you got a true up bill?
Speaker: Right.
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.
Speaker: And I'm going to steal from my boy, Tony Robbins.
Speaker: He has the, one of the best quotes I got, um, from his business event in 2015.
Speaker: He said, the number one time to create a raving fan customer is at the peak of their disappointment.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And I thought that's money.
Speaker: That's money because a lot of people and I've gotten some of those, even Kawhi, she had Kawhi Leonard's grandmother.
Speaker: She had a bunch of issues shortly after install.
Speaker: Her inverter went down.
Speaker: She had a leak.
Speaker: And the first year was kind of rough.
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.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: That's good.
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.
Speaker: So we'd rather just go to a fresh customer that doesn't have any negative experience.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so in certain ways, knocking is actually easier in that regard.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because it's like you have no past relationship.
Speaker: There's no baggage.
Speaker: There's no issues.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To their existing customers.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I can, I can relate.
Speaker: And probably a lot of people listening, um, have had experiences where you had a pissed off customer issues.
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.
Speaker: And I got some like pretty nasty texts to her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, these are the texts.
Speaker: You never want to talk to this person again.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, like I helped him out and then sure enough, he referred to his dad.
Speaker: He referred like three people from his, uh, police department, whatever.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: It works.
Speaker: So yeah, that, that is a good point.
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.
Speaker: Do you tie in, do that at all?
Speaker: Or you're just doing the thousand dollars?
Speaker: You know, I haven't.
Speaker: I've been considering doing that vacation incentive this year.
Speaker: But really what I'm more focused on than that is those.
Speaker: So let's go back to those 30%.
Speaker: So I have about five, six right now that are solid that are giving me business that are on that 30% compensation category.
Speaker: And I'm trying to double that in the next few months.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So my strategy there is, so here's, this is one of the things I wanted to talk about.
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.
Speaker: So I would say in my personal case study, roughly 5% of the population has some basic sales ability, right?
Speaker: Now, I don't want to just
Speaker: I mean, I focus on the 5%, but I want to convert a larger percentage of those non-salespeople into salespeople.
Speaker: So I thought about, well, how do you do that?
Speaker: This is what I found.
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.
Speaker: So what that looks like is this.
Speaker: So I'll call a past customer.
Speaker: Maybe they've given me a referral.
Speaker: Maybe they haven't.
Speaker: Doesn't necessarily matter one way or the other.
Speaker: And I'll say, hey, so-and-so, again, just wanted to check in with you, see how your system's doing.
Speaker: Great, cool.
Speaker: So lead with service.
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.
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.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: That's good.
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.
Speaker: At least take a look.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So it kind of, I'll even say that.
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.
Speaker: Just let them know if they meet with me from now until the end of the month.
Speaker: You know, again, I'll be super low pressure, not a big deal.
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.
Speaker: Okay, that's good.
Speaker: And you've done that before and it's worked well in the past?
Speaker: Really well.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But most people, I would say, in my experience, aren't motivated by that.
Speaker: They're motivated by helping their friends and family out.
Speaker: So if you can give them a resource to go help their friends and family out, now they're actually motivated.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they get a thousand bucks too.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: That's just kind of a side thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, no, and I think it's just like in sales, too.
Speaker: There's so many different personality types and all that.
Speaker: And you talked about you got to sell their buying stuff.
Speaker: I guess, yeah, I don't even know if we talked about that in the podcast yet.
Speaker: We haven't.
Speaker: We'll touch on it.
Speaker: But yeah, it's like you got to sometimes we just sell how we want to be sold to.
Speaker: And you got to like think, okay, what is this personality type?
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.
Speaker: But it's like, I know for me, I didn't really think of referral being a sell.
Speaker: I just thought like, you get a referral, you call them, say, hey, your friend referred you to solar.
Speaker: When can you meet?
Speaker: That's like what you're saying.
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.
Speaker: You have to give them a solution.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And it's not just like calling them and expecting that they're going to be laid down sells.
