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How To Stay Top Of Mind With Your Customers
76 Plays2 years ago
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Transcript
Taylor Armstrong's Journey and Insights
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
Speaker
I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Defining Solopreneurship in Solar
00:00:19
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.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
00:00:43
Speaker
Hey what's up solopreneurs, Taylor Armstrong
Strategies for Staying Top of Mind
00:00:45
Speaker
here.
00:00:45
Speaker
Today we're going to be talking about how you can stay top of mind with your customers and why that is important.
00:00:53
Speaker
all that and much more coming up.
00:00:54
Speaker
Thank you for joining us for the podcast.
00:00:57
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.
00:01:04
Speaker
Hope you're doing awesome.
00:01:05
Speaker
We are coming at you free and available every Tuesday and Friday on Spotify, iTunes, Apple podcasts, wherever you can find your podcasts.
00:01:15
Speaker
Hey, and this is a topic I've been thinking about for a little bit.
00:01:21
Speaker
really just how can we stay top of mind for our customers.
00:01:25
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.
00:01:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:34
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
00:01:44
Speaker
Really a little bit of a downside.
00:01:46
Speaker
Solar is not really a recurring source of revenue, right?
00:01:50
Speaker
Many of you know, I used to do pest control in the past.
00:01:53
Speaker
Pest control is cool because you sign them up and they're on the hook for a year of pest control with you.
00:01:59
Speaker
And every time they come to that service, that's recurring revenue.
00:02:03
Speaker
Hey, so...
00:02:04
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.
00:02:13
Speaker
Maybe there's solar panel cleanings, who knows, there's probably ways we can do it.
00:02:17
Speaker
But up to this point, not a whole lot of recurring revenue.
00:02:20
Speaker
So that leaves us with referrals.
00:02:23
Speaker
Hey, and how do we get referrals?
00:02:26
Speaker
We stay top of mind with our customers.
00:02:29
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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.
00:02:41
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.
00:02:52
Speaker
As that's what we're talking about today, how can we stay at the top of our customers' minds?
00:02:56
Speaker
I'm going to give you six ideas
Engagement Through Social Media
00:02:59
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here.
00:02:59
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.
00:03:08
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I'm sure you guys have some ideas too.
00:03:10
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So let me know what you think of these.
00:03:11
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As always, I love connecting with our listeners.
00:03:14
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Hit me up on Facebook, social media, Instagram.
00:03:18
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It's probably where I'm most active right now, trying to get on all the platforms.
00:03:22
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Can't worry, you can shoot me an email.
00:03:24
Speaker
TaylorSorepreneurs.com.
00:03:26
Speaker
But let's talk about this.
00:03:27
Speaker
Okay, so before we get into six, just wanted to touch on the why.
00:03:32
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.
00:03:39
Speaker
But remember, this should not be the goal of every check in you do with your customers.
00:03:45
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.
00:03:58
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It might even turn them off a little bit, probably get less referrals.
00:04:01
Speaker
That is because the most important thing for the customer, this comes from Brian Tracy, I believe.
00:04:07
Speaker
It's WIIFM, remember that radio station, that's what's in it for me.
00:04:13
Speaker
If people don't know what's in it for them, they're not going to love it.
00:04:16
Speaker
So you should give them value on every check-in.
00:04:20
Speaker
And you think a good example of this, we think of our favorite TV show, whatever you're watching football.
00:04:28
Speaker
And they've broken this down.
00:04:29
Speaker
It was a great marketing conference.
00:04:31
Speaker
I think this is where I heard it.
00:04:32
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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.
00:04:40
Speaker
So in other words, they're giving 47 minutes of value and they are asking for 13 minutes.
00:04:46
Speaker
Okay, so keep that in mind.
00:04:47
Speaker
Even the smartest people, these are some smart people running TV ads.
00:04:52
Speaker
We all know there's some very intelligent people behind all the marketing on TV and advertisement radio, all that.
00:04:59
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And that's a pretty high ask.
00:05:01
Speaker
So we should even be doing more giving than that, right?
