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 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: Two big mistakes I made last week and some golden rules that were broken.
Speaker: That and much more we're going to be talking about and jamming today on the Solopreneur podcast.
Speaker: What's up, what's going on?
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong, here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and as always, hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: Hope you're doing well.
Speaker: We're coming up on Thanksgiving, the holiday season, depending on when you're listening to this, and always a great time to get people in a better mood and
Speaker: If you can get them some solar panels on their roof, what a great gift.
Speaker: What a great thing to be thankful for.
Speaker: And what a great Christmas present, right?
Speaker: So hopefully it gives you some extra motivation to push hard.
Speaker: Something we've been talking about in some of these knockstart trainings and other mastermind groups I'm in right now is a lot of people use holidays to relax, to not push as hard.
Speaker: But you being a solopreneur, you should push even harder.
Speaker: If you know you're going to be taking off two weeks for Christmas or 10 days, whatever, push as hard as you can.
Speaker: Go do a blitz.
Speaker: Get out there.
Speaker: And then you can rest easy knowing you crushed it leading up to the holidays, Thanksgiving and all that.
Speaker: So we're going to jump into the topic.
Speaker: Sorry to get sidetracked on the holidays.
Speaker: Get thinking about Santa Claus and all that and the birth of Jesus and...
Speaker: Just gets me grateful.
Speaker: Let's jump into the podcast.
Speaker: Before we go into the topic today, just wanted to give a reminder.
Speaker: We have a solar training platform called Soul Society.
Speaker: You can go download the app.
Speaker: And I'm getting messages on social media about other people's training platforms, about Noxstar.
Speaker: We might do some podcasts on just course reviews.
Speaker: I know there's some great content out there.
Speaker: some great courses that people have already put together for solar training and it's all good stuff.
Speaker: So whenever people ask me, hey, what should I buy?
Speaker: The DDU, the Noxstar, the Solar University, whatever, there's a lot of different ones and you can ask me about those.
Speaker: But before you ask me, go download our Soul Society app because we have snippets of their trainings.
Speaker: You can go sample the different trainings because we're setting up partnerships with the people that already have courses out there.
Speaker: And also, if you want to be a member of SolCity, if you want to get the exclusive content on there, we're doing it at a super reasonable price and you get discounts to everyone else's courses and a lot of cool tools and things like that on there.
Speaker: So anyways, just is in my head because I've been getting a few messages about it.
Speaker: So if you want additional training, first go check out our Soul Society platform.
Speaker: And I say go by everyone's solar training program, right?
Speaker: We're all doing different things.
Speaker: We're all adding unique value in the industry.
Speaker: And if you're listening to this, you should be training on the things you learn.
Speaker: Take what you learn from the podcast, go teach it to other people, go ask to give trainings at your correlations.
Speaker: Even just go on social media, I don't know, do a Facebook Live, whatever.
Speaker: Go on Instagram, talk about what you learned, tag me.
Speaker: Would love that.
Speaker: And guess what?
Speaker: If you do that, it's going to solidify the content more in your head.
Speaker: So anyways, go download Soul Society.
Speaker: Let's jump into the topic.
Speaker: So today we're going to be talking about two mistakes I recently made and two golden rules of selling that I broke.
Speaker: And I'm going to preface this by inviting you, if you haven't already read Closer Survival Guide by Grant Cardona, I've talked about it many times in the podcast.
Speaker: And I know I've probably mentioned these same golden rules before, but I was reminded of how important they are because I broke them recently.
Speaker: And it cost me time.
Speaker: It cost me money.
Speaker: It cost me deals.
Speaker: So I don't want the same thing to happen to you.
Speaker: You learn from my mistakes.
Speaker: That's what I'm trying to do is help you learn from my mistakes.
Speaker: You don't have to go out and make the same ones.
Speaker: So the first ones, and I have stories that happen with these.
Speaker: So you're going to hear the stories first, and then I'm going to read the little section.
Speaker: These golden rules, they come from obviously Grant Cardone's Close or Survival Guide.
Speaker: So go read that, especially the first section in there.
Speaker: I think there's a ton of great things that can be applied.
Speaker: So anyways, the first rule that I broke, here's what happened.
Speaker: I was in a deal on Saturday.
Speaker: This was two days ago, the time that I'm recording this podcast.
Speaker: And this appointment I'd set up, it seemed really solid.
Speaker: They let me in their house.
Speaker: We were chatting at their dinner table as I was setting up the appointment.
Speaker: It was next day appointment, told me come back at 2 p.m.
Speaker: So I went back.
Speaker: Actually, in the morning, I was doing some knocking in the area.
Speaker: I saw the guy in the garage and I said, hey, Manny, I'm looking forward to going over the solar design numbers here too.
