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The ONLY Time You Should Drop The Price image

The ONLY Time You Should Drop The Price

E132 ยท The Solarpreneur
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44 Plays5 years ago

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and 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 fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs, the industry, to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, following up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask? 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 what's up. What's up Solarpreneurs,

Speaker 2 (00:44):

Taylor Armstrong. Back with another episode here to help you close more deals, generate more referrals and leads and help you dominate in the solar industry. Hope you're doing well. If you didn't listen to the last episode you are missing out. We had the one, the only coach Michael Burt on the show and definitely a high profile guest. If you haven't heard of him, go check them out. He spoke at 10 XCon Grant Cardone's events. He's one of the top coaches, top sales trainers in the world, I would say. So go listen to the episode and share that. Give them a like in, let them know you appreciated him coming on. If you haven't already, um, besides that, what else do we have going on? Um, if you haven't heard the big announcement yet, we have our new learning platform that is opening up, um, to an exclusive group that's happening next week.

Speaker 2 (01:40):

It might already be out depending on when you're listening to this. By the time we have this recording here at the end of March, we are releasing to the first group of students. Um, the new learning platform, that's solciety.co. If you haven't gone and checked it out, I want to suggest that you hop on this. It's going to change the game and we're not going to dump all the details here yet. That's going to be pretty soon, but just to give you a little teaser, it's going to be something similar to, if you've heard of the masterclass, you maybe have seen ads for that, but masterclass, what they do, they go and find the best of each industry. Um, they, you can get Steph Curry to teach basketball. They get, um, you know, any difference, any of like skill you want to learn. They go and get the best person from there to teach it.

Speaker 2 (02:35):

So what we're doing with solciety, it's going to be something similar to that and ton, ton of other things I can't go into quite yet, but we're going to get the best of the industry. Bring them all together into one platform and create a community around it. So you're not going to want to miss out. And it is so cheap right now. I can't even believe we're releasing it for so cheap. So go get on. It's definitely going to go up in price. So hop on while you can. That's solciety.co. Um, if you want to go check it out and go get one on the wait list, we're gonna open it up, um, next week. Okay. But so let's jump into the episode today. Hope you're closing lots of deals. It's springtime here in San Diego. It's getting nice and warm outside, nice and toasty.

Speaker 2 (03:25):

Plenty of doors to knock. Now, people are in a better mood with that warm outside. So I want to tell a story about something that happened to me last week, some mistakes I made and, um, something that actually went really well. And then it's going to be something that you maybe haven't tried. So basically what I did is I was able to turn a customer, the, me to drop the price. I turned this customer into about eight referrals now. Okay. So crazy amount of referrals, but the bad news is, well, not bad, but I did drop the price. So I'm going to tell you what I did. And I'm going to tell you the mistakes I made first with this customer. And then I'm going to tell you how I got these eight referrals. It's not going to happen with

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Transcript

Introduction to Solarpreneur Podcast

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.
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.
00:00:42
Speaker
What's up solarpreneurs, Taylor Armstrong back with another episode here to help you close more deals, generate more referrals and leads and help you dominate in the solar industry.

Recap of Episode with Coach Michael Burt

00:00:55
Speaker
Hope you're doing well.
00:00:56
Speaker
If you didn't listen to the last episode, you are missing out.
00:01:00
Speaker
We had the one, the only, Coach Michael Burt on the show, and definitely a high-profile guest.
00:01:06
Speaker
If you haven't heard of him, go check him out.
00:01:09
Speaker
He spoke at 10XCon Grant Cardone's events.
00:01:12
Speaker
He's one of the top coaches, top sales trainers in the world, I would say.
00:01:18
Speaker
So go listen to the episode and share that.
00:01:20
Speaker
Give him a like and let him know you appreciated him coming on if you haven't already.
00:01:26
Speaker
Besides that, what else do we have going on?