00:05:04
Speaker
So we should give for more than 47 minutes comparatively.
Gary V's Philosophy and Newsletters
00:05:07
Speaker
Okay, and I know solar is a little bit different, but another example, some of you follow Gary V on social media.
00:05:13
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Gary V, he wrote a book called Jab, Jab, Hook.
00:05:16
Speaker
I think it's called, right, hook?
00:05:18
Speaker
Jab, jab, hook.
00:05:18
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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.
00:05:26
Speaker
That's value, right?
00:05:28
Speaker
And before you hook, that's make an ask.
00:05:30
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You should give them value.
00:05:32
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And that's what I try to do.
00:05:33
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You notice another example of this is the podcast.
00:05:37
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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,
00:05:45
Speaker
I do ask something from you guys.
00:05:47
Speaker
I ask for a review.
00:05:49
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Sometimes we advertise our coaching platform a little bit on here.
00:05:53
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Sometimes I have other services that I recommend.
00:05:56
Speaker
But in general, I try to give, give, give, give before I ask.
00:06:00
Speaker
And that's what you should do with your customers.
00:06:02
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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.
00:06:11
Speaker
Okay, so that being said, just prefacing things a little bit, okay, the why behind it.
00:06:17
Speaker
So here's six ideas that you can start implementing today.
00:06:21
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.
00:06:27
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So the first one is you can do a customer newsletter.
00:06:30
Speaker
Hey, people love newsletters.
00:06:33
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And I'm drawn from some of the stuff I heard at this marketing conference, Funnel Hacking Live I just went to.
00:06:38
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But newsletters are pretty huge, surprisingly.
00:06:42
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I know for me, I just thought it was for like old folks.
00:06:44
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But a lot of people really like newsletters.
00:06:47
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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.
00:06:56
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So consider maybe it's like a quarterly newsletter you're giving to your customers, just sending out updates.
00:07:02
Speaker
And what's cool is you can use stuff, artificial intelligent chat GPT.
00:07:07
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.
00:07:20
Speaker
A lot of different ideas you could throw in there.
00:07:22
Speaker
So it doesn't need to take a lot of time.
00:07:24
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And it's done much easier if you have like a CRM or a way you can send out mass emails.
00:07:31
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.
00:07:37
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But consider doing a value-packed, maybe a quarterly customer newsletter.
00:07:42
Speaker
And one last bit on this, great person I follow for the latest and greatest, like happenings in Solr.
00:07:49
Speaker
is Solar Surge.
00:07:50
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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.
00:08:00
Speaker
So that's the first way to stay top of your mind.
00:08:03
Speaker
Number two, you can do just check-ins around holidays, birthdays, system anniversary.
Holiday Engagement and Consistency in Referrals
00:08:10
Speaker
Think of any good reason you have that you could possibly check in.
00:08:14
Speaker
And side note, you should be trying to get your customers birthdays.
00:08:18
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.
00:08:32
Speaker
And spoiler alert, every credit application that I've seen requires the date of birth.
00:08:37
Speaker
So when you get this date of birth,
00:08:39
Speaker
Take a screenshot of just that.
00:08:41
Speaker
I don't think maybe some of you are saying, hey, that's not ethical.
00:08:45
Speaker
You shouldn't be taking screenshots of people's birthday.
00:08:47
Speaker
I disagree.
00:08:48
Speaker
I think it's fine.
00:08:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:49
Speaker
But I guess do it at your own discretion.
00:08:52
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If that's illegal, then I don't know.
00:08:54
Speaker
Toss me in jail.
00:08:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:56
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.
00:09:01
Speaker
And something I learned from my friend Mikey Lucas, who is really good with all the marketing stuff.
00:09:07
Speaker
He has his software, his CRM software.
00:09:11
Speaker
That's really good.
00:09:11
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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
00:09:21
Speaker
And I thought this was pretty smart because if you think about it, how many people are checking in on their actual birthday?
00:09:25
Speaker
Quite a few.
00:09:26
Speaker
So consider checking in maybe the day before their birthday, maybe the day after.
