Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
This 1 Mistake Almost Cost Me A Deal!
67 Plays2 years ago
- https://www.youtube.com/@solarpreneurs
- Help Reagan Beat Cancer!!!
- goals.solarpreneurs.com
- oneliners.solarpreneurs.com
- https://solciety.co/ - JOIN SOLCIETY NOW!
- SIRO APP - LEARN MORE!
- Thanks to our sponsor Pi Syndicate for this episode!
- DOWNLOAD THE CHEAT SHEET HERE!: TOP 10 MOST DOWNLOADED EPISODES OF ALL TIME
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Taylor Armstrong'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
Speaker
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.
Defining the Solarpreneur
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
Hey, what's going on, solopreneurs?
00:00:44
Speaker
Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:45
Speaker
We are back with another episode.
00:00:48
Speaker
My name's Taylor Armstrong, rather.
00:00:50
Speaker
I forgot to finish that sentence.
Respect for Door-to-Door Salespeople
00:00:52
Speaker
I hope you're doing awesome.
00:00:53
Speaker
If this is your first time listening to the podcast, welcome to the solar coaster.
00:00:58
Speaker
We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time overall in the solar industry.
00:01:06
Speaker
Hope you're doing awesome at the time of this recording.
00:01:08
Speaker
We are in July.
00:01:09
Speaker
It is blazing out here and I'm in San Diego, California.
00:01:13
Speaker
I can't even imagine knocking like Arizona, Texas, some of these other states.
00:01:17
Speaker
So y'all got my mad respect.
00:01:19
Speaker
If you are knocking in over a hundred degree weather right now, it's insane.
00:01:23
Speaker
I'm having trouble cooling down and, um,
00:01:28
Speaker
It's a grind to get out there sometimes.
00:01:30
Speaker
Hardest door is the car door, as they say.
00:01:32
Speaker
So hope you still are getting out there, grinding, and surviving this heat.
Encouragement for Listener Reviews
00:01:37
Speaker
Stay cool out there.
00:01:38
Speaker
On today's podcast, we're going to be talking about a little issue I had come up and an important reminder for myself.
00:01:47
Speaker
Something that I just brushed over that I want to share with everybody and hopefully you can start to implement these things.
00:01:53
Speaker
Before we jump into the topic though, I wanted to thank everyone that has left a review recently.
00:01:59
Speaker
We are at 190 reviews over on Apple or iTunes.
00:02:04
Speaker
I don't know what they call their podcast platform.
00:02:07
Speaker
But if you want to help me get to 200 reviews, that would be freaking awesome.
00:02:12
Speaker
So go over if you have not left a review, please would mean the world.
00:02:18
Speaker
Go leave a review takes like 30 seconds.
00:02:20
Speaker
I think you can do them on Spotify too, but we're at 190 on Apple.
00:02:23
Speaker
So let's get to 200.
00:02:24
Speaker
What do you say?
00:02:25
Speaker
Okay, so that's my ask.
00:02:27
Speaker
Go share the show.
00:02:28
Speaker
Go leave a review if you have not already.
00:02:30
Speaker
Okay, but let's jump into the topic.
Communication Challenges in Customer Relations
00:02:33
Speaker
Okay, and here's the story that goes with it.
00:02:35
Speaker
Here's the little mistake I made.
00:02:37
Speaker
So I closed the deal.
00:02:38
Speaker
This was like three months ago.
00:02:40
Speaker
Mexican family.
00:02:42
Speaker
I speak Spanish, so I explained everything to them in Spanish.
00:02:45
Speaker
They were excited to get the project going.
00:02:47
Speaker
But the one issue we had is they had an old roof.
00:02:51
Speaker
And they had an ancient electric panel.
00:02:53
Speaker
So as anyone knows that's been in the industry for a while, that's going to cause some delays because you got to wait for a main panel upgrade.
00:03:01
Speaker
Out here in San Diego, that usually adds like 60 days to the project.
00:03:05
Speaker
Takes a long time.
00:03:06
Speaker
And of course, the roof adds a little delay in there as well.
00:03:10
Speaker
So I explained to this customer, hey, it's going to be a while.
00:03:13
Speaker
Things with projects like this, it never goes super quick.
00:03:18
Speaker
So we got to wait.
00:03:18
Speaker
It's going to be probably three, four months.
00:03:21
Speaker
So I explain all this and granted my Spanish, mi español, no es perfecto.
00:03:26
Speaker
My Spanish isn't like the world's greatest Spanish.
