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How To Still Make Money Even If Your Accounts Cancel
86 Plays1 year 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
From $50 to 150 Deals: Taylor's Solar Success Story
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.
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.
The Solopreneur's Path to Mastery
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.
Profiting from Canceled Deals
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, what's up, solopreneurs?
00:00:43
Speaker
Today, we're going to talk about how you can make money even if your deals cancel.
00:00:48
Speaker
Hey, we all hate them.
00:00:49
Speaker
Cancels are like one of the worst things about solar.
00:00:53
Speaker
But recently, I had a deal that canceled, and I still was able to make
00:00:59
Speaker
$2,000 on it.
00:01:00
Speaker
So I'm going to tell you guys how I did that and help you be more profitable, even when you might be struggling with some cancels.
00:01:08
Speaker
Hey, so welcome back to the podcast or welcome if you're newer.
00:01:11
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:01:12
Speaker
We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:01:19
Speaker
We are free and available on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, wherever you can find your podcasts.
00:01:25
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in.
00:01:26
Speaker
And we're coming at you every Tuesday and Friday.
00:01:30
Speaker
And so this is kind of a crazy story.
00:01:32
Speaker
It has, I guess, somewhat of a happy ending, some negatives about it, some positives, part of being in the solar coaster.
Challenges in Solar Sales: A Close Call
00:01:41
Speaker
But the way this episode came about is I had a deal.
00:01:46
Speaker
This was actually a mobile home out here in near San Diego where I'm at.
00:01:51
Speaker
And this account, it was going great.
00:01:53
Speaker
There's an older Mexican gentleman.
00:01:56
Speaker
He was one of those guys that just like goes with the flow.
00:01:59
Speaker
Wasn't like a super tough deal to close.
00:02:03
Speaker
Um, but you've probably had those accounts to where they're like lay down sales to where sometimes the littlest thing will set them off and they'll just be like, you know what?
00:02:13
Speaker
I don't want to go slower anymore.
00:02:14
Speaker
So this guy was funny.
00:02:16
Speaker
He was excited about it, but then he kind of lost some motivation.
00:02:21
Speaker
I had to go back.
00:02:22
Speaker
I had to re-explain the benefits, got him excited about it again.
00:02:26
Speaker
And then, um, we had to get the approval from his park.
00:02:29
Speaker
He was in a mobile community.
00:02:32
Speaker
And so that took, I, that took some handholding.
00:02:35
Speaker
I had to go to the park manager with him, um, show him the plans, get those approvals.
00:02:41
Speaker
And by the end of that, he, I thought he was solid.
00:02:44
Speaker
He was good to go.
00:02:45
Speaker
Um, but then three days later, right after I would hold his hand, take him, I pick him up in my car, take him to the park office.
00:02:52
Speaker
And, you know, we're good friends.
00:02:55
Speaker
And the crew shows up the day of the install and
00:02:58
Speaker
They climb on this guy's roof.
00:03:01
Speaker
And right is there, I think, from what I heard from the installers, I wasn't actually at the home when this was happening.
00:03:09
Speaker
But from what the installers told me, they were like unpacking panels out of their trucks to install them up there.
00:03:16
Speaker
And he comes out and he says, guys, I don't want to go through with this.
00:03:19
Speaker
Call it off.
00:03:20
Speaker
I get a message.
00:03:21
Speaker
And so I'm calling frantically.
00:03:23
Speaker
And I call him.
00:03:24
Speaker
get a hold of the homeowner.
00:03:25
Speaker
And he's just like, yeah, you know what?
00:03:27
Speaker
I don't want to go through with this.
00:03:28
Speaker
I'm nervous about these panels going up.
00:03:31
Speaker
I've had termite damage on the back of my house, worried about the roof.
00:03:35
Speaker
So I tell him that, hey, we already approved your roof.
00:03:38
Speaker
We're going to be maintaining that.
00:03:40
Speaker
We're on the hook for the roof as well.
00:03:42
Speaker
Just throw everything at him.
00:03:43
Speaker
But he's like, no, no.
00:03:45
Speaker
you know what, just no, I don't want to do this.
00:03:47
Speaker
So at that point, obviously, for me, it's extremely disappointing.
00:03:51
Speaker
You know, I'm hours away from having glass on the roof, about a week out from getting a pretty good commission on this account.
00:04:01
Speaker
And poof, it just, you know, implodes like that.
Invoicing Canceled Deals: A Strategy for Recovery
00:04:05
Speaker
So here's what I did after this and how I approached it, where I still made a little bit of money, not, um,
00:04:14
Speaker
what I would have made on the commission, but I still was able to come away with a few thousand.
00:04:18
Speaker
And this is what I think everyone should be doing.
