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Transcript
Introduction to the Solarpreneur Podcast
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 the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you 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.
00:00:42
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
Podcast Goals and Availability
00:00:43
Speaker
Taylor Armstrong back with another episode.
00:00:46
Speaker
If you're new to the podcast, our goal here at solopreneurs is to make your life easier in solar cells and help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:01:00
Speaker
Hope you're doing well.
00:01:01
Speaker
As usual, we are free and available on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you can find podcasts.
Lake Powell Trip and Upcoming Segment
00:01:09
Speaker
And I am just getting back from a week-long trip to Lake Powell.
00:01:13
Speaker
It's in Utah and Arizona.
00:01:16
Speaker
So a little bit of...
00:01:18
Speaker
A little bit jet lagged, not jet lagged, but just getting back from vacation, trying to get my mind back into the selling.
00:01:27
Speaker
You know how it is.
00:01:27
Speaker
Always takes a couple days to get back into things, but I'm going to be bringing some fire here today.
00:01:33
Speaker
We're going to be doing something a little bit different.
00:01:36
Speaker
First time doing this on the podcast, and that is we're going to analyze a live close on the show.
00:01:43
Speaker
We're going to hear it's actually one of my closes that I did not close.
00:01:47
Speaker
So,
00:02:03
Speaker
So we're going to be jumping
Lessons from Lake Powell and Client Communication
00:02:04
Speaker
into that.
00:02:04
Speaker
But before that, just wanted to thank everyone for supporting and listening to the show.
00:02:10
Speaker
I try to bring new, fresh content every week.
00:02:12
Speaker
We've got some great interviews coming up, so continue to tune into those.
00:02:17
Speaker
And yeah, it's just an honor and a blessing to be coming at you with fresh content every week.
00:02:24
Speaker
And like I said, just getting back from a trip here, if you have not been to Lake Powell,
00:02:28
Speaker
Highly recommend it.
00:02:30
Speaker
The only sad thing is the water levels are super low at the lake.
00:02:34
Speaker
We went there growing up.
00:02:36
Speaker
I would always go there as a kid.
00:02:37
Speaker
And, you know, nowadays you go there and you can only access certain parts of the lake lower than it's ever been.
00:02:45
Speaker
So hopefully there will be more water because lots of people go.
00:02:48
Speaker
You know, you get a houseboat there.
00:02:51
Speaker
A lot of sales teams I know do like incentive trips there.
00:02:54
Speaker
You do your cliff jumping.
00:02:56
Speaker
And it's a great time.
00:02:58
Speaker
But the one lesson I learned there is if you are going to go on the lake for a week and you do not have service,
00:03:05
Speaker
Maybe make sure you set up like a voicemail or auto text to go out when people text you saying you don't have service.
00:03:12
Speaker
Because I came back and I had like 10 messages from one customer freaking out that he wasn't getting a response and all that.
00:03:22
Speaker
Yeah, so not a great move.
00:03:25
Speaker
So I called and explained to him.
00:03:26
Speaker
But in hindsight, I should have set up a little message, you know, voicemail saying I was out of town or saying I did not have service.
00:03:36
Speaker
So lesson learned.
00:03:37
Speaker
If you do that, you don't have reception.
00:03:40
Speaker
Learn from my mistake.
00:03:43
Speaker
Anyways, that being said, let's jump into the show here.
Reflecting on a Failed Sales Close
00:03:46
Speaker
So we're going to be going through one of my live closes.
00:03:48
Speaker
This was about a week and a half ago and I did not close the deal.
00:03:54
Speaker
These people, super solid husband, wife were there.
00:03:57
Speaker
They had pretty high bills, like, I don't know, $250 average, which is pretty high in California.
00:04:04
Speaker
I just could not close them.
00:04:06
Speaker
And there are several mistakes I made, but the first, I don't know, a couple of mistakes early on that I identified is number one, I was not building enough urgency in general throughout this close.
00:04:20
Speaker
I did bring some things up.
00:04:22
Speaker
I said, hey, net metering could be changing in California.
00:04:25
Speaker
Hey, tax credits are running out.
00:04:28
Speaker
But I did not touch on them enough.
00:04:31
Speaker
And the other thing I did, some of these things you'll hear, I did not bring them up until the end of the close.
