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: Hey, Solopreneurs.
Speaker: Today we're going to be talking about what you should do if the customer says, I'm not signing anything today.
Speaker: Very common objection.
Speaker: Those that close deals know that this is something customers, they always want to procrastinate.
Speaker: They always want to put off signing today, sleep on it, whatever.
Speaker: So how can you push them past that hurdle?
Speaker: How can you get them past that objection?
Speaker: We're going to talk about it.
Speaker: Welcome to the show.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: We are free and available on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker: Every Tuesday and Friday, we're coming at you with fresh new content.
Speaker: Thank you for listening.
Speaker: If this is your first time, welcome to the show.
Speaker: You are about to up-level your solar game and make a whole lot more money.
Speaker: So, again, today we're talking about what can you do if you get this objection?
Speaker: I'm not signing today.
Speaker: Hey, recently, I actually today and then last Saturday, I had two pretty tough, pretty tough homeowners who were adamant like, hey, we're not signing today.
Speaker: We're not doing it.
Speaker: And luckily was able to get them both over the edge and get them to sign the docs.
Speaker: And so far, both of them have stuck.
Speaker: Hoping I don't jinx myself by doing this podcast, you know, because we get cancels from time to time.
Speaker: But I think it's a balance between a like pushing them over the edge, but not being like, you know, so pushy that you kill the deal and not causing them to cancel later.
Speaker: So let's talk about how to do it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And before that, just wanted to make a quick quick ask.
Speaker: If you have not left us a review, I
Speaker: or shared the show, please do it.
Speaker: I mean, we're at almost 500 episodes now.
Speaker: So especially if you listen to more than like five episodes, come on.
Speaker: Can you please share the show?
Speaker: Can you please leave us a review?
Speaker: That's what helps us grow.
Speaker: And speaking of that, we are looking for new guests to come on the show.
Speaker: So I've gotten a few messages, a few emails from comment.
Speaker: Very much appreciated.
Speaker: Thank you for giving me guest suggestions.
Speaker: I was telling one of my friends today that I try to get most of the podcasts recorded actually during events like SolarCon, DoorToDoorCon.
Speaker: Those are when I crank out a bunch of the content, a bunch of the podcasts.
Speaker: And we're all caught up on that.
Speaker: So run a little bit dry on podcast guests.
Speaker: So if you know anyone that is killing it in the industry, anyone that's doing something unique or has a cool story to tell, we'd love to connect with them.
Speaker: So shoot us a message.
Speaker: Okay, so let's jump into this.
Speaker: I'm going to play a little bit of the appointment from today.
Speaker: I actually started recording right when I got this objection.
Speaker: I think we had gone through most of the presentation already.
Speaker: And she says, Taylor, you know, it looks good, but I'm not signing anything today.
Speaker: I don't want to do it.
Speaker: So here's how this interaction went.
Speaker: And then I'll get into a few things that have been helping me lately.
Speaker: Yeah, the process.
Speaker: I'll show you their process.
Speaker: So basically, you guys have Intel done doing all that.
Speaker: We have to make sure we can do it.
Speaker: And then obviously, you guys sleep on it and talk to your mom and do everything you need to do.
Speaker: And as long as we approve it and as long as you guys still feel like it's a good thing, then great at that point.
Speaker: Yeah, so this is our process.
Speaker: So this is what we just started
Speaker: And then it's back and it's clear they were working hard.
Speaker: So basically it's up until you're at that point, they kind of want you guys to be, you know, decided to help with it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then they start moving forward on top of us.
Speaker: If you guys, I don't know, kind of a bit of a job, you know what?
Speaker: I think we like it.
Speaker: We're okay with the ring greases.
Speaker: Then yeah, you just let us know we wouldn't hate anything, but
Speaker: I've done that before and have hours and hours.
Speaker: And so I definitely want to think about it.
Speaker: I want to talk to my mom about it.
Speaker: And I just want to just make sure I sleep on it for my night for two nights and then go forward.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So can you give me your number and leave a card or something?
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: So we would submit an application and then there's like a few more to submit, get that first started.
Speaker: And it'll say in all that too that you have time to think about it, do everything you need to do.
Speaker: So I have to do this application right now?
Speaker: Yeah, they have it soon right now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then from there, yeah, they schedule.
Speaker: Because the thing is, if they can't do it, they can't make it work.
Speaker: What would you send from making it work?
Speaker: Well, big thing out here, I get credit, but you said you guys are pretty good as far as credit goes.
Speaker: seven to ten days, hopefully get a whole group.
Speaker: If it's not, we're just playing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Okay, so a couple things.
Speaker: You know, she's bringing up quite a few.
Speaker: You can tell she's cautious, doesn't want to be pushed into it.
Speaker: So this is a softer close, right?
Speaker: Ideally, you want people stoked and, hey, we're signing it today.
Speaker: We're doing it.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: But, you know, this is where it comes down to.
Speaker: Some people, they're like, I need to sleep on it, think about it.
Speaker: So in my opinion, it is, you know, it's better to get like a softer deal closed and worst case, tell them, hey, you got your time to think about it and just get the ball rolling.
Speaker: Because in my experience, you'll get way more deals that stick where you pushed them over the edge and they do it and they're like, you know what, we'll just do this versus people that just like don't sign.
Speaker: And then they just think about it paralysis by analysis.
