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3 Lessons Sales Can Learn From Marketing
80 Plays3 years ago
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Transcript
Introduction & Host's Journey
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
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I teach you 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.
Understanding the Solopreneur
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What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
00:00:42
Speaker
What is going on, solopreneurs?
00:00:44
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Taylor Armstrong here with another episode.
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As usual, here to make your lives easier and to close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
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Hope you're doing awesome.
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Hope you are having a rocking summer so far.
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I know I am.
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And I hope you're grinding because now is the time.
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People are home later.
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People are happier.
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Speaker
It's the summer and you got to be taking advantage.
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So continue to grind it out as much as you can during the summer months.
Marketing Lessons & Insights
00:01:14
Speaker
As you know, these episodes recently, we've been focusing on marketing, okay?
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And hopefully, even if you don't care about marketing, hopefully you're still listening a little bit because I think there's a lot of lessons that we can apply from marketers.
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And that's actually what we're going to focus on today.
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And that is a few lessons we can actually learn from marketers.
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So even if you have no interest in marketing, you're going to get something from today's episode.
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Hey, and we have, we've had some crazy good marketers on recently.
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We had Rich Fioa on.
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We're going to have Josiah Atkins on pretty soon from Prospect Bacon.
00:01:55
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That should be coming up next episode if I have my...
00:01:58
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numbers right here and a lot of lessons that can be learned from them okay and so just to really what I like to do is just kind of break down lessons that I get because I am not a marketer I am not as much I'm not geeking out as much as those guys are and so I break it down my takeaways and these are the lessons I have learned over the years and so we got three lessons we're going to be throwing at you here today
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Grab your notebook, grab your pad of pen and paper, take some notes, and let's jump into it.
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Okay, so lesson number one is the following, and that is know your target market.
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Hey, what do I mean by that?
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Know your demographics, know your areas.
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This is actually one of the first lessons I learned, believe it or not, from Taylor McCarthy, Danny Pesce, in their Knockstar program.
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We talked about how important it is to just know your areas.
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For the longest time, I would just go out blindly, not knowing anything about the area.
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And so something I learned from them and just over time is that the more you can know about the market you're knocking in, the better.
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So search that town, search that city, search that town.
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Search, I don't know, cool landmarks, cool things that have happened in the neighborhoods or the towns.
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Because if you can bring up, hey, I heard you guys had a volcano go off near your town.
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Yeah, I don't know if you guys are knocking Pompeii or what, but wherever you're knocking, know something cool.
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Hey, I don't know if you guys, were you guys here when that earthquake three years ago happened?
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Whatever.
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The more you can bring up things like that, think about it.
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They're going to look at you like their neighbor.
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They're going to trust you more.
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So know things like that.
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And going along with that, know the people that you're talking to.
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What is the primary ethnicity there?
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What are their hot buttons?
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What are the demographics?
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What is their working class?
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Are they blue-collar?
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Are they white-collar?
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What is their income level?
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And now we're super fortunate because we have apps like SellsRabbit.
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We're on Quattiva.com.
00:04:08
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Spotio, a bunch of different door knocking apps that literally will tell you the income, that will tell you the estimated credit score, that will tell you the name of the person.
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All these little pieces of data, guess what?
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That's marketing.
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And the more you can know that, the more you're going to be able to use it to your advantage on the doors or in the home, in the cell, or even on the phone.
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Maybe you're doing virtual cells.
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You can use it in that as well.
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And so a little story with that.
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Actually, recently I was knocking in a town here close to San Diego called Ramona.
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People who live down here will be familiar with it, but it is primarily blue collar.
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It's a working class.
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And the lesson I learned pretty quickly there is that everyone and their dog either is a contractor or they know a contractor.
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And so as I was going through my presentations with all these people, I made the mistake of just giving them a regular presentation, the cookie cutter one.
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But I was getting the exact same objection every single time.
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You know what?
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That sounds great, Taylor.
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But our uncle is a contractor.
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I'm a contractor.
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I'm actually going to build a structure, put it in myself.
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And I'm like, what is with these people?
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Come on, man.
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Every single person has the exact same objection.
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And that is a tough one.
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Okay.
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Just like when I did pest control, the do-it-yourselfers, there's usually not too many do-it-yourselfers in solar, but I was getting it over and over and over again.
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And so what I did, once I learned the demographic, I learned, okay, these people are all blue collar.