00:04:38
Speaker
And if you think about it, these things are going to be way more effective if you sprinkle them throughout the close, especially in the beginning stages.
00:04:46
Speaker
Because if you try to do what I did, and that's you wait until the end of the close when they're having objections, when they're trying to stall, what are they going to do?
00:04:54
Speaker
They're going to sniff that out.
00:04:55
Speaker
They're going to say, okay, this guy's just saying this stuff now because I'm hesitant to sign the documents.
00:05:01
Speaker
And so if I would have brought these things up earlier on, then I don't run into that issue
Building Trust in Sales
00:05:06
Speaker
as much.
00:05:06
Speaker
They buy it more.
00:05:08
Speaker
So that's one mistake.
00:05:10
Speaker
The second mistake I made, I did skip some steps earlier.
00:05:14
Speaker
The three beliefs that your customer should have is number one, they need to believe in you.
00:05:20
Speaker
They need to trust you as someone that's going to be there for them, help them in every step of the process.
00:05:25
Speaker
The second, they need to trust your product.
00:05:28
Speaker
They need to trust that solar is going to work for them.
00:05:30
Speaker
Trust that we have the solution to their problem.
00:05:33
Speaker
And number three, they need to trust the company.
00:05:36
Speaker
And you'll hear here in a minute that they did not trust the company.
00:05:41
Speaker
I didn't, in fact, I didn't even touch on the company.
00:05:43
Speaker
I didn't even bring it up at all.
00:05:45
Speaker
Hey, you shouldn't have to wait till the close for the customer to even know which company you're a part of.
00:05:50
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:52
Speaker
And so this cost me, this is another thing that I kind of had to backtrack and
00:05:57
Speaker
talk about my company, and didn't look great.
00:06:02
Speaker
So those are probably the two main things that I felt could have been improved upon.
00:06:07
Speaker
You'll probably hear a few more, and we're not going to go through this entire thing.
Using Humor and Rapport in Sales
00:06:11
Speaker
This is like an hour and 20 minutes I have recorded of it.
00:06:14
Speaker
I'm going to just skip to some key sections.
00:06:17
Speaker
You're going to hear my first attempt at a close.
00:06:21
Speaker
You're going to hear the objections, the stalls the customer brings up, the homeowners bring up.
00:06:26
Speaker
You're going to hear my attempts to overcome them.
00:06:28
Speaker
And let's see what you think.
00:06:31
Speaker
Okay, so let me know if you like this type of content.
00:06:35
Speaker
Hey, maybe it's boring to you.
00:06:37
Speaker
Maybe it's not as helpful.
00:06:39
Speaker
But I would love to get also recordings from other people of your closes, of your door presentations.
00:06:45
Speaker
And we can do, you know, breakdowns of that.
00:06:48
Speaker
I'm thinking of bringing on some other people that are heavy hitters in solar that could help me do these breakdowns.
00:06:56
Speaker
So let's see what you think.
00:06:57
Speaker
So I'm going to skip to my first attempt at the close.
00:07:02
Speaker
Let's get into it.
00:07:02
Speaker
Let me ask you guys, assuming we could get it approved, obviously we have to come check the roof.
00:07:08
Speaker
We have to kind of do our thing.
00:07:09
Speaker
But assuming everything does check out on our end, can you guys think of any reason that it wouldn't be a good idea?
00:07:15
Speaker
I don't know.
00:07:21
Speaker
the people doing.
00:07:24
Speaker
Okay, so there you hear my first attempt.
00:07:26
Speaker
I'd gone through the presentation, gone through everything.
00:07:30
Speaker
My first attempt is closing as, hey, look, if everything did go according to plans, we can approve your home.
00:07:39
Speaker
Obviously, you're doing a takeaway, making them want it.
00:07:42
Speaker
Say, we got to check our roof, we got to do our part.
00:07:44
Speaker
But if everything checks out, can you guys think of any reason this wouldn't be a good fit or a good option for your situation?
00:07:52
Speaker
And she gave me the first stall, first objection, which is what I just talked about before, is that she didn't know what the company was.
00:07:59
Speaker
So mistake on my end.
