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00:00:01
Stop Prejudging Your Customers!
327 Plays19 days ago
Solar is open to all walks of life, and that should be everyone's principle when dealing with distinct customers. This episode discusses a recent presentation of mine that emphasizes the art of trusting the process.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Taylor's Journey to Success
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Avoiding Sales Mistakes with Expert Insights
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, following up like a pro and closing more deals.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solar printer you might ask? A solar printer is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
The Dangers of Prejudging Customers
00:00:41
Speaker
What's going on, solopreneurs? We are going to be talking about a very important principle, and that is don't prejudge your customers. Had an experience this week that I was reminded of this important principle. You're going to hear some live footage, so stay tuned. Welcome to the podcast. My name's Taylor Armstrong. We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry. Hope you're having a great time selling. Hope you are dominating wherever you are at.
00:01:12
Speaker
And I hope you're staying warm. I'm in San Diego and I gotta say, even ah for us, it's been a cold lately. Got down to like 50 degrees and I'm freezing out here. So, mad respect to those that are selling in colder temperatures than that. And hit me up if you do want to get a little break from the cold. Got some spots on our team.
00:01:35
Speaker
But ah again, today we're going to be talking about an important principle of not prejudging your customers. So if you don't know what I mean by that, that is so many times we get to maybe an area where it seems like it's run down, seems like it's the hood, and you hear reps start complaining, oh, no one's going to qualify in this area. No one can afford my product. Yada, yada, yada. So many excuses. And I've had it happen to me many times myself.
00:02:03
Speaker
where you just judge the customer and assume that they're not going to be able to afford what you're doing. Assume that their credit's going to be bad and we can't be making those assumptions. Okay. So I've got some live footage of a deal I sat in actually just the other day. So I'm going to place a couple of clips for you from this appointments. You're going to hear an instance where I prejudged the customer. Okay. This specific appointment, it was a higher end area.
00:02:31
Speaker
Um, you know, Holmes over a million, which I guess isn't hard to do in San Diego, but, uh, Holmes worth over a million super educated family. Um, the guy, he was actually a gentleman from the UK. Uh, he was some type of like, uh, marine biologists, scientist type guy, just extremely educated to traveled all around the world, knew all about these different cultures countries. So I probably let them ramble on a little bit more than I should have. He told me.
00:02:59
Speaker
you know like 10 different stories from all the countries countries he's been in so ended up taking a while um but what happened was i went in this appointments i had booked it on a monday went there on tuesday and i prejudged him because when i was setting the appointments He's like, Oh, I don't think we'd ever do this. Just come by, come drop off the information. Uh, I'll read through it. I'm going to analyze it. He started doing his like scientists talk instantly. I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is going to be a waste of probably shouldn't even go to this appointment. So I actually showed up late to the appointment the next day, just cause I'm like, Oh, it's probably going to be a cancel anyways. It's going to be a miracle if I even get in the home. And to my surprise,
00:03:44
Speaker
I get in there, he lets me write in, we start going through it. Ended up taking it a lot further than I thought. Okay, so let me play for you a few different clips and then stay tuned.
Tools for Success: Sero and Solar Scout
00:03:56
Speaker
You're going to want to know what happens. Okay, but I'm going to play for you a few clips first. And as always, the best way to record your conversations and your presentations is using Sero. So if you are not using Sero,
00:04:08
Speaker
You're got to be crazy. Get your team on it. Even if you're not on a team, get yourself on it. I think they mostly do teams. So sorry. Guess probably should have a team. Hey, but get your team on it. This thing is the most valuable tool to improve your interactions, your conversations and your presentations. It's invaluable. And I noticed now they have an little AI analysis thing where.
00:04:30
Speaker
Uh, the AI can go through and analyze your whole conversation, the transcript of it, and it'll spit out like where you need to improve. So funny enough, it actually gave me a bunch of areas where basically said, Hey, you suck should probably not sell solar anymore. Cause of this, this, this just kidding. It wasn't that bad, but it did, uh, did give me several examples where I said I could do things better. So I thought that was kind of cool.
00:04:53
Speaker
and kind of eye-opening too. Okay, so I'm gonna play for you first off. I'm in the home, Peter is this guy's name, and I'm doing my pre-frame, right? I'm doing the little hypothetical question. What I like to do is ask about, hey, what's your main goal with solar? um And spit out like some examples. You guys, for you, would it be more using more power, not having to pay for it. Would it be increasing the value of the home? Would it just be saving money? Where do you think your main, your main benefit would be in your situation? So I asked him and he tells me that he likes the idea of increasing the value of the home. Okay. So I do my little pre-frame. I said, okay, if we could do this, this, this, what do you think? So here's the interaction.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, like if we could do that and potentially improve the vibe at home and everything, do you see any reason why you guys wouldn't be pretty open to getting on something like this? I need a copy, I can't correct it. Examine it in Microsoft. Read everywhere and come up with a thousand questions. Yeah. Yeah. But if the contract's in your favour and benefits you guys, then you'd open open to something like that. Yeah. We all know spending money is easy.
