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Is It Lying To Say We're Not Selling Anything At The Door?
72 Plays1 year ago
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Introduction and Mission
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Taylor Armstrong's Journey
00:00:10
Speaker
I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solarpreneur, you might ask?
00:00:33
Speaker
A solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Honesty in Sales: Controversial Topic
00:00:41
Speaker
Okay, solarpreneurs, today we're going to be talking about a little controversial topic, and that is, is it a lie to say you're not selling anything when you're knocking on the doors, at least at the beginning?
00:00:53
Speaker
So we'll dive into that and a whole lot more.
00:00:56
Speaker
Thanks for coming in.
00:00:57
Speaker
to the podcast today.
00:00:58
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:01:00
Speaker
We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar
Distractions vs. Productivity
00:01:07
Speaker
industry.
00:01:07
Speaker
We are coming up on a college football time at the time of this recording, college football season, that is.
00:01:14
Speaker
So for me, it gets tough to not get distracted by sports.
00:01:19
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That is one of my distractions.
00:01:22
Speaker
Time wasters is watching too many sports.
00:01:25
Speaker
So if you're like me, you got to hone in a little bit and not get distracted by all the sports going on.
00:01:31
Speaker
But hopefully you just hate sports.
00:01:32
Speaker
You don't have to be distracted by any of that.
00:01:35
Speaker
But always a lot of distractions.
00:01:36
Speaker
Make sure you maximize your time when you are on the doors and when you are in deals.
00:01:43
Speaker
You don't want to get distracted because I've lost a lot of money over the years by
00:01:47
Speaker
Yeah, just being out in areas, having a game on in one hand while I'm knocking a door, it's not good.
00:01:52
Speaker
Okay, but enough of that tangent.
Debate on Sales Honesty
00:01:54
Speaker
Today we're going to be talking about how to overcome this objection and is it lying if you say you're not selling anything when you first knock a door?
00:02:01
Speaker
And I got this, I was scrolling Facebook the other day.
00:02:06
Speaker
I sometimes go on those solar Facebook groups.
00:02:09
Speaker
There's a few different solar Facebook groups, which are as a solarpreneur as you can go join if you have not already.
00:02:16
Speaker
even though I haven't been super active in it.
00:02:19
Speaker
So I apologize if you haven't seen me in there a ton.
00:02:21
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But I came across this post from this guy named Zach Johnson, and I think it was in one of the Solar Pros groups.
00:02:29
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And he said, I'm going to read you the post.
00:02:32
Speaker
He said, solar salespeople, help me understand this, please.
00:02:35
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I see videos all the time of y'all on the doors showing your pitch.
00:02:39
Speaker
But when you say this or something like it, it always rubs me the wrong way.
00:02:43
Speaker
Homeowner, what are you selling?
00:02:44
Speaker
Rep, we're not selling anything.
00:02:46
Speaker
We're here about inserts on BS thing, program involving solar.
00:02:50
Speaker
And you proceed to sell them.
00:02:52
Speaker
So you're a dishonest sales rep.
00:02:54
Speaker
I can't be the only one that thinks this approach is stinky stinks.
00:02:59
Speaker
I was coached on this back when I sold and it just never sat well with me.
00:03:03
Speaker
Anyone else?
00:03:04
Speaker
I saw some Instagram video that had this and it's been on my mind.
00:03:07
Speaker
There's a few other approaches that I also think stink the same way.
00:03:10
Speaker
No judgment, just genuinely curious.
00:03:13
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So he drew some eyeballs with this post.
00:03:16
Speaker
And I was curious to see what the industry, I guess people on Facebook don't represent the entire industry, but I was curious to see what the guys on Facebook said to this post.
00:03:27
Speaker
I had to take it with a grain of salt because let's be honest, a lot of guys on Facebook that are in these solar groups, a lot of them aren't even going door to door.
00:03:36
Speaker
And that was actually brought up by some of the comments that the people that were bashing on this, a lot of them weren't going door to door themselves.
00:03:45
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That was one thing to keep in mind with it.
00:03:47
Speaker
So I'm going to tell you my thoughts on this.
00:03:49
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And then I'll talk about a few ways that I overcome this, get over this objection, whatever you want on it.
00:03:56
Speaker
Smokescreen is what it is most of the time when I'm out knocking.
00:04:00
Speaker
And maybe you have some opinions on it yourself.
00:04:02
Speaker
Would love to hear your thoughts.
00:04:03
Speaker
If you want to shoot me a message, if you want to shoot me an email, let me know your thoughts on this controversial topic.