Launch of Soulciety.co Learning Platform

00:01:29
Speaker
If you haven't heard the big announcement yet, we have our new learning platform that is opening up to an exclusive group.
00:01:38
Speaker
That's happening next week.
00:01:40
Speaker
It might already be out depending on when you're listening to this.
00:01:43
Speaker
By the time of this recording here at the end of March, we are releasing to the first group of students the new learning platform.
00:01:53
Speaker
That's soulciety.co.
00:01:55
Speaker
If you haven't gone and checked it out, I want to suggest that you hop on this.
00:02:00
Speaker
It's going to change the game.
00:02:01
Speaker
And we're not going to dump all the details here yet.
00:02:06
Speaker
That's going to be pretty soon.
00:02:08
Speaker
but just to give you a little teaser it's gonna be something similar to if you've heard of the master class
00:02:16
Speaker
you maybe have seen ads for that but masterclass what they do they go and find the best of each industry they go and get Steph Curry to teach basketball they get you know any different any of like skill you want to learn they go and get the best person from there to teach it so what we're doing with SoulCity it's going to be something similar to that and a ton ton of other things I can't go into quite yet
00:02:44
Speaker
But we're going to get the best of the industry, bring them all together into one platform, and create a community around it.
00:02:51
Speaker
So you're not going to want to miss out.
00:02:53
Speaker
And it is so cheap right now.
00:02:55
Speaker
I can't even believe we're releasing it for so cheap.
00:02:59
Speaker
So go get on.
00:02:59
Speaker
It's definitely going to go up in price.
00:03:01
Speaker
So hop on while you

Spring in San Diego: Perfect for Door-to-Door Sales

00:03:03
Speaker
can.
00:03:03
Speaker
That's soulciety.co.
00:03:07
Speaker
If you want to go check it out and go get on the wait list, we're going to open it up next week.
00:03:14
Speaker
Okay, but so let's jump into the episode today.
00:03:17
Speaker
Hope you're closing lots of deals.
00:03:18
Speaker
It's springtime here in San Diego.
00:03:21
Speaker
It's getting nice and warm outside, nice and toasty.
00:03:25
Speaker
Plenty of doors to knock now.
00:03:27
Speaker
People are in a better mood with that warm outside.

Negotiation Success: Turning Price Drops into Referrals

00:03:31
Speaker
So I want to tell a story about something that happened to me last week, some mistakes I made, and something that actually went really well.
00:03:41
Speaker
And then it's going to be something that you maybe haven't tried.
00:03:45
Speaker
So basically what I did is I was able to turn a customer that asked me to drop the price
00:03:54
Speaker
I turned this customer into about 8 referrals now.
00:03:58
Speaker
Ok, so crazy amount of referrals, but the bad news is, well not bad, but I did drop the price.
00:04:06
Speaker
So I'm going to tell you what I did, I'm going to tell you the mistakes I made first with this customer, and then I'm going to tell you how I got these 8 referrals.
00:04:13
Speaker
It's not going to happen with everyone, but there's some key things that helped me get these referrals.
00:04:20
Speaker
that basically pre-committed the customer so and if you're not doing this you gotta try it so here's what happened i went to a deal i'm working in a community in san diego that is predominantly asians filipinos
00:04:39
Speaker
and Indians, okay, a lot of different kind of Eastern cultures.
00:04:45
Speaker
And if you know anything about these cultures, if you've been in sales for a while, you know by now that a lot of these cultures, especially Indians in particular, they are used to bartering.
00:04:56
Speaker
That's their whole culture.
00:04:58
Speaker
they like to barter for everything and I mean I'm sure they're burning bird in for groceries anything they're buying back in India the price is always negotiable it's not like here you know you know you have a set price you gotta pay it so what happens is these Indians they think that anything that they're presented here the price is negotiable
00:05:21
Speaker
And it's kind of funny, my dad, he's actually a dentist in Utah, and he told me that he has an Indian patient that will haggle him for prices on his dental services.
00:05:34
Speaker
He's pulling a tooth and he's saying, what's the lowest price you can give me on this?
00:05:39
Speaker
And I don't know too many people that are negotiating with their dentist.
00:05:43
Speaker
But these people, they'll do it.
00:05:45
Speaker
They want the best deals.
00:05:47
Speaker
They want to feel like they're getting the top thing that no one knows about.
00:05:50
Speaker
They want the price that has never been given before.
00:05:54
Speaker
It's super annoying, super frustrating, but you got to deal with it.
00:05:59
Speaker
And you got to know how to sell to all these types of people.
00:06:01
Speaker
And I've talked about it before.
00:06:03
Speaker
Find your target customer.
00:06:05
Speaker
But then figure out how you need to sell to each different group of customers.