00:03:29
Speaker
So it could have been him maybe not understanding as much.
00:03:32
Speaker
But long story short, fast forward to today, we're like, you know, three months in advance.
00:03:37
Speaker
This was three months when I signed the deal.
00:03:39
Speaker
I get a notification that the roof is finally ready to be replaced.
00:03:43
Speaker
We're ready to do the roof.
00:03:44
Speaker
We're getting close with being able to replace the electric panel.
00:03:48
Speaker
And so I hit the customer up.
00:03:50
Speaker
I'm like, hey, Gregorio, good news.
00:03:53
Speaker
We can proceed with your project.
00:03:55
Speaker
Everything's going great.
00:03:56
Speaker
And he just gives me this reaction like, wait, solar, am I?
00:04:02
Speaker
You guys are still doing the project?
00:04:04
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, we've been working on your project.
00:04:07
Speaker
Everything's been progressing.
00:04:09
Speaker
He's like, oh, well, I didn't hear from you guys for like months.
00:04:13
Speaker
So I didn't even think that I was still going solar.
00:04:16
Speaker
I don't even know.
00:04:17
Speaker
I can't even remember like what.
00:04:19
Speaker
what the project is, what it entails.
00:04:21
Speaker
So I thought I thought it was canceled.
00:04:24
Speaker
And I explained to him like, no, we just had some delays.
00:04:27
Speaker
I know it's been a while.
00:04:28
Speaker
But like I explained to you in the first meeting we had, these things can get held up when there's, you know, multiple things we have to do for the project.
00:04:36
Speaker
And I have to meet with him again now.
00:04:39
Speaker
Basically, I have to resell the project to him.
00:04:41
Speaker
He didn't say he wanted to cancel it.
00:04:43
Speaker
He was just surprised to hear from me because he thought the project was canceled.
00:04:46
Speaker
He thought it wasn't pressing.
00:04:48
Speaker
So the big mistake that I made, as you can probably guess at this point, is lack of communication.
00:04:54
Speaker
I was not communicating with my customer.
00:04:57
Speaker
And now I'm paying the price for it.
00:04:59
Speaker
Could lead to a cancel.
00:05:01
Speaker
I think I'm going to be able to save it.
00:05:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:03
Speaker
Cause he wasn't like, it wasn't like freaking out or anything, but I have to go back.
00:05:08
Speaker
I have to drive probably an hour round trip because it's an area that I'm not working anymore.
00:05:13
Speaker
Take time out of my day when all of this probably could have been prevented if I was communicating with this customer.
00:05:19
Speaker
And I did put this through, it was a complicated project.
00:05:22
Speaker
So I did put this through an installer that I don't typically use.
00:05:25
Speaker
It was a little bit different than what I'd normally do.
00:05:28
Speaker
And so he was outside of the normal, I guess you could say, scope of communication outside of the standard operating procedure that I have for just checking my installer portal, communicating with the customers.
00:05:40
Speaker
My mistake was he got forgotten.
00:05:42
Speaker
I'm like, oh, this is a one-off project.
00:05:44
Speaker
You know what?
00:05:44
Speaker
That installer, they're probably communicating better.
00:05:47
Speaker
I'll just kind of relax for that one.
00:05:49
Speaker
He seemed chill.
00:05:50
Speaker
And so I didn't communicate with him for several months.
00:05:53
Speaker
And this was an older couple, older Mexican family.
00:05:57
Speaker
So just end of the day, kind of a recipe for disaster because especially older folks like that, sometimes they don't know how to use technology.
00:06:04
Speaker
They're not going to reach out to you.
00:06:06
Speaker
They're going to forget things, right?
00:06:08
Speaker
And so I dropped the ball on it.
00:06:09
Speaker
So moral of the story is always be communicating with your
Importance of Standardized Procedures
00:06:13
Speaker
customers.
00:06:13
Speaker
You need to set up an SOP, a standing operating procedure to communicate with your customers.
00:06:19
Speaker
If you don't, you're going to be like me.
00:06:21
Speaker
You're going to have to spend unnecessary time on the phone with customers.
00:06:25
Speaker
You're going to have to spend unnecessary time possibly going back to prevent them from canceling.
00:06:29
Speaker
to go and re-explain the deal, to go and resell them, show them the value proposition.
00:06:35
Speaker
And it's just going to cause cancels, going to cause headaches, going to cause delays, where all this probably could have been prevented if I was communicating with this customer.
00:06:44
Speaker
So I'm going to give you three tips, three things that you can start to do.
