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Becoming a KING of lead generation (interview with Russ Ward)
46 Plays7 years ago
Russ Ward is known as the Lead King! He has personally generated over 25,000 leads over a wide spectrum of different industries! He is the owner of premium performance marketing. Russ has been a top sales producer in the solar and life insurance fields. He is also a real estate agent working in the Pittsburgh, PA market. Things mentioned in this episode: theleadking.net, manychat.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
Yo, yo, yo, solarpreneurs, before we jump into the episode here, I just want to make a special invitation for you to join us over on Facebook in the Solarpreneur Facebook group.
00:00:11
Speaker
There you're going to see a lot of bonus content, a lot of behind the scenes, and a lot of also transcripts of episodes, blog posts to go along with episodes, and really just behind the scenes content.
00:00:23
Speaker
So you're not going to want to miss it and enjoy the episode today.
00:00:26
Speaker
Russ Ward is a king of leads, knows his stuff.
00:00:30
Speaker
So with that, let's jump into the show.
Secrets of Solar Sales Success
00:00:34
Speaker
Look, in the solar business, there's really only two types of people.
00:00:38
Speaker
There's the ones that crush it, make six, seven, and eight figures, and then there's everyone else.
00:00:42
Speaker
The question is, which one will you be?
00:00:46
Speaker
Over the last four years, we've studied the sharpest solar sales and marketing professionals and how they build multi-million dollar incomes using only the best sales and marketing strategies.
00:00:57
Speaker
So how do these solarpreneurs do what they do and what makes them so successful?
00:01:02
Speaker
This podcast is your answer.
00:01:05
Speaker
Join us and thousands of sales pros, marketers, and entrepreneurs as we take the solar industry by storm and uncover what it takes to sell more solar with less effort.
00:01:16
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast.
Power of Personal Branding
00:01:25
Speaker
Recording video.
00:01:27
Speaker
Good morning, solarpreneurs.
00:01:29
Speaker
Today we have got the lead king himself on the show, and this is Russ Ward here.
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Russ, thanks for coming on the show, man.
00:01:38
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Oh, man.
00:01:38
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Thanks for having me.
00:01:39
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I appreciate it.
00:01:40
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Yeah.
00:01:40
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So I like your setup there.
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You got your lead king jacket, lead king hat.
00:01:44
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Where do we get this swag, man?
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Yeah, man, I don't have a new set up yet, but in the future, if you guys are interested, I'll get some swag.
00:01:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:52
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Mostly just for me to walk around town.
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Cause actually I was at the mall yesterday doing some Christmas shopping and this guy stopped me and he's like, well, who's the leaking?
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I was like, that's me, man.
00:02:00
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And I got into a conversation, exchanged business cards and ended up being a local business owner that I'm probably going to do business with.
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There you go.
Russ's Journey to Solar Success
00:02:08
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Yeah.
00:02:08
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Just cause I have a silly logo on here.
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So, yeah.
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It's crazy what wearing swag like that can get you.
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It really is.
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As long as you don't care.
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I don't care.
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I like people to stop me because I like to talk to them.
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I know.
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It's true.
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I got my first client off of wearing a ClickFunnels shirt around.
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The guy talked to me and said, you do sales funnels online?
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I'm like, yeah.
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And at the time, I had, like, just barely gotten started in it.
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I didn't really know what I was doing.
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But I just, like, presented myself as an expert, wearing a ClickFunnels shirt.
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And he's like, sweet, I actually need a funnel for a product I'm launching right now.
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And I'm like, boom.
00:02:45
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That's awesome, man.
00:02:48
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That's a great story.
00:02:50
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Yeah, it's true.
00:02:51
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The whole podcast is just about that.
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I know.
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Like a billboard walking around, right?
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Exactly.
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Yeah, I got a new vanity license plate too for my car.
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It says lead king on the license plate.
00:03:03
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Oh, there you go.
00:03:05
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It didn't come yet, but it's on its way.
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There you go.
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That's awesome.
00:03:09
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Well, cool.
00:03:10
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So Russ, he is, as you can see, a king of generating leads.
00:03:14
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And we're going to talk about his story here, but you started off in solar, right?
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And now you're doing a lot of real estate leads.
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Right.
00:03:22
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So I know you've told your story a couple of times on other podcasts and everything, but do you want to kind of tell how you got started and what your journey is?
00:03:31
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So, yeah, I went through, you know, if you look me up at all, you can see I went through some hard times.
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I basically lost everything a couple of times.
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I was suicidal for a time.
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I mean, I went through some really hard times.
00:03:43
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And one of the breaks I had in life was I was selling anything you could think of because the only thing I was really good at to generate money was sales, but my mindset had to be in the right place.
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And I just saw that SolarCity was coming to town in Pittsburgh, and I just went ahead and applied.
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kind of hit it off with the manager at the interview.
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And I didn't even know if I was gonna be able to work there because I had had such a bad year driving my car that I think I got into like three accidents, had two speeding tickets, and they're like, look, we have to let you drive our cars to work here and we don't know if we can trust you to drive our car.
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So I volunteered to drive my own car for the first six months just to get a shot.
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So I ended up actually driving my own car for a while at SolarCity before they could trust me to drive their car because that's how amazing the individual I was at the time.
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They gave me a shot and I did really well right out the gate.
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At SolarCity, in case you guys don't know, back the way they used to do it at least is they have in Home Depot setting appointments.
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And then what they would do is they put it on your calendar as the sales rep.
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And if you went out and sold the deal, you would get a certain amount for selling that deal.
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But it wasn't too much because it was a company generated appointment.
00:04:52
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Now you sold your own.
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It was, it was up to like five times more you can make if you generated your own appointments and sold them.
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And I was desperate for money.
00:05:00
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I needed money bad.
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So I just had to find a way to generate solar leads so I could get this.
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And I just started dabbling in lead generation.
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I started watching a bunch of videos and I figured I found a way to generate like 50 solar leads a
Mastering Online Lead Generation
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week.
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Wow.
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And,
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And so I shot through the roof and you can see back behind me there.
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That's my little plaque for my first month.
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I was the top solar rep at solar city.
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I was actually number one on the East coast.
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My second month in, I was number one out of 700 on the East coast for solar city.
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Wow.
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And I'm very proud of that because it all came from me learning how to do lead generation.
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And, you know, it was a,
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to be honest with you it was it was kind of a lucky break because I was just kind of slinging things around the wall seeing what stuck and then one thing was like oh that worked and then I just kept on going with it you know
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Yeah, that's crazy.
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That's awesome.
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Number one out of 700, that's saying a lot.
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Yeah, I was impressed with myself, you know, and I'm usually not.
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I'm usually a very tough critic on myself, you know?
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Yeah, that's sweet.
00:05:59
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And yeah, I was listening to your podcast with Marie Larson.
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I know you had the other one and you talked about how you hit rock bottom.
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You basically had no money.
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You had to pick between buying gas for your car or what was a gift for your daughter's birthday, right?
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Yeah.
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And was that while you were working with solar city or when, when was that?
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This was actually as recently as may of this year, right?
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So my life kept on fluctuating, man.
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And until I really got focused on what I wanted to do, it really didn't turn around.
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So after that, I just straight out focused on Legion.
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I took everything I had left and I hit up a couple of people and I said, Hey, would you give me a shot to do your Facebook ads?
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I only need 50 bucks and I just need to review if you like it.
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So I was doing people's Facebook ads, getting good results.
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They were giving me a review and I kept on doing it over and over.