Speaker: I didn't even think about that, but you're right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because, yeah, I'm sure there's people on here making that mistake.
Speaker: It's like.
Speaker: It's a mistake if you are, but you're skipping a lot of steps.
Speaker: Don't skip steps.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so what I'll do is I'll take that 30% to kind of tie that in too.
Speaker: I'll take those 30% partners and I will give them offers to give.
Speaker: So I almost created, it's like almost like a little mini kind of MLM essentially.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what they'll do is I'll say, hey, anybody that you refer me, you get 30%, right?
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.
Speaker: And you'll still get 30% of their network and they'll get $1,000.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's where it starts to get to layers.
Speaker: Yeah, there's levels to this.
Speaker: There's levels.
Speaker: So on a simple math, let's just say the commission is a $10,000 commission.
Speaker: $1,000 referral would go to the person who is referring.
Speaker: But then...
Speaker: So then now it's at 9,000.
Speaker: And then so the 30% of that, right, would go to kind of the partner who brought that one in.
Speaker: But now they're incentivized to start working with that person to mine referrals, not me.
Speaker: So it takes more leverage.
Speaker: It takes it off me.
Speaker: So now I'm not trying to target that person and go, hey, like we get you going with referrals, this and that.
Speaker: Now I've put that task on the 30% partner to work with their network to get more referrals.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, that's fire.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: So you're saying you just have all these people in spreadsheets and do you have a system for like going back?
Speaker: Like how often?
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?
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.
Speaker: I couldn't.
Speaker: And that's part of the reason why I haven't complicated it and just kind of kept it on a spreadsheet.
Speaker: but there's limitations to the organizational ability that you can get on a spreadsheet.
Speaker: So a lot of times, I'll be honest, it's mostly on feel and it's on results, right?
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.
Speaker: But sometimes that's led me astray, right?
Speaker: I've maybe spent time with people who I've had a good rapport with, but they never really produced anything.
Speaker: Just like a rep, right?
Speaker: Same kind of concept.
Speaker: So you kind of have to just get better at gauging, you know, what's actually producing and what's not.
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.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You know, just simple.
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
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Keeping on the DL.
Speaker: So now it sounds like it's, especially with COVID and everything, sounds like they've sort of opened up to that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But you're saying you don't really knock.
Speaker: So like, what's your thing now?
Speaker: Because I know Sunrun, they're still huge on knocking doors and all that.
Speaker: So how do you, yeah, like, what's your, how did you get them to be okay with that?
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.
Speaker: So I will...
Speaker: Be honest, that's a limitation that I have put on myself within leadership.
Speaker: I don't know how much higher I can go in the organization with my skill set.
Speaker: And we'll leave it at that for now.
Speaker: But I don't want to get too much into my personal thoughts on kind of that stuff.
Speaker: But basically, yeah, I mean, you can make a lot of money and do well for yourself off of referrals.
Speaker: And I hope that's what people get from this is that you can...
Speaker: You can make millions of dollars literally off of referrals and being strategic and like having a system in place.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you can tie it in.
Speaker: It's like, cause I know Matt Crowley, he's a great example.
Speaker: Like I know he still knocks a lot, gets the referrals.
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.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: Well, cool, man.
Speaker: It's been awesome chatting with you.
Speaker: And I don't want to take the whole day here.
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.
Speaker: And I know that's something that's something you do a little bit different, too, than probably a lot of folks.
Speaker: So just to kind of wrap up here, what's your take on that?
Speaker: How have you sort of learned to sell these different people and get referrals from different people?
Speaker: And you touch on that a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: So I would say that most salespeople sell based upon their buying style, not the customer's buying style.
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.
Speaker: But we'll save that, you know, for a different podcast.
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.
Speaker: And then they kind of maximize the benefits and try to be really positive.
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.
Speaker: Because if you're kind of minimizing the negatives, you're assuming that that's how everybody buys.