00:06:04
Speaker
you going be not to spend money raiseis speed yeah they're amazed like in china last year Okay. So he starts going off on a tangent, starts talking about when they're in China. Okay. So a cool story, but we'll skip over some of that. So hopefully you could hear it, but he basically said, Hey, um, it comes down to a contract. So this is a typical analytical, you know, people that are analytical, they're going to give you answers like this. Oh, I'm going to need to read the contract, come up with a thousand questions.
00:06:34
Speaker
So another instance where I was prejudging him. I'm like, great, it's going to be a waste of time. I'm just going to sit here. I'm going to listen to all his stories of traveling to different countries. We're going to get to the end and I'm going to have wasted my time.
00:06:51
Speaker
So you got to you got to be careful because there are all those older people. I mean, this guy, he was in his 70s. So this part of why I was um prejudging them more than I would say normal, just because I have been a lot of in a lot of presentations where it's an old person and they just waste your time. I mean, I love old people. They're great.
00:07:12
Speaker
But if they get in the habit of telling you long stories and you don't like give them a great pre frame, then you might be wasting your time. Hey, so I did like his ah his answer for me was enough to like, okay, I'll continue with it. Hey, cause how many people say, uh, I need to read the contract, but then you end up closing them.
00:07:35
Speaker
And he did say that um you know if the contract's in his favor, then he didn't give me a no, right? and So it wasn't like exactly a clear yes, but he didn't give me like a no, I'm not going to do it today. So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
00:07:53
Speaker
And as we were gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results. But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage. Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout. But it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market. It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
00:08:23
Speaker
It's been working for a lot of teams across the country and now I'm on board too. I'm going to be one of the first to Solar Scout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about Solar Scout on my show. You need to get my listeners a great deal. And they did. So go to Solar Scout dot app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them and you'll get 10 percent off your first month when you sign up. That's Solar Scout dot app forward slash Taylor. OK, back to the show.
00:08:53
Speaker
So I'm like, okay, well, we'll take this as far as we can. So my head, that was enough to at least warrants continue on in the presentation. So we go through the presentation. He takes me on a bunch of other tangents. I tried to focus as much as I could. Hey, you want to like, listen to their stories, but bring them back in.
00:09:14
Speaker
So my secret actually got this from one of the door to door millionaire books. Shout out to Lenny grave. Um, but he says, um, when someone goes on a tangent tells a story, the secret is, um, and I can't remember what he calls this in his book, but you ask one follow-up question and then you take it back to where you're going.
00:09:34
Speaker
Because if you just cut them off, go immediately back to your presentation, then maybe some people are going to perceive you as, okay, this guy could care less about what I'm saying. He's just pure business. But if you ask one follow-up question and then take it back, Elise seems like you care a little bit, right? So that's my strategy. That's what I like doing with these people, trying to keep them on track as much, as much as possible. So we get to the end, go through the presentation, um go through the numbers, go through the,
00:10:04
Speaker
design. And he, to me, it seems like he likes it. So I asked him the famous question at the end of it. Let's see if I can find it here. So we're at the end. I asked him the famous question. Hypothetically, if they approve it and everything's good on our end feed can you think of any reason that you guys wouldn' benefit from something like this decisioning damage yeah this is okay
00:10:33
Speaker
yeah yeah Well, hopefully, hopefully they can make a work system. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely helps. Yeah. I know anything else. Okay. Well, they'll come check it. Do you have a preference if they come like morning or afternoon to kind of check the roof?
00:10:53
Speaker
sink yeah i can tell you guys are going go Okay, so you can hear what I did there, um gave them the little asumptive clothes, the little trial clothes, right? If everything's good on our and on our end, can you think of any reason you wouldn't you wouldn't benefit from something like this versus staying with SD Genie? That's the question I like to ask at the end.
00:11:15
Speaker
And then he gives a pretty positive response. So usually if they give you a response like that, then they're good to go and they're sold. Um, and then, you know, I do the little, uh, what time, what time do you prefer the, uh, site survey to happen afternoon, morning.
00:11:35
Speaker
Gives me a positive response on that. So in my head, I'm thinking, okay, great. This is a done deal. I just went from someone that seemed like had no business closing and they're
Lessons Learned and Time Management in Sales
00:11:44
Speaker
good to go. Hey. And so the good news is we ran through the application, got them approved.