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And I was making enough money after that.
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I started charging $150, then $200.
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And then I started to get a little bit of a following.
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And, you know, it just started to pick up.
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And so I went from that, you know, $80 to the month of November, I brought in $17,800.
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And yeah, and that was, you know, a lot of that to be, to be clear was, it was a black Friday sale.
00:07:07
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I ran to sell some of my courses, but still to go from 80 bucks to that much, I'd never made that much money in a month in my life.
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It was just like, it blew my mind when I looked at the final numbers.
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Holy crap.
00:07:18
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I can't believe how much money I made this month.
00:07:20
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Yeah.
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And to be clear on that, though, the reason why the turnaround happened was was multiple reasons.
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But one of them was that I narrowed my focus and I went only at lead generation because before I did that, I was I was doing some flooring sales.
00:07:34
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I was doing some web design.
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I was doing anything you can think of to generate money.
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And I wasn't really focused on any one thing.
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So when I focused in on lead generation and I got really good at it and I started to get a following.
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And then when I when I added this little linking logo, I just said, people started to associate leads with me because I called myself a lead king.
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I had a logo and I had a website brand and it really helped a lot.
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And, you know, and even back when I was doing solar, I had a website and an app and I called it Making Solar Easy.
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And what I'd do is I'd share this app to people.
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And if they shared it with other people and went solar, they would get a $200 check from solar city.
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So I was encouraging everybody to share
Crafting Effective Online Strategies
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and to get a free solar system with a PPA.
00:08:15
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And that was kind of our pitch back then, you know, that's sweet.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:19
Speaker
And so, um, what I find in, in this is a good recommendation for anybody that's, you know, selling solar is if you can brand yourself, even if you're with a company, you can brand yourself as the solar guy or whatever you want to call yourself, you know?
00:08:31
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Yeah, that's really cool.
00:08:34
Speaker
Let's kind of talk about, sorry, can you still see my video on your end there?
00:08:40
Speaker
I can see you.
00:08:40
Speaker
It's just that you're frozen.
00:08:42
Speaker
I can hear you though.
00:08:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:46
Speaker
Trying to fix my video here.
00:08:48
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You guys want to just keep going with audio if we have to?
00:08:54
Speaker
Keep going.
00:08:55
Speaker
We just can't see your mouth, baby.
00:08:56
Speaker
That's all.
00:08:57
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:58
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Anyways, but yeah, let's kind of talk about your glory days here with SolarCity.
00:09:03
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So you became the number one rep.
00:09:06
Speaker
And what was it that you were, I know you talked about going to Home Depot and everything.
00:09:10
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So how were you getting your leads at the time?
00:09:12
Speaker
Were you starting to do online lead stuff at that time?
00:09:14
Speaker
Or how were you getting leads?
00:09:16
Speaker
I did, yeah.
00:09:17
Speaker
So the first thing I did was I just went into Facebook Marketer.
00:09:21
Speaker
What was that called?
00:09:22
Speaker
Facebook Market.
00:09:24
Speaker
And I just posted...
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links in there for solar systems for sale.
00:09:27
Speaker
So I listed a solar system, uh, $0, right.
00:09:31
Speaker
And it doesn't have to be a PPA to do this.
00:09:33
Speaker
It can be a loan as well because you can just say it's $0 out of pocket.
00:09:37
Speaker
And in Pittsburgh, which was a new market for solar, a lot of people were interested in getting tons and tons of messages from Facebook market over messenger because they were interested in a $0 solar system.
00:09:49
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So that was the first way I did it.
00:09:50
Speaker
And then the second way I did it was that I went into local buy-sell groups.
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I joined every single one of them in the Pittsburgh area.
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I think there was 83 of them.
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And I would just drop a link to a survey that I made into every single one of them.
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So I'd say, you know, go solar for $0 out of pocket.
00:10:05
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I'd put a few pictures of some solar homes with solar panels on them.
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And I would just give a few benefits.
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You know, your bill will go down and help the environment and then click this link to see if you qualify.
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The link would take them to a survey.
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And then once they completed the survey, they come in to me as a lead.
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And I got tons and tons and tons of leads doing it that way by dropping that particular link into local buy-sell groups.
00:10:27
Speaker
Huh.
00:10:28
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That's interesting.
00:10:29
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How did you, like, come up with that idea?
00:10:31
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Did you just...
00:10:33
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kind of mess around with things or did was someone else doing it that you learned from or how did you come up with that idea?
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It was just something I was like you know why don't I just try this right and and so I dropped it into one group I just dropped the post into a group and it worked pretty well so I was like well let's just do all the groups and
00:10:50
Speaker
And then what I found was that if you frame it a certain way, you'll get away with it.
00:10:55
Speaker
And if you make it seem too salesy, like if in the groups that I was being too aggressive in, like I was like, I'm Russ Ward, I work for SolarCity, I want you to get a solar system that banned me from the group because I was too salesy.
00:11:05
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But what I noticed was when I came off as a little softer, when I came to the groups and I was like, hey, I'm a local sales rep.
00:11:12
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I'm just trying to help out the local community by going solar.
00:11:14
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And, you know, when I framed it in what was in it for the community, they
Challenges in Saturated Markets
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always approved it.
00:11:19
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When I framed it that I was a sales rep, they always declined it and usually banned me.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting.
00:11:27
Speaker
So you just started thinking everyone else, the rest of the companies and Home Depot's right, they're just getting their leads that way.
00:11:33
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And then were you kind of the first person that took it online was anyone else doing this at solar city at the time.
00:11:39
Speaker
They weren't.
00:11:40
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And, um, you know, and it started a little bit of button heads because they knew I was doing something different.
00:11:45
Speaker
And I was also using Craigslist as well.
00:11:47
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Um, I, as soon as, once I realized that online was going to work, I started, I started going everywhere I could other than paid ads, because when I went to solar city, I was still broke.
00:11:55
Speaker
So I didn't have money to be running paid ads.
00:11:57
Speaker
And even though I was making a lot of sales, you still didn't get paid at solar city until the job installed.
00:12:01
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And solar city is notorious for taking months to install jobs.
00:12:04
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Yeah.
00:12:05
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So I was getting this pittance of a salary.
00:12:07
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I was making $30,000 plus I got to drive their car.
00:12:11
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So, I mean, I was the top sales rep, yet I was the brokest dude in the room.
00:12:17
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Yeah, so I just kept on doing it and kept evolving it.
00:12:20
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And then what I eventually did was when they would go into the survey and complete it, I would link that up with Zapier and I would have that kick that into my CRM manager.
00:12:29
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So I'd instantly get that lead into a CRM manager and then I could manage that and call them right away.
00:12:34
Speaker
Wow.
00:12:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's crazy.
00:12:36
Speaker
I hadn't heard of people doing that.
00:12:38
Speaker
And does that, um, had you tried that in other markets or do you think it was just Pittsburgh?
00:12:44
Speaker
Do you think it worked better in Pittsburgh being a newer market or have you experiment experiment with that in other markets?
00:12:50
Speaker
I've actually helped other reps use it in other markets.
00:12:52
Speaker
Now, um, you know, full disclosure in a market like yours in San Diego would work as well because there's so much competition, right?
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:59
Speaker
And not only are they running paid ads in the very competitive markets, but other people are dropping links into buy-sell groups just like I was.
00:13:06
Speaker
And so I've experimented in other areas.
00:13:09
Speaker
Like I went to Orlando and Tampa because I have a friend down there that owns a solar company.
00:13:13
Speaker
And it was very hit and miss.