00:04:22
Speaker
And that is you should be invoicing your customers.
00:04:25
Speaker
If they are, especially if they're pretty far along the process or heaven forbid, they're canceling at install,
00:04:32
Speaker
These people need to be, I think they need to be held responsible.
00:04:36
Speaker
So it's like how much time has gone into this project?
00:04:39
Speaker
Okay, people have spent time, effort, money on the project.
00:04:44
Speaker
So I think like, yeah, they should be liable to pay back some of that to compensate us.
00:04:49
Speaker
Hey, and some of you, you may be with an installer where they do have cancellation fees.
00:04:55
Speaker
Personally, most installers that I have worked with and that I'm currently working with, most of them don't actually have cancellation fees, especially we are doing leases and PPAs out here in California.
00:05:06
Speaker
Most of them don't have any fees for it.
00:05:09
Speaker
But even if your installer doesn't, I would still recommend you personally write your customer an invoice.
00:05:16
Speaker
And the reasons why for this, well, number one, it's probably going to motivate them to rethink canceling, right?
00:05:24
Speaker
If they're far in the process, you hit them with an invoice, then they might think twice.
00:05:28
Speaker
I mean, they might be like, which I have had this happen.
00:05:31
Speaker
here and there as well, where they see the invoice and they're like, you know what, this is more than I thought.
00:05:38
Speaker
You know, okay, let's just go through it, I guess.
00:05:40
Speaker
And it pushed some more of the fence.
00:05:42
Speaker
Okay, so I'm going to walk, I'm going to give you four tips on this that hopefully help, but here's the process you can follow.
00:05:48
Speaker
And yeah, spoiler alert, I walked away with a couple thousand
00:05:53
Speaker
from just following this process and invoicing my customer.
00:05:56
Speaker
Okay, so you can probably tell now that this account is still did not go to install.
00:06:01
Speaker
But the silver lining is, yeah, I did, you know, still make a little bit on it.
00:06:05
Speaker
Okay, so here's the steps.
00:06:07
Speaker
Number one, just create the invoice like we're talking about.
00:06:10
Speaker
So if your company does not do invoices, this is pretty easy.
00:06:13
Speaker
You can literally just go Google chat GPT, whatever, just make you a simple invoice.
00:06:19
Speaker
You can have a virtual assistant do it.
00:06:22
Speaker
Should take very little time.
00:06:23
Speaker
So no need to spend a bunch of time on this.
00:06:26
Speaker
And then, yeah, just put all the reasons, you know, all the work that's gone into this.
00:06:31
Speaker
Right.
00:06:32
Speaker
Like we've paid site surveyors.
00:06:34
Speaker
We've paid project managers.
00:06:36
Speaker
Right.
00:06:37
Speaker
And you might want to, depending on the size of your company, maybe you talk to them and you guys like collaborate together where, you know, their company is getting paid back some, you're getting paid back some.
00:06:48
Speaker
If they don't do invoices at all, then yeah, you just send an invoice and collect it for yourself.
00:06:54
Speaker
But you may want to collaborate with your company because if they have put in quite a bit of work, I'm sure they would appreciate that they get some of the invoice if you can collect from the customer.
00:07:03
Speaker
Okay, and then what I did is you can go on a high level.
00:07:08
Speaker
Many of you have probably heard by now.
00:07:11
Speaker
It's pretty much, I think, the gold standard at this point for CRMs, customer relationship managers.
00:07:18
Speaker
You can do so many things on this CRM high level.
00:07:22
Speaker
So hit me up if you want access to that or more details.
00:07:26
Speaker
But you can create invoices on there.
00:07:28
Speaker
And then very simple, all you need to do is just create a Stripe account that is a payment processor.
00:07:35
Speaker
You can send out the invoice directly from HighLevel if you're using that.
00:07:39
Speaker
I'm sure it can integrate with other, you know, kind of template.
00:07:43
Speaker
I know there's Document Software, PandaDoc, DocuSign.
00:07:47
Speaker
I'm sure you can do similar things with those, but you can integrate it together and then you can have it so the customer can just pay from their card, from their routing or checking his account.
00:07:57
Speaker
with their routing and account number and then just pay directly from there.
Leveraging Solar Scout for Client Identification
00:08:01
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
00:08:06
Speaker
And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
00:08:12
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
00:08:17
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app.
00:08:21
Speaker
It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:08:26
Speaker
It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
00:08:35
Speaker
It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
00:08:40
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
00:08:44
Speaker
But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show.
00:08:47
Speaker
You need to give my listeners a great deal.
00:08:49
Speaker
And they did.
00:08:51
Speaker
So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up.
