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This Extra Step Will Keep Your Deals From Canceling
84 Plays2 years ago
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Introduction to Solarpreneur Journey
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 fail.
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.
Preventing Deal Cancellations
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, what's up, Solrepreneurs?
00:00:42
Speaker
Today, we're going to be talking about a secret method that can help you save your deals from canceling.
00:00:48
Speaker
I had a deal that almost canceled.
00:00:51
Speaker
They tried.
00:00:52
Speaker
I dragged them back into it.
00:00:54
Speaker
I'm going to tell you how.
00:00:55
Speaker
So welcome to the podcast.
00:00:56
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:57
Speaker
We are here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and in this case, save your deals from canceling.
00:01:04
Speaker
And thank you for being a listener of the podcast.
00:01:06
Speaker
We are free and available on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, coming at you every Tuesday and Friday.
00:01:12
Speaker
So appreciate you spreading the word, sharing the podcast, leaving us a review if you have not already.
Solopreneur Referral Bootcamp Announcement
00:01:19
Speaker
As usual, we're going to give the announcement that we are doing our first live event today.
00:01:25
Speaker
It is the Solopreneur Referral Bootcamp.
00:01:28
Speaker
So if you feel like getting more referrals in your business, if you are sick of just only relying on doors to get your leads and would like people to be calling you with referrals, then consider coming to the bootcamp.
00:01:44
Speaker
It is going to be April 17th in Sandy, Utah.
00:01:47
Speaker
Location is confirmed for the Aquarium, Living Planet Aquarium, I believe it's called.
00:01:53
Speaker
It's going to be so cool.
00:01:56
Speaker
And if you don't go, you're going to get thrown in the shark tank.
00:01:59
Speaker
So make sure you come to this event.
00:02:01
Speaker
It's very simple.
00:02:03
Speaker
You just go to bootcamp.solarpreneur.com and there you can snag your tickets and
00:02:10
Speaker
Or alternatively, you can buy your SolarCon tickets, solarcon.com, and use our discount code, which is just Taylor.
00:02:17
Speaker
Get an extra 10% discount, and you'll get a ticket for free.
00:02:21
Speaker
I think that's the best deal, but hey, you can buy a ticket too.
00:02:24
Speaker
So hope to see you there April 17th.
00:02:27
Speaker
be there or get eaten by sharks.
Story of a Saved Solar Deal
00:02:29
Speaker
So now let's talk about how to keep your deals from canceling.
00:02:32
Speaker
We've had many episodes on this.
00:02:34
Speaker
And I mean, just the basics, like don't just sit in soft clothes.
00:02:39
Speaker
People tell them that they can cancel whenever they want.
00:02:42
Speaker
This is just a recipe for disaster.
00:02:44
Speaker
All right.
00:02:44
Speaker
But I'm going to tell you a story about my deal.
00:02:47
Speaker
That's almost canceled.
00:02:48
Speaker
I'm
00:02:49
Speaker
I was able to save it.
00:02:51
Speaker
I surprised myself.
00:02:52
Speaker
Just being honest, I thought they were for sure going to cancel, but somehow I got these people back on board and I'm knocking on wood right now because it's not installed yet.
00:03:00
Speaker
So anything could happen, but for now I got these people back on board.
00:03:04
Speaker
They're happy with it.
00:03:05
Speaker
Should be going to install soon.
00:03:07
Speaker
So learn from my mistakes, learn from what I did.
00:03:10
Speaker
Here's what happened.
00:03:11
Speaker
Close this deal a couple of weeks back.
00:03:14
Speaker
They were about a week and a half at the time of this recording.
00:03:18
Speaker
and it was mostly with the wife.
00:03:21
Speaker
So the first mistake I made, I didn't really get the husband involved too much.
00:03:24
Speaker
He was there for part of the presentation, but he was kind of working on some projects, doing his thing.
00:03:30
Speaker
And I explained on the basics.
00:03:32
Speaker
Once we got the numbers, I walked him through that.
00:03:34
Speaker
The reason I wasn't as concerned about getting him in on the entire presentation was because he wasn't actually on the title of the home.
00:03:43
Speaker
It was just under the wife.
00:03:46
Speaker
She actually signed with her dad.
00:03:48
Speaker
So I'm like, all right, well, she's probably the main decision maker here.
00:03:50
Speaker
I'll run it by the husband, but it's whatever.
00:03:53
Speaker
So closer, she's happy with it.
00:03:56
Speaker
She's excited.
00:03:57
Speaker
And we scheduled a site survey for, I think, three days later.
00:04:03
Speaker
And the site surveyor shows up.
00:04:05
Speaker
No one answers the door.
00:04:07
Speaker
They call me.
00:04:08
Speaker
We had to reschedule the site survey.
00:04:10
Speaker
So I'm sending her text.
