Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: Hey what's up solopreneurs, Taylor Armstrong here.
Speaker: Today we're going to be talking about how you can stay top of mind with your customers and why that is important.
Speaker: all that and much more coming up.
Speaker: Thank you for joining us for the podcast.
Speaker: We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals and have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: Hope you're doing awesome.
Speaker: We are coming at you free and available every Tuesday and Friday on Spotify, iTunes, Apple podcasts, wherever you can find your podcasts.
Speaker: Hey, and this is a topic I've been thinking about for a little bit.
Speaker: really just how can we stay top of mind for our customers.
Speaker: One of the downsides of solar is we don't have, once they have solar on their house, we really don't have a whole lot more to offer them.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I know occasionally people need more panels and I don't know, maybe some other types of energy upgrades, maybe a battery, but something that is
Speaker: Really a little bit of a downside.
Speaker: Solar is not really a recurring source of revenue, right?
Speaker: Many of you know, I used to do pest control in the past.
Speaker: Pest control is cool because you sign them up and they're on the hook for a year of pest control with you.
Speaker: And every time they come to that service, that's recurring revenue.
Speaker: Hey, so...
Speaker: I don't know, maybe, maybe there's a way people can think of, I don't know, I'm sure there's smarter people than me that can think of a way to make this recurring.
Speaker: Maybe there's solar panel cleanings, who knows, there's probably ways we can do it.
Speaker: But up to this point, not a whole lot of recurring revenue.
Speaker: So that leaves us with referrals.
Speaker: Hey, and how do we get referrals?
Speaker: We stay top of mind with our customers.
Speaker: If customers are thinking about us, if they have our phone numbers, if we are giving them value over time, then even if they don't buy more panels from us, they can probably refer us to people that they know.
Speaker: Even if they don't have referrals right at the point of sale, they have neighbors moving in, they have family members that are buying homes, but they're only going to refer you if you stay at the top of their minds.
Speaker: As that's what we're talking about today, how can we stay at the top of our customers' minds?
Speaker: I'm going to give you six ideas here.
Speaker: A few of these I've tried, a few of these I have not tried, but I am very confident they will work and it will be curious for people's feedback.
Speaker: I'm sure you guys have some ideas too.
Speaker: So let me know what you think of these.
Speaker: As always, I love connecting with our listeners.
Speaker: Hit me up on Facebook, social media, Instagram.
Speaker: It's probably where I'm most active right now, trying to get on all the platforms.
Speaker: Can't worry, you can shoot me an email.
Speaker: TaylorSorepreneurs.com.
Speaker: But let's talk about this.
Speaker: Okay, so before we get into six, just wanted to touch on the why.
Speaker: Okay, obviously, that's you can get more referrals if you're staying at the top of people's minds, you can get more positive reviews.
Speaker: But remember, this should not be the goal of every check in you do with your customers.
Speaker: If you come at your customers doing check-ins, calling them, whatever, and they can sense that that's the only reason you're checking in with them is just because you want a positive review or you want a referral, probably not going to work great.
Speaker: It might even turn them off a little bit, probably get less referrals.
Speaker: That is because the most important thing for the customer, this comes from Brian Tracy, I believe.
Speaker: It's WIIFM, remember that radio station, that's what's in it for me.
Speaker: If people don't know what's in it for them, they're not going to love it.
Speaker: So you should give them value on every check-in.
Speaker: And you think a good example of this, we think of our favorite TV show, whatever you're watching football.
Speaker: And they've broken this down.
Speaker: It was a great marketing conference.
Speaker: I think this is where I heard it.
Speaker: But if you look at an hour-long TV slot, they are going to do 13 minutes of ads in this hour-long TV slot.
Speaker: So in other words, they're giving 47 minutes of value and they are asking for 13 minutes.
Speaker: Okay, so keep that in mind.
Speaker: Even the smartest people, these are some smart people running TV ads.
Speaker: We all know there's some very intelligent people behind all the marketing on TV and advertisement radio, all that.
Speaker: And that's a pretty high ask.
Speaker: So we should even be doing more giving than that, right?