00:04:09
Speaker
Okay, so here's what I think.
00:04:11
Speaker
In my opinion, I do not think that it's lying to tell people, no, we're not selling anything at the door.
00:04:18
Speaker
And I guess it depends on what part of the presentation or which part of the pitch.
00:04:22
Speaker
But most people, when they answer the door, say, what are you selling?
00:04:26
Speaker
Um, they're just not even listening right off the, right off the bat.
00:04:30
Speaker
Right.
00:04:31
Speaker
Then this part of breaking the preoccupation, you got to give them a reason to listen.
00:04:34
Speaker
Got to give them a reason to give you their attention.
00:04:35
Speaker
And so, um,
00:04:40
Speaker
In the beginning, it's like, we don't know if they can have solar.
00:04:43
Speaker
We don't know if they're renting.
00:04:45
Speaker
We don't know what the situation is at all.
00:04:47
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So in my head, I'm not selling anything.
00:04:51
Speaker
I'm here to see which homes qualify.
00:04:52
Speaker
I'm here to see if it's a good cabinet.
00:04:55
Speaker
But at this very moment, I'm not selling anything.
00:04:58
Speaker
Hey, so I don't know.
00:04:58
Speaker
Call it toeing the line at neck.
00:05:00
Speaker
I get it.
00:05:01
Speaker
I can see why some of these Facebook guys think it's shady, think that we shouldn't be doing this because...
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah, I guess the end goal, you are out there to get sales.
00:05:10
Speaker
For me, I can't, I'm not selling people at the door.
00:05:13
Speaker
I've never gotten a sale at the door in eight years doing this.
00:05:16
Speaker
I've never sold someone at the door.
00:05:18
Speaker
The sale happens at the kitchen table.
00:05:21
Speaker
Sale happens when you've generated a proposal and when you've actually set an appointment to come back.
00:05:27
Speaker
That is when, yeah, I'm selling something.
00:05:30
Speaker
But for me, anything at the door, it's, I'm not selling.
00:05:33
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Just out there seeing which homes qualify, call it lead generation.
00:05:37
Speaker
Right.
00:05:37
Speaker
But to me, it's not selling.
00:05:39
Speaker
So those are my thoughts.
00:05:41
Speaker
And I come from a door to door background, as most of you should know that listen to this podcast.
00:05:46
Speaker
So I am definitely a door to door guy.
00:05:49
Speaker
But part of it is, too, I'm in San Diego, one of the most saturated markets.
00:05:53
Speaker
And in my eight years here, if people come to the door and you say solar, most of the time they're just
00:05:59
Speaker
closing the door right off the bat.
00:06:01
Speaker
So again, you got to have a good way to break the preoccupation.
00:06:04
Speaker
You have to have a good way to differentiate yourself to actually buy yourself time.
00:06:09
Speaker
And maybe another thing that I realized as I was reading through this, I guess there are markets that are
00:06:16
Speaker
softer, right, where solar is newer.
00:06:18
Speaker
So if I was in a market where solar was pretty new, I might have a different take on this, right?
00:06:24
Speaker
Because people that are knocking in, I don't know, Louisiana, Iowa, I don't even know if you knocked there, but places where solar is new, you probably can just come right out and say, hey, we're selling solar.
00:06:35
Speaker
And I'm sure people will be like, oh, I've never even heard of that.
00:06:38
Speaker
What is that?
00:06:39
Speaker
They give you the time.
00:06:40
Speaker
Right.
00:06:40
Speaker
But at least for me out here, where I'm at in a saturated markets, you've got to be different.
00:06:45
Speaker
You've got to differentiate yourself.
00:06:47
Speaker
And I don't think it's like to not bring up solar right off the bat and explain it to them, get them to think about it a little bit differently.
00:06:56
Speaker
Right.
00:06:57
Speaker
And then you bring in the solar later, right?
00:07:00
Speaker
And there's a difference if people ask, oh, is this solar?
00:07:03
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Does this have to do with solar?
00:07:05
Speaker
It's a different response.
00:07:07
Speaker
I'm not going to say, no, this isn't solar, right?
00:07:09
Speaker
But as far as the question goes, where are we selling anything?
00:07:14
Speaker
I think it's perfectly fine to say, hey, no, I'm not selling anything.
00:07:19
Speaker
And then instantly go into your presentation.
00:07:23
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
00:07:28
Speaker
And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
00:07:34
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
00:07:39
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking
Introducing SolarScout
00:07:43
Speaker
app.
00:07:43
Speaker
It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:07:48
Speaker
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.