00:13:15
Speaker
Like some groups, it would be very well.
00:13:17
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And then other groups, they would just flat out ignore the ad altogether.
00:13:20
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Yeah.
00:13:21
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And then in other areas like in Arizona, you know, another place where there's a lot of competition, it would work, but it would just take a lot of hard work.
00:13:29
Speaker
Like you need to post in 78 groups a day, every single day of the week.
00:13:32
Speaker
And a lot of people just aren't, you know, they're out working, they're out making sales, they're probably out knocking on doors and they don't feel like doing that when they get home, right?
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:40
Speaker
And so the guys that I worked with that actually did that, they were consistently pulling in leads.
00:13:45
Speaker
Now, not nearly as many as I was pulling in Pittsburgh.
00:13:47
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And the reason I think Pittsburgh works so well is because it was brand new to the area.
00:13:50
Speaker
It was kind of gimmicky at first, you know?
00:13:52
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:13:53
Speaker
And everyone in California and Arizona, they see solar everywhere.
00:13:56
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So it's not a gimmick to them.
00:13:57
Speaker
You know, they just want the best deal.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:59
Speaker
So you would have to kind of change the ad copy around for what you were posting in these groups to be, you know, more what's in it for me as opposed to solar's cool, you know?
00:14:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:10
Speaker
That's interesting.
00:14:12
Speaker
And so did that, did you find it sustainable?
00:14:15
Speaker
Cause I know how long were you consistently getting lead after lead in Pittsburgh or did it start slowing down with the posting too?
00:14:25
Speaker
It slowed down a little bit because you know, it wasn't as new, but as long as I was consistent, the lead flow stayed consistent.
00:14:33
Speaker
But like I said, in other cities, it was a bit, quite a bit more intermittent.
00:14:38
Speaker
It was like hit or miss.
00:14:39
Speaker
Like, for instance, in Orlando, what I did find was that there was this group of 100,000
Innovative Lead Generation Techniques
00:14:43
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people on a local buy-sell group, and I dropped.
00:14:47
Speaker
I'm sorry about that.
00:14:48
Speaker
No problem.
00:14:50
Speaker
Let me turn that off.
00:14:51
Speaker
All right.
00:14:52
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So yeah, so in Orlando, there was this huge group and the woman told me, don't do that.
00:14:56
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Don't drop your link in here.
00:14:57
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I'm going to ban you.
00:14:58
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So I came back and offered her a hundred bucks to let me drop the link and she let me drop the link.
00:15:02
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So then that gave me the idea of I could go to places with massive groups.
00:15:06
Speaker
I'm talking like a hundred, 200, 300,000 people and say, if you let me drop my link in here for the next 12 hours, I will pay you a hundred bucks or 50 bucks or whatever I could.
00:15:14
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you know, get them to agree to.
00:15:16
Speaker
Wow.
00:15:17
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Then when I was able to do that, that worked out really well.
00:15:19
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So instead of going to like 20 groups that had three to 5,000 people and I'd go to one with a hundred thousand or 200,000 and then that would get me a ton of leads for a hundred bucks.
00:15:29
Speaker
Wow, that's crazy.
00:15:31
Speaker
So what would you, would this link to a funnel or what did you have it go to?
00:15:35
Speaker
Do you just build like a landing page, a survey or what, what exactly?
00:15:39
Speaker
Yeah, it was a survey.
00:15:41
Speaker
What I learned and what I've really implemented into all the generation that I do now is that people don't,
00:15:47
Speaker
really like going into very, very salesy type funnels, right?
00:15:50
Speaker
Because I'm used to see them everywhere.
00:15:53
Speaker
So I was trying to take a different approach and make it from a position of do you qualify for solar to begin with?
00:15:58
Speaker
We're not even talking about selling you anything.
00:15:59
Speaker
We just want to know if you qualify, if you're interested.
00:16:02
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So that sent them into a survey that just asked them basic questions.
00:16:05
Speaker
You know, do you own your home?
00:16:07
Speaker
What do you think your credit's like?
00:16:08
Speaker
Good, bad, or average?
00:16:10
Speaker
All the questions we need to sell a solar deal.
00:16:13
Speaker
And then, you know, when they get to the end, we obviously ask them for their contact information.
00:16:17
Speaker
And my particular survey would give them a link to schedule an appointment with me if they'd like to.
00:16:24
Speaker
However, after a while, what I did was I went away from the surveys and I started sending them to a chat bot instead because that gave me the ability to interact with them in real time.
00:16:33
Speaker
So that's why I kind of moved to a chat bot.
00:16:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:37
Speaker
Cool.
00:16:37
Speaker
Well, we'll get into that in a second, but here at the, here in this solar printer movement, we're all about closing more deals, getting more leads.
00:16:45
Speaker
So that's a huge secret that Russ just shared with us about how he was getting all these leads.
00:16:51
Speaker
And so what was your, when you got these leads coming in, what was your process from there?
00:16:56
Speaker
You just call them.
00:16:57
Speaker
How many of them actually booked an appointment with you over, um, that page you're doing?
00:17:03
Speaker
Was that, does that happen very often?
00:17:05
Speaker
if they completed the survey, that usually meant they were pretty interested.
00:17:09
Speaker
So I would say a good 60 to 80% of them would actually book an appointment with me within a couple of days.
00:17:16
Speaker
What I found was if they didn't book within a couple of days, they were probably going to blow me off and, you know, probably wasn't going to get it.
00:17:22
Speaker
So yeah, I would call them or I would text them.
00:17:24
Speaker
I had much better success when I would text them because it just seems people are much more open to a text conversation than a phone call.
00:17:30
Speaker
Right.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:30
Speaker
And a lot of times I would disqualify them because, you know, if they were too shaded or if,
00:17:35
Speaker
The credit was bad.
00:17:36
Speaker
I wasn't going to go out there and give them a three hour presentation if I knew I couldn't close the deal, you know?
00:17:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:43
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:17:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:45
Speaker
So it was, as long as they completed the sequence, it was a pretty good ratio to get them into an appointment.
00:17:52
Speaker
If they didn't complete the sequence, then I'd have to kind of chase them down if I had their phone number, you know?
00:17:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:57
Speaker
So was it tough?
00:17:58
Speaker
Um, cause one of the things I see people struggle with is how to handle these leads coming in and I'm sure it's depends on different markets too.
00:18:07
Speaker
But, um, I've noticed in San Diego, if I'm getting a lead online or some other way, if I'm not calling them like instantly, my chances go way down of contacting them.
00:18:16
Speaker
Um,
00:18:17
Speaker
So did you see that too?
00:18:19
Speaker
And what was kind of your process for, you see a lead come in, right?
00:18:22
Speaker
And then what do you do right after the lead?
00:18:24
Speaker
Do you try and contact them or do you text them instantly here?
00:18:27
Speaker
What does your process look from there?
00:18:29
Speaker
Right in the beginning, when I had this, when I didn't have any infrastructure in place, I wouldn't do it at all at first.
00:18:37
Speaker
I would just wait for like 20 to come in and then I would call them all in order.
00:18:40
Speaker
And in Pittsburgh, that was okay because there's not any competition for solar here.
00:18:45
Speaker
Nobody else was running SolarX, right?
00:18:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:48
Speaker
But I'm sure in a city like yours, somebody would have called them right away.
00:18:51
Speaker
So that worked.
00:18:52
Speaker
However, as time went on, what I did was I would automate the process so when the lead came in, it would send to a CRM manager.