00:08:01
Speaker
And another thing I could have done there that I didn't, something that I actually just learned from Michael O'Donnell's book, is that is just really to figure out if there are any other concerns or objections.
00:08:15
Speaker
And so a way to do this and be like, okay, no, that's a good question.
00:08:18
Speaker
That's a good concern.
00:08:20
Speaker
Hypothetically, let's say the company is perfect, five stars.
00:08:23
Speaker
Would there be anything else, any other concerns you guys would have about doing this?
00:08:29
Speaker
Would that be the only thing?
00:08:31
Speaker
Would that be the only thing you need to look at?
00:08:34
Speaker
And really just figure out, is this the only thing?
00:08:38
Speaker
Is this a true concern, true objection?
00:08:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:42
Speaker
But anyways, you'll hear, you know, I start talking about the company and we'll brush over this a little bit, but.
00:08:48
Speaker
Sorry, I don't even know if I mentioned that, but they're called Milhollins.
00:08:51
Speaker
They're the people that actually come put the panels up there.
00:08:54
Speaker
Sorry.
00:08:55
Speaker
And yeah, you obviously look them up and everything, but they've been doing this 30 years.
00:08:58
Speaker
I don't know.
00:09:00
Speaker
Obviously your natives with everybody, but they got 4.5 stars.
00:09:03
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah, there's no perfect.
00:09:08
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, to be blunt, there's like cheap stuff out there you guys could go on.
00:09:13
Speaker
I mean, I actually like hearing that it's not a perfect score because that's
00:09:27
Speaker
And so you hear kind of how I resolve this a little bit.
00:09:31
Speaker
Again, I should have brought this up earlier throughout the presentation.
00:09:35
Speaker
But something that I felt went well is that I did bring up the negatives, right?
00:09:41
Speaker
You bring up that there are negatives with every company.
00:09:44
Speaker
There's no company, perfect company out there.
00:09:47
Speaker
The people got to know the bad too.
00:09:50
Speaker
And I think this built a little bit of trust, you know, as I talked about this, is she saw that I wasn't just trying to say we're perfect.
00:09:59
Speaker
right?
00:09:59
Speaker
But it helps that I can bring up the negatives.
00:10:01
Speaker
And then later in the close, I did actually pull up, you know, the pages, Better Business Bureau, the Google reviews, I pulled this up so she could see.
00:10:13
Speaker
But to no avail, she wanted to look at herself.
00:10:19
Speaker
So anyways, that's a little section of that.
00:10:20
Speaker
Now let's skip a little bit forward from this.
00:10:28
Speaker
on everything.
00:10:29
Speaker
People that are going to do the installation.
00:10:31
Speaker
So if the guys come up and do the installation and they put up the panels and they break our roof tile, they break something on my roof.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah, then we're just going to send Curtis up there.
00:10:47
Speaker
I've got that insurance on him, so don't even think that it's not a good idea.
00:10:55
Speaker
Okay, another little, you know, thing.
00:10:58
Speaker
Hopefully you're doing this, but always use humor in those pressure situations.
00:11:03
Speaker
If you're just serious, just going back and forth on resolving these, sometimes it's going to make it a lot harder.
00:11:09
Speaker
So that was my attempt at using a little bit of humor.
00:11:12
Speaker
Her concern was, hey, what if you guys break my roof tiles up there?
00:11:19
Speaker
I joke around and say, hey, we're going to send your husband up there.
00:11:21
Speaker
Is that cool?
00:11:23
Speaker
Try and get him to laugh.
00:11:24
Speaker
And then you'll see we kind of start talking about other things, which is good.
00:11:28
Speaker
You want it kind of going off the topic, talking about some other things, then coming back into your clothes.
00:11:34
Speaker
So you hear that's what I did.
00:11:35
Speaker
We diverted a little bit.
00:11:36
Speaker
We talked about how she wants insurance on her husband, whatever, how she has insurance on her husband, which I actually hadn't really heard of that.
00:11:44
Speaker
I'm like, okay, that's cool.
00:11:47
Speaker
And she goes on to tell me why it's good to have insurance on your spouse.
00:11:53
Speaker
So yeah, build some rapport with that.
00:11:56
Speaker
And then after that, you'll hear I go straight back into an assumption close.