Speaker: So we should give for more than 47 minutes comparatively.
Speaker: Okay, and I know solar is a little bit different, but another example, some of you follow Gary V on social media.
Speaker: Gary V, he wrote a book called Jab, Jab, Hook.
Speaker: I think it's called, right, hook?
Speaker: Jab, jab, hook.
Speaker: But the whole idea of this is that when you are doing marketing for your customers, when you're staying in touch with your client base, you should give them jabs.
Speaker: That's value, right?
Speaker: And before you hook, that's make an ask.
Speaker: You should give them value.
Speaker: And that's what I try to do.
Speaker: You notice another example of this is the podcast.
Speaker: Hey, I feel like, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, okay, but I feel like this podcast is mostly giving, but occasionally, occasionally,
Speaker: I do ask something from you guys.
Speaker: I ask for a review.
Speaker: Sometimes we advertise our coaching platform a little bit on here.
Speaker: Sometimes I have other services that I recommend.
Speaker: But in general, I try to give, give, give, give before I ask.
Speaker: And that's what you should do with your customers.
Speaker: So think how can you give to them before you ask for a referral, before you ask for a review, whatever it is you're trying to ask your customer base in Solr.
Speaker: Okay, so that being said, just prefacing things a little bit, okay, the why behind it.
Speaker: So here's six ideas that you can start implementing today.
Speaker: And you can probably think of more of this, but these are what came to the top of my head on how to stay top of mind with your customers.
Speaker: So the first one is you can do a customer newsletter.
Speaker: Hey, people love newsletters.
Speaker: And I'm drawn from some of the stuff I heard at this marketing conference, Funnel Hacking Live I just went to.
Speaker: But newsletters are pretty huge, surprisingly.
Speaker: I know for me, I just thought it was for like old folks.
Speaker: But a lot of people really like newsletters.
Speaker: And matter of fact, I've got friends and people I know that pay a decent amount just to get these value packed emails, these newsletters.
Speaker: So consider maybe it's like a quarterly newsletter you're giving to your customers, just sending out updates.
Speaker: And what's cool is you can use stuff, artificial intelligent chat GPT.
Speaker: These tools can literally write up an email for you just on the latest solar news, the latest technology, what's happening with solar in your local market, what's happening with utilities, changes in the net metering for your area.
Speaker: A lot of different ideas you could throw in there.
Speaker: So it doesn't need to take a lot of time.
Speaker: And it's done much easier if you have like a CRM or a way you can send out mass emails.
Speaker: But even if you don't have a tool like that, which by the way, hook you up with some great CRMs, great ways to send these emails.
Speaker: But consider doing a value-packed, maybe a quarterly customer newsletter.
Speaker: And one last bit on this, great person I follow for the latest and greatest, like happenings in Solr.
Speaker: is Solar Surge.
Speaker: He's been on the podcast, but he has a great YouTube channel, great little newsletter that he sends out just the latest in solar technology and stuff that's changing, stuff that's going on.
Speaker: So that's the first way to stay top of your mind.
Speaker: Number two, you can do just check-ins around holidays, birthdays, system anniversary.
Speaker: Think of any good reason you have that you could possibly check in.
Speaker: And side note, you should be trying to get your customers birthdays.
Speaker: The way I do this is I just once all of us probably are getting birthdays when we run credit, assuming you are, you know, financing or applying for like leases or PPAs, you have to run a credit application.
Speaker: And spoiler alert, every credit application that I've seen requires the date of birth.
Speaker: So when you get this date of birth,
Speaker: Take a screenshot of just that.
Speaker: I don't think maybe some of you are saying, hey, that's not ethical.
Speaker: You shouldn't be taking screenshots of people's birthday.
Speaker: I disagree.
Speaker: I think it's fine.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But I guess do it at your own discretion.
Speaker: If that's illegal, then I don't know.
Speaker: Toss me in jail.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But I think it's a great way to stay in touch with your customer to give a reason for reaching out to them.
Speaker: And something I learned from my friend Mikey Lucas, who is really good with all the marketing stuff.
Speaker: He has his software, his CRM software.
Speaker: That's really good.
