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 to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: What's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Taylor Armstrong here, your host, back with another episode.
Speaker: As usual, we're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: Hope you're doing awesome.
Speaker: Hope you're closing lots of deals.
Speaker: And today we're going to be talking about a very interesting topic.
Speaker: And it's actually from one of our listeners.
Speaker: So a shout out to Orlando Andrade.
Speaker: He shot me a message on Instagram the other day.
Speaker: He said, bro, can you do a podcast talking about the dealer fee increases and interest rates from the solar lenders?
Speaker: It's a huge problem and it's affecting us all.
Speaker: So great topic of conversation.
Speaker: A lot of us are dealing with that.
Speaker: A lot of us are seeing our dealer fees go up, rates go up like crazy.
Speaker: So what do we do?
Speaker: Do we run around?
Speaker: Do we let our heads fall off?
Speaker: Do we let our pets heads fall off?
Speaker: Do we just give up, go to a different industry?
Speaker: Well, that's what we're going to be talking about it.
Speaker: So let's jump into it.
Speaker: Before we talk about that, though, I wanted to give a thank you for all those who have left a review on the podcast.
Speaker: We are now at, I believe, about 50 reviews on Spotify, which they just recently started letting us do, I think, rating the podcast on there.
Speaker: And on iTunes, we have a handful.
Speaker: So if you have not taken the time to do that, it would be much appreciated.
Speaker: And on top of that, I am trying to connect more with our listeners.
Speaker: And just like Orlando gave us a content suggestion, would love to hear from you.
Speaker: So let me know.
Speaker: Shoot me an email, taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Or you can send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook.
Speaker: Would love to hear topic suggestions, feedback.
Speaker: I don't know, whatever, why you hate the way I look or whatever you think.
Speaker: Give me the good, the bad, the ugly.
Speaker: So I would appreciate the feedback.
Speaker: And then also I am doing calls with our listeners.
Speaker: We're doing some just some sales audits and really just wanting to connect more with the community and spread some value where I can.
Speaker: So again, shoot me an email or a DM if you want to take advantage of that.
Speaker: Got some limited spots just having conversations with people.
Speaker: But anyways, let's jump into this topic.
Speaker: So what to do about the rising costs, about the rising dealer fees, about the rising interest rates.
Speaker: So just to preface this, there is no
Speaker: like magic pill for this.
Speaker: I'm not going to come out with some secret solution, how you can all of a sudden avoid these.
Speaker: So if you're looking for that, just to not disappoint you, I don't have that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I apologize.
Speaker: I got a lot of things going, but I do not have the perfect solution for this.
Speaker: So really, I just want to talk about ways we can kind of overcome this and things we can do just more on the mental side of it.
Speaker: Because at the end of the day, we can only control so much that happens.
Speaker: And so that's the first point of all this.
Speaker: And I want to apologize if you do hear some kids screaming in the background.
Speaker: My wife is in the other room giving some kids a bath.
Speaker: So part of the dad life, I guess.
Speaker: You can take your time on that if you don't like screaming kids.
Speaker: But anyways, that's why you're hearing kids in the background.
Speaker: But the first point is really just accept what you can and cannot control.
Speaker: And that goes with anything in life, but the top producers in this industry, they focus on what they can control.
Speaker: They focus on the input because guess what?
Speaker: We cannot control who goes solar really at the end of the day.
Speaker: We can't control if someone's interested or not.
Speaker: Obviously, we can help them along the path, but we can't create interest out of nowhere.
Speaker: We can spread ideas.
Speaker: We can spread knowledge.
Speaker: We can help people get more interested, but
Speaker: If someone's absolutely not interested, then we can't 100% control that.
Speaker: So same way on the doors, how you can't control if someone answers, how you can't control how they're going to react to you on the doors.
Speaker: We can't control the doer fees.
Speaker: We can't control the interest rates.
Speaker: Unless I'm missing something.
Speaker: Unless you are, I don't know, the CEO of Goodleap or, I don't know, president of the next lender going out.
Speaker: Maybe you can control a little bit, but for the most part, none of us can control these things.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your sales increase?
Speaker: Well, so was I, and the truth is I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going wrong.
Speaker: So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time, we are doing a free sales diagnostic.
Speaker: We'll break down your sales process, figure out the holes in your business, and see how we can help you improve.
Speaker: so at now we have six bucks for this month so book a call now don't miss out what you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com that's taylor at solarpreneurs with an s.com i'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out the time that works best so shoot that email and let's increase your sales
Speaker: So focus on what you can control.
Speaker: For those of you that know the Alcoholics Anonymous Serenity Prayer, it's like God grant me the serenity to know the things I can control and the wisdom to know the difference.
Speaker: I'll look it up so I don't butcher that because I know I...
Speaker: I know I did butch that a little bit.
Speaker: Here it is.
Speaker: Grant us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed, courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the difference.
Speaker: There you have it.
Speaker: So a lot of applications we can take from Alcoholics Anonymous, right?
Speaker: Let's focus on what we can control and let's have the wisdom to know the difference.
