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Dealer Fees and Interest Rates Increasing 😫 What to do!??
60 Plays3 years ago
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Transcript
Introduction to the 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 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.
00:00:43
Speaker
What's going on, solopreneurs?
00:00:44
Speaker
Taylor Armstrong here, your host, back with another episode.
00:00:48
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.
00:00:56
Speaker
Hope you're doing
Current Challenges in the Solar Industry
00:00:57
Speaker
awesome.
00:00:57
Speaker
Hope you're closing lots of deals.
00:00:59
Speaker
And today we're going to be talking about a very interesting topic.
00:01:03
Speaker
And it's actually from one of our listeners.
00:01:06
Speaker
So a shout out to Orlando Andrade.
00:01:09
Speaker
He shot me a message on Instagram the other day.
00:01:12
Speaker
He said, bro, can you do a podcast talking about the dealer fee increases and interest rates from the solar lenders?
00:01:19
Speaker
It's a huge problem and it's affecting us all.
00:01:23
Speaker
So great topic of conversation.
00:01:25
Speaker
A lot of us are dealing with that.
00:01:26
Speaker
A lot of us are seeing our dealer fees go up, rates go up like crazy.
00:01:31
Speaker
So what do we do?
00:01:33
Speaker
Do we run around?
00:01:34
Speaker
Do we let our heads fall off?
00:01:36
Speaker
Do we let our pets heads fall off?
00:01:38
Speaker
Do we just give up, go to a different industry?
00:01:41
Speaker
Well, that's what we're going to be talking about it.
00:01:43
Speaker
So let's jump into it.
00:01:44
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.
00:01:50
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.
00:02:02
Speaker
And on iTunes, we have a handful.
00:02:05
Speaker
So if you have not taken the time to do that, it would be much appreciated.
00:02:10
Speaker
And on top of that, I am trying to connect more with our listeners.
00:02:14
Speaker
And just like Orlando gave us a content suggestion, would love to hear from you.
00:02:19
Speaker
So let me know.
00:02:20
Speaker
Shoot me an email, taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
00:02:24
Speaker
Or you can send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook.
00:02:27
Speaker
Would love to hear topic suggestions, feedback.
00:02:31
Speaker
I don't know, whatever, why you hate the way I look or whatever you think.
00:02:36
Speaker
Give me the good, the bad, the ugly.
00:02:38
Speaker
So I would appreciate the feedback.
00:02:40
Speaker
And then also I am doing calls with our listeners.
00:02:46
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.
00:02:55
Speaker
So again, shoot me an email or a DM if you want to take advantage of that.
00:03:00
Speaker
Got some limited spots just having conversations with people.
00:03:05
Speaker
But anyways, let's jump into this topic.
00:03:08
Speaker
So what to do about the rising costs, about the rising dealer fees, about the rising interest rates.
Mindset and Focus in Sales
00:03:15
Speaker
So just to preface this, there is no
00:03:18
Speaker
like magic pill for this.
00:03:20
Speaker
I'm not going to come out with some secret solution, how you can all of a sudden avoid these.
00:03:24
Speaker
So if you're looking for that, just to not disappoint you, I don't have that.
00:03:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:29
Speaker
So I apologize.
00:03:30
Speaker
I got a lot of things going, but I do not have the perfect solution for this.
00:03:34
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.
00:03:42
Speaker
Because at the end of the day, we can only control so much that happens.
00:03:47
Speaker
And so that's the first point of all this.
00:03:51
Speaker
And I want to apologize if you do hear some kids screaming in the background.
00:03:55
Speaker
My wife is in the other room giving some kids a bath.
00:03:59
Speaker
So part of the dad life, I guess.
00:04:03
Speaker
You can take your time on that if you don't like screaming kids.
00:04:06
Speaker
But anyways, that's why you're hearing kids in the background.
00:04:10
Speaker
But the first point is really just accept what you can and cannot control.
00:04:17
Speaker
And that goes with anything in life, but the top producers in this industry, they focus on what they can control.
00:04:24
Speaker
They focus on the input because guess what?
00:04:27
Speaker
We cannot control who goes solar really at the end of the day.