00:09:31
Speaker
Hey, and I think it'll set you apart a little bit.
00:09:33
Speaker
Hey, another thing is Veterans Day.
00:09:36
Speaker
how many people are in military where I'm selling solar in San Diego.
00:09:41
Speaker
A lot of people are military, a lot of Navy folk.
00:09:44
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.
00:09:53
Speaker
And again, might be a good idea to do it day before, day after.
00:09:58
Speaker
Check in right there.
00:09:59
Speaker
And then system anniversaries, all these things, ways to stay in touch with your customers, keep them top of mind.
00:10:05
Speaker
Maybe it's a yearly check-in.
00:10:07
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.
00:10:14
Speaker
But then after that, every year, just doing a check-in around their true-up period.
00:10:19
Speaker
Great way to stay top of mind and great way to show you care about them and give more value.
00:10:24
Speaker
So that's number two.
00:10:25
Speaker
Number three, sending out Christmas cards.
00:10:28
Speaker
It's funny.
00:10:29
Speaker
I tried this about three years ago and I was expecting, I just had the mindset, I'm going to do this.
00:10:36
Speaker
I'm going to get a ton of referrals after.
00:10:38
Speaker
Did not get referrals.
00:10:39
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.
00:10:48
Speaker
But he told me he did not get referrals from this
00:10:51
Speaker
but I recently had a conversation with him and he's been doing it ever since that first year.
00:10:57
Speaker
And now he's getting referrals.
00:10:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:59
Speaker
So that's the thing with a lot of these things.
00:11:01
Speaker
These are long-term plays.
00:11:03
Speaker
It's not like you do one of these, you're going to get referrals.
00:11:06
Speaker
You've got to do a combination of these, stay top of mind.
00:11:09
Speaker
And as you do it consistently, then you can ask for referrals.
00:11:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:13
Speaker
Ashton, he does things like this, stays top of mind with his customers.
00:11:18
Speaker
Does not ask for favors, but then he had a push where he wanted to do 30 deals in February.
00:11:24
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.
00:11:36
Speaker
All because he'd been doing these little things, sending out Christmas cards, newsletters, checking in with his customers.
00:11:42
Speaker
So remember, these are long-term plays.
00:11:44
Speaker
Christmas cards could give you a great value, a great way to stay top of mind.
00:11:49
Speaker
Another thing that I just thought of today, here we had, well, I guess everywhere had a solar eclipse.
00:11:57
Speaker
I think those happen.
00:11:58
Speaker
Does it just happen on like Northern Hemisphere?
00:12:01
Speaker
I don't know.
00:12:01
Speaker
I don't know enough about astronomy, so...
00:12:03
Speaker
probably sound very uneducated in this, but we had a solar eclipse, at least in California.
00:12:09
Speaker
And funny, I did not even know about it.
00:12:11
Speaker
I was going out on a little jog and I was like, why does the sun look so weird right now?
00:12:15
Speaker
It's like neon.
00:12:16
Speaker
Like, is the world ending?
00:12:17
Speaker
What is going on here?
00:12:19
Speaker
And then like a couple hours later, I found out there's a solar eclipse.
00:12:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:23
Speaker
So I'm thinking, this would be a great time checking with my customers.
00:12:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:27
Speaker
And I haven't yet again.
00:12:29
Speaker
But I'm just like, hey, why not think outside the box?
00:12:32
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?
00:12:38
Speaker
Speaking of solar eclipses, how's your solar going?
00:12:41
Speaker
Don't worry, your solar panels did not shut off during that eclipse.
00:12:43
Speaker
Okay, so...
00:12:46
Speaker
Just funny thing.
00:12:47
Speaker
You got to think outside of the box.
00:12:48
Speaker
Think of funny ways to check in with your customers.
00:12:51
Speaker
So there's one right there.
00:12:52
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.
00:13:02
Speaker
And then last couple here, number five is this is just old school.
00:13:07
Speaker
Call them.
00:13:08
Speaker
I think it's a good idea to call all your customers once a year.