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How am I going to change my presentation because of this?
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So what did I do?
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I start bringing it up before they can even talk about it.
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Hey, I know you guys are contractors.
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You guys probably know contractors, right?
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That was one of the first things I brought up in my presentation.
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Yeah, you guys know contractors.
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I see your truck out here.
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You're in construction, I assume, huh?
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Cool.
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Well, that's, that's actually why I'm here.
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All your neighbors, you know how to, everyone out here is a contractor, right?
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And so what we're doing, it's actually a little bit different, but it's a program for the contractors where you actually have solar put up and all the maintenance is done for 25 years.
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Because if you're like most of your neighbors, you get home from your contractor job, you get home from building your houses, from doing your construction.
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Last thing you want to do is worry about troubleshooting solar panels.
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So I know just like all your neighbors, I know you can put up solar panels.
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But what we're doing is we're putting them up and we're actually covering the maintenance over the long haul.
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That's why I'm here.
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So I don't know, be creative with it, something like that.
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Bring it up.
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Use that as the reason why you're actually in their neighborhood, why you're at their door.
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And so that's the lesson I learned.
00:06:57
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Hopefully you learn it quickly, whatever demographic you're in, do some research.
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And I did not do my research, but it's pretty easy to tell.
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I mean, you start seeing trucks, right?
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You start seeing, I don't know, heavy equipment outside.
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They're probably contractors, blue collar.
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So data like that, super important.
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And that's the first point.
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Know your target markets.
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Know your buyer types.
Educational Marketing & Credibility
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Number two is use marketing material.
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So if you've ever been on marketing campaigns, check your email right now.
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You're probably getting marketing campaign emails from, I don't know, a bunch of different companies.
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And what are they sending you?
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They're not sending you, hey, buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff.
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They're sending you, maybe it's a newsletter.
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Maybe if you're buying, I don't know.
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What's in his mouth?
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Maybe if you're buying gardening stuff, you're getting like a gardening newsletter.
00:07:49
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They're not saying, hey, buy this gardening thing.
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It's something educational.
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So in solar, we should be doing the same.
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You should have an arsenal of educational material that you can send to
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to homeowners that you can use in your sales, that you can use in your post-sale process.
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And so how many of you just show up to the door with a notebook and, you know, a pad of paper?
00:08:12
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So many people are out there just selling with their binders, with their pen and paper, and that's it.
00:08:19
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But make sure you have your slick.
00:08:21
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Okay, that's another thing I took from the Noxstars.
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Taylor McCarthy, Denny Pesce, they have their Noxstar slicks.
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I would highly recommend that.
00:08:29
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We're probably going to come out with some solopreneur ones.
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They're going to be way better than Noxstar.
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Just kidding.
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They'll be complimentary.
00:08:38
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But I would have something.
00:08:39
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It doesn't matter really what you're using, but there's so many educational materials we could come out with based on solar, right?
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So maybe you print off an article about the rate increases.
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Maybe you print off an article about their current bill, about the connection fees with it.
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Whatever it is, use that because it's going to add more credibility to whatever you're saying.
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It's going to grab their attention.
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This is one of the best ways to get people outside the home, outside the door is you hand them something.
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You hand them some marketing material.
00:09:10
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And then even in your sales process, use your slicks.
00:09:15
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I've seen people use like fridge magnets, sheets for referrals.
00:09:20
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What I recently did, I got a frequently asked question guide that goes out to my clients after I close the deal.
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And shout out to Lindsay Erickson.
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She helped me come up with this, put this together.
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But it is an email that goes out to all my customers.
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It's a slideshow of all the questions or views how solar works or views the net metering process.
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And it just goes over frequently asked questions.
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What happens if we move?
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Is my roof covered?
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Are my panels covered?
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What are my costs with this?
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Things like that.
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So I use tools like that and make sure you're taking advantage of marketing material.
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And the
Retention & Follow-Up Strategies
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third point is hang on to that data.
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You ever wonder, what's the point?
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Why do we need all these emails?
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Why do we need these phone numbers?
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I'll be honest, when I first got into solar, I didn't care.
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I mean, I got these phone numbers, got these emails from people on the doors.
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I'm like, why does this matter so much?
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Why do we even need all this data?
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And then what did I do for two years?
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I didn't care about it.
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I put it in our system.