Speaker: And that's not.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, th at's a good point.
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.
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.
Speaker: Um, so I always kind of say in my office, we've got a big team, you know, about 160 reps currently.
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.
Speaker: It's not like I'm a super negative person per se, but yeah.
Speaker: It's that I try to be honest and I try to be transparent.
Speaker: That's anybody who's sat with me and seen me close and seen me pitch.
Speaker: That's always feedback that I get from people.
Speaker: They'll say that was the most transparent and honest and even blunt sales pitch that I've ever heard.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: You know, and I'm like, great.
Speaker: That's my goal.
Speaker: I hit it.
Speaker: And one of the things that I do specifically is towards the end of the pitch without actually like drawing it out.
Speaker: But we'll just say towards the end.
Speaker: I actually write down on our little packet, right?
Speaker: A lot of people write down or they'll kind of have a presentation.
Speaker: I actually write down on their packet.
Speaker: It's one of the last things I say.
Speaker: I put the three negatives of solar.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I don't know anybody who does that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You can probably build some trust with that.
Speaker: They're like, well, I've never seen a solar guy.
Speaker: Start with the three negatives.
Speaker: I have people tell me they're like,
Speaker: I can't believe you told me all these negative things about salt.
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.
Speaker: And I'll even say that to them.
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.
Speaker: I think it's better that you know worst case scenario.
Speaker: So that case, God forbid, it does happen.
Speaker: At least we were prepared.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I approach it from like, like I'm trying to help you.
Speaker: I'm on your side.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I am.
Speaker: I mean, ultimately, I don't want to have a pissed off customer.
Speaker: I've had plenty of cussing out and we're going to sue you and that kind of stuff.
Speaker: Like, like everybody who's been in the industry.
Speaker: But you want to minimize that for your own mental health.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: And so one of the ways is to talk about it.
Speaker: So I write down the three negatives.
Speaker: So here's what I said.
Speaker: I say the number one biggest negative you hear about in solar is the true up bill, right?
Speaker: I say, so what's a true up bill?
Speaker: We already talked about it during the net metering part of the presentation, but let me just go a little bit deeper.
Speaker: Basically, here's a common story that happens in the solar industry.
Speaker: Somebody gets solar...
Speaker: They think everything's going great.
Speaker: They're paying that $5 to $10 a month connection fee.
Speaker: It's on auto pay.
Speaker: They're not reading their statements.
Speaker: They don't see the additional energy charges that are accruing until the 12th month of their first true up cycle.
Speaker: Then they get hit with some big $500,000, $2,000, whatever crazy bill from the utility company.
Speaker: Now they're pissed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I say, so there's a couple of ways that we're going to avoid that.
Speaker: I said, one, and I talk about sizing and all that and strategy there with batteries now.
Speaker: And, you know, that's kind of changed a bit.
Speaker: But I talk about that.
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.
Speaker: And we're going to have you check.
Speaker: I'm going to have you, I'm going to text you.
Speaker: I'm going to say, hey, Taylor, do me a favor.
Speaker: Download a copy of your recent Edison statement for me.
Speaker: Send it to me.
Speaker: I'm going to review it and then report back to you what I find.
Speaker: Okay.
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
Speaker: Yeah, so that's kind of the process.
Speaker: I kind of got lost in the train.
Speaker: What was I kind of saying right before that?
Speaker: Just telling them the three bad things.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, so that's the first one.
Speaker: The cheer up.
Speaker: Yeah, the second one is, so I talk about customer service specifically.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I say, so here's the reality of the solar industry in California.
Speaker: Roughly 50% of everybody who has solar has been abandoned by their original installer.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Now those other 50%, a lot of them have had terrible experiences with the companies that are servicing their systems.
Speaker: I said, so that's a reality.
Speaker: Unfortunately, it's still something that's an ongoing issue.
Speaker: So in order to avoid that, I'm your customer service rep for any problems you'll have.