00:12:01
Speaker
Some people do not know how to do this, but you got to learn how to take it from your pick and roll, going off topic, building some rapport, and then bringing it back into the assumptive closing process.
00:12:21
Speaker
best advice I can give you having kids too.
00:12:24
Speaker
Take that accident and turns.
00:12:25
Speaker
I know it sounds ridiculous and I pay for it every month, but between broken arms,
00:12:32
Speaker
Another tip for report building, people love giving advice.
00:12:35
Speaker
So you'll hear if she comes back to this.
00:12:37
Speaker
I had asked her for like, you know, parenting tips before.
00:12:41
Speaker
And now she's coming back, giving me advice, which people love that.
00:12:46
Speaker
If you ask for advice, side note.
00:12:49
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:13:01
Speaker
Yeah, but to answer your question, yeah, they do.
00:13:04
Speaker
They do cover obviously anything that could happen up there.
00:13:07
Speaker
They're liable for the roof.
00:13:08
Speaker
They're liable for anything that could happen up there.
00:13:12
Speaker
Yeah, not a perfect company.
00:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, there's probably one out of every 20 worth of broken stuff.
00:13:17
Speaker
They have to come back and fix something.
00:13:18
Speaker
But yeah, just come back and check it out there.
Creating Urgency in Sales
00:13:22
Speaker
So there you hear another little trial close that I attempted.
00:13:52
Speaker
And at this point, I was feeling pretty confident that we would get them because usually as you're going through these, it's my first little close, my second little trial close.
00:14:01
Speaker
Hey, when would be better?
00:14:03
Speaker
Kind of the time slot close for the site survey, morning or afternoon.
00:14:07
Speaker
And what I'm trying to do is slowly funnel them in to the application process, right?
00:14:13
Speaker
So usually at this point, if you can get them to start agreeing with that, start seeing themselves, having the site survey done, they're pretty sold.
00:14:20
Speaker
But you'll see the wife, she comes back and she ultimately starts shutting things down.
00:14:26
Speaker
You can start to hear the husband is the one more sold on this.
00:14:29
Speaker
He starts talking about them, basically picturing them with solar on their roof, talking about the product, but the wife, not so much.
00:14:37
Speaker
So she starts to slowly shut it down, unfortunately.
00:14:40
Speaker
But another great way to do it is do that assumptive site survey time slot close.
00:14:46
Speaker
Yeah, they usually don't even need to come in the house.
00:14:50
Speaker
So yeah, they just check the panel and then their roof is all.
00:14:54
Speaker
But they're going to do the documents and all that stuff too, so.
00:15:02
Speaker
I guess we have the latest all that going on.
00:15:04
Speaker
I'm like, geez.
00:15:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:08
Speaker
We've never had anybody up there.
00:15:12
Speaker
Again, apologize, just skipping through some of this stuff because we start talking about random stuff, gate codes and all that.
00:15:17
Speaker
So that's what you're hearing right now, trying to filter through the stuff that's not as useful.
00:15:22
Speaker
But another lesson we learned, don't be afraid to, you know, again, talk about random stuff as you're going through this close.
00:15:30
Speaker
Because closing, it can get serious, but the more you can kind of distract from this, weave in and out of it.
00:15:36
Speaker
Sometimes you'll be surprised they had an objection.
00:15:38
Speaker
You'll start talking about random stuff, report bill, and then they'll completely forget about it.
00:15:43
Speaker
Just go back into it.
00:15:44
Speaker
So that is why you're hearing some of that.
00:15:46
Speaker
I don't think I'll have to look at it when it was close.
00:15:49
Speaker
It is.
00:15:50
Speaker
or anything, but they just verify that's decent.
00:15:54
Speaker
And then I get you all this in writing.
00:15:56
Speaker
So obviously you guys will have more than just my scribbles on a piece of paper there.
00:16:00
Speaker
You got all the numbers and everything in writing.
00:16:04
Speaker
And then a couple of forms.
00:16:05
Speaker
One goes to the state, one goes to Edison.
00:16:07
Speaker
So we hopefully start getting that net metering approval.
00:16:12
Speaker
And then as long as everything's approved, it takes us typically about a week or so to hopefully fully approve everything on our end.