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But not once did I go back.
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Not once did I question why am I getting this contact information.
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And so the reason is the follow-up.
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Super powerful if you can keep a hold of that data, follow up, and use it to your advantage.
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And we've talked about this many times on the show, but the easiest way to start is RepCard.
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put people's contact info in your rep card.
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Now, every time I'm out there on the doors, I don't even submit it in my cells rabbit.
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I don't submit it in right now or even Quattiva, but I don't put the contact info in Quattiva because Quattiva is not going to follow up with me or follow up for me.
00:11:09
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I put the contact info a hundred percent of the time in my rep card and
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and then I have it set to automatically import to a high level, which is another tool I use that's a little bit more powerful follow up.
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But I would put it in something like that and then keep a hold of that data.
00:11:29
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If you are with a company, guess what?
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You might not be with that company forever.
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And so make sure you're keeping that data.
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Don't just put it in your company CRM and forget about it.
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Put it in your own CRM.
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You can import your own spreadsheet.
00:11:45
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And then easiest way, if you don't want to do all this, well, number one, you outsource some of this, get an assistant.
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You can set up campaigns to automatically go out on a lot of these apps.
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But easiest way to start, just plug it into RepCard.
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And then every couple months, a couple times a year minimum, just send out the text.
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Send out a text.
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You can automatically have a text sent out to all the people that didn't buy.
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And I got this from my friend Brent Attaway.
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He's been on the podcast, but he has his follow-up program.
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Super powerful if you want to get this dialed in to its maximum effect.
00:12:24
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But easiest text you can send out is he calls it the magic text.
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And it's just, hey, it's been some time since we since I came and talked to solar or talked about solar with you guys.
00:12:37
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Did you ever end up getting it?
00:12:38
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OK, you're not asking them to buy.
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You're not coming off salesy.
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You're just trying to start up a conversation.
00:12:46
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And then a lot of people, as they send this, they're getting back.
00:12:48
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No, but you know what?
00:12:50
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We're actually thinking about looking into it again.
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Boom.
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Got a lead again.
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So keep all this data.
00:12:57
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That can mean an extra dozen sales a year, probably if you dial in your follow up.
00:13:03
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And my follow up is not where it needs to be, because I'm guilty of this too.
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But I do have all my contacts in rep card.
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I do have all my contacts going to my high level and they are ready to follow up with.
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They're ready to implement my follow up.
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So start with that.
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At least put them in a place where you can do the follow up.
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And there you have it.
00:13:24
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That's three ways you can improve or three lessons you can learn from marketers to start implementing in your own sales game.
Recap & Bonus Resources
00:13:32
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So just to review one more time, make sure you know your customer data.
00:13:36
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Make sure you know your demographics.
00:13:37
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Make sure you research the towns, the places, everywhere you go, especially if you're like blitzing.
00:13:43
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If you're not on a target, if you're not on a market year round, then you're going to need to do some research on where you're knocking.
00:13:50
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Number two, use that marketing material.
00:13:52
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Get those slicks.
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Get that follow-up resources to send.
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Referral sheets.
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Super easy, guys.
00:13:59
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Just print out something.
00:14:02
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Go to your local staples, wherever.
00:14:04
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You can laminate stuff.
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And you don't have to buy Noxstar slicks.
00:14:07
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That helps.
00:14:08
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But you can laminate anything.
00:14:10
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Create your own resources.
00:14:12
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Create your own marketing material.
00:14:14
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Number three, keep a hold of that data.
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Use it to your advantage.
00:14:17
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Keep those emails, keep those phone numbers and use it to follow up like a boss.
00:14:24
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Hope that helps.
00:14:25
Speaker
Hope you guys will care a little bit more about marketing after today's episode.
00:14:29
Speaker
Send this to your company owner.
00:14:30
Speaker
Send this to whoever could use some lightning bolts in their marketing, some thunder, and let's get after it.
00:14:37
Speaker
Have an awesome week out there and we'll see you on the next episode.
00:14:42
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
00:14:43
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:14:45
Speaker
Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
00:14:55
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:15:02
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:15:05
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:15:10
Speaker
So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and I would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solarpreneur.
00:15:23
Speaker
We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet.
00:15:32
Speaker
So go download it right now.
00:15:34
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:15:38
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:15:43
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:15:45
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:15:47
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:15:49
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:15:54
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:15:56
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.