00:18:59
Speaker
And that CRM manager would instantly start sending them text messages.
00:19:03
Speaker
And then that way, they were instantly contacted, and then a lot of them would just reply to the instant text messages.
00:19:08
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:19:10
Speaker
So you just kind of automated the follow-up so you didn't have to call them right after.
00:19:15
Speaker
You just got sent an instant text.
00:19:17
Speaker
right um went from there and then if they didn't respond you would maybe call them after that or text them after that or what happens if they didn't respond from there yeah i'd call them and text them and um you know i never really got to the point where i wasn't too busy but if i had to i would have i would have just went and knocked on the door you know because i could i could have justifiably said hey look you showed interest in solar and i haven't heard from you and i just wanted to see if i could help you you know um
00:19:42
Speaker
No, I never, I never did that because I never got that far.
00:19:44
Speaker
Cause I was always too busy with the other people.
00:19:46
Speaker
However, I mean, I would never waste the lead, you know?
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:51
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:52
Speaker
That's interesting.
00:19:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:54
Speaker
And then when you got there and sat down with them, was it usually a pretty easy close?
00:19:59
Speaker
Were they pretty interested from there?
00:20:02
Speaker
Were you having to push to close a lot of these people or how did that work once you got in the home?
00:20:09
Speaker
So I would, I would prime it pretty well over the phone.
00:20:11
Speaker
Like I would just kind of tell them what to expect on the phone.
00:20:15
Speaker
And, um,
00:20:16
Speaker
To prep them for it, I would tell them, look, I'm not high pressure at all.
00:20:20
Speaker
This is all math.
00:20:21
Speaker
This isn't sales is what I would tell them.
00:20:23
Speaker
I said it's math.
00:20:24
Speaker
Either the numbers will make sense and you're gonna save money or the numbers won't make sense and you won't save money.
00:20:28
Speaker
If the numbers make sense, you'll say yes.
00:20:30
Speaker
If the numbers don't make sense, you'll say no.
00:20:31
Speaker
How does that sound?
00:20:32
Speaker
And they're like, oh, that's great because nobody wants to be close, right?
00:20:37
Speaker
And so I always set them up like that.
00:20:39
Speaker
And another thing that I did too was I went on eBay and I just bought a solar panel for like 50 bucks.
00:20:44
Speaker
I bought it as a prop, right?
00:20:46
Speaker
So I'd come into the house and I'd have my bag over my shoulder with my laptop and my stuff.
Meeting Strategies for Closing Sales
00:20:51
Speaker
And then I would have a solar panel under my arm.
00:20:53
Speaker
Nice.
00:20:54
Speaker
As I was coming into the house, like, well, he's going to show us a solar panel.
00:20:57
Speaker
I mean, this is a crappy solar panel, something you'd use on like a mobile home or something.
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:02
Speaker
I would sit it next to me.
00:21:03
Speaker
And then the whole time that I'm showing them, you know, I had a presentation on my laptop or on my iPad.
00:21:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:09
Speaker
I'd be sitting there looking at the solar panel thinking, you know, this is a real thing.
00:21:13
Speaker
What I noticed was once I started bringing the solar panel into the house, that my closing ratio went up by 25%.
00:21:18
Speaker
Really?
00:21:19
Speaker
It really did because it made it a real tangible thing.
00:21:22
Speaker
What I think was going on there was I think that, you know, with solar, you have to sell the idea.
00:21:26
Speaker
You have to sell the emotion.
00:21:27
Speaker
You have to sell.
00:21:28
Speaker
They have to believe you that your math is correct because if they don't believe you, then they're not going to believe they're going to save money.
00:21:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:34
Speaker
Rather than selling all these ideas, which I was still doing, I also brought a tangible product in and I sat it there so they could see that I actually get to have something when we're done.
00:21:42
Speaker
Okay, that's a good idea.
00:21:43
Speaker
Try that.
00:21:45
Speaker
We got these little ones that charge the cell phones and all that.
00:21:49
Speaker
I wonder if that would work too.
00:21:50
Speaker
I think it makes a big impression if you carry a real money into the house though, you know.
00:21:53
Speaker
Okay, that's a good idea.
00:21:55
Speaker
I didn't think about that.
00:21:57
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:21:58
Speaker
So you just carried it in and once you sat down with these people, how long were your appointments typically from start to finish?
00:22:05
Speaker
So what I found was that if I was right around two hours, I made a sale every time.
00:22:11
Speaker
If I was below by 15 minutes or more or above by 15 minutes or more, I didn't make sales.
00:22:16
Speaker
So I don't know exactly what that meant.
00:22:18
Speaker
What I took that to mean was that if everything went just right, it would take about two hours.
00:22:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:23
Speaker
And what I think is if things went too long, they were a bit too skeptical or I just didn't do a good enough job and we were just talking way too much about crap that was out of bounds, you know?
00:22:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:32
Speaker
And, um, and to be honest with you, sometimes I just wasn't on my game and I might've not given them my best presentation.
00:22:37
Speaker
And now I ended up in, you know, 45 minutes to an hour and I didn't do my best job.
00:22:41
Speaker
So now they didn't, they didn't buy, you know?
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:45
Speaker
I found right about two hours was a sweet spot.
00:22:47
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:22:49
Speaker
So I'm here in San Diego.
00:22:50
Speaker
And as you know, we're super saturated.
00:22:53
Speaker
Our company is knocking a lot of doors, which we're getting like, you're the 10th solar guy.
00:22:58
Speaker
Let's come by, get out of here.
00:22:59
Speaker
We're getting that all the time as we go to doors and
00:23:03
Speaker
Throwing off porches and everything like that.
00:23:05
Speaker
Of course, there's still plenty of cells to be made But what's your thoughts on like a process like this in saturated markets?
00:23:13
Speaker
I know you talked a little bit about what before that maybe it wouldn't work as well posting in groups But I guess if you worked in a super saturated market are you
00:23:24
Speaker
Are there things you think you would change up a little bit from what your process was becoming the top rep in Pittsburgh?
00:23:31
Speaker
You think you'd do things different?
00:23:33
Speaker
I would probably do the same process, but I would just word it a bit differently, right?
00:23:36
Speaker
Because as you're talking, you're like the 10th guy that's come by today.
00:23:40
Speaker
I would word it as, don't worry about those things.
00:23:43
Speaker
any solar guys who came by your house, you know, this is different.
00:23:47
Speaker
Go into, go into messenger and see if you qualify right now.
00:23:50
Speaker
And if you don't, we'll never talk to you.
00:23:51
Speaker
I would, I would make some type of an urgency that gives them a reason to do it one right now.
00:23:56
Speaker
And two, it would let them off the hook if they didn't want to.
00:23:59
Speaker
Cause I think the two reasons why people don't want to talk to somebody who knocks on their door or a sales rep of any kind is because they think you're going to lock them into something and force them to make a choice.
00:24:09
Speaker
Or they think it's going to cost something when, when you,
00:24:11
Speaker
tell them it's not right.
00:24:12
Speaker
So they're very skeptical because people are always skeptical of sales reps.
00:24:16
Speaker
So if you can take those things away from them that are scaring them away and you just say, look, it's, it's just a free consultation.
00:24:23
Speaker
You don't even talk to a human.
00:24:24
Speaker
It's a chat bot.
00:24:25
Speaker
And I would tell them in the ad, not, not the ad, but the dropping the text into the group, I would say, you know, just go through our automated messenger assistant and see if your house even qualifies.