00:16:18
Speaker
If it is, then great.
00:16:19
Speaker
Then they'd obviously start, you know, getting permission from the city, HOA, and doing everything they need to do after that.
00:16:25
Speaker
But if it's not, then they just call you and say, all right, Curtis, I don't know.
00:16:28
Speaker
We can't do it.
00:16:29
Speaker
Hopefully we're still friends after that.
00:16:31
Speaker
You guys are not going to be mad at me if we can't do it, are you?
00:16:34
Speaker
How long is the take of it typically to get going on?
00:16:41
Speaker
So you can hear the husband, he's asking more buying questions.
00:16:44
Speaker
How long does it typically take to get this project started, get this done?
00:16:49
Speaker
Buying question right there.
00:16:51
Speaker
Which you can tell he's more sold on it.
00:16:53
Speaker
He's asking the buying questions.
00:16:54
Speaker
Okay, but I'm walking him through the process.
00:16:57
Speaker
Again, I'm making them feel like it's not their decision.
00:17:01
Speaker
It's more on can we approve the home or not.
00:17:03
Speaker
I'm trying the takeaway.
00:17:05
Speaker
So you want to take the pressure off the decision and put the pressure on the actual application, on the utility approving it, on their home getting approved.
00:17:16
Speaker
That should be what's factoring the decision more than them deciding yes or no.
00:17:24
Speaker
So that's what I'm doing right there.
Assumptive Closing Techniques
00:17:29
Speaker
They're working.
00:17:31
Speaker
I think they have been here before, but with the people we're working with, they haven't gotten anyone installed yet since I've been here.
00:17:36
Speaker
I think they have been here.
00:17:37
Speaker
Don't have to get a hold of anybody, so.
00:17:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:41
Speaker
Get permission.
00:17:43
Speaker
Deal with all that as long as we can get the approval first.
00:17:47
Speaker
But, yeah, that's just a day.
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, it takes a day.
00:17:50
Speaker
Someone's going up there.
00:18:02
Speaker
And so this part, I mean, the way it works, you guys have about a week to, I mean, we have to do our approval.
00:18:10
Speaker
That takes us about a week.
00:18:11
Speaker
Right.
00:18:11
Speaker
And then obviously you guys get everything in, you know, talk about it, ask any other questions, whatever.
00:18:17
Speaker
And then assuming we're both good after that week, then yeah, obviously we'd start going after that.
00:18:22
Speaker
But if we can't do it, we let you know.
00:18:24
Speaker
And if for some reason you guys wake up in the next day or two and decide it's a terrible idea, then by all means, you can let us know too.
00:18:32
Speaker
I don't know if you heard that, Andrea.
00:18:35
Speaker
I just said it takes us about a week to approve it.
00:18:37
Speaker
So you guys have that whole time, dude, obviously.
00:18:39
Speaker
You know, we'll get you everything in writing.
00:18:41
Speaker
So you're hearing there, the wife, she's objecting.
00:18:44
Speaker
She does not want to submit the application.
00:18:47
Speaker
And it was going good until that.
00:18:49
Speaker
You know, husband, he was sounding like he's ready to roll on it.
00:18:53
Speaker
He asked the wife, honey, what do you want to do?
00:18:56
Speaker
I let him.
00:18:57
Speaker
I give him silence, hear what she has to say.
00:18:59
Speaker
She says, no, I don't want to do that until we sit down and talk about it.
00:19:04
Speaker
And I make an attempt to pull back a little bit.
00:19:07
Speaker
to give them, obviously this isn't ideal.
00:19:10
Speaker
You want them hopefully thinking they're making a decision.
00:19:13
Speaker
Yes or no.
00:19:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:14
Speaker
So as much as possible, um, it's better to not have to do as much as a soft close as I'm doing right here.
00:19:21
Speaker
Cause I'm really selling it hard on the fact that, okay, well you guys have the time to look at it, to think about it.
00:19:27
Speaker
It's going to take us the week.
00:19:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:29
Speaker
And I'm not telling them anything false.
00:19:31
Speaker
We do have to come do our site survey.
00:19:33
Speaker
And which in our process that usually takes a week to do the site survey and get the results back from that.
00:19:39
Speaker
So I'm not telling them anything that's false.