Speaker: But he says is that you can send out the, you know, birthday texts, check in with the customers, but to not do it on their actual birthday, you
Speaker: And I thought this was pretty smart because if you think about it, how many people are checking in on their actual birthday?
Speaker: Quite a few.
Speaker: So consider checking in maybe the day before their birthday, maybe the day after.
Speaker: Hey, and I think it'll set you apart a little bit.
Speaker: Hey, another thing is Veterans Day.
Speaker: how many people are in military where I'm selling solar in San Diego.
Speaker: A lot of people are military, a lot of Navy folk.
Speaker: So all these people, and this is something I have not done, but I thought it was a great idea I'm going to start doing is just check in with them on Veterans Day and, you know, celebrate that.
Speaker: And again, might be a good idea to do it day before, day after.
Speaker: Check in right there.
Speaker: And then system anniversaries, all these things, ways to stay in touch with your customers, keep them top of mind.
Speaker: Maybe it's a yearly check-in.
Speaker: I think everyone should be checking in with their customers three months, six months, nine months after the installation and on the year anniversary.
Speaker: But then after that, every year, just doing a check-in around their true-up period.
Speaker: Great way to stay top of mind and great way to show you care about them and give more value.
Speaker: So that's number two.
Speaker: Number three, sending out Christmas cards.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: I tried this about three years ago and I was expecting, I just had the mindset, I'm going to do this.
Speaker: I'm going to get a ton of referrals after.
Speaker: Did not get referrals.
Speaker: And what's funny is I actually asked my friend Ashton Buswell, another great dude, been on the podcast, closed hundreds and hundreds of deals.
Speaker: But he told me he did not get referrals from this
Speaker: but I recently had a conversation with him and he's been doing it ever since that first year.
Speaker: And now he's getting referrals.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So that's the thing with a lot of these things.
Speaker: These are long-term plays.
Speaker: It's not like you do one of these, you're going to get referrals.
Speaker: You've got to do a combination of these, stay top of mind.
Speaker: And as you do it consistently, then you can ask for referrals.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Ashton, he does things like this, stays top of mind with his customers.
Speaker: Does not ask for favors, but then he had a push where he wanted to do 30 deals in February.
Speaker: So what he did is he had been given so much value that he comes back with an ask, asks all his client base for referrals, says we're in a competition, and closes, I think, like 20 to 30 referrals that month.
Speaker: All because he'd been doing these little things, sending out Christmas cards, newsletters, checking in with his customers.
Speaker: So remember, these are long-term plays.
Speaker: Christmas cards could give you a great value, a great way to stay top of mind.
Speaker: Another thing that I just thought of today, here we had, well, I guess everywhere had a solar eclipse.
Speaker: I think those happen.
Speaker: Does it just happen on like Northern Hemisphere?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know enough about astronomy, so...
Speaker: probably sound very uneducated in this, but we had a solar eclipse, at least in California.
Speaker: And funny, I did not even know about it.
Speaker: I was going out on a little jog and I was like, why does the sun look so weird right now?
Speaker: It's like neon.
Speaker: Like, is the world ending?
Speaker: What is going on here?
Speaker: And then like a couple hours later, I found out there's a solar eclipse.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I'm thinking, this would be a great time checking with my customers.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I haven't yet again.
Speaker: But I'm just like, hey, why not think outside the box?
Speaker: Solar eclipse, that'd be a great way to send out a little message to be like, hey, did you guys see the solar eclipse?
Speaker: Speaking of solar eclipses, how's your solar going?
Speaker: Don't worry, your solar panels did not shut off during that eclipse.
Speaker: Okay, so...
Speaker: Just funny thing.
Speaker: You got to think outside of the box.
Speaker: Think of funny ways to check in with your customers.
Speaker: So there's one right there.
Speaker: Maybe next solar eclipse, you send out some texts, send out some emails, check in with your customer base or even follow up with existing leads or people that you haven't closed yet.
Speaker: And then last couple here, number five is this is just old school.
Speaker: Call them.
Speaker: I think it's a good idea to call all your customers once a year.