00:24:35
Speaker
And then if so, you can book an appointment.
00:24:37
Speaker
I would take the pressure away.
00:24:39
Speaker
And I think that that would help a lot because everybody else is being pressured.
00:24:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:43
Speaker
So you would do the same sort of posting, just word a little bit different.
00:24:47
Speaker
And then, um, yeah.
00:24:50
Speaker
Would you still set up the chat bot the same, ask the same kind of questions that were being asked in the Pittsburgh market?
00:24:57
Speaker
Or do you think it'd be different questions?
00:25:00
Speaker
I think I'd ask the same questions, but I might ask less invasive questions, right?
00:25:03
Speaker
Because what I found is that on some of the more invasive questions, they would stop.
00:25:07
Speaker
For instance, what's your credit like?
00:25:09
Speaker
A lot of people don't like to even reply good, bad or average.
00:25:12
Speaker
They just don't like that.
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:13
Speaker
I may remove that because I really don't care in that point because I can always ask him on the phone, you know?
00:25:18
Speaker
And once you get him onto a phone call, you know you're pretty good.
00:25:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:22
Speaker
But yeah, I would –
00:25:24
Speaker
I would probably just take the invasive questions out.
00:25:26
Speaker
And what I did notice that worked well was when I started adding questions to both survey and the chat bot that were not directly sales related, kind of like, what's your reason for going solar?
00:25:36
Speaker
And, you know, I'd give them options like I want to help the environment, I want to save money, stuff like that.
00:25:42
Speaker
it just seemed that it kind of like put their guard back a little bit if you asked them a few questions, right?
00:25:46
Speaker
And I would put things in there like, because I think it's super cool.
00:25:49
Speaker
Just anything to make me seem like I wasn't super professional sales rep dude that was going to try and come in here and close them.
00:25:56
Speaker
I just wanted them to feel their guard was down and that I was just a cool guy that could help them out and save money with solar.
00:26:02
Speaker
Okay, cool.
Simplifying Solar Sales Presentations
00:26:04
Speaker
That's interesting because I'm trying to think how we can apply this in all the different markets and
00:26:09
Speaker
make it work for everyone.
00:26:10
Speaker
But yeah, I think that process, not many people are doing that, that I see posting in the groups, even in San Diego, I'm part of different groups and I don't see that a lot.
00:26:19
Speaker
So I can see how if you did it, especially in a non-invasive way, I think that would definitely,
00:26:24
Speaker
generate some results, get some buzz around it.
00:26:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:28
Speaker
And so, Russ, you talked, we talked a little bit before, I know you showed me your spreadsheet and everything.
00:26:35
Speaker
Do you want to talk a little bit about that and your process of what you were showing homeowners?
00:26:39
Speaker
Is that kind of part of the presentation that you were...
00:26:42
Speaker
showing the homeowners as you met up with them.
00:26:44
Speaker
Is that something that you see?
00:26:46
Speaker
I had pretty much like a standardized presentation that I'd use.
00:26:49
Speaker
Um, you know, there was, there was points that we all want to hit in the store business.
00:26:52
Speaker
Um, you know, we all know what they are.
00:26:55
Speaker
And then what I do is I would hammer hard on the math.
00:26:58
Speaker
I would, I would make it such a no brainer.
00:27:01
Speaker
I'll, my goal was to make them feel absolutely stupid if they said no without calling them stupid.
00:27:05
Speaker
Right.
00:27:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:06
Speaker
And so, um,
00:27:08
Speaker
I made some spreadsheets that were designed to do that in the spreadsheets for calling them stupid, not me.
00:27:13
Speaker
So I had a couple of them.
00:27:14
Speaker
One of them was, was, was for cash where if they paid cash, it showed them, you know, you just plug the numbers in and it shows them exactly how much you're going to save over the next 25 years and what your cost per kilowatt hour is going to be over that 25 years.
00:27:26
Speaker
And so it was staring them right in the face.
00:27:28
Speaker
And I'm sure in a place like California, they would be saving probably like $200,000 over 25 years.
00:27:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:34
Speaker
You know, the math shows right here that you would save $200,000 over 25 years.
00:27:37
Speaker
And then I just shut up.
00:27:40
Speaker
And just wait to see the response.
00:27:42
Speaker
If they say anything other than, oh my God, let's do it.
00:27:44
Speaker
Then you just look at them like they're talking, right?
00:27:48
Speaker
And then you do the same thing on now with what I did with the loan calculator that I did.
00:27:54
Speaker
Because I showed on the calculator, this is already what you're paying per month for electricity.
00:27:58
Speaker
If you go with the utility, if you take the loan payment and then anything that we can't offset with solar because your roof is not big enough or whatever.
00:28:07
Speaker
And what I was showing was the difference between their...
00:28:11
Speaker
local their monthly utility payment and then the cost of the solar loan right and so if as close as I could get that to zero that would be my higher chances of probability of closing that deal if I could get it at zero right so if I could get it at look you're going to switch to solar and you're going to pay a solar loan you're going to pay the same price until this loan's paid off but then after that all your solar power is free they would they would love it right
00:28:33
Speaker
Even if I had that as high as 50 bucks a month, yeah, you're going to pay 50 bucks a month more for the next 20 years.
00:28:38
Speaker
However, you're locked in at this rate.
00:28:40
Speaker
The rates are going to keep rising, but your rate's going to stay the same.
00:28:43
Speaker
And oh, by the way, after 20 years, you're not going to have any electricity payments.
00:28:46
Speaker
How's that sound, Mr. Customer, right?
00:28:48
Speaker
Nice.
00:28:48
Speaker
And, you know, anything in between there, I could work with.
00:28:51
Speaker
Up to 50 bucks, I was pretty consistent in closing those solar loans.
00:28:55
Speaker
After 50 bucks, people started to get a little bit weird.
00:28:57
Speaker
They were just like, I don't know if I'm going to pay an extra 50 bucks a month, right?
00:29:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:01
Speaker
What I kept on doing was rounding them back into, but the rates are going to keep rising and yours is going to stay the same.
00:29:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:07
Speaker
And then we kept on saying, you know, and you do realize once this thing's paid off, it's yours, it's free and all the electricity is free.
00:29:13
Speaker
And they would just, you know, and you just kept on hitting those same points because solar sales is a lot different than regular sales.
00:29:18
Speaker
Like I keep on getting back to, it's just math,
Overcoming Customer Skepticism
00:29:21
Speaker
right?
00:29:21
Speaker
Solar sales, all it is is math.
00:29:23
Speaker
If they really are saving money, all you have to do is show them the numbers and say, look at this and you just be quiet.
00:29:28
Speaker
Usually we'll make that sale.
00:29:29
Speaker
Yeah, true.
00:29:31
Speaker
I think it's super logical.
00:29:32
Speaker
And I don't know if you had other cells, but I started out in pest control where we're trying to get people to spend, you know, 500, 500, 600 bucks extra during the year to get their bug sprayed.
00:29:44
Speaker
And it's just like, it's nice to come to something where you're actually saving them money.
00:29:49
Speaker
But yeah, it's super logical.
00:29:50
Speaker
And if you can get them to see, and I'm using spreadsheets too, as I close deals.
00:29:54
Speaker
And I've found that it helps a ton.
00:29:55
Speaker
If you actually make it visual and show them, just do the math with them and help them understand the math and agree with it, then...
00:30:04
Speaker
it should be super logical close, right?
00:30:07
Speaker
I think that's genius.
00:30:09
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:30:10
Speaker
One thing that I did notice, and some of the deals I didn't close, I started thinking back to why didn't I close these.