00:19:41
Speaker
Okay, but really, I'm just pushing them to get that application in to hopefully get the credit rolling.
00:19:47
Speaker
Because what I found is if I can get people to actually submit the credit application.
00:19:53
Speaker
Then most of the time I'm going to get them to fill out the actual agreement and you know, the contract, the forms as you should be calling them.
00:20:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:03
Speaker
Always call them forms.
00:20:04
Speaker
Don't say contract, but if you can get them just taking those first steps, it's like a funnel.
00:20:09
Speaker
You're trying to get them just take baby step after baby step.
00:20:13
Speaker
And that's the whole closing process.
00:20:15
Speaker
That is my closing process.
00:20:17
Speaker
It's how can I make a tiny commitment and push a little bit further, then a little bit further, then a little bit further,
00:20:23
Speaker
You're not going to dump it all on them at once.
00:20:25
Speaker
If you just went into someone's house and said, hey, what's your social security number?
00:20:29
Speaker
What's your blood type?
00:20:31
Speaker
They're not going to give you that.
00:20:32
Speaker
But it's taking those baby steps towards the close.
00:20:36
Speaker
And that is what I've found to be the easiest way to do it.
00:20:40
Speaker
And that's my attempt right there, but again, the wife shut it down.
00:20:44
Speaker
And she was a little bit distracted at this point.
00:20:47
Speaker
You can hear that I kind of have to rope her back in.
Overcoming Objections and Persistence
00:20:50
Speaker
Probably wasn't as smooth as I could have been, but I'm attempting to just pull back to make them feel like they have the time to look it over, which they do.
00:20:58
Speaker
It's not a lie.
00:21:00
Speaker
And then try and push to get the credit run right there, which I know should give me a decent chance at getting it closed.
00:21:14
Speaker
well okay that's kind of the process works it's Jerry changing the rooms on his
00:21:45
Speaker
See if it's something that I've been comfortable with.
00:21:48
Speaker
Change, like, don't make me change something.
00:21:51
Speaker
Gosh.
00:21:52
Speaker
I know, change is terrible.
00:21:55
Speaker
I know, Edison's a great company, but... Yes, I know you have a new friend, but you just always want to be your friend.
00:22:04
Speaker
Come here.
00:22:06
Speaker
Okay, so you hear some dogs running around in the background there.
00:22:09
Speaker
That's what that is.
00:22:10
Speaker
But basically, what it comes down to is the wife, she does not trust me.
00:22:14
Speaker
I already told her the company was decent.
00:22:18
Speaker
I already overcame some of it, but she's stalling.
00:22:20
Speaker
She does not trust it.
00:22:22
Speaker
She's worried about the things that could go wrong, and it's a lack of trust.
00:22:29
Speaker
I keep trying.
00:22:30
Speaker
I hang in there.
00:22:32
Speaker
but can't get it done.
00:22:33
Speaker
I pull up reviews from the company.
00:22:35
Speaker
Maybe I'll skip into some of that, but that's basically the close and basically how it ended.
00:22:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:41
Speaker
And so let's see, I'll skip through another couple of sections here, see if there's anything useful, but it's kind of what it came down to.
00:22:57
Speaker
research all your stuff too.
00:22:59
Speaker
Cause yeah, we're not asking you guys to be like a thousand percent right now, but yeah, obviously if we can get it approved and then assuming you guys are good.
00:23:09
Speaker
Okay, all right, we'll get going on it.
00:23:11
Speaker
What this does, it just allows us to also lock in your Edison application.
00:23:15
Speaker
Because yeah, what they're trying to change, it's... So here's another example of how I'm trying to push urgency on them right now, but it doesn't really work because I should have done this towards the beginning.
00:23:29
Speaker
But she knows the white Andrea she can probably tell she can sniff it out that I'm just saying this to try and get her to submit it And it may even backfire on me, but that's the mistake I made What they're trying to change Yeah You guys don't get too many allergies out here to you?
00:23:49
Speaker
No Any other questions and we'll be in touch as they're kind of getting that approval as well.
00:23:54
Speaker
Does that sound fair?
00:23:56
Speaker
I don't want to sign anything today.
00:23:57
Speaker
I don't want anything in my credit.