00:09:00
Speaker
That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
00:09:03
Speaker
Okay,
Fair Invoicing Practices for Canceled Deals
00:09:04
Speaker
back to the show.
00:09:04
Speaker
Okay, so that's the steps.
00:09:06
Speaker
Just create some type of invoice, send it out.
00:09:10
Speaker
And then just a little background on that.
00:09:13
Speaker
I would say just make the amounts.
00:09:16
Speaker
Um, not super small, but you don't want to make it like outrageously high either.
00:09:20
Speaker
Um, just a little backstory on that.
00:09:23
Speaker
I had one, um, the previous company I was with, they would do invoices and
00:09:30
Speaker
And they wouldn't actually like go after the customer, which I don't really know of any sort of companies that are actually taking people to collections if they don't pay.
00:09:41
Speaker
But the last company I was with, they were sending out just outrageous invoices and they would never collect.
00:09:47
Speaker
So like I'm talking like $5,000 plus invoices and customers just would not respond.
00:09:54
Speaker
And, you know, they would go to court over stuff like that.
00:09:58
Speaker
So I would say, depends on the demographic too, but make it high enough so it stings a little bit, but don't make it like so outrageously high that the customer is going to like freak out and say, you know, we're going to court over this because ideally you want to help them understand, but just make them see that it's fair.
00:10:16
Speaker
And the way I did this is you tell them the outrageous amount that it is supposed to be.
00:10:24
Speaker
So in my example, my invoice was $2,000.
00:10:29
Speaker
But I told the customer as I was sending him this invoice, hey, normally these things are $4,000 to $5,000 when we get to this point.
00:10:37
Speaker
And also you got to take into account what point of the project where they have.
00:10:41
Speaker
If they were like a few days past their cancellation, that's going to be obviously a different amount than if they were about to get their panels installed.
00:10:48
Speaker
So take that into account.
00:10:49
Speaker
And then when you call the customer and try to actually collect on these invoices, you tell them, hey, I actually got them to lower it.
00:10:57
Speaker
It was going to be $4,000.
00:10:57
Speaker
It's actually only $2,000.
00:11:00
Speaker
So still a lot, but hey, at least they feel like you helped them out.
00:11:04
Speaker
And at least it hopefully doesn't break the bank for them.
00:11:07
Speaker
They're just like, this stings.
00:11:09
Speaker
And the reason for that is because you want to ideally get them to stay with the account, like I mentioned before.
Retaining Clients with Financial Incentives
00:11:16
Speaker
And so what I did personally for this customer, and obviously didn't work, but this has worked too, is you go and you say, hey,
00:11:27
Speaker
look, instead of paying this $2,000, what our company has agreed to do is you stay with the account, you save money, we still get the panels up, you get all the benefits that we talked about, and we will pay you $1,000.
00:11:40
Speaker
We're going to pay for your first eight months of the bill, essentially.
00:11:45
Speaker
We'll pay you $1,000.
00:11:46
Speaker
And alternatively, if we can cancel it, you pay $2,000.
00:11:50
Speaker
But I'm fine with either one.
00:11:52
Speaker
But personally,
00:11:54
Speaker
I think it sounds like a way better idea to just get all the benefits, save money, and you're coming out on top.
00:11:59
Speaker
We give you $1,000 too.
00:12:01
Speaker
What do you think?
00:12:01
Speaker
Okay, so I've saved a decent amount of accounts doing that.
00:12:05
Speaker
It didn't work this time.
00:12:06
Speaker
The customer still chose to pay the $2,000.
00:12:07
Speaker
Okay, but something like that works well.
00:12:12
Speaker
And then a bonus tip with this, if you can't get a response when you send your customers an invoice,
00:12:20
Speaker
Most of the time we're collecting routing in account numbers when we sign documents, right?
00:12:25
Speaker
So kind of a threatening, you know, passive threatening text you can send is, hey, Mr. Customer, we have the account info on file for you.
00:12:35
Speaker
Do you want us to just go ahead and build that same account we have on file?
00:12:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:39
Speaker
I've had many customers who second they hear that, I get a response from them.
00:12:43
Speaker
And obviously we're not going to actually build account.
00:12:45
Speaker
We don't have authorization to build the account.
00:12:48
Speaker
you know, account for a cancellation that I know of, right?
00:12:53
Speaker
Especially on these PPAs and leases, but hey, it gets some attention.
00:12:57
Speaker
Yes, that's a little bonus tip for you.
00:12:59
Speaker
Hey, and then last two things with this.
00:13:01
Speaker
Yeah, I already went over offering a money, try to get them to remain active to get installed rather than cancel.
00:13:10
Speaker
And then worst case scenario, the last piece of this, you've tried everything.
00:13:15
Speaker
They're set on canceling.