00:30:15
Speaker
And what I find was I think that some people think solar is very complex and they feel like, oh, I don't understand it, so I might get ripped off.
00:30:22
Speaker
A lot of people feel that way.
00:30:23
Speaker
So what I started doing was I made some visual aids that were, I laminated them.
00:30:28
Speaker
And basically all it was, was a picture of a building with a solar panel on it.
00:30:33
Speaker
And it showed how the, how the solar power basically went into the panel, into the house.
00:30:38
Speaker
And then how,
00:30:40
Speaker
Basically, it would go back out to the grid if it wasn't necessary.
00:30:43
Speaker
I mean, it was just a super explainer picture that I could just point to show how solar worked and how net metering worked.
00:30:49
Speaker
And then I said, that's pretty simple, right?
00:30:51
Speaker
And I noticed once I started using visual aids that showed how simple it was, my sales close ratios actually went up again.
00:30:58
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:30:58
Speaker
So the keys that really helped my sales go up when I kind of hit like a plateau was bringing in the prop, which is a solar panel, and then using visual aids.
00:31:08
Speaker
And then I helped the sales go back up.
00:31:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:31:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:11
Speaker
And that's, that's something I've had to learn too.
00:31:14
Speaker
It's just more simple.
00:31:15
Speaker
You can keep it and it just makes it so much of an easier decision.
00:31:20
Speaker
That's something I struggle with.
00:31:21
Speaker
I've been in solar now two and a half years, but my first probably year or two, I just made it so complex talking about all the net metering stuff, talking about the micro inverters, talking about every single piece of technology with it and,
00:31:35
Speaker
You just talk yourself out of the cell, right?
00:31:36
Speaker
Because people think it's so complex and they need to go research the panels you're using and see if there's a better panel out there.
00:31:43
Speaker
I think the more simple you can keep it, it makes your chances go up way higher, right?
00:31:49
Speaker
So that's genius, man.
00:31:51
Speaker
I'm going to start bringing that little solar panel around.
00:31:54
Speaker
I think nowadays you can even find them in a little size, kind of like this big.
00:32:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:00
Speaker
Because honestly, I had an old school dinosaur solar panel.
00:32:04
Speaker
I mean, it was big and I would have to bump into things.
00:32:08
Speaker
So I mean, even bring one in, it was like this big, it might be helpful.
00:32:11
Speaker
We had, I worked at also a local solar company too, after SolarCity.
00:32:15
Speaker
They didn't pay me nearly enough to stay there.
00:32:17
Speaker
But they did have some demo solar panels that the companies would send us and I would take those into the house too.
00:32:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:24
Speaker
And how would you use that?
00:32:27
Speaker
I would take in the mounting technology that we used as well.
00:32:31
Speaker
Because some of the guys who were like, man, you know, the super, I know how to do it all type guys, they would want to know, how are you going to mount this to my roof without, you know, destroying it?
00:32:40
Speaker
And so if I was able to break that out of the box and just hand it to them and say, here's how it goes.
00:32:44
Speaker
I'm not a roofing guy.
00:32:45
Speaker
I don't know how it works, but I'm sure you do, Mr. Customer.
00:32:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:48
Speaker
Clatter them a little bit, you know?
00:32:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:51
Speaker
That's cool.
00:32:51
Speaker
So the mini solar panel, how are you using, are you passing it to them, letting them feel it, touch it, and just kind of explaining how solar works?
00:32:58
Speaker
Is that how you'd use it?
00:33:00
Speaker
That's exactly what I'd do.
00:33:01
Speaker
I'd let them hold it.
00:33:01
Speaker
I'd let them play with it.
00:33:03
Speaker
I'd let them, I'd explain a little bit how it worked.
00:33:05
Speaker
And then I'd say, look on this app that I have here.
00:33:08
Speaker
There's a video that explains exactly how solar electricity works.
00:33:11
Speaker
And then what I always found was that self depreciation worked really well.
00:33:14
Speaker
Like I would say to them, look, and in all honesty, I don't even really understand how this works so well.
00:33:17
Speaker
I just know that it does work and it saves a lot of folks some money.
00:33:20
Speaker
yeah and i'm just i'm just your representative to help you save that money you know i'm obviously not a scientist yeah and i really feel like if you can kind of bring yourself down to their level or a little bit below that it that it helps your chances a lot because they think that this this scientific dude's going to come in here and start explaining all the scientific stuff about solar and i think they're a little bit intimidated by that if they don't know anything about it you know yeah that's true i think that helps a lot make them feel like a genius and
00:33:49
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:33:50
Speaker
You want to be the genius?
00:33:52
Speaker
You're the genius.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:55
Speaker
Especially with those prideful people.
00:33:56
Speaker
You get those prideful people that you just got to feed their pride to be able to close them.
00:34:02
Speaker
My favorite guys were those guys that knew everything because I knew I was going to sell them because I would just agree with them.
00:34:07
Speaker
You do know everything.
00:34:08
Speaker
This is a good choice, isn't it?
00:34:09
Speaker
And I'd be bobbing my head up and down.
00:34:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:12
Speaker
It sure is a good choice.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yep.
00:34:13
Speaker
You're making the right decision.
00:34:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:16
Speaker
That's so true.
00:34:18
Speaker
Well, Kores, I know we're running short on time here, but I want to get into just a little bit too on more on the chatbots here.
00:34:26
Speaker
We're all about teaching solar reps how to generate more leads online and how to close more of these deals.
00:34:33
Speaker
And we've talked a little bit about funnels in the podcast, but haven't really talked about chatbots.
Automating Lead Engagement with Chatbots
00:34:38
Speaker
So how are you helping people in the solar industry right now with your chatbots?
00:34:42
Speaker
Or what does that look like now for solar reps as you've been setting that up?
00:34:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:47
Speaker
So for those who aren't familiar, a chatbot is really just a Facebook messenger that talks to them without you doing it.
00:34:53
Speaker
It's all automated, right?
00:34:54
Speaker
So what you do is you just set it up with a series of questions that it asks people when they come into it.
00:34:58
Speaker
So they click a link.
00:35:00
Speaker
and then there's a button that says get started.
00:35:02
Speaker
And then the chatbot will introduce yourself and it'll say, hey, I'm Russ from Russ's solar company.
00:35:07
Speaker
And I just wanted to see if you qualify today.
00:35:10
Speaker
And then they'll say, okay.
00:35:11
Speaker
And then it basically just asks them all the same questions that the survey did only is automated in a messenger bot.
00:35:17
Speaker
The cool thing about doing that as opposed to using a survey is that at any time you can jump into this conversation and you can start talking to them.
00:35:25
Speaker
So if they don't complete the chat bot sequence, you can jump in and say, hey, I realize you didn't complete the chat bot, but I just wanted to follow up with you.
00:35:34
Speaker
And then the cool thing is, is they're all in one big group.
00:35:37
Speaker
So you can go back and you can follow up with them with like a massive message, kind of like a massive email message, right?
00:35:43
Speaker
And you have access to these people forever until they opt out and they usually don't opt out.
00:35:48
Speaker
So that's the massive advantage to using chatbot because you have instant access to them right away.
00:35:52
Speaker
And then a lot of times what you can do is you can just set the appointment right in the chatbot and you don't even have to make the phone call.
00:35:58
Speaker
Huh.
00:35:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's amazing.
00:36:01
Speaker
So you're telling me you can just have this robot talk to them and just magically set these appointments and you don't got to do anything, right?