Cultural Challenges in Price Negotiation

00:06:09
Speaker
You're going to sell to a grandma different than you're going to sell to a 30-year-old businessman, right?
00:06:14
Speaker
And then with each culture, you're going to sell to them differently.
00:06:17
Speaker
So that's what you've got to figure out.
00:06:19
Speaker
If you're selling to an Indian, you've got to be prepared for them to ask for the best deal.
00:06:24
Speaker
You've got to be prepared for them to say they want to shop around, get a better price, and that's just what you've got to do.
00:06:31
Speaker
So what happened was I sold, I knocked into this Indian, and it was funny, this first Indian that I got the sell with, he was actually super easy.
00:06:43
Speaker
He was like, oh, I've never checked into solar, this sounds great.
00:06:46
Speaker
Didn't question the price at all.
00:06:47
Speaker
It was like, where do I sign?
00:06:50
Speaker
But alas, it didn't turn out quite that easy.
00:06:54
Speaker
Definitely ran into some hiccups along the way.
00:06:56
Speaker
Okay, and that's what you'll find too.
00:06:59
Speaker
Any deal that you think is super easy, that there's a lay down, there's usually going to be something that comes up.
00:07:06
Speaker
that makes it not a lay down.
00:07:08
Speaker
At least in my experience out here in San Diego especially, there's very few deals that go through smoothly.
00:07:15
Speaker
You have to work for these installs out here.
00:07:18
Speaker
So what happened is I asked for referrals at the end, like we all should be doing.
00:07:24
Speaker
And I didn't just ask, I say, that's what we do.
00:07:26
Speaker
We work by referrals.
00:07:28
Speaker
And I handed them the sheet of paper.
00:07:30
Speaker
I was assumptive and I got three referrals out of them.
00:07:35
Speaker
and as I was contacting your these referrals I booked an appointment with a few of them but when I went to the actual appointments I figured out pretty quickly this customer I had told all his friends exact price he was getting the exact deal and guess what a few of his friends had already been shopping around for solar
00:08:01
Speaker
They had already gotten multiple quotes.
00:08:04
Speaker
They looked into Tesla Solar, which Tesla, as we know, they are cutting out everything.
00:08:12
Speaker
They're giving the rock bottom prices, which I can't stand.
00:08:18
Speaker
And so what happened is these friends of his went and told my customer, hey man, have you checked out Tesla?
00:08:25
Speaker
They have the best deal on solar.
00:08:27
Speaker
They're making it so cheap.
00:08:30
Speaker
And Tesla, you can go and get this dirt cheap price.
00:08:33
Speaker
It'll show you on the website.
00:08:36
Speaker
So he went and looked this up and of course he calls me.
00:08:38
Speaker
He says, Taylor, you're charging me way more than what I get from like Tesla.
00:08:44
Speaker
I need to cancel.
00:08:45
Speaker
And that's where I'm like, come on, man.
00:08:48
Speaker
Of course I get the referrals and his friends, they tell him instantly.
00:08:52
Speaker
that he needs to cancel it.
00:08:54
Speaker
So at that point, I'm almost second guessing myself.
00:08:58
Speaker
I'm like, man, should I just not ask for referrals until they get installed?
00:09:02
Speaker
Because, I mean, I don't want him talking to people and then his friends talking him out of the deal.
00:09:09
Speaker
So long story short, I go back, I have to build more value.
00:09:14
Speaker
I probably should have done a better job about building more value in the beginning.
00:09:18
Speaker
But I build more value in what we're offering and what's different between us and Tesla.
00:09:25
Speaker
Build up our warranties, our service, customer service.
00:09:29
Speaker
That's kind of what you got to do when you're competing with Tesla.
00:09:32
Speaker
Really hit on the customer service, reviews, things like that.
00:09:36
Speaker
And then I did have to drop my price.
00:09:38
Speaker
Okay, I mean, Tesla is like cheaper than cheap.
00:09:42
Speaker
So I dropped it, still going to be higher than them, but built the value and then dropped it, threw in some aces and then luckily kept them on board.
00:09:52
Speaker
And then I thought, okay, sweet.
00:09:54
Speaker
Now I can go to his friends.
00:09:55
Speaker
I can sign them up, do the same thing, build more value and I'm good to go, right?