00:04:12
Speaker
Hey, Tomasa, when works?
00:04:15
Speaker
When can we get the site surveyor back out there?
00:04:18
Speaker
No response.
00:04:19
Speaker
And I'm starting to get worried.
00:04:20
Speaker
You know, naturally, when you start getting ghosted, when people start not responding to you, you know, a lot of times it means they don't want to continue with the solar project.
00:04:31
Speaker
So I'm like, you know, I'm just going to schedule it and we'll figure this out.
00:04:35
Speaker
So I call on my schedule.
00:04:37
Speaker
I say schedule for Saturday.
00:04:38
Speaker
That's when I first met with them.
00:04:39
Speaker
They should be there.
00:04:41
Speaker
And I text her, I say, hey, they're coming at this time.
00:04:43
Speaker
Still don't get a response.
00:04:45
Speaker
Still don't get a confirmation.
00:04:47
Speaker
So in my head, I'm just like, all right, you know what?
00:04:49
Speaker
I'm just going to show up to this site survey.
00:04:52
Speaker
They'll knock the site survey out.
00:04:54
Speaker
If someone's there, I'm just going to show up and tell them to do this site survey.
00:04:57
Speaker
So weekend comes, Saturday rolls around.
00:05:01
Speaker
send her one last text trying to confirm the site survey, still don't get an answer.
00:05:05
Speaker
And so I show up to the site survey.
00:05:08
Speaker
I'm banging on the door.
00:05:09
Speaker
No one's coming in the door.
00:05:10
Speaker
So I tell the site survey, all right, just run this up, climb up on the roof, get this bad boy site surveyed.
00:05:16
Speaker
Let's get this thing cranking.
00:05:19
Speaker
He's climbing up on the roof, gets his ladder out, jumping around up there.
00:05:24
Speaker
And then sure enough, finally, someone comes to the door, which I knew they were in there the whole time.
00:05:29
Speaker
They just weren't coming to the door.
00:05:31
Speaker
But if you want to get someone's attention, send your guys on the roof walking around up there.
00:05:38
Speaker
That might get them to come to the door if they're not.
00:05:40
Speaker
So it gets their attention.
00:05:42
Speaker
Husband comes out, and he just starts going off.
00:05:45
Speaker
He's like, no, get off my roof right now.
00:05:47
Speaker
What do you think you're doing?
00:05:48
Speaker
And I'm telling them, hey, no, we're just here for the site survey.
00:05:50
Speaker
Remember me?
00:05:51
Speaker
It's your solar guy.
00:05:53
Speaker
And he's like, yeah, we thought about it.
00:05:55
Speaker
Cancel it.
00:05:56
Speaker
And this is all in Spanish.
00:05:57
Speaker
Cancel me, cancel me, cancel me, cancel me, cancel me.
00:06:01
Speaker
El Contracto.
00:06:02
Speaker
You know, just telling me that he doesn't want panels anymore.
00:06:05
Speaker
So I'm just confused.
00:06:06
Speaker
I'm like, okay, well, what's going on?
00:06:09
Speaker
Sounds like you guys heard something bad about it.
00:06:11
Speaker
What's going on?
00:06:12
Speaker
And I'm just trying to deescalate the situation.
00:06:15
Speaker
And so he starts telling me, oh, I talked to friends.
00:06:18
Speaker
They had bad experiences.
00:06:20
Speaker
And just start spouting out like all the things that people had told them from their bad experiences, from programs in the past.
00:06:29
Speaker
So I'm listening to him and then I, he gets done and I'm like, okay, well, can we, let's go through, let's go through some of that because, um, just to be blunt with you, things have changed a lot.
00:06:43
Speaker
So that's actually why I'm here is because there's completely different programs that aren't like that.
00:06:49
Speaker
So I'm willing to bet if I called all your friends and family, showed them the differences with this, they would be surprised.
00:06:55
Speaker
So I just start walking through his concerns one by one, trying to de-escalate it.
00:07:00
Speaker
I'm not confronting him.
00:07:02
Speaker
Remember, that's the first rule of overcoming objections.
00:07:05
Speaker
Always agree with the customer.
00:07:07
Speaker
So I'm not trying to tell him he's wrong.
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah, I probably got a little...
00:07:12
Speaker
A little defensive because he was just saying some things that were straight up lies about solar straight.
00:07:17
Speaker
I'm not sure.
00:07:19
Speaker
So I'm probably could have done better at this, but I tried as best as I could to not say, hey, you're wrong.
00:07:24
Speaker
This is how it is.
00:07:26
Speaker
And what I didn't said is I just started dropping names like crazy.
00:07:30
Speaker
I mean, I had built a lot of momentum in this neighborhood.
00:07:34
Speaker
Most of these homes were smaller homes.
00:07:36
Speaker
And this was one of his biggest concerns was, hey, this isn't a big home.