00:07:57
Speaker
It's been working for a lot of teams across the country and now I'm on board too.
00:08:02
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
00:08:06
Speaker
But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show.
00:08:09
Speaker
You need to give my listeners a great deal.
00:08:11
Speaker
And they did.
00:08:12
Speaker
So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up.
00:08:22
Speaker
That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
00:08:25
Speaker
Okay, back to the show.
00:08:28
Speaker
Okay, so that's my take on it.
00:08:30
Speaker
And I wanted to highlight a few different comments that I saw that I thought also were really good.
00:08:37
Speaker
So shout out to my man, Jonathan Wilson.
00:08:40
Speaker
He was on the podcast, really good podcast six months ago or so talked about referrals.
00:08:47
Speaker
But he actually commented on this and I thought he had some good points.
00:08:51
Speaker
He said in solar, the main justification for this is that since they aren't coming out of pocket and it's lowering an existing bill, it bypasses the objection that
Economic Conditions and Sales Tactics
00:08:59
Speaker
they are broke or don't have money.
00:09:00
Speaker
A lot of people in this current economy have no money and use this as a deflection and shut their brains off.
00:09:05
Speaker
And most buyers need to listen for two seconds to progress the sell at all.
00:09:09
Speaker
Sells is all about effective communication and to not quickly bypass the most common objection, which is I'm broke is hard to explain effectively in two seconds at the door.
00:09:18
Speaker
I like that a lot.
00:09:19
Speaker
It's like, how many times have you heard?
00:09:22
Speaker
I don't have money for solar.
00:09:23
Speaker
It's too expensive.
00:09:24
Speaker
And if people have no idea that there's programs where you don't have to come out of pocket and then they're instantly going to close the door.
00:09:30
Speaker
So you need to buy yourself the time.
00:09:32
Speaker
And then I saw another one, one other that I wanted to share that I thought was really
Qualifying Leads and Tactics
00:09:37
Speaker
good.
00:09:37
Speaker
And you can go and read this right on Facebook in the Facebook groups.
00:09:41
Speaker
There is a lot of drama in there sometimes, sometimes a lot of negativity.
00:09:44
Speaker
So if you don't like negativity, maybe stay away from these things.
00:09:48
Speaker
Way too many negative Nancy's in there.
00:09:50
Speaker
But the other comments that came from Shane Caldwell, I think I'm saying his name right.
00:09:56
Speaker
I thought this was good too.
00:09:57
Speaker
He said, many people that have something to say about this don't knock doors on the daily.
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with that.
00:10:04
Speaker
Look at the people talking about this in the comments.
00:10:07
Speaker
You don't knock doors, but got something to say about how it's supposed to be said.
00:10:10
Speaker
Get out of here because you ain't fooling me.
00:10:12
Speaker
Go knock some doors and come up with a way to overcome that question that works for you.
00:10:15
Speaker
First of all, they aren't able to be sold anything unless they truly qualify.
00:10:19
Speaker
We aren't selling Girl Scout cookies that everyone eats.
00:10:22
Speaker
So when knocking, you must first qualify in the home.
00:10:24
Speaker
And that's the job of the knocker setter.
00:10:26
Speaker
My setters don't sell anything because they can't.
00:10:29
Speaker
Their role is just to set the appointment.
00:10:31
Speaker
So a proper way if they ask, what are you selling?
00:10:33
Speaker
Well, I don't have anything to sell give you because my job is simply to mark off the list if you're even qualified or you're homeless qualified for solar net metering to begin with.
00:10:42
Speaker
What's your average power bill?
00:10:44
Speaker
First of all,
00:10:46
Speaker
I had a rep call me today pissed because the homeowner's power bill was only $80 and there's not much I can do to help them out.
00:10:51
Speaker
So guess what?
00:10:52
Speaker
We sold them or we're trying to sell them nothing because they can't have it.
00:10:56
Speaker
Well said, Shane.
00:10:57
Speaker
Well said.
00:10:58
Speaker
So yeah, that echoes my thoughts.
00:11:00
Speaker
I agree with that completely.
00:11:02
Speaker
And out here in California,
00:11:04
Speaker
where I'm at, you actually have to have a license to sell.
00:11:08
Speaker
So recently I had a kid I go to church with, shout out to Noah if he's listening to this, but he is 17.
00:11:18
Speaker
He can't even get a home improvement license here in California to sell solar.
00:11:25
Speaker
So if he can't sell it, then...
00:11:28
Speaker
He truly is just out there to qualify people because he's not licensed to sell it.
00:11:32
Speaker
So those are my thoughts.