00:36:09
Speaker
Well, you can put a calendar link on there and they can set it themselves, but most people won't.
00:36:15
Speaker
So at some point you are going to have to manually jump into this thing and say, hey, I'm Russ and I just wanted to see when the best time for you would be or something, however it works for you.
00:36:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:25
Speaker
And I'll tell you what, these, these things aren't terribly hard to make.
00:36:28
Speaker
A lot of people make it harder than it is.
00:36:30
Speaker
If you guys want to take a look at a solar chat bot, you can look at it.
00:36:32
Speaker
I have a demo one on my website.
00:36:34
Speaker
My website is leadking.net and I have a tab that says chat bots and then there's a tab that says demo chat bots and you can look at the solar chat bot on there and you know, just a, just a few minutes you can probably make one yourself.
00:36:46
Speaker
It's not too hard to make.
00:36:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:48
Speaker
We'll post that in the show notes, leadking.net slash chat bots.
00:36:52
Speaker
You said,
00:36:54
Speaker
No, it's not slash.
00:36:55
Speaker
It's actually on the menu.
00:36:56
Speaker
So you have to click on the menu.
00:36:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:59
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:37:00
Speaker
So we'll post that in the links there.
00:37:02
Speaker
And so I know you said it's not complicated to set up.
00:37:05
Speaker
What do you use to set up these chat bots?
00:37:08
Speaker
How do people get started in that?
00:37:10
Speaker
Yeah, use ManyChat.
00:37:11
Speaker
It's the easiest one and it's free.
00:37:14
Speaker
And, um, however, the chat bot that I'm using is not free.
00:37:17
Speaker
It's 10 bucks a month.
00:37:18
Speaker
And the reason why it's 10 bucks a month is because you have to upgrade to Manichat pro to use this one.
00:37:22
Speaker
And the reason is because if you're taking their contact information, you have to upgrade to pro.
00:37:27
Speaker
And so, um, what you could do is if, if say you don't want to pay the 10 bucks is you can just go through the whole sequence.
00:37:33
Speaker
Um, and then at the end you could, you could ask them to give their contact information.
00:37:36
Speaker
But the way I have it set up is that it automatically pulls it in from Facebook and they just have to tap on it to confirm it, which makes it a lot easier.
00:37:44
Speaker
Oh, sweet.
00:37:44
Speaker
So it's well worth the 10 bucks.
00:37:46
Speaker
I mean, you know, as long as you're going to use it.
00:37:50
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:50
Speaker
So way smaller of a commitment.
00:37:52
Speaker
They can just tap yes rather than giving each people individually.
00:37:57
Speaker
If it's wrong, they can, you can put a little message in there that says if it's wrong, then type it in manually, you know?
00:38:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:04
Speaker
Cool, and what results, are you doing this for a lot of people right now, helping them with these chat bots, or what kind of results are you seeing people get with the chat bots right now?
00:38:13
Speaker
In the last six months, I've helped about six solar reps do this, and all six of them, I don't know if it was six, I don't remember the exact number, but all of them were in super competitive markets.
00:38:23
Speaker
However, all of them have closed deals using it.
00:38:26
Speaker
It just took some work.
00:38:27
Speaker
So the first guy that did this, he was posting consistently in groups, you know, five to seven to 10 a day.
00:38:34
Speaker
And it took him about a month to get his first deal.
00:38:36
Speaker
Now, that sounds like a lot.
00:38:37
Speaker
However, his first deal paid him a commission of over $3,000 and he paid nothing for that ad spend, right?
00:38:42
Speaker
Nice.
00:38:43
Speaker
Yeah, and it is.
00:38:45
Speaker
It's just being consistent is all it takes.
00:38:48
Speaker
You have to just keep posting and posting and posting.
00:38:50
Speaker
And what I recommend is you get all these groups.
00:38:53
Speaker
I recommend at least 50 to 80 of them.
00:38:56
Speaker
So that way you can post in several a day.
00:38:58
Speaker
You don't hit those ones again.
00:38:59
Speaker
You get five to eight more the next day.
00:39:01
Speaker
And then you keep on getting different groups and then you loop back around to the beginning.
00:39:05
Speaker
And I made a spreadsheet to do that so I could track which groups I posted in and then not hit them again for a while.
00:39:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:11
Speaker
So how many groups?
00:39:12
Speaker
You said 50 to 80 groups?
00:39:14
Speaker
Yeah, in Pittsburgh I had 83.
00:39:16
Speaker
And I believe that gave me, I think I was over like 800,000 people in those groups.
00:39:24
Speaker
Wow.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's huge.
00:39:26
Speaker
And my city's not that big.
00:39:27
Speaker
So your city, you might have more people in your groups there, you know.
00:39:31
Speaker
Yeah, it could be.
00:39:32
Speaker
And so what does that look like?
00:39:33
Speaker
The postings, um, you said five to seven times, how many times a day did you recommend posting?
00:39:41
Speaker
Yeah, five to seven.
00:39:42
Speaker
And really what I do is I would just make, I would just make a post and I would just copy and paste it in there.
00:39:47
Speaker
So literally it takes less than five minutes to do it.
00:39:51
Speaker
You know, one key to it though is that if you post a link in a group, it's gonna actually try to make like an image for that link.
00:40:01
Speaker
So you always post your images for your post first and then you drop your text in next, but you show up first.
00:40:08
Speaker
So what I do is I'd have like 10 pictures of houses with solar panels on them in the local area.
00:40:13
Speaker
I drop them in and then I would post my text in there and it would say something like, you know, I might address some local cell rep.
00:40:19
Speaker
We can really help you out by, you know, saving you money and going solar.
00:40:23
Speaker
Click this link to see if you qualify.
00:40:25
Speaker
Okay.
00:40:26
Speaker
And then I'd have some verbiage in there that it would be, you know, an automated messenger.
00:40:29
Speaker
You always want to let them know it's going to be automated.
00:40:32
Speaker
One, because it takes down their red flags.
00:40:34
Speaker
And two, because if they start a chatbot and they're not expecting it, they might freak out and not even do it.
00:40:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:40:40
Speaker
Okay, that's cool.
00:40:41
Speaker
So, solarpreneurs, we're covering a lot of information here, and I'm frantically taking notes because I don't want to miss these golden nuggets here that the lead king is dropping for us.
00:40:52
Speaker
So, that's a ton of info we're going through.
00:40:54
Speaker
How would you, as you're posting these five to seven times a day, that's all in different groups, right?
00:41:01
Speaker
So, seven times in seven different groups for that day, then you move on to the next group.
00:41:06
Speaker
Really, it sounds like a lot more work than it is.
00:41:08
Speaker
Once you get the post you want to make, you just copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste, you're done.
00:41:12
Speaker
Like I said, it takes you five to 10 minutes to do this.
00:41:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:41:16
Speaker
So you're doing that, then you're just cycling.
00:41:17
Speaker
You're not having to think of new ideas of what to post.
00:41:20
Speaker
You're just cycling through these 80 groups.
00:41:22
Speaker
And then once you hit the 80, then you're just starting back at group number one and doing basically the same post.
00:41:27
Speaker
Number one, I'll change the wording around in the post, and that's it.
00:41:32
Speaker
So if you figure, you could go through like
00:41:35
Speaker
a half a month with the same post, you know, the same text file.
00:41:40
Speaker
And then you start over at the beginning again and make a new post.
00:41:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:41:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:45
Speaker
From what I'm hearing, I think this is a great way for people to get started with online need gen, because I know my holdup was like, I don't want to spend money on ads.