Speaker: And he confirmed in the garage, said, yeah, we're looking forward to it.
Speaker: We'll see you soon.
Speaker: Always a great sign.
Speaker: You can catch them out, you know, weed in their yard or in the garage.
Speaker: Always a good idea to double confirm it.
Speaker: or to say what's up as you're walking by.
Speaker: So I had a good feeling about it, but what happened was I went back, went through the presentation, went okay.
Speaker: His wife came out and she wasn't quite as excited as she was as I was setting up the appointment.
Speaker: That's the other reason why I felt like it was more solid because I talked to both decision makers, both husband and wife.
Speaker: They said they're going to be there and they were.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, great.
Speaker: We're talking in his garage about his drones.
Speaker: He races drones.
Speaker: He has like 50 drones hung up all over his garage.
Speaker: So we're talking about that.
Speaker: We're just, you know, shooting the breeze, built a good rapport, good relationship.
Speaker: But as we start going through everything, the mistake I made was this.
Speaker: We were sitting in their garage the whole time.
Speaker: And guess what?
Speaker: There was only one chair in their garage.
Speaker: So the one big thing
Speaker: rule that I violated here, I was not sitting down with them.
Speaker: I was not in their house.
Speaker: If you're in a garage, it's going to be a lot harder to lock people down.
Speaker: We go through it and they're still interested, but at the end they say, Taylor, yeah, we need a week, you know, go over this.
Speaker: We might be moving next year.
Speaker: We need to really think about this as something we want to do.
Speaker: We don't want to like submit applications.
Speaker: We don't want to do anything.
Speaker: we'll get back to you on Monday.
Speaker: Try it a few times, three, four times to, you know, loop around and go back into it, get them to at least get the application in and all that, but nothing.
Speaker: So I'm like, okay, couldn't lock it down.
Speaker: But again, the big mistake I made, and this is the rule, I did not have them sit down.
Speaker: And I'm just going to read what Grant Cardone says about this.
Speaker: If you have his book,
Speaker: It is on page 74.
Speaker: He goes through 20 rules of closing.
Speaker: And matter of fact, rule number one, always be seated when negotiating and closing.
Speaker: So here's what he says.
Speaker: He says, this is a policy that is frequently violated and missed, even by seasoned professionals.
Speaker: You will hardly ever close someone else.
Speaker: if you're standing up.
Speaker: The saying goes, present the product, service, or idea on your feet, but always negotiate the terms from your seat.
Speaker: In addition to making sure you are seated when attempting agreement and closure, you want to have the prospect seated as well.
Speaker: Even if your prospect stands up, remain seated, suggesting that you are not done.
Speaker: You are not reacting and that you are confident of agreement.
Speaker: Going from a seating position to standing up suggests that something has changed and allows your prospect to exit and end the negotiations.
Speaker: So there you have it, Uncle G himself.
Speaker: He's saying that you always need to be seated.
Speaker: You always need to negotiate and close seated and preferably at their kitchen table.
Speaker: That's a second key to this is if at all possible, get them on the kitchen table.
Speaker: rather than just sitting on a couch or sitting on an outside patio.
Speaker: That works too, but ideally get on their kitchen table.
Speaker: Because who do we have at our kitchen table?
Speaker: We have guests, we have family members, we have the people that are closest to us.
Speaker: Who do we have on the couch in the front room?
Speaker: We have people that are visiting, that are stopping by to say hello.
Speaker: But the people that we grow the closest to, that we trust the most, we have them at the dinner table, right?
Speaker: So that's step two of this.
Speaker: If at all possible, get them sitting down at the dinner table and make sure you get everyone sitting.
Speaker: And I did make an attempt.
Speaker: So I'm not going to say I forgot this completely because it definitely went through my mind.
Speaker: I need to get these people sitting down.
Speaker: But my issue was I only made one attempt, right?
Speaker: and I didn't place that much importance on it.
Speaker: They said, Hey, we're, uh, we'll just meet in the garage.
Speaker: They said, okay, well, um, do you have, I kind of started, I hesitated and said, well, do you have some chairs we can sit at?
Speaker: And they brought out one and they, and they said, Oh, you can sit here, just put your stuff here.
Speaker: And that was it.
Speaker: I didn't bite them on it.
Speaker: I didn't make an attempt to, you know, get inside the house again.
Speaker: And that was my big mistake.
Speaker: Cost me money.
Speaker: And who knows, would I have closed the deal if I was at the kitchen table?
Speaker: Maybe not.
Speaker: But would I have had a much better shot at it, much better chance?
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: Make sure whatever you do, you are getting them to sit down.
Speaker: You're getting those buns in a seat.
Speaker: And it's going to build that much more trust.