00:11:50
Speaker
Started opening the documents, but then the heartbreak of the story is right when we get to signing him. He's like, uh, you know what Taylor? Um, I'll, I'll submit this, but I have to go right now. We're late to a dinner that we had plans with a family friend and I try to push them one time, but he's like, no, you know, I, I can't do this. We really gotta go. We're already late to the dinner.
00:12:16
Speaker
And to be fair, he had told me earlier in the presentation that he had to go out for. So it was coming up on four. He did tell me, so I'm like, okay, well let's come back tomorrow. He's like, yep, come back tomorrow. We'll get it done.
00:12:30
Speaker
Hey, and so I come back, go back the next day and he tells me, you know what, um, ah still sounds good, but, uh, I opened up those documents and there's just a lot of information in there. I'm going to need to review it fully and, uh, just think of any other questions before I go any further on this.
00:12:53
Speaker
So it wasn't the happy ending that I wanted, but the principle of this, and the reason I tell you this story, even though it wasn't the greatest ending, I'm keeping it real with you guys. I'm not going to say that I close every deal. But ah the principle is that at least I took it as far as I could. And at least I didn't prejudge them to the point where I didn't do anything.
00:13:15
Speaker
I'm still hopeful that this can be a close, right? I think he will stay in touch. um You know, we'll see 50-50 with people like that. But I took it as far as I could and I still got him past the point of what I thought I could do.
00:13:33
Speaker
Hey, I, I was prejudging them to the point where I thought it was just going to be a waste of time. We weren't going to submit anything, but at least I ran his credit, got him approved, got him the documents, started going through that. Unfortunately, we just ran out of time. So I could have had better time management's probably could approach it different. And of course, according to Cyril, there's lots of tweaks I can make things I can do better.
00:13:57
Speaker
But hopefully you learned from that. Don't prejudge your customers. And I referenced this book last podcast as well, but if you haven't picked up a copy of Sam Taggart's latest book, Eat What You Kill, I would recommend go pick one up right now. Great book. but He actually has a chapter on this. Chapters are short, so it's like three pages.
00:14:20
Speaker
But he tells a story of when he was in Texas and he had someone that was just wrecked yard. They had trash in the yard and they had like the shutters broken out front. They went in, he went in the house and is basically a hoarder's house smelled like cat urine. Just, just a wreck of a house.
00:14:40
Speaker
And he was just like, in his head, he was kind of thinking thinking the same thing as me. How are they going to afford this? So he was pushing them to finance. It doesn't say what product to sell them, but he was pushing them to finance it. He said it was a $5,500 product. And then to his surprise, the customer's like, you know what? We'll just pay for the whole thing. Takes out a check for it's my check for $5,500.
00:15:04
Speaker
And that goes on to say that you found out later that this person or this family owns around a hundred oil wells and we're like loaded apparently, but just, I guess that's some psychological issues because they just kept their house a wreck.
00:15:20
Speaker
So ah another example, you can't prejudge people in grant Cardone. He gives more examples in his book, a closer survival guide. One of his things is he looks at all the evidence that people bought things in the past. What else have they bought? Have they bought the cars that are parked out front? Have they bought the PS five? Have they bought the 75 inch TV there?
00:15:44
Speaker
They probably purchase all those things from salesmen. ah So why shouldn't they buy from you? They've done it before. So look for that evidence. Don't prejudge people. It will help you get more deals and also be careful. Don't waste tons of time. So don't prejudge them, but make sure you pre-frame them, make sure they know your intentions and you use your time as efficiently as possible. Cause there's a balance. New reps might listen to this and be like, Oh,
00:16:14
Speaker
Solarpreneur said, I should just not prejudge, just go through with everybody. If they're obviously not qualified, if they say their credit's terrible from the get-go, then yeah, make sure you're not wasting the time, but don't prejudge them. So I hope that helps and wanted to give you a preview for the next episode we have coming
Exciting Future Guests and New Community Launch
00:16:32
Speaker
up. We've got a special treat because we've got some of my favorite Solar YouTubers coming on.
00:16:38
Speaker
They are real sales dynamics. We've got the one, the only Carlos Morelli is coming on and he's dropping some bombs for the next podcast. So make sure you tune in. If you haven't checked out these guys, YouTube channel, it is phone phenomenal content. They keep it real. They keep it entertaining.
00:16:56
Speaker
So he talks about his journey. He gives a bunch of secrets, tips, hacks for selling more solar. So tune in to the next episode. You're going to hear that one. And we'll see you at solar con coming up. Go grab your tickets. Click the link down below. Get your discount now. Keep tuning in the podcast. We've got some great content coming. See you next time.
00:17:16
Speaker
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