Strategy: Price Drops for Referrals

00:10:01
Speaker
Well, wrong.
00:10:03
Speaker
What he did from there is he told all his referrals now.
00:10:06
Speaker
At this point, I only met with one of them.
00:10:08
Speaker
He's the one that kind of screwed me on the deal.
00:10:11
Speaker
He goes and tells all his referrals now that I gave him.
00:10:17
Speaker
This price is this much monthly.
00:10:20
Speaker
Super good deal.
00:10:22
Speaker
which for him is only after we got done with everything, he was only paying like $39 a month for solar, 25-year Sunnova loan.
00:10:33
Speaker
So he's getting a really good deal.
00:10:35
Speaker
He goes and tells all his friends the price he gets and what he's paying monthly.
00:10:40
Speaker
And that's the second mistake I made.
00:10:42
Speaker
So when you're asking referrals, when you're getting these people,
00:10:46
Speaker
make sure you bring up the customer to not tell them the price they got because number one that's going to make him feel special that he got a great deal and number two you don't want especially if you're like you know dropping prices you want to be as profitable as possible on these other deals okay and you don't necessarily want to give the same price to everyone you're meeting with
00:11:12
Speaker
And what it did along with that is he was, this was an eight panel system.
00:11:16
Speaker
He's used next to no energy, which is another thing that's typical of these Eastern cultures.
00:11:22
Speaker
These Indians are really used to using not much energy.
00:11:25
Speaker
I guess it's really hot in India, so they're used to the heat.
00:11:28
Speaker
You don't need to use too much AC.
00:11:31
Speaker
He tells all his friends the price he's getting on eight panels.
00:11:35
Speaker
and what do they do they think that they should get the exact same deal even though they're using way more energy so just makes things complicated now I explained to him well shum shaman he was using way less energy so that's why he got this price and just turn in a whole headache come explain and break down the price way more than I want to because you know you like to keep it simple in the clothes
00:12:05
Speaker
So that's what happened.
00:12:07
Speaker
He went and compared, he went and told his friends the price and just created a headache.
00:12:13
Speaker
And then I thought the first sell I got, I gave him a great price.
00:12:18
Speaker
And then, you know, usually referrals, you have the rapport built.
00:12:22
Speaker
The trust is already there since their referral.
00:12:24
Speaker
But I close the next referral he sends me.
00:12:27
Speaker
And then what do they do?
00:12:28
Speaker
Even after signing the documents, getting them ready to go, they all go out and get, I think, two more quotes still.
00:12:34
Speaker
I'm like, come on, guys.
00:12:35
Speaker
Are you kidding me?
00:12:37
Speaker
What anyone knows, anytime they go out and get quotes, it's like, hey, can you beat this price?
00:12:42
Speaker
First thing they're telling to the next company.
00:12:45
Speaker
meet with so I get a call from his friend now saying hey I still got a better price and at this point I'm like you gotta be kidding me man I already gave you the same price as your friend which was super low now you're telling me how to beat another price and so at this point I'm like alright I'm gonna make not next to nothing on the deal which next to nothing out here I mean still like you know maybe a thousand bucks but
00:13:14
Speaker
not as much as I like to be profitable and everything and have the good margins.
00:13:21
Speaker
So I'm thinking, all right, what do I do?
00:13:23
Speaker
Do I just let this one go?
00:13:24
Speaker
Because he's haggling me, he's being a pain.
00:13:27
Speaker
He wants to meet again and says, all right, if you can't give me this, then we're done.
00:13:31
Speaker
Okay, so here's what I did.
00:13:35
Speaker
And here's what helped me get the extra like five referrals from this other Indian customer.
00:13:43
Speaker
I went back and I said, all right, first of all, I did the manager close, which I need to talk to my manager, see if we can get you this.
00:13:53
Speaker
This is like, you know, best price we've given everyone.
00:13:55
Speaker
Don't tell your other friends.
00:13:57
Speaker
This time I made it clear to not tell anyone else the price he's getting.
00:14:03
Speaker
So I go and call my manager, which my manager is my wife.
00:14:06
Speaker
I just call my wife and, you know, ask her for permission to drop the price.
00:14:12
Speaker
And I come back and I say, all right, man, we can do this on two conditions.
00:14:19
Speaker
Number one, we need you willing to have a sign go out in front of your yard so you can, you know, spread the word more in your community about what we're doing to help people out here.
00:14:33
Speaker
And number two, we need at least four referrals to
00:14:39
Speaker
There's four people that would be willing to meet about this.
00:14:43
Speaker
They don't have to sign up, but we need at least four people.
00:14:47
Speaker
And he's like, oof.
00:14:49
Speaker
He didn't want to give me them.
00:14:51
Speaker
And I'm like, we need them.
00:14:52
Speaker
We need them like today, though.
00:14:55
Speaker
That's the only way I can do it.
00:14:57
Speaker
Otherwise they're not letting us do it.
00:14:59
Speaker
So what I did, I pre-committed this customer and I had already tried to get a few referrals from this customer originally when I signed him, but he was one of those people that was a little more hesitant.
00:15:11
Speaker
He was like, I'll give you, even being assumptive, he's a little more hesitant to give me the referrals.
00:15:18
Speaker
So I committed him, I made him commit to giving me referrals.
00:15:23
Speaker
And at this point, it gave me leverage to actually get, you know, names from him.
00:15:29
Speaker
So I walk out of there with four names, okay?
00:15:34
Speaker
And then he's actually posted in his community Nextdoor app.
00:15:41
Speaker
So that's another good golden tip right there.
00:15:44
Speaker
Get people to post about you in the Nextdoor app, or better yet, do it for them, which we'll have another episode on that.
00:15:51
Speaker
Yes, that's the lesson of this story.
00:15:53
Speaker
If you ever have customers that are haggling on price or that you need to drop it for or that you're doing that manager call, you need to talk to the manager, make it conditional.
00:16:03
Speaker
Hey man, we can get you this, but only if you let us put a sign in front of your home.
00:16:10
Speaker
You give me four names right now, okay?
00:16:14
Speaker
Don't make him stressed about it.
00:16:16
Speaker
Say, don't worry, we're not going to contact him until after you talk to him first.