00:13:11
Speaker
Granted, if you do have hundreds of customers, if you've been in the game a while, maybe that's not realistic.
00:13:17
Speaker
But within reason, probably a good idea to just call your customers once a year.
00:13:21
Speaker
Check in with them.
00:13:22
Speaker
Don't ask.
00:13:23
Speaker
Just give them a call.
00:13:24
Speaker
See how their system's going.
00:13:26
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.
00:13:34
Speaker
Okay, another one of my buddies that manages a team for his son, Ronnie, he does this when he's in competitions.
00:13:42
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.
00:14:07
Speaker
He's not just like...
00:14:08
Speaker
making stuff up.
00:14:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:09
Speaker
But he pulls out a thousand bucks in cash, says, yeah, I actually had a thousand dollars that they're getting from it.
00:14:14
Speaker
He flashes them the cash.
00:14:16
Speaker
They see it.
00:14:17
Speaker
They taste it.
00:14:18
Speaker
They feel it.
00:14:19
Speaker
He'd probably not taste it, but they see that he literally has a thousand dollars cash.
00:14:23
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
00:14:33
Speaker
Yeah, they get pretty motivated by seeing $1,000 cash.
00:14:36
Speaker
So an idea right there, I imagine that would probably work.
00:14:40
Speaker
I know I would be pretty motivated seeing $1,000 cash to think of a couple people to refer.
00:14:45
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.
00:14:55
Speaker
Okay, so there are six ways to stay top of mind with your customers.
Recap of Strategies and Coaching Invitation
00:15:00
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.
00:15:08
Speaker
But it's all about the long game.
00:15:09
Speaker
And I know some new people in solar
00:15:12
Speaker
Maybe you're knocking tons of doors.
00:15:14
Speaker
Maybe you have a plethora of leads right now.
00:15:16
Speaker
Hey, but trust me to be in this solar game for the long run, you want to be making these long-term plays.
00:15:22
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.
00:15:38
Speaker
Okay, so just to recap, first one was customer newsletter.
00:15:42
Speaker
Second was just doing check-ins on holidays, Veterans Day birthdays, system anniversaries.
00:15:48
Speaker
Third was Christmas cards you can send out.
00:15:50
Speaker
Fourth was checking in around the solar eclipse.
00:15:54
Speaker
Fifth was just old school calling once a year.
00:15:56
Speaker
Six was stopping by when you're in the area.
00:15:59
Speaker
So I hope that helps.
00:16:00
Speaker
Let me know what other ideas you have for checking in and staying top of mind with your customers.
00:16:05
Speaker
Make those long-term plays and keep crushing it in solar.
00:16:09
Speaker
We got some exciting content coming up.
00:16:12
Speaker
And if you want, here's my ask, okay?
00:16:15
Speaker
If you want help with multiplying your business through referrals or setting up some of these processes, you got to be organized.
00:16:24
Speaker
So we do have some openings in our coaching group.
00:16:27
Speaker
If you want help with a CRM, if you want help with the organization aspect, because...
00:16:33
Speaker
Trust me, all these things, it's tough to do.
00:16:35
Speaker
It's tough to check in with your customers.
00:16:37
Speaker
Some of you don't even know who your customers are and you forgot about them the day after you sold them.
00:16:41
Speaker
So you got to stay organized.
00:16:42
Speaker
You got to have a system in place.
00:16:44
Speaker
And that's what we do in our coaching group.
00:16:46
Speaker
So shoot me an email, send me a message if you want to get on a little demo call for that.
00:16:52
Speaker
But keep crushing it.
00:16:54
Speaker
Close lots of deals this week and we'll see you on the next episode.
00:16:57
Speaker
Peace.
00:16:58
Speaker
What's up, solarpreneurs?
00:16:59
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:17:01
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.
00:17:12
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:17:19
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:17:22
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:17:26
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.
00:17:40
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.
00:17:49
Speaker
So go download it right now.
00:17:50
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:17:54
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:17:59
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:18:02
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:18:03
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:18:05
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:18:11
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:18:12
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.