Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach 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 solarpreneur, you might ask?
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.
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?
Speaker: So we'll dive into that and a whole lot more.
Speaker: Thanks for coming in.
Speaker: to the podcast today.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
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 industry.
Speaker: We are coming up on a college football time at the time of this recording, college football season, that is.
Speaker: So for me, it gets tough to not get distracted by sports.
Speaker: That is one of my distractions.
Speaker: Time wasters is watching too many sports.
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.
Speaker: But hopefully you just hate sports.
Speaker: You don't have to be distracted by any of that.
Speaker: But always a lot of distractions.
Speaker: Make sure you maximize your time when you are on the doors and when you are in deals.
Speaker: You don't want to get distracted because I've lost a lot of money over the years by
Speaker: Yeah, just being out in areas, having a game on in one hand while I'm knocking a door, it's not good.
Speaker: Okay, but enough of that tangent.
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?
Speaker: And I got this, I was scrolling Facebook the other day.
Speaker: I sometimes go on those solar Facebook groups.
Speaker: There's a few different solar Facebook groups, which are as a solarpreneur as you can go join if you have not already.
Speaker: even though I haven't been super active in it.
Speaker: So I apologize if you haven't seen me in there a ton.
Speaker: But I came across this post from this guy named Zach Johnson, and I think it was in one of the Solar Pros groups.
Speaker: And he said, I'm going to read you the post.
Speaker: He said, solar salespeople, help me understand this, please.
Speaker: I see videos all the time of y'all on the doors showing your pitch.
Speaker: But when you say this or something like it, it always rubs me the wrong way.
Speaker: Homeowner, what are you selling?
Speaker: Rep, we're not selling anything.
Speaker: We're here about inserts on BS thing, program involving solar.
Speaker: And you proceed to sell them.
Speaker: So you're a dishonest sales rep.
Speaker: I can't be the only one that thinks this approach is stinky stinks.
Speaker: I was coached on this back when I sold and it just never sat well with me.
Speaker: Anyone else?
Speaker: I saw some Instagram video that had this and it's been on my mind.
Speaker: There's a few other approaches that I also think stink the same way.
Speaker: No judgment, just genuinely curious.
Speaker: So he drew some eyeballs with this post.
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.
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.
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.
Speaker: That was one thing to keep in mind with it.
Speaker: So I'm going to tell you my thoughts on this.
Speaker: And then I'll talk about a few ways that I overcome this, get over this objection, whatever you want on it.
Speaker: Smokescreen is what it is most of the time when I'm out knocking.
Speaker: And maybe you have some opinions on it yourself.
Speaker: Would love to hear your thoughts.
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.
Speaker: Okay, so here's what I think.
Speaker: In my opinion, I do not think that it's lying to tell people, no, we're not selling anything at the door.
Speaker: And I guess it depends on what part of the presentation or which part of the pitch.
Speaker: But most people, when they answer the door, say, what are you selling?
Speaker: Um, they're just not even listening right off the, right off the bat.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Then this part of breaking the preoccupation, you got to give them a reason to listen.
Speaker: Got to give them a reason to give you their attention.
Speaker: And so, um,
Speaker: In the beginning, it's like, we don't know if they can have solar.
Speaker: We don't know if they're renting.
Speaker: We don't know what the situation is at all.
Speaker: So in my head, I'm not selling anything.
Speaker: I'm here to see which homes qualify.
Speaker: I'm here to see if it's a good cabinet.
Speaker: But at this very moment, I'm not selling anything.
Speaker: Hey, so I don't know.
Speaker: Call it toeing the line at neck.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: I can see why some of these Facebook guys think it's shady, think that we shouldn't be doing this because...
Speaker: Yeah, I guess the end goal, you are out there to get sales.
Speaker: For me, I can't, I'm not selling people at the door.
Speaker: I've never gotten a sale at the door in eight years doing this.
Speaker: I've never sold someone at the door.
Speaker: The sale happens at the kitchen table.
Speaker: Sale happens when you've generated a proposal and when you've actually set an appointment to come back.
Speaker: That is when, yeah, I'm selling something.
Speaker: But for me, anything at the door, it's, I'm not selling.
Speaker: Just out there seeing which homes qualify, call it lead generation.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But to me, it's not selling.
Speaker: So those are my thoughts.
Speaker: And I come from a door to door background, as most of you should know that listen to this podcast.
Speaker: So I am definitely a door to door guy.
Speaker: But part of it is, too, I'm in San Diego, one of the most saturated markets.
Speaker: And in my eight years here, if people come to the door and you say solar, most of the time they're just
Speaker: closing the door right off the bat.
Speaker: So again, you got to have a good way to break the preoccupation.
Speaker: You have to have a good way to differentiate yourself to actually buy yourself time.
Speaker: And maybe another thing that I realized as I was reading through this, I guess there are markets that are
Speaker: softer, right, where solar is newer.
Speaker: So if I was in a market where solar was pretty new, I might have a different take on this, right?
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.
Speaker: And I'm sure people will be like, oh, I've never even heard of that.
Speaker: What is that?
Speaker: They give you the time.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But at least for me out here, where I'm at in a saturated markets, you've got to be different.
Speaker: You've got to differentiate yourself.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then you bring in the solar later, right?
Speaker: And there's a difference if people ask, oh, is this solar?
Speaker: Does this have to do with solar?
Speaker: It's a different response.
Speaker: I'm not going to say, no, this isn't solar, right?
Speaker: But as far as the question goes, where are we selling anything?
Speaker: I think it's perfectly fine to say, hey, no, I'm not selling anything.
Speaker: And then instantly go into your presentation.
Speaker: So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
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.
Speaker: But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Speaker: Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app.
Speaker: It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
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.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country and now I'm on board too.