Speaker: So that's my first thing with this.
Speaker: Really just law of attraction.
Speaker: If you focus so much on the negative of, oh, these fees are going up.
Speaker: Oh, the interest rate just went up 2%.
Speaker: Oh, the dealer fee is through the roof.
Speaker: then guess what?
Speaker: It's going to be a big deal to your customer.
Speaker: Grant Cardone says the concerns you have about your product, the concerns you have, the objections you have, they're going to show up in the cell.
Speaker: So if you think it's a big deal, all these things, then you're probably going to manifest that on your customer.
Speaker: It's going to show up in their objections and their concerns.
Speaker: And think about it.
Speaker: There's a lot of things that we can't control.
Speaker: There's solar tariffs.
Speaker: There's net metering programs changing.
Speaker: There's the tax credit, which we won that one, right?
Speaker: It went up to 30% again.
Speaker: So why not focus on that?
Speaker: That was a big win for us.
Speaker: Went up from 26% to 30%.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so focus on the good things.
Speaker: That's point number one.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And here's the second thing that I think we should consider about all these fees, you know, going up and changing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: um that's that we should contrast and if you haven't listened to this episode we did an episode um i think a couple minutes back about just really contrasting in ourselves so what that is is just basically talking about something bad and then switching it on to something good so in solar maybe it's talking about
Speaker: So it might be talking about how rates used to be through the roof and you can get them a lower rate now.
Speaker: So maybe you're telling them, hey, solar used to be anywhere from 7% to 10% interest.
Speaker: And then once you get them qualified, all of a sudden,
Speaker: 2.9, 3.99 seems like a good rate, right?
Speaker: So people do this all the time in sales.
Speaker: It's the same thing in retail.
Speaker: They show you the expensive suit first.
Speaker: So then when they show you the moderately priced suit, it doesn't look so bad, right?
Speaker: So we can do the same thing as we contrast these dealer fees.
Speaker: And I'll tell you, when I got in this in 2016, our rates were like 4.99 to 7.99, the interest rates.
Speaker: I know the past couple of years we've had access to rates anywhere from like 0.99, 1.99, 2.99.
Speaker: Now we're seeing some of these go up.
Speaker: But guess what?
Speaker: That's how I started and things were way more expensive.
Speaker: And even out here in California where I'm at where people usually get massive savings, we weren't really saving people much money at the time.
Speaker: California.
Speaker: So really, it's just knowing that, you know, things could be worse contrasting that.
Speaker: If you make something really expensive, really high, then all of a sudden when you give them, you know, the actual numbers on it, not going to be as bad.
Speaker: And Taylor McCarthy actually gave us a great little way to do this.
Speaker: It's called the triplicate of choice clothes over at Noxstar.
Speaker: Y'all should know Taylor McCarthy by now.
Speaker: But he gave us this little triplicate of choice clothes and a great way to contrast.
Speaker: So I'll share it with you guys here.
Speaker: Hey, solarpreneurs, are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your cells increase?
Speaker: Well, so was I. And the truth is, I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going wrong.
Speaker: So that's why I'm excited to announce for Eliminate Time, we are doing a free cells diagnostic.
Speaker: We'll break down your cells process.
Speaker: figure out the holes in your business and see how we can help you improve so at now we have six bucks for this month so book a call now don't miss out what you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com that's taylor at solarpreneurs with an s.com i'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out the time that works best so shoot that email and let's increase your sales
Speaker: And what it is, as he's introducing really just solar, I think he uses this more towards the beginning.
Speaker: But he says the ideal situation when a family goes solar is that they're turning their liability into an asset.
Speaker: So most people are paying 20% to 30% more than what their bill is, but they're happy because now they get an asset for the home.
Speaker: So that's what solar, that's the ideal situation.
Speaker: Now there are the fortunate few who can pay all the upfront costs.
Speaker: It is tens of thousands of dollars, but there are some who can pay all that and take care of it.
Speaker: Now, because of certain circumstances and situations, some people are not able to do this unless we cover all the upfront costs for them and keep their bill around what they were paying monthly or possibly a little bit less.
Speaker: So out of those three situations, which do you think you would prefer to fall into or which do you think you would fall into?
Speaker: So really, what is he doing there?
Speaker: He's contrasting.
Speaker: He's giving them a good and then the worst case scenario and then the best case scenario, contrasting.
Speaker: What are people going to say?
Speaker: Obviously, they want the one where they can keep their bill around the same as what it's been or pay a little bit less.
Speaker: So little trick there he uses to contrast.
Speaker: And it's just all about people's expectations, right?
Speaker: The truth is people don't know that dealer fees have gone up.
Speaker: The homeowners don't know that the interest rates were lower and that Goodleap now has a 30% dealer fee.
Speaker: Nobody knows this.
Speaker: I guess I shouldn't say nobody, but 99% of homeowners are not going to know that dealer fees went up.
Speaker: So use that to your advantage.
Speaker: They don't need to know.
Speaker: And you don't need to make a big deal about it.
Speaker: So use your contrasting options.