00:04:32
Speaker
We can't control if someone's interested or not.
00:04:36
Speaker
Obviously, we can help them along the path, but we can't create interest out of nowhere.
00:04:41
Speaker
We can spread ideas.
00:04:42
Speaker
We can spread knowledge.
00:04:43
Speaker
We can help people get more interested, but
00:04:46
Speaker
If someone's absolutely not interested, then we can't 100% control that.
00:04:52
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.
00:05:00
Speaker
We can't control the doer fees.
00:05:03
Speaker
We can't control the interest rates.
00:05:06
Speaker
Unless I'm missing something.
00:05:07
Speaker
Unless you are, I don't know, the CEO of Goodleap or, I don't know, president of the next lender going out.
00:05:15
Speaker
Maybe you can control a little bit, but for the most part, none of us can control these things.
00:05:21
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your sales increase?
00:05:27
Speaker
Well, so was I, and the truth is I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going wrong.
00:05:33
Speaker
So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time, we are doing a free sales diagnostic.
00:05:39
Speaker
We'll break down your sales process, figure out the holes in your business, and see how we can help you improve.
00:05:46
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
00:06:11
Speaker
So focus on what you can control.
00:06:14
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.
00:06:28
Speaker
I'll look it up so I don't butcher that because I know I...
00:06:31
Speaker
I know I did butch that a little bit.
00:06:34
Speaker
Here it is.
00:06:35
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.
00:06:46
Speaker
There you have it.
00:06:48
Speaker
So a lot of applications we can take from Alcoholics Anonymous, right?
00:06:53
Speaker
Let's focus on what we can control and let's have the wisdom to know the difference.
00:06:58
Speaker
So that's my first thing with this.
00:07:01
Speaker
Really just law of attraction.
00:07:03
Speaker
If you focus so much on the negative of, oh, these fees are going up.
00:07:07
Speaker
Oh, the interest rate just went up 2%.
00:07:09
Speaker
Oh, the dealer fee is through the roof.
00:07:12
Speaker
then guess what?
00:07:14
Speaker
It's going to be a big deal to your customer.
00:07:16
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.
00:07:24
Speaker
So if you think it's a big deal, all these things, then you're probably going to manifest that on your customer.
00:07:28
Speaker
It's going to show up in their objections and their concerns.
00:07:32
Speaker
And think about it.
00:07:33
Speaker
There's a lot of things that we can't control.
00:07:35
Speaker
There's solar tariffs.
00:07:36
Speaker
There's net metering programs changing.
00:07:40
Speaker
There's the tax credit, which we won that one, right?
00:07:43
Speaker
It went up to 30% again.
00:07:46
Speaker
So why not focus on that?
00:07:48
Speaker
That was a big win for us.
00:07:49
Speaker
Went up from 26% to 30%.
00:07:51
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:53
Speaker
And so focus on the good things.
00:07:55
Speaker
That's
Sales Techniques for Success
00:07:56
Speaker
point number one.
00:07:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:58
Speaker
And here's the second thing that I think we should consider about all these fees, you know, going up and changing.
00:08:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:07
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
00:08:34
Speaker
So it might be talking about how rates used to be through the roof and you can get them a lower rate now.
00:08:42
Speaker
So maybe you're telling them, hey, solar used to be anywhere from 7% to 10% interest.
00:08:49
Speaker
And then once you get them qualified, all of a sudden,
00:08:53
Speaker
2.9, 3.99 seems like a good rate, right?
00:08:56
Speaker
So people do this all the time in sales.
00:08:59
Speaker
It's the same thing in retail.
00:09:01
Speaker
They show you the expensive suit first.
00:09:03
Speaker
So then when they show you the moderately priced suit, it doesn't look so bad, right?
00:09:08
Speaker
So we can do the same thing as we contrast these dealer fees.
00:09:13
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.
00:09:22
Speaker
I know the past couple of years we've had access to rates anywhere from like 0.99, 1.99, 2.99.
00:09:30
Speaker
Now we're seeing some of these go up.
00:09:33
Speaker
But guess what?