00:06:49
Speaker
Easy to say, right?
00:06:50
Speaker
Communicate with the customer, but how should you do it?
00:06:52
Speaker
When should you do it?
00:06:53
Speaker
How often?
00:06:54
Speaker
What tools do you use?
00:06:55
Speaker
This is a fascinating conversation to have.
00:06:58
Speaker
And I love this side of solar.
00:07:00
Speaker
I love setting up these systems and getting this dialed because I think this is something that a lot of people don't have set up.
00:07:06
Speaker
A lot of people are not doing.
00:07:07
Speaker
And this is one way that I think it's going to get you more referrals.
00:07:10
Speaker
It's going to lead to more satisfied customers, far less cancels.
00:07:14
Speaker
your life is going to be much smoother, much easier.
00:07:16
Speaker
So take it from myself.
00:07:18
Speaker
If you do not have this set up, set up something today and I'm going to give you some
Commitment to Customer Updates
00:07:22
Speaker
tips.
00:07:22
Speaker
So here's tip number one, either you or you're an assistant, maybe it's someone on your team, maybe it's your brother, sister, cousin, whatever, commit to one day of the week to go through your pipeline, get updates for your customers, and then give the customer the updates and
00:07:38
Speaker
What's going on in the project?
00:07:40
Speaker
Where are they at?
00:07:41
Speaker
Are we waiting on the permits?
00:07:43
Speaker
Are we stuck on the HOA?
00:07:45
Speaker
Hey, give them some sort of update.
00:07:47
Speaker
And I think a smart thing to do, I got this from Taylor McCarthy, but as you close the deal, you should be telling these people, hey, this is a long project.
00:07:58
Speaker
set the proper expectations, especially if it's a complicated project like this one.
00:08:02
Speaker
But let them know, hey, it's construction.
00:08:05
Speaker
There's going to be delays.
00:08:06
Speaker
Things happen with it.
00:08:07
Speaker
So generally, no news is good news.
00:08:10
Speaker
That's the line.
00:08:10
Speaker
No news is good news.
00:08:12
Speaker
So we're going to try to give you weekly updates.
00:08:14
Speaker
But just know that even if you don't hear something for a little bit, that's generally a good thing.
00:08:18
Speaker
We're still working on it.
00:08:19
Speaker
So I think that's a great way to preface it as you're telling them what's going to happen as you're
00:08:25
Speaker
setting the expectations because you don't want to tell them that the deal is going to be installed in three weeks, then it takes three months.
00:08:31
Speaker
Think that's going to lead to happy customers?
00:08:32
Speaker
Probably not.
00:08:34
Speaker
But that's step number one, either yourself or an assistant.
00:08:37
Speaker
I personally have a virtual assistant that helps with this, but set up a system for one day of the week to go through your pipeline, give the customers an update.
00:08:45
Speaker
Personally, I do this
00:08:47
Speaker
On Fridays, it's the day that I like to go through and give the customers an update and take it from me.
00:08:53
Speaker
Don't cut corners on this.
00:08:55
Speaker
Even if you have a one-off deal through a different installer, maybe you have to send it to a buddy to close, whatever.
00:09:00
Speaker
Still take the responsibility.
00:09:03
Speaker
take ownership of doing this, even if it's, you know, through different installers or even if there's something funky going on with it.
00:09:11
Speaker
And step number two is this, have the same person give that update every single week.
00:09:17
Speaker
Hey, whether it's you,
00:09:19
Speaker
I think you need to get to the point where you have an assistant or someone helping with this, especially if you want to do volume, right?
00:09:26
Speaker
If you're closing five deals a week, it's going to start to add up a lot.
00:09:29
Speaker
And guess what?
00:09:30
Speaker
You're going to get to the point where you close five, five, five.
00:09:33
Speaker
You got 15 deals in the pipeline now.
00:09:35
Speaker
That's going to start to take some time as you're responding to their questions, as you're giving them updates all by yourself.
00:09:41
Speaker
So if you want to really take it to another level,
00:09:44
Speaker
learn how to outsource some of these things.
00:09:46
Speaker
Hey, and we can help you, by the way, if you're wondering, how do I set this up?
00:09:50
Speaker
There's so much to do, so much to focus on.
00:09:52
Speaker
We do have a program for this.
00:09:54
Speaker
Hit me up if that's something that interests you.
00:09:57
Speaker
But right now with the people in our Inner Circle program, we're helping them set up these systems, set up these processes, get their own virtual assistants so they can offload all of these things and spend more time on the important stuff like selling.
