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 Solarpreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: What's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Taylor Armstrong here, as usual, back with another episode.
Speaker: And we are making your life easier as a solar professional by helping you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much easier and more enjoyable time in the solar industry.
Speaker: Hope you're doing well.
Speaker: Recording this on Valentine's Day.
Speaker: So if you are listening to this probably the day after, happy Valentine's Day to you.
Speaker: Hopefully you got some love in your solar appointments and for that special person, if you have a special person in your life.
Speaker: So today we're going to be talking about a few things that are going to change the way you sell.
Speaker: And that is two mistakes that I see a lot of reps make.
Speaker: And I'm talking about these specific mistakes because we have my friend Jake Hess is coming on the podcast for the following episode, which will be released on Friday.
Speaker: And if you don't know, Jake Cassie is the owner of the Solar Academy, which they do solar consulting.
Speaker: They've trained and consulted dozens of companies and hundreds, if not thousands of reps.
Speaker: And these are actually two things that I learned from my man, Jake Cass.
Speaker: So he's going to be going much more in depth on these couple of things.
Speaker: As we get into next episode, but just wanted to give my little, I guess, spin on them and just kind of reiterate the importance of these two mistakes.
Speaker: Before we jump into that, though, I wanted to do a quick apology.
Speaker: If you were expecting an episode last week, we switched podcasts hosting services last week and we had a little mistake with our publishing team.
Speaker: So there was an episode on Friday.
Speaker: I think it came out on iTunes, but not Spotify yet.
Speaker: So depending on where you listen, you may not have seen the new, the most recent episode that came out before this.
Speaker: So hopefully it's fixed by now.
Speaker: If not, if it's not on Spotify, it will be soon.
Speaker: Should be on all the other platforms coming up.
Speaker: So that's why you didn't see an episode.
Speaker: Hopefully you're sitting first thing in the morning in your bed trying to open an episode.
Speaker: So I apologize if you cannot open it.
Speaker: And the second thing is, um, guys go grab your ticket for solar con.
Speaker: It's coming out, coming up in April here.
Speaker: Um, I'm going to be there.
Speaker: Jay Kess is going to be there.
Speaker: Who's on the next episode.
Speaker: We're going to have a good time jamming on some solar and hearing what the top dogs of the industry are doing.
Speaker: So don't miss out.
Speaker: Grab your ticket.
Speaker: That's in the show note.
Speaker: And second thing,
Speaker: Tax season is coming up soon, our favorite time of the year for all us 1099 solar reps.
Speaker: So if you don't have your taxes figured out, go check out Pi Syndicate.
Speaker: They have helped me save thousands and thousands on taxes and has blown my mind some of the strategies they're helping me implement.
Speaker: So if you don't want to see that big tax bill at the end of the year,
Speaker: Go do a call with them.
Speaker: Go see what they can do for your taxes and also just your financial situation in general.
Speaker: Hey, go listen to those episodes if you haven't already, but they're doing some pretty amazing stuff.
Speaker: Jerry Fusel and the boys over at Pius Indicate.
Speaker: So both of those will be in the link of the podcast if you want to check out either SolarCon or Pius Indicate.
Speaker: So let's jump into the topic, the two mistakes that so many reps make that cost them thousands and thousands in commissions.
Speaker: So mistake number one, that is not knowing
Speaker: your electric knowledge.
Speaker: Okay, probably a better way to say that, but not knowing anything about the electrical portion of solar, or just kind of the more technical details.
Speaker: When I first started out in solar, I knew nothing about like what a main panel upgrade was.
Speaker: I didn't know how, I don't know what like an 100 amp panel meant.
Speaker: I didn't know any of that electrical stuff.
Speaker: And for the longest time, I just thought there's no need to know this.
Speaker: All I need to know is that panels can get slapped on the roof.
Speaker: People get a cheaper energy bill and that's it.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: That's all you need to sell solar.
Speaker: And you can sell solar that way.
Speaker: And dozens, well, I would say 90% of the reps in the industry sell that way.
Speaker: Not really knowing much about, you know, the more technical side of solar and the electrical stuff.
Speaker: But guess what?
Speaker: If you can get just a basic knowledge of when you need to do a panel upgrade, what are the specific warranties on panels?
Speaker: Does it include performance?
Speaker: Things like that.
Speaker: What are the exact details in your contract?
Speaker: Have you actually read your contracts?
Speaker: Hey, you know, I'm guilty of this.
Speaker: There's still because I, you know, we have a lot of different installers.
Speaker: So there are still contracts that I'm not very familiar.
Speaker: So I'm saying these things for my own benefit, too.
Speaker: How much do you actually know about the product you're selling?
Speaker: So that is the first mistake that people make.
Speaker: And this thing, just knowing some basic stuff about the panels, this actually saved me just $1,000 last week.
Speaker: Okay, I was trying to do...
Speaker: I was doing a panel upgrade for a customer.
Speaker: I got a notification.
Speaker: They did the site survey.
Speaker: They said, Taylor, this guy isn't going to need a panel upgrade.
Speaker: You want it to come out of the commission.
Speaker: And because of my friend, Jay Kess, this is something he talks about.
Speaker: I knew that here in San Diego, and I'm speaking for San Diego, I assume there are options like this in other markets.
Speaker: But here in San Diego, we can do what's called a RMA, a renewable meter adapter.
Speaker: And it happens to be about $1,000.
Speaker: It might be around $1,000 cheaper than a panel upgrade.
Speaker: So guess what?
Speaker: By knowing that one thing, the installer, they told me, Taylor, this needs a panel upgrade.
