Transcript
Speaker: What do you call an underground group of solar professionals on a mission to create a more sustainable world?
Speaker: We call ourselves solopreneurs.
Speaker: And while some might call us crazy, foolish, and dissatisfied with the status quo, we're the ones taking action to create a better future for ourselves and the world.
Speaker: Solopreneur is dedicated to give you, the solar professional, the tools, skills, technology, and mentorship to take the industry by storm and sell more solar with less effort.
Speaker: We are solopreneurs and this is our story.
Speaker: look no matter where you're at in your career right now you got to realize something solar is a changing industry just like anything else but solar is rapidly changing and every single year brings a new set of challenges a new set of hurdles that we have to jump over both as entrepreneurs and sales people in this industry so i want to talk about some of those changes some of the things that i see coming in 2020 some of the trends that i'm noticing that somebody's been consulting with solar reps for a few years now
Speaker: and hopefully to give you an edge to help you get prepared here in the final months of 2019 so you can hit the ground running 2020 with no questions while all of your competitors are left in the dust wondering what to do.
Speaker: So let's go ahead and get into, I got a couple of things here, three things in particular to talk about.
Speaker: So one is I want to talk about the trend with paid traffic right now.
Speaker: If you go on social media at all, which I assume you are if you're watching this video, right?
Speaker: you're going to find a couple of things.
Speaker: And one of those things are you're going to get hit by solar lead gen guys.
Speaker: And if you've been in the industry a few years or even just a year or two, you've noticed the trend with this.
Speaker: You notice how it started out with just a couple of lead gen guys in solar that focused on paid traffic.
Speaker: And now I'm getting DMs, right?
Speaker: As a business owner who owns a company, I'm getting 25, 30 DMs almost daily
Speaker: from guys trying to sell me leads, trying to sell funnels, trying to sell chatbots or some other service.
Speaker: And here's the problem, okay?
Speaker: Because while paid traffic is great and we use that at Lumen Solar, we teach our clients to use this, it is not a one-size-fits-all strategy.
Speaker: It is not a strategy that you can use solely for all of your leads and be stacked with, right?
Speaker: And if you try to do that, you're going to have a couple of things happen to you, all right?
Speaker: So what I'm noticing is because everybody's focused on paid traffic, right, they are becoming reliant on low quality leads.
Speaker: When you pay for traffic, a matter of fact is that lead quality is gonna be much lower.
Speaker: You're gonna have to do more work to convert them up through a follow-up system, whether it's an appointment setter, whether it's putting it through an automated sequence, you're gonna have to do a lot of work to warm those leads up, right?
Speaker: And that's a sound strategy and it works,
Speaker: But what I'm noticing in 2020 is everybody is gonna gravitate their focus from paid traffic, chatbots, funnels, to how can we be more efficient with our time?
Speaker: How can we get deals in the door?
Speaker: Not just a bunch of leads, not hundreds of leads.
Speaker: How can we get deals?
Speaker: Real appointments that want to sit down.
Speaker: They're interested in talking about solar with us.
Speaker: I think the marketplace is while they catch on to one thing, right?
Speaker: Solar leads are hot right now.
Speaker: You need to be looking in the other direction as a professional in this industry.
Speaker: When everyone zigged, you need to zag.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Number two is selling on price.
Speaker: How do you sell solar?
Speaker: There are many ways to sell solar.
Speaker: That's another video, another time.
Speaker: You could sell on price, you could sell on environment, you could sell on ownership and stability.
Speaker: You could sell on the status and prestige of solar.
Speaker: There's many different types of ways to sell solar to many types of customers.
Speaker: And that's something that you should be sharp and knowledgeable on.
Speaker: And we provide resources for.
Speaker: But one thing I think you're going to notice, and it's happening already, is the gravitation towards selling on price is going to go away in 2020.
Speaker: And if you don't do this, you're going to have it come bite you in the butt.
Speaker: And the reason being is simple.
Speaker: Solar does not get cheaper, okay?
Speaker: It gets more expensive.
Speaker: You'll notice every year the technology improves just like an iPhone or anything else that we buy.
Speaker: It gets more expensive and it offers more.
Speaker: And the tax credits that we have, incentive programs, SREC programs, depending where you are, those go down.
Speaker: We're not going to get more of those.