00:13:17
Speaker
They pay you out.
00:13:18
Speaker
Hopefully you get paid out.
00:13:21
Speaker
The last piece of this is still try to get some referrals from this.
00:13:26
Speaker
hey, I still think you can get referrals from these customers.
00:13:30
Speaker
In my case, the customer still understood the benefits.
00:13:33
Speaker
He just was worried about his roof, I guess.
00:13:38
Speaker
He's an older guy.
00:13:40
Speaker
His bill was a little bit lower.
00:13:41
Speaker
So I guess he just felt like the risk didn't justify the return because he wasn't necessarily saving a ton of money.
00:13:50
Speaker
Um, so yeah, ended up not being able to get them, but make sure you try to mind some referrals.
00:13:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:56
Speaker
So in this story, um, I told the customer, Hey, um, it's unfortunate that we had to have you pay the cancellation fee.
00:14:05
Speaker
I definitely didn't want you to have to pay anything much rather you just gone solar.
00:14:09
Speaker
And I think that's a much better decision, but Hey, it's your home.
00:14:13
Speaker
But hey, one last thing, we'd love to be able to reimburse part of this.
00:14:18
Speaker
And so I know I mentioned our referral program, but if you can get us a few referrals, we can actually reimburse this and essentially make it so you're paying nothing.
00:14:29
Speaker
Hey, and there's another opportunity where you could get them excited too.
00:14:33
Speaker
You know, refer some people.
00:14:35
Speaker
If they're not going to do it, hey, have them refer some people and they can come out scotch-free from this.
Turning Cancellations into Referrals
00:14:41
Speaker
Hey, so that's the last piece of advice.
00:14:42
Speaker
Okay, so again, it's just simple as creating the invoice, sending it out, making the amount on the invoice painful, but not like...
00:14:52
Speaker
So painful that they just completely ghost you.
00:14:55
Speaker
And then just going to the customer and offering them money saying, hey, on the flip side, why don't we give you some money?
00:15:03
Speaker
Stay with this rather than you paying $2,000.
00:15:05
Speaker
What if we gave you $1,000 or whatever that amounts you want?
00:15:09
Speaker
So hope that helps.
00:15:10
Speaker
And I hope you don't have to go through these.
00:15:12
Speaker
I hope you don't have to have cancels.
00:15:13
Speaker
But if you do, and if obviously if they are past their right of rescission, for us personally, that's they have seven business days.
00:15:22
Speaker
Or actually, I think it's 10.
00:15:23
Speaker
We're using Everbright currently.
00:15:25
Speaker
I believe it's 10 business days they have.
00:15:27
Speaker
So anything past that.
00:15:29
Speaker
make sure they understand that, right?
00:15:32
Speaker
So make sure you go through the contract with them when you're signing it, okay?
00:15:35
Speaker
Because you don't want it to be a surprise that there's a potential penalty that's going to make it harder to collect.
00:15:41
Speaker
But you should say, hey, we just asked that you don't cancel after this because we are going to be spending money on the projects.
00:15:48
Speaker
Make sure they understand that.
00:15:50
Speaker
And then if they choose to, then hey, you should still be getting something out of it and hopefully saving the account that way too.
00:15:57
Speaker
Okay, so I hope this helps.
00:15:59
Speaker
Make sure you take care of yourself.
00:16:02
Speaker
Guys, we work too hard to be having people just not go solar.
00:16:06
Speaker
Hey, we need to help these people know that, hey, this is a good decision.
00:16:09
Speaker
And so send this to someone that is having a lot of cancels.
00:16:13
Speaker
And that's another episode is how to prevent cancellations.
00:16:16
Speaker
Because there's obviously things you can do to hopefully never put yourself in that position.
00:16:20
Speaker
But at the end of the day, no matter what you do, some people are going to cancel.
00:16:24
Speaker
Just how it goes.
00:16:25
Speaker
So I hope this helps.
00:16:27
Speaker
Let me know.
00:16:28
Speaker
Shoot me a DM or send me an email.
00:16:33
Speaker
If you have any advice on maybe invoicing your customers or preventing cancellations, we'd love to hear feedback from you guys and what's working.
00:16:43
Speaker
And we'll be coming at you with more FIRE content, more FIRE guests.
00:16:48
Speaker
So make sure you keep tuning in and we'll see you on the next one.
00:16:51
Speaker
Peace.
Introducing SoulCity: Learning for Solar Professionals
00:16:53
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
00:16:55
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.
00:17:04
Speaker
For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
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Speaker
That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals and
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And it's called Solcitee.
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This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day.
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Speaker
Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
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So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
00:18:03
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This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
00:18:10
Speaker
We'll see you on the inside.