00:24:00
Speaker
I know it's a soft look, but I don't want to sign anything.
00:24:03
Speaker
So I make another attempt.
00:24:04
Speaker
We go through, you know, I overcome that little objection, you know, go through the net metering stuff, make another attempt.
00:24:13
Speaker
And again, she's stalling.
00:24:15
Speaker
She doesn't want to run the credits.
00:24:17
Speaker
I tell her it's a soft check, yada, yada, yada, but it just comes down.
00:24:21
Speaker
She's just pulling out everything in the book to not do anything today.
00:24:32
Speaker
Okay, well, we did just have Curtis's name on air.
00:24:35
Speaker
So, I mean, is that okay if we just do it on her?
00:24:38
Speaker
Curtis's name and then, I mean, it's the soft check on his name.
00:24:41
Speaker
But, I mean, I know it doesn't like bring down the credit or anything.
00:24:45
Speaker
My parents did this too, so.
00:24:49
Speaker
Yeah, that part I know for sure.
00:24:50
Speaker
I mean, she pays the bill, so I'd rather just let her look into if that's what she wants to do and then
00:25:03
Speaker
To be fair, it's like if I purchase on anything, we want to make sure that it's the right thing for us.
00:25:09
Speaker
Like I said, we still typically have another house that we could move to that we're... So, you hear what I try.
00:25:18
Speaker
I say, hey, let's just do it in the husband's name.
00:25:21
Speaker
He's okay with it.
00:25:22
Speaker
So I make...
00:25:24
Speaker
A little attempt to just take her out of it.
00:25:27
Speaker
Just let the husband take the blame for whatever happens.
00:25:31
Speaker
You can see it doesn't work.
00:25:35
Speaker
Not going too good at this point.
00:25:36
Speaker
Things are going pretty downhill.
00:25:38
Speaker
They're pretty made up on their decision.
00:25:41
Speaker
And after this, I think that's all we'll listen to, but I did make one more attempt.
00:25:47
Speaker
And that's another lesson.
00:25:48
Speaker
Just never give up.
00:25:49
Speaker
Always keep yourself in the close.
00:25:52
Speaker
You can see that this was like my third attempt at the closing, even though they already told me, no, we want to wait.
00:25:58
Speaker
We want to talk about it.
00:25:59
Speaker
I make one more attempt.
00:26:00
Speaker
I think that was four attempts.
00:26:03
Speaker
Probably could have done more, but my mind kind of blanked out, ran out of closes.
00:26:07
Speaker
So that is a secret.
00:26:09
Speaker
Make sure you have enough closes and enough ways to keep redirecting that you can keep going on and on and on without sounding pressure, pressure without sounding pushy.
00:26:20
Speaker
You can redirect and keep attempting another close because it may take seven to 10 closes before you can lock people down.
Last-Ditch Closing Tactics and Lessons Learned
00:26:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:30
Speaker
And so the next close I tried was I tried to throw in a little incentive.
00:26:35
Speaker
I said, Hey, we're going to,
00:26:37
Speaker
What we do, our company, they're trying to schedule all their site surveys for the same time.
00:26:43
Speaker
So they don't always do this, but I know they are trying to fill their schedule for next week.
00:26:49
Speaker
If I could get them to offer you, I don't know, 500 bucks or maybe a discounted rate, something like that.
00:26:57
Speaker
Could we at least get your application in to lock this, you know, lock in the numbers I've told you, get your application in.
00:27:05
Speaker
You guys still have time to look over and worst case back out if you have to.
00:27:10
Speaker
But we'd get you some sort of incentive for helping them out.
00:27:14
Speaker
So that was my last kind of Hail Mary attempt.
00:27:17
Speaker
Tried to throw in the little incentive, the bonus clothes.
00:27:20
Speaker
Did not work.
00:27:21
Speaker
Wife still shut it down.
00:27:23
Speaker
Still did not want to do anything.
00:27:26
Speaker
And that was basically it after that.
00:27:29
Speaker
Looking back, I should have tried the competition close.
00:27:31
Speaker
It's another great one.
00:27:33
Speaker
Saying, hey, our company is in a competition right now.
00:27:36
Speaker
I know you guys need to think about this.
00:27:38
Speaker
I know you need to review all the numbers.