Speaker: It's going to make sure you can hang in the pocket more.
Speaker: Because guess what happened?
Speaker: As things started getting tough, they were already on their feet.
Speaker: as they were hesitant to submit an application, the wife, she just starts walking towards the door, walking in, they can escape.
Speaker: But if they're sitting down, you can keep them there and you can go through everything you need to.
Speaker: So that's the first big mistake I made.
Speaker: Make sure you get people seated at all times.
Speaker: And here's the second one.
Speaker: This one is not just a single mistake I made, but I've made it multiple times over lots of deals.
Speaker: And I see this, especially with people that are new to closing.
Speaker: I see this one made all the time in people that are just starting out closing.
Speaker: So here's this mistake.
Speaker: Two deals in particular.
Speaker: The first one I had closed, this was about three months ago actually.
Speaker: And we had some issues with some documents.
Speaker: I had to go back a few times.
Speaker: And the deal just kind of turned out to be a mess.
Speaker: He ended up canceling.
Speaker: And in the second instance, I went to this house.
Speaker: I closed them, got them all signed up.
Speaker: They were super excited about it.
Speaker: And what happened was I closed this through Sunnova, which those who are familiar with Sunnova or have used them as a lender, you know that if you have a home that's in a trust and write this down, if you are using Sunnova, because I didn't know this for a long time, Sunnova can be a pain.
Speaker: But what happened was the home was in a trust.
Speaker: And if you have closed with Sunnova, you know that if the home's in a trust, you have to get the homeowner to sign the contract.
Speaker: But then they also have to sign the contract as a trust.
Speaker: So basically the trust is the co-signer on the loan.
Speaker: And both sets of documents have to be submitted.
Speaker: One through the homeowner and then one through the trust.
Speaker: So I actually knew this in the deal.
Speaker: But my mistake was I was actually, I think we were headed to, I don't know, like to go eat somewhere or
Speaker: I told my wife I was going to be back at a certain time and I was running late.
Speaker: So what I did is I thought, okay, well, um, I don't see the second set of documents in his email.
Speaker: We finished signing the contract and I thought to myself, well, this could happen, but I'm just going to worry about it later.
Speaker: I'm going to get out.
Speaker: I'm hungry and I want to go eat dinner.
Speaker: We have stuff planned.
Speaker: I'm going to get out of there.
Speaker: So the mistake I made for these two separate deals is I put off
Speaker: getting documents in that were needed.
Speaker: And especially when I knew that they're needed, I put it off and I went and did my own thing, came back to bite me.
Speaker: Cause what happened on the second deal is a homeowner called me.
Speaker: His name is Francisco.
Speaker: Um, we, he was within a week of install already had a date and everything.
Speaker: And we get an email from Sun Nova saying they canceled his account.
Speaker: And that's what's super annoying about Sunnova too.
Speaker: If you've used Sunnova, they're going to just start canceling your accounts.
Speaker: In my experience, they don't really send you notices or reminders.
Speaker: They just straight up cancel your account.
Speaker: You have no idea why.
Speaker: You have to call in and find out all this stuff.
Speaker: And it's people with super broken English talking on the support lines.
Speaker: So if anyone from Sunnova is listening to this,
Speaker: give me a call.
Speaker: Let's get some stuff figured out.
Speaker: There's a lot of room for improvement on their end.
Speaker: But anyways, they cancel this account.
Speaker: And what happens, these are both older Mexican guys.
Speaker: And this is something to be aware of to older people or older people who don't speak great English.
Speaker: They tend to not be great with technology.
Speaker: They tend to get sort of buyer's fatigue.
Speaker: The more things you need to have them complete, especially digital documents and stuff like that, in my experience, they start to go bananas over this stuff.
Speaker: So if they have to do multiple digital documents and it turns out to be a lot of effort for them, they'll just straight up cancel it.
Speaker: Could be saving them a million bucks.
Speaker: But if they have to put forth a bunch of effort and open their computer, figure out emails, they're going to cancel it.
Speaker: So what happened with this guy, he didn't cancel it, but he just put it off, right?
Speaker: He was still super excited to get solar, but he put it off, put it off, put it off.
Speaker: I was trying to contact him, couldn't get ahold of him.
Speaker: You know, three weeks go by of me contacting him, saying he was gonna do it, but he didn't do it.
Speaker: And guess what happens?
Speaker: At this point, it's already been, you know, almost two months.
Speaker: Time has gone by, because he hasn't been responding.
Speaker: And permit took a little bit longer, two months had passed by.
Speaker: He opens up this document again and he forgot all the reasons that he went, he forgot all the reasons that he was sold on solar in the first place.
Speaker: He forgot the benefits.
Speaker: He just opens the contract.