00:41:53
Speaker
So it's kind of, you feel like it's kind of a gamble, like I'm dropping some money and maybe I'll get a lead.
00:41:58
Speaker
Maybe I won't.
00:41:59
Speaker
They say it takes a little bit to get some people coming in.
00:42:02
Speaker
So I was all worried about just spending money on the ads, but from what you're saying, this, you can get going right away and it's not, you don't necessarily have to have money for ad spend, just join these groups.
00:42:12
Speaker
And then
00:42:13
Speaker
maybe spend the 10 bucks for the mini chat.
00:42:16
Speaker
Exactly.
00:42:17
Speaker
You can, you can be up and generate leads for a very inexpensive price.
00:42:20
Speaker
Now I think people ask me often, will this work for anything?
00:42:22
Speaker
And the answer is no, this works for local services.
00:42:26
Speaker
You can't be in there, you know, selling your t-shirts or whatever the heck.
00:42:30
Speaker
Cause a lot of people are like, Oh man, I'd love to get free leads doing it this way, but you just won't get away with it.
00:42:34
Speaker
The reason you get away with it with like things like solar is because it's, it's a thing that the local population needs and that's why it kind of makes it okay.
00:42:42
Speaker
Right.
00:42:43
Speaker
Um, anything else, you're just a regular old salesman.
00:42:46
Speaker
You know, you can't be in there selling anything that you'd make phones for.
00:42:49
Speaker
It has to be something specific, like what we're talking about.
00:42:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:42:53
Speaker
Cool.
00:42:54
Speaker
Awesome.
00:42:55
Speaker
Well, that has been quite the,
00:42:57
Speaker
Yeah, quite the knowledge you dropped on it here, Russ.
00:43:00
Speaker
Thanks for sharing your secrets.
00:43:02
Speaker
And so where can, I know you told us about ManyChat, but where can people find out more about you and what you do?
Resources and Partnerships
00:43:10
Speaker
My website has pretty much everything about me, theleadking.net.
00:43:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:43:15
Speaker
And I do work with a partner for solar now.
00:43:18
Speaker
I don't focus on solar anymore.
00:43:20
Speaker
I moved more into real estate.
00:43:21
Speaker
I got a real estate license and I do almost exclusively real estate leads now.
00:43:26
Speaker
My partner's name is Austin Lacey.
00:43:28
Speaker
He's kind of active in the ClickFunnels group.
00:43:30
Speaker
He's active in, there's a group that you guys might not know about, but it would be good for you to join.
00:43:34
Speaker
It's called Solar Talk with Solar Pros.
00:43:37
Speaker
If you can check that one out.
00:43:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:39
Speaker
And he's active in there as well.
00:43:41
Speaker
So Austin does solar exclusively and he has like, he works with big companies and individuals.
00:43:47
Speaker
So he'll do like a company and do all their leads for the whole company or he'll work with an individual solar rep too.
00:43:53
Speaker
And he just came out with this course too that kind of shows, the course he made actually outlines the process that I use.
00:44:00
Speaker
And then in his course, he actually includes a solar chat bot that he sets up for you too.
00:44:03
Speaker
So he's a great guy to work with.
00:44:05
Speaker
I know not a lot of people have money to spend to
00:44:07
Speaker
hire someone to help them.
00:44:08
Speaker
But if you do, Austin would, you know, take great care of you.
00:44:11
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:44:12
Speaker
Maybe we can get him on the podcast in the future here, but we'll, he's a really chill, really nice guy.
00:44:18
Speaker
He would be happy to come on and talk with you guys.
00:44:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:21
Speaker
It'd be awesome to get him.
00:44:22
Speaker
Um,
00:44:24
Speaker
Cool.
00:44:24
Speaker
Well, yeah, definitely a lot of stuff to think about and thanks for sharing your wisdom with us, Mr. Russ Lee King.
00:44:31
Speaker
And so as, yeah, and so as the final, any final thoughts for the solar, uh, for the solar people on the podcast here, any other last secrets you want to drop for the whole solar industry?
00:44:42
Speaker
Um, no, no, man.
00:44:43
Speaker
I think we, I think we covered a lot of stuff, you know, just, um, just keep grinding.
00:44:47
Speaker
If you, if you do get into the, to the local posting, um,
00:44:50
Speaker
Just expect that it may or may not work right away.
00:44:53
Speaker
But if you do it consistently for a month or two months straight, you will get deals out of that.
00:44:57
Speaker
And your return on investment will be off the charts because you're not going to pay any money for it.
00:45:01
Speaker
So at least give it a try.
00:45:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:45:04
Speaker
Yep.
00:45:04
Speaker
Consistency is key, solopreneurs.
00:45:07
Speaker
And...
00:45:08
Speaker
With that, we just all need to jump in and get those chatbots going and keep it going.
00:45:13
Speaker
So Russ, thanks for being on the podcast again.
00:45:15
Speaker
And hopefully people will check out these chatbots and definitely take notes because there is a lot of info we go over in this podcast.
00:45:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's good stuff, man.
00:45:23
Speaker
I'm glad you're doing this for people.
00:45:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good thing to learn about.
00:45:28
Speaker
I've been knocking on doors for two and a half years now.
00:45:31
Speaker
So definitely it's nice to expand the lead generation into online and figure out these different ways.
00:45:37
Speaker
Because I think it's just the way of the future.
00:45:39
Speaker
People are going online.
00:45:40
Speaker
People are getting these leads.
00:45:43
Speaker
And people...
00:45:45
Speaker
Honestly, yeah, there's not, not everyone will go solar by knocking a door.
00:45:50
Speaker
I think people get sick of that.
00:45:52
Speaker
So we're seeing more and more of that.
00:45:53
Speaker
So thanks for sharing with us your secrets, Russ.
00:45:57
Speaker
No worries, man.
00:45:58
Speaker
Have a great day.
00:45:59
Speaker
It was good to talk with you guys.
00:46:00
Speaker
Yeah, you too.
00:46:00
Speaker
Thanks.
00:46:02
Speaker
Solarpreneurs, thanks again for being on the show.
00:46:05
Speaker
Please continue to drop us comments, give us suggestions, let us know what you thought of the show, and show Russ Ward some love too.
00:46:11
Speaker
Give us our lead king what he deserves.
00:46:15
Speaker
Next episode, we're going to have the one and only Frankie Lane on the show.
00:46:19
Speaker
If you haven't heard Frankie's story, you're not going to want to miss out.
00:46:23
Speaker
It's literally the classic rags to riches story and pretty insane what he had to go through to get his company started.
00:46:30
Speaker
and get the solar going in Florida with Set Up My Solar.
00:46:34
Speaker
So tune in to next week's episode.
00:46:36
Speaker
We're going to continue to release the content, the podcast interviews on Friday for right now, but let us know what you think of that, and we'll talk to you soon.
00:46:49
Speaker
Wow, what another amazing episode of the Solarpreneur Podcast.
00:46:54
Speaker
Now, before we take off here, do us a favor and go leave an honest review on your platform of choice or wherever you're listening to this podcast.
00:47:02
Speaker
It helps us get the word out about the Solarpreneur Movement and impact more entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and marketers just like you.
00:47:11
Speaker
And hey, don't forget to head over to Facebook and join the Solarpreneur Group for more daily content on
00:47:16
Speaker
That's going to impact you and help you take your sales game to the next level.
00:47:21
Speaker
See you guys in the next episode.