Speaker: Granted, if you do have hundreds of customers, if you've been in the game a while, maybe that's not realistic.
Speaker: But within reason, probably a good idea to just call your customers once a year.
Speaker: Check in with them.
Speaker: Don't ask.
Speaker: Just give them a call.
Speaker: See how their system's going.
Speaker: And last is number six, and that's when you are in the area of your customers, do a little drive-by, go stop by them.
Speaker: Okay, another one of my buddies that manages a team for his son, Ronnie, he does this when he's in competitions.
Speaker: stops by in the area, and this is, he does the little ass when he's in the area, but what he'll do, he'll take $1,000 cash just in an envelope, and when he stops by his customers, he'll play it off as, hey, I was actually just on the way to drop off a referral bonus for another client that referred me to some of his friends, and was pretty close to you guys, so thought I'd stop by, and I assume this is probably true.
Speaker: He's not just like...
Speaker: making stuff up.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But he pulls out a thousand bucks in cash, says, yeah, I actually had a thousand dollars that they're getting from it.
Speaker: He flashes them the cash.
Speaker: They see it.
Speaker: They taste it.
Speaker: They feel it.
Speaker: He'd probably not taste it, but they see that he literally has a thousand dollars cash.
Speaker: And I have not tried this, but according to my buddy, he gets referrals like crazy when he does this because they see the actual cash in an envelope and they
Speaker: Yeah, they get pretty motivated by seeing $1,000 cash.
Speaker: So an idea right there, I imagine that would probably work.
Speaker: I know I would be pretty motivated seeing $1,000 cash to think of a couple people to refer.
Speaker: Okay, so stop by when you're in the area and yeah, always give value because then it's going to make it more effective when you're actually stopping by and asking for something like this.
Speaker: Okay, so there are six ways to stay top of mind with your customers.
Speaker: Sit down, you can be creative, you can come up with your own list of six, seven, eight, nine, 10, just ways to stay top of mind with your customers.
Speaker: But it's all about the long game.
Speaker: And I know some new people in solar
Speaker: Maybe you're knocking tons of doors.
Speaker: Maybe you have a plethora of leads right now.
Speaker: Hey, but trust me to be in this solar game for the long run, you want to be making these long-term plays.
Speaker: You want to be staying top of mind for your customers and you want to try to build out a referral-based business because those are the people that can stay in solar for a long time, not have to be knocking a million doors and can get consistent business even if they're not out knocking doors all day.
Speaker: Okay, so just to recap, first one was customer newsletter.
Speaker: Second was just doing check-ins on holidays, Veterans Day birthdays, system anniversaries.
Speaker: Third was Christmas cards you can send out.
Speaker: Fourth was checking in around the solar eclipse.
Speaker: Fifth was just old school calling once a year.
Speaker: Six was stopping by when you're in the area.
Speaker: So I hope that helps.
Speaker: Let me know what other ideas you have for checking in and staying top of mind with your customers.
Speaker: Make those long-term plays and keep crushing it in solar.
Speaker: We got some exciting content coming up.
Speaker: And if you want, here's my ask, okay?
Speaker: If you want help with multiplying your business through referrals or setting up some of these processes, you got to be organized.
Speaker: So we do have some openings in our coaching group.
Speaker: If you want help with a CRM, if you want help with the organization aspect, because...
Speaker: Trust me, all these things, it's tough to do.
Speaker: It's tough to check in with your customers.
Speaker: Some of you don't even know who your customers are and you forgot about them the day after you sold them.
Speaker: So you got to stay organized.
Speaker: You got to have a system in place.
Speaker: And that's what we do in our coaching group.
Speaker: So shoot me an email, send me a message if you want to get on a little demo call for that.
Speaker: But keep crushing it.
Speaker: Close lots of deals this week and we'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker: Peace.
Speaker: What's up, solarpreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker: Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
Speaker: One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
Speaker: What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
Speaker: You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
Speaker: So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and I would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solarpreneur.
Speaker: We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet.
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Speaker: It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We will have that in the show notes.
Speaker: Go download it right now.
Speaker: And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
Speaker: That's going to show you how.
Speaker: So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.