Speaker: But just this piece of knowledge, I said, guys, can we do a RMA?
Speaker: Can it have a renewable meter adapter?
Speaker: And to be blunt, I do not know the exact qualifications on when you can do a RMA versus a panel upgrade, but I didn't know it was an option.
Speaker: So because of that, I got a message back and they said, Taylor, yeah, we can do RME.
Speaker: And because guess what?
Speaker: The people doing the site survey, they don't care.
Speaker: They're just going to suggest a panel upgrade, but they don't necessarily know most of the time that that's coming out of the commission, that that could be way less money that comes out of my pocket too, right?
Speaker: So a lot of times it's either convince the customer to do a panel upgrade or
Speaker: Or we're paying it out of our pocket and hopefully we sold the deal high enough.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because a lot of times you go back to them, say, Hey, we're going to have to pay an extra two grand, three grand.
Speaker: We're going to add it to the loan.
Speaker: Sometimes people cancel over that stuff.
Speaker: Okay, so just last week, an extra thousand dollars in my pocket just from that one piece of knowledge.
Speaker: So again, you're going to hear Jake Hess talk about this more in depth on the following episode.
Speaker: But just a quick reminder, go get some technical knowledge, study this stuff.
Speaker: And Jake's going to talk about some resources he has with it in the next episode.
Speaker: So don't miss out.
Speaker: But that is your reminder.
Speaker: And that is the first mistake.
Speaker: Okay, and mistake number two I see is reps not, reps just knocking mindlessly.
Speaker: Okay, what do I mean by that?
Speaker: So many people are just out there knocking, knocking, knocking on doors without really thinking.
Speaker: Does this customer...
Speaker: Have a good roof for solar.
Speaker: What could be my ideal customer?
Speaker: And this is something I also learned from Jake because he does not really go out and knock just a cookie cutter neighborhood just 10 hours a day.
Speaker: When he is out there, he's strategic.
Speaker: And this is probably the number one thing that I changed that instantly took my cells up and that allowed me to get more cells and work less hours.
Speaker: And that is being more efficient with my knocking.
Speaker: How many people do you know that just go out...
Speaker: day after day and they're just knocking the neighborhood without thinking twice about, hey, I wonder if I went and knocked this house with a pool, why don't they have solar?
Speaker: I wonder if I went to where it's a little less, the homes are more spread out.
Speaker: I wonder if less people would have been knocking this neighborhood.
Speaker: So when you go out in a neighborhood, when you're out prospecting, you need to change the mindset more from, oh, I'm just going to knock 10 hours today to I'm going to put myself in the best position to get a sell.
Speaker: So think, how can I get an install?
Speaker: It's not just how many doors I knock.
Speaker: It's what homes can I knock that will give me the best shot at getting an install.
Speaker: So my two best tips with this are just look at the sun angles before you go out in a neighborhood.
Speaker: Look at homes which have solar and which don't.
Speaker: Obviously some maps you can't necessarily tell right off the bat.
Speaker: But my favorite ways to do this
Speaker: Two apps we mentioned in the show many, many times.
Speaker: Number one is Sunseeker.
Speaker: It's about $20 on the App Store.
Speaker: And number two is free.
Speaker: It's called Sun's Path.
Speaker: You can go and see how the sun is going over the homes that you're hitting up.
Speaker: So the suggestion is don't knock mindlessly.
Speaker: Whatever neighborhood you're in, go just take a look at that app before.
Speaker: Which homes are getting the most amount of sun?
Speaker: Which homes have pools?
Speaker: Which homes have electric cars?
Speaker: Maybe you do a drive-by before you start a neighborhood.
Speaker: So if you can shift your mindset to not just jump in and start knocking mindlessly, but scope out the neighborhood, do some research, figure out what the demographic is,
Speaker: Go look at the pools and even mark them before you start knocking.
Speaker: If you have some type of door knocking app, your cells rabbit, your active knocker, your whatever knocking app you use, or if you don't use a knocking app, actually, it's funny, Jake Hess, he actually talks down on people.
Speaker: He does not like people using knocking apps, and it's for that reason.
Speaker: Because it trains rep to just knock mindlessly, just clock in, clock out.
Speaker: But what if you can do it more strategically?
Speaker: What if you can mark these homes that have pools?
Speaker: What if you mark the ones that have electric cars?
Speaker: What if you can mark the ones where you know it's a family that needs to save money, right?
Speaker: What do they have the family van out front?
Speaker: Or is it the old retired folks?
Speaker: Okay, who are you targeting?
Speaker: So all those questions should be questions you're asking yourself before you hit up a neighborhood.
Speaker: So those are the two mistakes.
Speaker: Knocking mindlessly, not knowing what your target customer is, not looking for the cells, right?
Speaker: Knocking mindlessly versus knocking to get an install.
Speaker: And mistake number one is not knowing anything about the technical side of solar.
Speaker: Hey, so send this to someone that needs that.
Speaker: Send this to someone who is making those mistakes.
Speaker: Don't be the rep like me that did those things, that made those mistakes for my first four years in solar.
Speaker: Imagine all the commissions I could have had if I would have known these things.
Speaker: Lost out on a lot.
Speaker: So don't be like me.
Speaker: Go do these things now.
Speaker: Learn from my mistakes.
Speaker: And don't forget, tune in to next episode because you're going to hear Jcast go much more in depth on these topics and much, much more.
Speaker: So we'll see you on the next one and go crush it this week.
Speaker: Peace.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
Speaker: What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day.
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