00:27:40
Speaker
But we're down by two points against our other side.
00:27:46
Speaker
Even if you're not, you're always in a competition.
00:27:48
Speaker
You don't have to be actively being in a competition.
00:27:51
Speaker
Don't lie about it.
00:27:52
Speaker
But you can be in a competition with yourself, whatever.
00:27:56
Speaker
say, hey, it's for a pair of shoes.
00:27:59
Speaker
It's for this and that.
00:28:00
Speaker
I'll give you guys that.
00:28:02
Speaker
But it really mean a lot.
00:28:04
Speaker
You can be the LeBron James.
00:28:06
Speaker
You can hit the game winner for me.
00:28:08
Speaker
So I'd really appreciate it.
00:28:13
Speaker
Could we get this in just to help the team win and you still have the time you need?
00:28:18
Speaker
And just throwing in that kind of personal touch, right?
00:28:22
Speaker
Not making it so businessy, but almost asking them a personal favor.
00:28:26
Speaker
So that's another kind of last ditch Hail Mary clothes that I probably would have attempted.
00:28:32
Speaker
Probably wouldn't have worked.
00:28:33
Speaker
The wife was pretty made up, basically made up her mind at that point.
00:28:38
Speaker
But that's how it goes.
00:28:39
Speaker
You're not going to get them all.
00:28:41
Speaker
Okay, I know there's other things I could have done.
00:28:44
Speaker
So I'd love to hear the feedback.
00:28:45
Speaker
Maybe our listeners can give me some feedback.
00:28:48
Speaker
I'm still learning every day.
00:28:50
Speaker
I know there's closures that probably could have locked this one down.
00:28:53
Speaker
But that's how it goes.
00:28:55
Speaker
And so on to the next one.
00:28:56
Speaker
You're not going to win them all.
Maintaining Emotional Control in Sales
00:28:58
Speaker
And most important thing I've seen in this business during this six years now, never get too high, never get too low.
00:29:05
Speaker
Maybe I would have closed this one, but then they cancel the next day.
00:29:08
Speaker
Okay, so you can't get too jacked up on your closes.
00:29:11
Speaker
You got to keep an even keel and just keep moving forward.
00:29:14
Speaker
Focus on the controllables, the thing you can control.
00:29:18
Speaker
And that's what I found to be the most helpful.
00:29:20
Speaker
Because when you let your emotions control you, when you let people anger you, they control you.
00:29:27
Speaker
He who angers you controls you.
00:29:29
Speaker
As my friend Taylor McCarthy says.
00:29:32
Speaker
And so hopefully that was helpful to some of you.
00:29:35
Speaker
I look forward to hopefully doing more closing breakdowns.
00:29:39
Speaker
And that's what it's about.
00:29:42
Speaker
I would definitely recommend recording and closes because I learned a lot just listening back.
00:29:46
Speaker
It's amazing what you can learn just listening back without any feedback from anyone.
00:29:51
Speaker
This was so helpful for me, just breaking it down for myself and really analyzing what I could have done better.
00:29:58
Speaker
Same thing that pro athletes do.
00:30:01
Speaker
Same thing that any professional does when he's trying to improve is they track it, they measure it, they adjust it, they go back and listen to the play-by-play, see what they could have done better.
00:30:12
Speaker
Our field is no different.
00:30:13
Speaker
That is what we should be doing in solar if we really want to maximize our results and make improvements.
00:30:19
Speaker
So hopefully that helps.
00:30:20
Speaker
Send this to someone who could use some help on their closes.
00:30:25
Speaker
And we look forward to hearing you on the next episode.
Top Solarpreneur Episodes Cheat Sheet
00:30:29
Speaker
Share this, like this, send this to someone who could get some value from it.
00:30:34
Speaker
And appreciate you guys.
00:30:36
Speaker
Love you and see you on the next episode.
00:30:39
Speaker
What's up, Solopreneurs?
00:30:40
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:30:41
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.
00:30:52
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:30:59
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:31:02
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:31:07
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.
00:31:20
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.
00:31:29
Speaker
So go download it right now.
00:31:30
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:31:34
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:31:39
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:31:42
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:31:44
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:31:46
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:31:51
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:31:52
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.