Speaker: We're not going to get more tax credits.
Speaker: And as those go down, solar is going to be more and more expensive.
Speaker: To where, you know, in the state of California where I'm at, we've got to close deal and have everybody sign a document saying that they are recommended, they are advised to go get three other solar quotes before they sign a deal.
Speaker: That is a mandatory document.
Speaker: The state of California requires us to sign deals over here.
Speaker: And I can see something like that.
Speaker: applying across the board, applying to all of the markets, all of the states.
Speaker: So why would you not want to sell on price?
Speaker: Very simple, all of your competitors are doing it.
Speaker: And if you wanna differ yourself from the competition in 2020, as new dealers, new programs, new companies are popping up every single day, you gotta do things that they are not, right?
Speaker: People do not care about the money side of solar, all right?
Speaker: As much as people will tell you, right?
Speaker: That's not a core reason why we have solar.
Speaker: We have solar for environmental purposes.
Speaker: independence from the power grid, right?
Speaker: We have solar and people buy solar for so many different reasons.
Speaker: Look outside of just the money sale.
Speaker: Now, that's a whole nother video to show you how to do it, but 2020, I think people are going to go away from that.
Speaker: Number three here is leverage personal branding.
Speaker: This is something that honestly less than 1% of solar pros are doing now.
Speaker: And I think 2020 people are going to slowly start to realize here that personal branding isn't just a nice to have.
Speaker: It is a must because as more competition comes into play,
Speaker: You have no way of differing yourself.
Speaker: If everybody is selling the same products, making the same promises, the same warranties, they have the same pitch, how are you different from your competition?
Speaker: There is nothing different about you.
Speaker: One of the key reasons on why I've been so successful in this industry is I've mastered personal branding.
Speaker: You don't need a lot of followers.
Speaker: Solopreneur doesn't have a lot of followers.
Speaker: Lumen Solar doesn't have a lot of followers.
Speaker: You don't need that.
Speaker: You need to be able to differ yourself from the marketplace, to niche down, to focus on something specifically that's going to tell your prospect, hey, I'm different, and they're going to remember you for that.
Speaker: So personal branding can be anything from, you know, having a specific slogan that you stand for, a core set of values that you stand for in your company or as a personal rep, right?
Speaker: It could be having an online presence that is different from the competition.
Speaker: It could be making video content like this.
Speaker: There are many ways to do personal branding, but realize
Speaker: that focusing on in 2020 is going to be a common thing okay and before your competitors get there i'd recommend you get a once up start with them here in 2019 and you can make a difference in 2020 look different sound different and be able to make more sales than everyone else
Speaker: So review, a couple of those things, right?
Speaker: Paid traffic's going to take a backseat in 2020.
Speaker: People are going to focus on sales, conversions, training, optimization, not just trying to chase tons of leads and numbers in their pipeline that don't turn into anything and aren't efficient.
Speaker: Number two, gravitating from selling on price, selling on value, selling on environment, ownership.
Speaker: That is going to be a big change.
Speaker: And then number three, personal branding, differing yourself from the competition.
Speaker: It's going to be a must in 2020.
Speaker: Guys, that's it for this short video.
Speaker: If you enjoyed it, you know the drill.
Speaker: Help us out.
Speaker: Please comment down below what you think.
Speaker: What do you want to hear from us?
Speaker: I personally read all these comments.
Speaker: My team reads these comments, and we want to make sure that we are providing the most value possible on Solarpreneur.
Speaker: Give us a thumbs up, support us, and we'll see you in the next one.
Speaker: Wow, what another value-packed episode of The Solarpreneur.
Speaker: Guys, if you couldn't tell, we spend a lot of time and energy to put these episodes out to hopefully give you just one strategy, one golden nugget that's going to launch your solar career to the next level.
Speaker: And we do it all for free.
Speaker: And if you found any value in this episode or it's helped you in any way, all I ask in return is that you just take 30 seconds of your time and leave us a review on iTunes.
Speaker: so that we can help more solopreneurs like you to change the world.
Speaker: And as a gift for leaving us a review, we have a special training package exclusive for solopreneur listeners over at solopreneurs.com.
Speaker: Remember, you need to leave us a review on iTunes to qualify for the training package.
Speaker: So take care of that now, and we'll see you on the next episode.