00:09:33
Speaker
That's how I started and things were way more expensive.
00:09:37
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.
00:09:46
Speaker
California.
00:09:47
Speaker
So really, it's just knowing that, you know, things could be worse contrasting that.
00:09:54
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.
00:10:04
Speaker
And Taylor McCarthy actually gave us a great little way to do this.
00:10:10
Speaker
It's called the triplicate of choice clothes over at Noxstar.
00:10:15
Speaker
Y'all should know Taylor McCarthy by now.
00:10:18
Speaker
But he gave us this little triplicate of choice clothes and a great way to contrast.
00:10:23
Speaker
So I'll share it with you guys here.
00:10:27
Speaker
Hey, solarpreneurs, are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your cells increase?
00:10:34
Speaker
Well, so was I. And the truth is, I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going wrong.
00:10:40
Speaker
So that's why I'm excited to announce for Eliminate Time, we are doing a free cells diagnostic.
00:10:45
Speaker
We'll break down your cells process.
00:10:48
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
00:11:18
Speaker
And what it is, as he's introducing really just solar, I think he uses this more towards the beginning.
00:11:26
Speaker
But he says the ideal situation when a family goes solar is that they're turning their liability into an asset.
00:11:33
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.
00:11:40
Speaker
So that's what solar, that's the ideal situation.
00:11:44
Speaker
Now there are the fortunate few who can pay all the upfront costs.
00:11:49
Speaker
It is tens of thousands of dollars, but there are some who can pay all that and take care of it.
00:11:54
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.
00:12:10
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?
00:12:17
Speaker
So really, what is he doing there?
00:12:18
Speaker
He's contrasting.
00:12:20
Speaker
He's giving them a good and then the worst case scenario and then the best case scenario, contrasting.
00:12:27
Speaker
What are people going to say?
00:12:28
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.
00:12:36
Speaker
So little trick there he uses to contrast.
00:12:39
Speaker
And it's just all about people's expectations, right?
00:12:43
Speaker
The truth is people don't know that dealer fees have gone up.
00:12:47
Speaker
The homeowners don't know that the interest rates were lower and that Goodleap now has a 30% dealer fee.
00:12:55
Speaker
Nobody knows this.
00:12:57
Speaker
I guess I shouldn't say nobody, but 99% of homeowners are not going to know that dealer fees went up.
00:13:05
Speaker
So use that to your advantage.
00:13:08
Speaker
They don't need to know.
00:13:10
Speaker
And you don't need to make a big deal about it.
00:13:12
Speaker
So use your contrasting options.
00:13:14
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.
00:13:23
Speaker
Okay, but the last point I have with this is just turn the negative of increasing rates and dealer fees into a positive.
00:13:34
Speaker
How do you turn it into a positive?
00:13:35
Speaker
You use it to build urgency.
00:13:39
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.
00:13:53
Speaker
But you've seen what's happening with home rates and everything, right?
00:13:58
Speaker
You've seen how they've been going up.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:01
Speaker
So it's the exact same thing with solar.
00:14:03
Speaker
And all of our lenders, they are increasing the rates.
00:14:07
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.
00:14:17
Speaker
Great way to build urgency.
00:14:19
Speaker
So we've been doing this for years with the tax credit, with the net metering changes.
00:14:24
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.
00:14:31
Speaker
All right.
00:14:32
Speaker
So make sure whatever you're doing, include that, especially with people that are hesitant to pull the trigger now.
00:14:39
Speaker
And I did actually, this worked for me great the other day.
00:14:42
Speaker
I had a customer that's dragging his feet a little bit.
00:14:45
Speaker
I get a notification from one of our lenders that says the rate is increasing.
00:14:51
Speaker
I send this to him.
00:14:53
Speaker
His name was James.
00:14:54
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.
00:15:02
Speaker
We had already got them approved, but he's kind of dragging his feet on moving forward with the project.
00:15:08
Speaker
So I said, look, man, I know you've gone back and forth deciding between a few different options.
00:15:16
Speaker
But we're giving you a great product.
00:15:17
Speaker
We're giving you a great warranty.