00:10:12
Speaker
like contacting referrals, right?
00:10:14
Speaker
Okay, so make sure you do that.
00:10:16
Speaker
But a person that's probably is doing more volume than anybody in the solar industry, he's been on the podcast, Ricardo Ritchie.
00:10:24
Speaker
He just did, I think, 90 deals in 60 days or something like that.
00:10:28
Speaker
Um, maybe it's 45 days, but something insane.
00:10:31
Speaker
But he, what he does is every single deal he closes, he sets up a three-way text with him and his, or with the, uh, customer with his assistant.
00:10:41
Speaker
And then, yeah, obviously he's in there too.
00:10:44
Speaker
And he introduces them and he says, Hey, this is the person you're going to get updates from every week for the scope of the project or for the length of the project.
00:10:53
Speaker
If you have any questions, you can reach out to them, just send them a text.
00:10:56
Speaker
They're really good.
00:10:57
Speaker
They're going to get back to you.
00:10:58
Speaker
And then that way he sets it up to where they're not going to bother him.
00:11:02
Speaker
I mean, he's, yeah, he's, he's going to try to get back to him, but he sets expectation that they should be reaching out to the project coordinator, the project manager for updates, for questions they may have.
00:11:13
Speaker
Cause when you're closing, you know, 30 deals a month, you're,
00:11:16
Speaker
you don't have time to respond to all these customers and give them updates and do all that.
00:11:20
Speaker
Hey, but I don't know if you've had the experience where you've called like a customer support line.
00:11:26
Speaker
They transfer you to someone else.
00:11:28
Speaker
Maybe it's your credit card company.
00:11:29
Speaker
You're trying to get a charge, dispute or whatever.
00:11:32
Speaker
I recently went through that.
00:11:33
Speaker
Wife's wallet got stolen, had all these charges to dispute.
00:11:36
Speaker
But sometimes you call the company and they're like, okay, you know what?
00:11:40
Speaker
We're going to transfer you to our manager.
00:11:42
Speaker
We're going to transfer you to this department.
00:11:44
Speaker
We're going to transfer you to someone else.
00:11:45
Speaker
I've worked with some installers who shall not be named.
00:11:49
Speaker
I'm not going to throw them under the bus, but some installation companies I've talked to, they're the same way.
00:11:54
Speaker
Try to get an update for a customer and they'd send you to five different people.
00:11:57
Speaker
They all have different stories.
00:11:58
Speaker
So I'm sure everyone's had that experience.
00:12:00
Speaker
It's extremely frustrating when you don't know who to talk to, when you're getting different stories, when you have questions that aren't answered.
00:12:07
Speaker
So make sure you are introducing them to someone, whether it's yourself or
00:12:12
Speaker
or project manager, or your assistant, make sure they know who to get that update from.
00:12:17
Speaker
So they're not like I was talking to 10 different people to get one update.
00:12:21
Speaker
So that's step number two, have the same person give the updates every week.
00:12:26
Speaker
Okay, same day, same time, same person, that's going to lead to customer satisfaction.
00:12:32
Speaker
That is good customer service.
00:12:33
Speaker
And this is what's lacking in the solar industry.
00:12:36
Speaker
So let's clean this stuff up.
00:12:37
Speaker
Let's not be like the crappy companies out there.
00:12:39
Speaker
And then the third thing, last but not least, is get organized with this and use a CRM, customer relations
Using CRM for Organization
00:12:47
Speaker
manager.
00:12:47
Speaker
Okay, we've had some people on recently that have talked about CRMs, but there's free ones.
00:12:52
Speaker
Okay, you don't have to spend money.
00:12:53
Speaker
If you're brand new, you can start organizing your projects.
00:12:56
Speaker
And even if you're just setting up deals, some of the best setters that I'm working with right now and the best setters I've seen in the industry are
00:13:05
Speaker
They're taking initiative to also organize their pipeline, organize their deals.
00:13:09
Speaker
And this is something that I love.
00:13:11
Speaker
My top guy right now, top setter that's having a ton of success, he's following up with me and he's helping me manage the projects.
00:13:21
Speaker
Hey, I'm doing this, but it helps so much to have a setter who follows up and says, hey, Taylor, how's this deal going?
00:13:27
Speaker
Do we need to update them?
00:13:28
Speaker
Hey, where are they at in the process?
00:13:31
Speaker
Anything we can do to speed this up?
00:13:33
Speaker
He's taking initiative and that's what separates setters that aren't doing so great from setters that are crushing it.