Enhancing Deal Profitability with Testimonials

00:16:22
Speaker
And then see if, you know, best case scenario, see if you can contact them together right in that moment.
00:16:28
Speaker
And then what I failed to do, but what should be another condition that you add on to this,
00:16:34
Speaker
and be creative.
00:16:35
Speaker
Have them do a video testimonial.
00:16:37
Speaker
Get them right there, get a selfie video, and do a little testimonial.
00:16:42
Speaker
So that's something that helped me get an awesome amount of referrals.
00:16:46
Speaker
Okay, you're not going to get, so far I've gotten, like I said, I think six referrals from that one, and then three from the other one.
00:16:57
Speaker
So some people are obviously more hesitant than others to give referrals.
00:17:02
Speaker
But that's the tip.
00:17:03
Speaker
Make it conditional.
00:17:04
Speaker
If you need to drop price, build more value first of all.
00:17:08
Speaker
You shouldn't have to drop price.
00:17:10
Speaker
But if people are haggling you, make it conditional.
00:17:13
Speaker
Make them give you something in order to drop the price.
00:17:17
Speaker
And then what I did, I said, look, the only way we're able to do this...
00:17:23
Speaker
is we're hoping that one of these people sign up.
00:17:27
Speaker
So the money that we would usually give you as a referral, that's going to go towards the good deal you're getting.
00:17:33
Speaker
Okay, because in this case, I was giving an insanely good deal cut into my...
00:17:42
Speaker
into my profits big time, and it was already a smaller system.
00:17:45
Speaker
So that's what I did in that case as well.
00:17:48
Speaker
So just a few things.
00:17:49
Speaker
Okay, try it.
00:17:50
Speaker
Let me know what you think.
00:17:51
Speaker
Let me know if you have any other tips that have helped you in dropping price or ways to just not drop price.
00:17:57
Speaker
Okay, but something to help me last week.
00:17:59
Speaker
Hope it helps you go out and try it, share it with your team, and keep crushing out there.
00:18:04
Speaker
See you on the next show.

Introduction to Sol Society Learning Community

00:18:06
Speaker
Hey Solar printers, quick question.
00:18:08
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?
00:18:17
Speaker
For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite solar professionals.
00:18:23
Speaker
and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
00:18:29
Speaker
That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new solar learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with the top performers in the industry.
00:18:40
Speaker
And it's called Sol Society.
00:18:42
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 by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it?
00:18:57
Speaker
Less than $3.45 a day.
00:19:00
Speaker
Currently Sol Society is closed to the public and membership is by invitation only, but solopreneurs can go to solciety.co to learn more and have the option to join a waitlist when a membership becomes available in your area.
00:19:14
Speaker
Again, this is exclusively for Solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now.
00:19:26
Speaker
Thanks again for listening.
00:19:27
Speaker
We'll catch you again in the next episode.