00:07:40
Speaker
You only need solar if your home's like huge, if you're using a ton of power.
00:07:43
Speaker
So I tried not to be like, that is not true.
00:07:47
Speaker
You're wrong.
00:07:48
Speaker
What I said instead is, hey, that's actually what a lot of people have thought too.
00:07:52
Speaker
But we just helped out.
00:07:54
Speaker
Your neighbor, his name is Don Florencio, which is true, helped out his neighbor.
00:07:59
Speaker
And he was using less power than you guys.
00:08:02
Speaker
So why did he still do it?
00:08:04
Speaker
The reason he still did this is because he's leveling out his electricity costs.
00:08:09
Speaker
He's protecting his rate for the future and he can now use more power.
00:08:14
Speaker
And those are some of the benefits he's seen.
00:08:17
Speaker
And these people, they were saving money, wasn't like massive amounts of money.
00:08:20
Speaker
But I tried to paint the picture to him and I just started throwing out example after example of many things as I could think of.
00:08:28
Speaker
Hey, Mr. Avellino, if you could go back three years ago, lock in the gas prices when they were $3.20 a gallon.
00:08:37
Speaker
This is California.
00:08:38
Speaker
We got high gas prices out here.
00:08:40
Speaker
But if you could lock it in when they're $3.20 instead of $3.40, back then it wouldn't have been that big of a deal, right?
00:08:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:47
Speaker
But if you could tell me that now your gas was still locked in at $3.20, that would look all better instead of paying $5 a gallon.
00:08:55
Speaker
So all we're doing here is you're just picking the gas.
00:08:58
Speaker
It's the same gas.
00:08:59
Speaker
You're just picking the gas station that's coming in at $3 instead of $4.
00:09:03
Speaker
Would you do that, Mr. Avry?
00:09:06
Speaker
And he says, yeah, I would.
00:09:08
Speaker
And then slowly but surely, I start one by one overcoming his objections.
00:09:14
Speaker
And he was coming at me pretty hot.
00:09:16
Speaker
I thought he was just going to walk in, slam the door because he was heated.
00:09:20
Speaker
There was someone on his roof jumping around up there.
00:09:23
Speaker
And funny enough, the site survey actually, he saw us going at it at one point.
00:09:28
Speaker
And he gets off the roof and just leaves.
00:09:30
Speaker
He doesn't even want to be there.
00:09:31
Speaker
He jumps in his car and heads out of there.
00:09:33
Speaker
Doesn't even finish it.
00:09:34
Speaker
So we eventually get his concerns resolved.
00:09:38
Speaker
And he's like, okay, are you a Christian man?
00:09:40
Speaker
Can I trust you?
00:09:42
Speaker
And I said, yes, senor, I go to church.
00:09:45
Speaker
I will not let you down.
00:09:46
Speaker
And not only that, I live like three streets down, which yeah, right now I'm just knocking like a couple miles from my house.
00:09:55
Speaker
So I'm like, look, I will, you know,
00:09:57
Speaker
I'm literally like a couple miles down the road from you.
00:10:00
Speaker
I will give you my address.
00:10:02
Speaker
If something goes wrong, come knock on my door.
00:10:05
Speaker
But I would set up my friends, my family, my aunt, my uncle.
00:10:09
Speaker
All of them know that this is better than staying with your current situation.
00:10:13
Speaker
All we're doing is cheaper power here.
00:10:16
Speaker
You're not buying solar panels.
00:10:17
Speaker
In this case, I was doing a power purchase agreement.
00:10:20
Speaker
You're just buying the power for at a cheaper rate.
00:10:22
Speaker
Not a loan, no cash, no money out of pocket.
00:10:25
Speaker
So I'm telling them, look, all you're doing, we're just becoming your new utility.
00:10:28
Speaker
You're getting the power at a lower price per kilowatt hour.
00:10:32
Speaker
I know you're going to be happy with it.
00:10:34
Speaker
But if not, I'm a church-gown man.
00:10:36
Speaker
Come knock on my door.
00:10:37
Speaker
I'll make sure you have a good experience.
00:10:40
Speaker
You got my personal guarantee.
00:10:41
Speaker
Then I put out my hand.
00:10:43
Speaker
I shake his hand.
00:10:45
Speaker
And I say, does that sound good?
00:10:47
Speaker
He shakes my hand.
00:10:48
Speaker
That's when I know, all right, the deal's back on.
00:10:50
Speaker
Hey, and so lessons learned from this.
Lessons on Site Surveys and Closing Deals
00:10:54
Speaker
Number one, consider going back to your site surveys.
00:10:58
Speaker
Hey, I usually don't go to my site surveys, but if you have a deal that is a little bit shaky, like I did, if you have a deal that maybe you just talked to the wife, you didn't fully get the husband in the conversation, but you still close it, you might want to consider going back to these site surveys.