00:15:19
Speaker
And on top of that, they've told us the rates are going to go up most likely next week, looks like.
00:15:25
Speaker
And I showed them proof of this, right?
00:15:26
Speaker
I sent them a screenshot of one of the emails we get from our lenders.
00:15:31
Speaker
If you don't have this, ask your manager, ask your company owners.
00:15:35
Speaker
Most of the lenders have been sending out emails, how the rates are going up, how they're increasing dealer fees.
00:15:40
Speaker
So make sure you're sharing that within your company or within your organization because you should be using that.
00:15:46
Speaker
as ammo in the deal.
00:15:48
Speaker
But I sent this to James, my customer.
00:15:51
Speaker
And after weeks of just like dragging his feet saying he's deciding between between other options, other proposals.
00:15:59
Speaker
He said, All right, Taylor, you know what, I'll have a decision by the end of this week.
00:16:03
Speaker
Okay, maybe he's blowing smoke, but this is the first time he committed to having a decision.
00:16:09
Speaker
And how did I do it?
00:16:12
Speaker
Hey, solarpreneurs.
00:16:13
Speaker
Are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your cells increase?
00:16:18
Speaker
Well, so was I. And the truth is I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going on.
00:16:24
Speaker
So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time.
00:16:27
Speaker
We are doing a free cell diagnostic.
00:16:30
Speaker
We'll break down your cells process, figure out the holes in your business and see how we can help you improve.
00:16:37
Speaker
So act now we have six bucks for this month.
00:16:40
Speaker
So book a call now.
00:16:41
Speaker
Don't miss out.
00:16:43
Speaker
What you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
00:16:48
Speaker
That's taylor at solarpreneurs with an s dot com.
00:16:52
Speaker
I'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out a time that works best.
00:16:56
Speaker
So shoot that email and let's increase your sales.
00:17:02
Speaker
I use the increasing rates and dealer fees to my advantage.
00:17:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:08
Speaker
So really, those are my thoughts on it.
00:17:10
Speaker
Again, no secret pill here.
00:17:12
Speaker
No magic bullet.
00:17:13
Speaker
So sorry to disappoint you if I thought I was going to share something groundbreaking of how to somehow avoid these things.
00:17:19
Speaker
But
00:17:20
Speaker
Really just keep in mind number one focus on what you can control and focus on your input.
00:17:27
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.
00:17:38
Speaker
Number two, use it to contrast.
00:17:40
Speaker
So contrast how the rates used to be 6% to 9% or contrast between markets.
00:17:45
Speaker
I do this all the time in California where in other markets people don't save money.
00:17:51
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.
00:18:00
Speaker
Whatever, just contrast it like that.
00:18:02
Speaker
And then whatever you are offering your homeowner, it's going to look good because you just told them something terrible.
00:18:07
Speaker
Now you're giving them something that's a lot better than what you told them.
00:18:12
Speaker
And number three, use it to your advantage to build urgency.
00:18:16
Speaker
So those are my thoughts on this.
00:18:19
Speaker
Okay, hope that gave you something useful to use in your closes to use in your prospecting this week.
00:18:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:27
Speaker
Share it with someone else who's concerned about the changes in dealer fees and interest rates.
00:18:34
Speaker
And let me know your thoughts.
00:18:36
Speaker
Maybe there's stuff I'm not thinking of.
00:18:38
Speaker
So shoot me a DM, shoot me an email.
00:18:41
Speaker
Would love to hear what your thoughts are and continue on the discussion further.
00:18:46
Speaker
Hope that helps.
00:18:47
Speaker
And we'll see you guys on the next one.
00:18:48
Speaker
Keep crushing.
00:18:49
Speaker
Have an awesome week and peace out.
Launch of Solcitee Community
00:18:54
Speaker
Hey Solarpreneurs, quick question.
00:18:55
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?
00:19:05
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.
00:19:17
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.
00:19:28
Speaker
And it's called Solcitee.
00:19:30
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.
00:19:49
Speaker
Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
00:19:55
Speaker
So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
00:20:03
Speaker
This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
00:20:10
Speaker
We'll see you on the inside.