Speaker: He sees all these big numbers staring him in the face.
Speaker: And since I wasn't there, guess what happens?
Speaker: He gets cold feet.
Speaker: He doesn't want to sign it.
Speaker: So he calls me up.
Speaker: He says, hey, I don't know if I want to do this anymore.
Speaker: I explained to him, I'm like, Francisco, my homeboy, you can't be canceling this.
Speaker: We got the permit.
Speaker: We're going to be installing it here.
Speaker: And good news is, Silver Lining, I'm meeting with him tomorrow, so I think we'll get Francisco back on board.
Speaker: But moral of the story is, and here's the second rule, whatever you can do today, don't put off until tomorrow.
Speaker: Okay, so Grant Cardone, he calls this being reasonable.
Speaker: And if you have Closer Survival Guide, it's on page 64.
Speaker: It's number six.
Speaker: It's one of the top 10 reasons closers fell.
Speaker: And the story Grant Cardone tells, I'll read it straight from the book here.
Speaker: He says, my sister had a friend who wanted to buy my first book from me.
Speaker: And she asked me if we would send the book out and wait for the check.
Speaker: I said, sure, I can do that.
Speaker: I ring a caller, get the money, send the book out, and close it now.
Speaker: My sister said, Grant, you can't need $30 that bad.
Speaker: What's so urgent?
Speaker: It has nothing to do with $30.
Speaker: It has more to do with creating the discipline to urgently attack finishing things and going on to the next thing.
Speaker: Don't be reasonable on this point of urgency at closing.
Speaker: Practice finishing everything you start as a discipline to start closing more deals now.
Speaker: The urgent desire to close a deal, any deal, no matter how the amount is what I live by.
Speaker: One closed deal becomes a second closed deal.
Speaker: Be urgent and don't be reasonable ever.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: So keep that in mind.
Speaker: And I think this is a huge lesson.
Speaker: If you leave loose ends, if you leave things untied, if you don't complete documents, like I said, I see this over and over from guys that just start closing deals.
Speaker: they'll get, um, you know, maybe they'll get most of the documents signed, but here in California, you need a utility bill to, um, be able to get it net metered.
Speaker: You need all their account information.
Speaker: Um, or they'll, you know, maybe forget to sign a, you know, net metering document or they'll just forget documents they need.
Speaker: What it's doing, it's putting hold holds on your accounts.
Speaker: But number two, it's creating loose ends that are potentially going to lead to cancels.
Speaker: Like happened to me.
Speaker: I already had one deal recently cancel.
Speaker: I added up all the deals that have canceled because of loose ends, because of buyer's fatigue, just customers getting frustrated of incompleted things that I cause.
Speaker: I guarantee it would be dozens and dozens of deals over the almost six years I've been doing this.
Speaker: So don't be like me, don't create yourself loose ends.
Speaker: Just when you're inside the home, do everything you can to get the documents needed.
Speaker: Okay, and I did this pretty well actually because another example, if you're closing through Sunover or pretty much any lender that I know of, if a home is in a trust, you're gonna need copies of their trust documents and you're gonna need specific pictures, the page that shows that their trust was notarized
Speaker: things to keep in mind.
Speaker: So if you know you need a certain, I don't know, picture of a document, or maybe it's a picture of their roof, just do it now.
Speaker: Don't procrastinate what you can do today and wait till tomorrow.
Speaker: So those are the two lessons.
Speaker: And those were the two things I was reminded of.
Speaker: Okay, so I want you to learn from my mistakes.
Speaker: Number one was always be seated when closing and negotiating, preferably at their kitchen table, right?
Speaker: Then number two was don't be reasonable.
Speaker: Do everything possible to just get documents in, to get things completed, to not leave loose ends.
Speaker: Get it all done.
Speaker: Make sure you don't procrastinate.
Speaker: When I was preaching the gospel, the word of the word, we would always say don't procrastinate the day of your repentance.
Speaker: We'd tell people, hey, you're doing all these terrible things now, but don't procrastinate the day of your repentance.
Speaker: Get things fixed now.
Speaker: and turn your life around.
Speaker: So it's the same thing when you're out there closing solar deals, do not procrastinate these things, just do them now.
Speaker: So send this to someone that needs to hear it.
Speaker: Maybe you got some new closers in your office, send this tip to them.
Speaker: And remember, shoot me a message on social media, tag me, go out and teach these things to your team.
Speaker: Go out and do, I don't know, Facebook Live, Instagram, whatever.
Speaker: Tag me in it.
Speaker: Let me know that you got something from this.
Speaker: So we will see you on the next podcast.
Speaker: Hey, solar printers, 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.
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Speaker: Currently, Soul Society is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
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Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to soulciety.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