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.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And again, it's another touch point and it's another trust point.
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.
Speaker: So they felt like they had to go find out, well, why isn't Jonathan telling me the negatives?
Speaker: I know there's negatives about this.
Speaker: So confirmation bias exists.
Speaker: People always go to what I want to believe.com and they look for whatever they want to believe.
Speaker: And that's what they do with solar.
Speaker: And I'll tell them straight up.
Speaker: We don't talk about referrals typically, but let's say somebody brings up
Speaker: reviews and they say, oh, well, I've heard there's a lot of bad reviews and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And I said, look, here's the reality.
Speaker: Sunrouse, speak to them because that's the company I work for.
Speaker: I said, we have a little over 900,000 customers.
Speaker: we have a little over 2,500 one-star reviews.
Speaker: The people that are happy don't go on the internet.
Speaker: And people agree, they're like, oh yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker: So my experience, 98% or more of my customers had a great experience.
Speaker: So if you wanna find that kind of stuff, all the stuff I'm talking about is right here in these negatives.
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.
Speaker: That's good.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And so I just say it's one page transfer, easy to qualify for, you know, it's a utility, you know.
Speaker: And so the way I say it is I kind of frame it in this way.
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?
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, it's so good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
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.
Speaker: Probably 99% of them are going to be one of those three issues.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's like you already just handled those three.
Speaker: Covered them.
Speaker: So now when their friend says, oh, this happened to me.
Speaker: My Uncle Joe or whatever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, oh, he told me that.
Speaker: I've heard it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's awesome.
Speaker: So that it's all in a process.
Speaker: I talk about that negativity right before I get to the referrals.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because then once I talk, I usually end with referrals because people remember the last thing that you said to them.
Speaker: And so I end with that to kind of keep that at the top of their mind.
Speaker: But yeah, like you said, because right before I talk about referrals, I kind of end with the negatives of solar.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now they're equipped when they go talk to their friends and family.
Speaker: And again, I'm going to say it again because I love this.
Speaker: I feel like it's my favorite one liner to say.
Speaker: So again, say you're the customer.
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.
Speaker: That's fire.
Speaker: Save that one.
Speaker: That's the one.
Speaker: Save that one.
Speaker: Save that one.
Speaker: I'm telling you, I've said it hundreds or I don't know, hundreds and hundreds of times.
Speaker: That's so good.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome, man.
Speaker: Well, yeah, and then just, like, the trust that that builds.
Speaker: Because, yeah, I just think of, you know, like, especially with the PPA, I'm sure you get this all the time.
Speaker: Well, what's the catch?
Speaker: Sounds too good to be true.
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...
Speaker: Yeah, it's just like I could tell he just... The trust wasn't there.
Speaker: And I didn't go over the negatives like that.
Speaker: So I think just like going over that negative, yeah, most reps aren't doing these things.
Speaker: I would agree.
Speaker: Most reps are not doing these things.
Speaker: Maybe they've thought about, but they would avoid it because maybe they have...
Speaker: Because it is, it does take a little bit of courage to bring up the negatives, right?
Speaker: Just like it takes courage to knock on a door or ask for a referral.
Speaker: All those things take courage to do, right?
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.
Speaker: Yeah, that's fire.
Speaker: That's fire.
Speaker: I'll say one more thing, actually.
Speaker: I just popped into my head about the negatives.
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.
Speaker: All right, that's all right.
Speaker: So here's my latest pitch.
Speaker: It's a little bit, I'm working on refining it.
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.
Speaker: I'll go before NEM3 happened,
Speaker: Basically, my biggest competitor was a loan.
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.
Speaker: They would get a $99 loan at a flat payment locked in.
Speaker: And they're like, what the heck?
Speaker: I'm going to pay double for a PPA.
Speaker: And I said, those days are gone because of two things.
Speaker: One, batteries are now involved.
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.
Speaker: So you have to account for those costs.