00:13:40
Speaker
Okay, so even if you're a setter listening to this, oh, Taylor, this doesn't apply to me.
00:13:43
Speaker
I'm not closing deals.
00:13:44
Speaker
I don't have to manage my pipeline.
00:13:47
Speaker
I think it's going to help you get the deals installed if you help your closer do this.
00:13:51
Speaker
Okay, but use a CRM.
00:13:53
Speaker
There's free ones like monday.com.
00:13:55
Speaker
ClickUp is free.
00:13:57
Speaker
I'm recently starting to use that a little bit.
00:13:59
Speaker
The one that I use, it's the best one in my opinion.
00:14:02
Speaker
Right now it's high level.
00:14:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:05
Speaker
You can, a lot of people are using this in solar now.
00:14:07
Speaker
You can text your customers from it.
00:14:09
Speaker
You can email, you can set up automations, a ton of ways you can customize it.
00:14:14
Speaker
And this is what I use with my virtual assistant.
00:14:16
Speaker
She goes in there, she can text from there and she can have all the customers online.
00:14:21
Speaker
organized and you know drag and drop pretty dialed and again this is what all of our clients get in our coaching group in our coaching program so if you would like to have access to this stuff and be coached on how to just maximize the results from it hit me up got a few openings for our group okay but that's tip number three
00:14:41
Speaker
Whatever you're doing, make sure it's organized.
00:14:43
Speaker
Put it in a spreadsheet for crying out loud.
00:14:45
Speaker
Put it in a notebook.
00:14:47
Speaker
There's guys that are old school that just are writing these things down.
00:14:50
Speaker
But figure out some way to organize it and keep track of all these things.
00:14:53
Speaker
Because if you can't be organized, then how are you going to give your customers updates?
00:14:57
Speaker
How are you going to know what's going on?
00:14:59
Speaker
So those are the three tips for it.
00:15:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:02
Speaker
Learn from my mistakes.
00:15:04
Speaker
Number one, commit to one day of the week to go through your pipeline and give your customers the update.
00:15:09
Speaker
Don't cut corners if it's a one-off deal, right?
00:15:11
Speaker
Number two, have the same person give that updates every single week, whether it's you, whether it's assistant, whether it's a lower producing rep in your office, have someone help you give an update every week.
00:15:22
Speaker
And then number three, use a CRM, figure out a way to organize these people and don't drop the ball on the organization aspect.
00:15:30
Speaker
Okay, so these are little things that are often overlooked, but I think it's extremely important.
00:15:35
Speaker
And this is what's going to create longevity in solar.
00:15:38
Speaker
Okay, we can't just be the reps who are five by the night who come in, come out, we're not organized.
00:15:43
Speaker
It's like pouring water in a bucket with holes in it, right?
00:15:45
Speaker
You're just going to leak customers, you're missing out on referrals, you're
00:15:49
Speaker
you're missing out on a lot of opportunities if you're not implementing these things.
00:15:53
Speaker
So I hope these things help.
00:15:55
Speaker
Send this to someone that could use some more organization that is having a lot of cancels.
00:16:00
Speaker
I think this is going to help them send it out.
00:16:02
Speaker
And I can't wait for the next episodes.
00:16:04
Speaker
We've got some exciting guests coming on.
00:16:07
Speaker
So keep tuning in every Tuesday and Friday.
00:16:09
Speaker
We're coming at you.
00:16:10
Speaker
Love you guys so much.
00:16:11
Speaker
Appreciate the listens, the support, the sharing of the podcast, and we'll keep bringing the heat.
00:16:17
Speaker
So we'll see you next time.
00:16:18
Speaker
Peace out.
00:16:19
Speaker
Go close some deals.
00:16:22
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your cells increase?
00:16:28
Speaker
Well, so was I. And the truth is, I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going wrong.
00:16:34
Speaker
So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time, we are doing a free cells diagnostic.
00:16:39
Speaker
We'll break down your cells process.
00:16:42
Speaker
figure out the holes in your business and see how we can help you improve.
00:16:47
Speaker
So at now we have six bucks for this month.
00:16:50
Speaker
So book a call now.
00:16:51
Speaker
Don't miss out.
00:16:52
Speaker
What you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
00:16:57
Speaker
That's taylor at solarpreneurs with an s dot com.
00:17:01
Speaker
I'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out the time that works best.
Offering Free Sales Diagnostic
00:17:06
Speaker
So shoot that email and let's increase your sales.