00:11:14
Speaker
Or another secret I learned from some people on our team, if you are working with your setters, consider having your setters go to the site survey and take a little gift.
00:11:23
Speaker
Hey, especially if these deals are a little bit shaky, this is something that can solidify the deal and then make sure the site survey is actually happening.
00:11:31
Speaker
Nothing causes me more headaches or very few things cause me more headaches than having to sit and reschedule site surveys because the homeowner wasn't there.
00:11:40
Speaker
So make sure you confirm these things and consider having people go back.
00:11:43
Speaker
Hey, and then the second thing from this is just don't give up on your deals.
00:11:48
Speaker
Always fight.
00:11:49
Speaker
There's always a way to win back the deal.
00:11:51
Speaker
Okay, I thought this deal was lost.
00:11:54
Speaker
This guy came out heated.
00:11:56
Speaker
He was practically screaming when he came out the door saying...
00:12:00
Speaker
get the F off my roof in Spanish.
00:12:03
Speaker
So that site server got out of there quick, but just remain calm.
00:12:08
Speaker
Always agree with the customer.
00:12:10
Speaker
Deescalate the situation.
00:12:11
Speaker
Hey, if any of you were at door-to-door con, you saw Chris Voss, who is literally the FBI negotiator that teaches you a lot of these techniques.
00:12:21
Speaker
So use your mirroring and use techniques like that.
00:12:25
Speaker
If you've not read his book, those will help you calm the people down, de-escalate the situation and potentially win the deal back.
00:12:33
Speaker
And it's not going to work every time.
00:12:35
Speaker
Understand that these things can help you save your deals.
00:12:39
Speaker
all right so hope that helped and then after that what happened was i mean site surveyor was gone so i ended up having to call him and say hey i called this guy down can you please come finish the site survey see a whip background come back and i think he was relieved you know there wasn't any screaming wasn't any people saying get that off off my roof when he got back there all right but hope that helps all right so consider
00:13:03
Speaker
I'm going back to your site surveys.
00:13:05
Speaker
I think it will help you save some deals will help you get some people that were maybe a little bit on the fence about solar.
00:13:11
Speaker
It's all about getting these people as solid as possible.
00:13:15
Speaker
But remember, you don't want to sit in soft clothes these people, make sure you have them set on a decision.
00:13:21
Speaker
I mean, a lot of people are going to want to
00:13:23
Speaker
you know, maybe know that there's like a cancellation clause, like a lot of deals I go to, even if they are pretty certain of it, a lot of them will be like, well, this all sounds great.
00:13:34
Speaker
But if for whatever reason I woke up and I decided I didn't want to do this, can I cancel?
00:13:39
Speaker
So those people, it's like, yeah,
00:13:41
Speaker
There is, I'll show you here, there is an opt-out clause.
00:13:44
Speaker
Like you have, the state gives you some time to review it and all and everything.
00:13:49
Speaker
But Mr. Customer, assuming everything's exactly how we said it was today, nothing more, nothing less.
00:13:55
Speaker
Do you see any reason that you would want to cancel this and just stay with your current situation with the utility?
00:14:01
Speaker
No?
00:14:01
Speaker
Great.
00:14:02
Speaker
Well, guess what?
00:14:03
Speaker
It is exactly what I'm saying.
00:14:05
Speaker
Nothing more, nothing less.
00:14:07
Speaker
So I know you're going to be super happy.
00:14:09
Speaker
Initial here.
00:14:10
Speaker
Authorize me here.
00:14:11
Speaker
And then let's do this.
00:14:12
Speaker
You're making a great decision.
00:14:13
Speaker
All right.
00:14:14
Speaker
Show them that certainty and then make sure as much as possible gets a firm decision when you leave.
00:14:19
Speaker
Don't leave things hanging.
00:14:21
Speaker
If they're being uncertain about it, they probably have unspoken concerns.
00:14:26
Speaker
So make sure you get to the bottom of what their concerns are and don't leave things open-ended before you leave the home.
00:14:32
Speaker
So that's the tip of the day.
00:14:33
Speaker
Hope it helps you save some deals from canceling.
New Podcast Cheat Sheet Announcement
00:14:38
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the podcast.
00:14:40
Speaker
Can't wait to see everyone at the Solorpreneur Referral Bootcamp.
00:14:45
Speaker
Grab your tickets now and also grab your tickets for SolorCon.
00:14:48
Speaker
We'll see you on the next episode.
00:14:50
Speaker
Peace out.
00:14:51
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
00:14:53
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:14:54
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.
00:15:05
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:15:12
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:15:15
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:15:20
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.
00:15:33
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.
00:15:42
Speaker
So go download it right now.
00:15:43
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:15:47
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:15:52
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:15:55
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:15:56
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:15:58
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:16:04
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:16:05
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.