Speaker: And we'll try to include, hopefully my assistant will include a link to our episode about contrasting if you want to dive a little bit deeper into that.
Speaker: Okay, but the last point I have with this is just turn the negative of increasing rates and dealer fees into a positive.
Speaker: How do you turn it into a positive?
Speaker: You use it to build urgency.
Speaker: And it should be a no-brainer, but as you're out there, Mr. Homeowner, the reason why so many of your neighbors are doing this, we just got you approved for a 2.99, 3.99 rate, which is actually really good.
Speaker: But you've seen what's happening with home rates and everything, right?
Speaker: You've seen how they've been going up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's the exact same thing with solar.
Speaker: And all of our lenders, they are increasing the rates.
Speaker: So what we're going to do, we're going to get all your forms in today and it will lock in this rate because they are expected to go up here in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker: Great way to build urgency.
Speaker: So we've been doing this for years with the tax credit, with the net metering changes.
Speaker: Now it's time for you to use the increasing dealer fees and increasing rates to your advantage as a way to build urgency.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So make sure whatever you're doing, include that, especially with people that are hesitant to pull the trigger now.
Speaker: And I did actually, this worked for me great the other day.
Speaker: I had a customer that's dragging his feet a little bit.
Speaker: I get a notification from one of our lenders that says the rate is increasing.
Speaker: I send this to him.
Speaker: His name was James.
Speaker: And he said, hey, James, I know you've been on the fence, but we have received notifications that the interest rates are going up.
Speaker: We had already got them approved, but he's kind of dragging his feet on moving forward with the project.
Speaker: So I said, look, man, I know you've gone back and forth deciding between a few different options.
Speaker: But we're giving you a great product.
Speaker: We're giving you a great warranty.
Speaker: And on top of that, they've told us the rates are going to go up most likely next week, looks like.
Speaker: And I showed them proof of this, right?
Speaker: I sent them a screenshot of one of the emails we get from our lenders.
Speaker: If you don't have this, ask your manager, ask your company owners.
Speaker: Most of the lenders have been sending out emails, how the rates are going up, how they're increasing dealer fees.
Speaker: So make sure you're sharing that within your company or within your organization because you should be using that.
Speaker: as ammo in the deal.
Speaker: But I sent this to James, my customer.
Speaker: And after weeks of just like dragging his feet saying he's deciding between between other options, other proposals.
Speaker: He said, All right, Taylor, you know what, I'll have a decision by the end of this week.
Speaker: Okay, maybe he's blowing smoke, but this is the first time he committed to having a decision.
Speaker: And how did I do it?
Speaker: Hey, solarpreneurs.
Speaker: Are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your cells increase?
Speaker: Well, so was I. And the truth is I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going on.
Speaker: So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time.
Speaker: We are doing a free cell diagnostic.
Speaker: We'll break down your cells process, figure out the holes in your business and see how we can help you improve.
Speaker: So act now we have six bucks for this month.
Speaker: So book a call now.
Speaker: Don't miss out.
Speaker: What you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: That's taylor at solarpreneurs with an s dot com.
Speaker: I'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out a time that works best.
Speaker: So shoot that email and let's increase your sales.
Speaker: I use the increasing rates and dealer fees to my advantage.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So really, those are my thoughts on it.
Speaker: Again, no secret pill here.
Speaker: No magic bullet.
Speaker: So sorry to disappoint you if I thought I was going to share something groundbreaking of how to somehow avoid these things.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Really just keep in mind number one focus on what you can control and focus on your input.
Speaker: None of us can do much about these increasing dealer fees about the rates but we did have the big win in the tax credit so focus on the positive and that's what's going to be reflected on your customers.
Speaker: Number two, use it to contrast.
Speaker: So contrast how the rates used to be 6% to 9% or contrast between markets.
Speaker: I do this all the time in California where in other markets people don't save money.
Speaker: And even if you're in a market where people don't save money going solar, then you can contrast it to a market where people have to pay $100 more a month to go solar.
Speaker: Whatever, just contrast it like that.
Speaker: And then whatever you are offering your homeowner, it's going to look good because you just told them something terrible.
Speaker: Now you're giving them something that's a lot better than what you told them.
Speaker: And number three, use it to your advantage to build urgency.
Speaker: So those are my thoughts on this.
Speaker: Okay, hope that gave you something useful to use in your closes to use in your prospecting this week.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Share it with someone else who's concerned about the changes in dealer fees and interest rates.
Speaker: And let me know your thoughts.
Speaker: Maybe there's stuff I'm not thinking of.
Speaker: So shoot me a DM, shoot me an email.
Speaker: Would love to hear what your thoughts are and continue on the discussion further.
Speaker: Hope that helps.
Speaker: And we'll see you guys on the next one.
Speaker: Keep crushing.
Speaker: Have an awesome week and peace out.
Speaker: Hey Solarpreneurs, quick question.
Speaker: What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day?
Speaker: For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
Speaker: That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry.
Speaker: And it's called Solcitee.
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, less than $3.45 a day.
Speaker: Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
Speaker: So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