00:11:34
Speaker
And then just to end this off, a few responses that work well for me.
00:11:39
Speaker
So you might be thinking, okay, what do you say then?
00:11:42
Speaker
If they say, what are you selling?
00:11:44
Speaker
Okay, so I like to bring in humor.
00:11:47
Speaker
So a couple of ways that I think work well to overcome this smoke screen is they ask, what are you selling?
00:11:53
Speaker
I think I got this from Taylor McCarthy.
00:11:55
Speaker
I'll be like,
00:11:56
Speaker
Hey, we're doing the Girl Scout cookies, actually.
00:11:58
Speaker
Did you guys already get them this year?
00:12:00
Speaker
Did you already get your Thin Mints?
00:12:02
Speaker
And usually makes them laugh because, yeah, probably not very likely that a six foot two dude is out there selling Girl Scout cookies.
00:12:11
Speaker
So I like that response.
00:12:12
Speaker
So yeah, I guess I'm lying to him when I say that, but...
00:12:15
Speaker
I think most people find it very obvious that I'm not selling Girl Scout cookies and then it makes them laugh.
00:12:21
Speaker
And then I'm able to go straight into my presentation from there.
00:12:25
Speaker
And then another way to overcome it is, which this might also be from Taylor McCarthy.
00:12:31
Speaker
You can tell I've gotten a lot of lines from him.
00:12:35
Speaker
He's got some good ones.
00:12:37
Speaker
Another line is like, I'm not selling anything.
00:12:39
Speaker
I know it's a heartbreaker.
00:12:40
Speaker
We just have to see which homes are qualified for the new redirection program.
00:12:45
Speaker
Did you guys already get the info on that?
00:12:47
Speaker
Did you guys already get the notification?
00:12:49
Speaker
Then you're going into it.
00:12:50
Speaker
So it's buying yourself time, breaking the preoccupation, and hopefully allowing you to be heard for more than one second.
00:12:58
Speaker
Okay, so those are two ways to do it.
00:13:00
Speaker
I like to bring humor into it, make them laugh.
00:13:03
Speaker
You know, from there, yeah, you're going to explain to them the benefits of it, hopefully cause them to think about solar differently than they thought about it, especially if they think that solar costs too much money, if they think there's going to be liens on the home.
00:13:17
Speaker
Very common for people to think once you explain to them the benefits, explain how it's different, and then you introduce solar differently.
00:13:25
Speaker
Then at that point, they're like, okay, well, this is actually a lot different than I thought about solar.
00:13:29
Speaker
Works a lot better doing it that way, in my experience.
Balancing Honesty with Effectiveness
00:13:32
Speaker
So love to hear your thoughts again.
00:13:35
Speaker
Shoot me a DM.
00:13:36
Speaker
Let me know your thoughts on this.
00:13:38
Speaker
And let's all be honest in sales.
00:13:42
Speaker
But, you know, I think there's a way to sell without being dishonest, but also being able to get yourself time to give yourself a chance out there.
00:13:54
Speaker
So those are my thoughts.
00:13:56
Speaker
Agree, disagree.
00:13:58
Speaker
Let me know.
00:13:59
Speaker
And then next episode, you're not going to want to miss out.
00:14:03
Speaker
We have someone that's coming on to talk about the mental side of things.
00:14:07
Speaker
His name is Jens Bunnell.
00:14:09
Speaker
This guy, he runs Masterminds.
00:14:12
Speaker
He is kind of a sales psychology type guy.
00:14:16
Speaker
Just talks about how we can master our mindsets to have massive success in sales.
00:14:22
Speaker
So we don't bring on a lot of guys that talk about the mindset part.
00:14:26
Speaker
But let me tell you, that is, I think, 80% of the equation here to having success in sales is you got to get your mind right.
00:14:33
Speaker
And then, yeah, there's trainings, there's word tracks, whatever.
00:14:36
Speaker
But I think mindsets and the psychology that's going on up there, it's like 80%.
00:14:41
Speaker
So make sure you don't miss out on that episode.
00:14:43
Speaker
It's going to be coming at you next Tuesday.
Upcoming Episodes and Community
00:14:46
Speaker
We'll see you on the next one.
00:14:47
Speaker
Please share the show.
00:14:49
Speaker
Subscribe, leave us a review if you have not already.
00:14:52
Speaker
That's all we ask.
00:14:53
Speaker
And we'll see you next time.
00:14:56
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
00:14:58
Speaker
What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day.
00:15:08
Speaker
For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
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Speaker
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This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to soulcidity.co and join.
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We'll see you on the inside.