Speaker: With the PPA, all the PPAs now have battery replacement built into the 25-year term.
Speaker: So you don't have to pay again for the system.
Speaker: Yeah, that's so good.
Speaker: pay there.
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.
Speaker: Am I right?
Speaker: They go, yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker: Interest rates, I go, yeah.
Speaker: So now with interest rates and dealer fees, the PPA is actually a better option than the loan is on paper.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: And so, you know, just let people like, and it's true.
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.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, that is true.
Speaker: I was one of those dealer people that would just
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
Speaker: It can work.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, you know, if anything, just transparent, honest, you know, don't be afraid to be negative.
Speaker: Have a system, get your referrals, you know, incentivize people, give them promotional offers so they can, you know, become salespeople.
Speaker: Because again, 5% or less of people are actual salespeople.
Speaker: If you don't give them an offer to give, they're not going to go sell for you.
Speaker: Yeah, true.
Speaker: So true.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Well, yeah, so many things here.
Speaker: And I know I'm going to re-listen to this one for sure.
Speaker: But whoever's listening to this, yeah, just start developing your own referral process.
Speaker: And it doesn't have to be super complicated, but you just got to stick with it and see it out.
Speaker: Because, yeah, how long would you say was it until you started seeing consistent referrals come in?
Speaker: Did it take a little bit?
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: So I had to work a lot harder to essentially convert what was a cold lead into a warm lead.
Speaker: So there was more work and more time that I was putting in the beginning.
Speaker: I would say as the years have gone on, I've just gotten more efficient and more systematized.
Speaker: And so I work less hours for the same results.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So that's good.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And then last question, Jonathan, I know you're a little bit different than these guys grinding the doors every day.
Speaker: So for you, that's just basically purely working these referrals.
Speaker: What is your typical day look like?
Speaker: Because most people it's like, okay, we're going to knock from four hours today, maybe do some referrals a little bit.
Speaker: What is your typical day look like?
Speaker: So my goal in any given day is pretty simple is 10 conversations a day.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: So now I found that I divide them up between three different pots of conversations.
Speaker: So my goal is to have at least one conversation per day over the phone with a referral partner.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So just one partner contact per day.
Speaker: I'm probably going to have to bump that to two as I get to 12, right?
Speaker: So I usually work like six days a week.
Speaker: So right now I've got five, six people, so I can do one a day, but bump that to two.
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.
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
Speaker: Get the utility bill, set the appointment.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: And the rest of it is just going to the appointments, closing appointments, and that's it.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
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...
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, uh, yeah, easily can be built up for sure that way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, um, yeah, man, no, it's cool to hear you're doing it and you're definitely unique.
Speaker: Not a lot of people are just like running with peer referrals, at least that I talked to on the podcast.
Speaker: No, not really.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't come across anybody who really does it.
Speaker: A few people who do that, but very few, but, um, yeah,
Speaker: I think that is the dream though, right?
Speaker: Yeah, seriously.
Speaker: My goal this year is to hit 80 installs just purely off what I've shared today.
Speaker: So I think it's doable.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right, man.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: Hopefully we can have you on again once you hit 80 installs.
Speaker: Sounds good, brother.
Speaker: Hear what you're doing.
Speaker: All right, guys.
Speaker: So go hit up Jonathan.
Speaker: Are you on social media?
Speaker: People want to reach out to you or hear them?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm on every single platform under the same long name, Jonathan Charles Wilson.
Speaker: So that's where you can find me.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The one, the only.
Speaker: So guys, go hit him up if you want to get more tips and hear more about his referral process.
Speaker: And then reach out to us if you want to come to the number one market, California.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Learn how to sell solar for real.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And yeah, appreciate you coming on the show today, Jonathan.
Speaker: Thanks, brother.
Speaker: It's been fun and excited to hopefully have you on again in the future.
Speaker: Absolutely, brother.
Speaker: Sounds good.
Speaker: All right, man.
Speaker: Peace.
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Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
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