Speaker: I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
Speaker: But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show.
Speaker: You need to give my listeners a great deal.
Speaker: And they did.
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.
Speaker: That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show.
Speaker: Okay, so that's my take on it.
Speaker: And I wanted to highlight a few different comments that I saw that I thought also were really good.
Speaker: So shout out to my man, Jonathan Wilson.
Speaker: He was on the podcast, really good podcast six months ago or so talked about referrals.
Speaker: But he actually commented on this and I thought he had some good points.
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 they are broke or don't have money.
Speaker: A lot of people in this current economy have no money and use this as a deflection and shut their brains off.
Speaker: And most buyers need to listen for two seconds to progress the sell at all.
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.
Speaker: I like that a lot.
Speaker: It's like, how many times have you heard?
Speaker: I don't have money for solar.
Speaker: It's too expensive.
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.
Speaker: So you need to buy yourself the time.
Speaker: And then I saw another one, one other that I wanted to share that I thought was really good.
Speaker: And you can go and read this right on Facebook in the Facebook groups.
Speaker: There is a lot of drama in there sometimes, sometimes a lot of negativity.
Speaker: So if you don't like negativity, maybe stay away from these things.
Speaker: Way too many negative Nancy's in there.
Speaker: But the other comments that came from Shane Caldwell, I think I'm saying his name right.
Speaker: I thought this was good too.
Speaker: He said, many people that have something to say about this don't knock doors on the daily.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker: Look at the people talking about this in the comments.
Speaker: You don't knock doors, but got something to say about how it's supposed to be said.
Speaker: Get out of here because you ain't fooling me.
Speaker: Go knock some doors and come up with a way to overcome that question that works for you.
Speaker: First of all, they aren't able to be sold anything unless they truly qualify.
Speaker: We aren't selling Girl Scout cookies that everyone eats.
Speaker: So when knocking, you must first qualify in the home.
Speaker: And that's the job of the knocker setter.
Speaker: My setters don't sell anything because they can't.
Speaker: Their role is just to set the appointment.
Speaker: So a proper way if they ask, what are you selling?
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.
Speaker: What's your average power bill?
Speaker: First of all,
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.
Speaker: So guess what?
Speaker: We sold them or we're trying to sell them nothing because they can't have it.
Speaker: Well said, Shane.
Speaker: Well said.
Speaker: So yeah, that echoes my thoughts.
Speaker: I agree with that completely.
Speaker: And out here in California,
Speaker: where I'm at, you actually have to have a license to sell.
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.
Speaker: He can't even get a home improvement license here in California to sell solar.
Speaker: So if he can't sell it, then...
Speaker: He truly is just out there to qualify people because he's not licensed to sell it.
Speaker: So those are my thoughts.
Speaker: And then just to end this off, a few responses that work well for me.
Speaker: So you might be thinking, okay, what do you say then?
Speaker: If they say, what are you selling?
Speaker: Okay, so I like to bring in humor.
Speaker: So a couple of ways that I think work well to overcome this smoke screen is they ask, what are you selling?
Speaker: I think I got this from Taylor McCarthy.
Speaker: I'll be like,
Speaker: Hey, we're doing the Girl Scout cookies, actually.
Speaker: Did you guys already get them this year?
Speaker: Did you already get your Thin Mints?
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.
Speaker: So I like that response.
Speaker: So yeah, I guess I'm lying to him when I say that, but...
Speaker: I think most people find it very obvious that I'm not selling Girl Scout cookies and then it makes them laugh.
Speaker: And then I'm able to go straight into my presentation from there.
Speaker: And then another way to overcome it is, which this might also be from Taylor McCarthy.
Speaker: You can tell I've gotten a lot of lines from him.
Speaker: He's got some good ones.
Speaker: Another line is like, I'm not selling anything.
Speaker: I know it's a heartbreaker.
Speaker: We just have to see which homes are qualified for the new redirection program.
Speaker: Did you guys already get the info on that?
Speaker: Did you guys already get the notification?
Speaker: Then you're going into it.
Speaker: So it's buying yourself time, breaking the preoccupation, and hopefully allowing you to be heard for more than one second.
Speaker: Okay, so those are two ways to do it.
Speaker: I like to bring humor into it, make them laugh.
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.
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.
Speaker: Then at that point, they're like, okay, well, this is actually a lot different than I thought about solar.
Speaker: Works a lot better doing it that way, in my experience.
Speaker: So love to hear your thoughts again.
Speaker: Shoot me a DM.
Speaker: Let me know your thoughts on this.
Speaker: And let's all be honest in sales.
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.
Speaker: So those are my thoughts.
Speaker: Agree, disagree.
Speaker: Let me know.
Speaker: And then next episode, you're not going to want to miss out.
Speaker: We have someone that's coming on to talk about the mental side of things.
Speaker: His name is Jens Bunnell.
Speaker: This guy, he runs Masterminds.
Speaker: He is kind of a sales psychology type guy.
Speaker: Just talks about how we can master our mindsets to have massive success in sales.
Speaker: So we don't bring on a lot of guys that talk about the mindset part.
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.
Speaker: And then, yeah, there's trainings, there's word tracks, whatever.
Speaker: But I think mindsets and the psychology that's going on up there, it's like 80%.
Speaker: So make sure you don't miss out on that episode.
Speaker: It's going to be coming at you next Tuesday.
Speaker: We'll see you on the next one.
Speaker: Please share the show.
Speaker: Subscribe, leave us a review if you have not already.
Speaker: That's all we ask.
Speaker: And we'll see you next time.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
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.
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.
Speaker: That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry.
Speaker: And it's called Solciety.
Speaker: This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable
Speaker: by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day.
Speaker: Currently, Soul Society is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
Speaker: So go to soulcidity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to soulcidity.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