Speaker: So I think you should do everything possible in the deal to get the doc signed, to get things going.
Speaker: And disclaimer, we are doing mostly power purchase agreements out here in California at the moment.
Speaker: Some people call it leases, right?
Speaker: Leases, power purchase agreements, similar.
Speaker: And so most of these contracts, it does like they have a pretty long cancellation window.
Speaker: Sunrun, which we use out here, they actually have it written in their contract that the customer can cancel up until the points of construction of installation.
Speaker: So, you know, it's not ideal.
Speaker: And actually, I don't love that.
Speaker: I wish it would say otherwise because nothing drives me crazier than customers canceling.
Speaker: when we have gotten permits and when we're ready to install and they're just like, no, we don't want to do it anymore.
Speaker: So it doesn't happen often, but it's happened a few times.
Speaker: And you want leverage to, you know, to actually get them to stick with the deal.
Speaker: So I wish it didn't say that.
Speaker: But anyways, if your contract does say that, then you can go through that.
Speaker: Just show it to them to ease their fears about saying, hey, you do have the time to think about it.
Speaker: Because what I like about that is before all contracts had the three-day writer rescission.
Speaker: And I think what would happen is sometimes people would be like, oh, we need to research it.
Speaker: three days and they would almost like stress themselves out thinking they had three days to do their thing.
Speaker: But I think I like the 10 day, I like that they have a 10 day cancellation window, which our other financer Everbright, they have a 10 day cancellation window written in their contract.
Speaker: And I like that just because 10 days,
Speaker: You know, it's plenty of time to research it, to feel good about it, do their thing.
Speaker: But it's almost like when people think they have plenty of time to think about it and sleep on it,
Speaker: They just like, they don't stress themselves out.
Speaker: They're still relaxed and they're going to look at it.
Speaker: But a lot of times they don't even like think about it and they just kind of forget.
Speaker: Um, and they're like, okay, you know what?
Speaker: This is good.
Speaker: Let's just do it.
Speaker: You know, they don't like feel a huge urgency that they need to go stress and look at all these things and make a decision right then in my experience.
Speaker: So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
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.
Speaker: But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Speaker: Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout.
Speaker: But it's not a door knocking app.
Speaker: It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
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.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
Speaker: I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
Speaker: But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show.
Speaker: You need to give my listeners a great deal.
Speaker: And they did.
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.
Speaker: That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show.
Speaker: Hey, but yeah, anyways, so that's how it goes.
Speaker: You make them feel good about it and then give them the reasons.
Speaker: And the idea is you get it more solidified the further you go.
Speaker: I tell all my reps, you think of this as a funnel, right?
Speaker: You're not saying the word contract.
Speaker: You're not saying we're making a final decision, but it's like one step at a time.
Speaker: You know, I heard this little fable.
Speaker: I don't know if it's a fable or a myth about, I think we used to hear this as like something in church when I was like a young man growing up.
Speaker: I think our like scout leaders and stuff would tell us about it.
Speaker: But he would always be like, hey, this is how the devil works.
Speaker: This is how the devil gets you to commit sins.
Speaker: And he would tell us this story about how there is this guy, there's this like Arabic guy in the desert and he pitches his tent in a sandstorm.
Speaker: And this camel comes in, this wild camel, I guess, comes to his tent and he's like, hey, you know, I just need to like be protected from the sand for a little bit.
Speaker: Will you please let me in?
Speaker: And the guy, the Arabic guy knows that he can't let just an animal inside there.
Speaker: He's not going to be protected enough from the storm.
Speaker: But eventually he gives in.
Speaker: He lets the animal, he lets the camel stick his neck in.
Speaker: And then the camel says, hey, you know what?
Speaker: I'm super uncomfortable here.
Speaker: Will you please let me just get like part of my body in?
Speaker: That's it, I promise.
Speaker: Then he inches himself more in.
Speaker: And then, you know, the parable with it was that this is how the devil gets us to sin.
Speaker: He just gets inches more and more, just like the camel inching in the tent.
Speaker: Okay, and so not that we're being the devil, maybe that's a bad comparison, but this is how we need to be though, right?
Speaker: We need to inch our way in.
Speaker: We need to make them feel comfortable with it.
Speaker: We're not deceiving them.
Speaker: We're not doing anything shady here, but I think as we make them feel comfortable with one step, hey, we're submitting the application today.
Speaker: You know, here in California, we have to sign the California Consumer Protection Guide, which is a document from the state, you know, detailing all the facts about solar.
Speaker: So a lot of times I'll get people saying, hey, is this a contract?
Speaker: I told you you didn't want to sign anything.
Speaker: This isn't a contract, is it?
Speaker: And at that point, it's not a contract, just the consumer protection guide.
Speaker: So I said, oh, no, no, no, don't worry.
Speaker: This isn't a contract.
Speaker: And it's like, get them comfortable with one step at a time.
Speaker: Because, for instance, in this deal right now that we just listened to the recording of, if I were to pull up the contract and say, hey, sign right here, we're doing this.
Speaker: Then it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, right?
Speaker: Way too quick.
Speaker: Hey, but if we get her comfortable with doing the application, right?
Speaker: Hey, she submits that, gets a credit approved, give her a high five.
Speaker: Well, you got to prove that you must have great credit.
Speaker: You're super responsible.
Speaker: Congrats.
Speaker: She's feeling good about that.
Speaker: Okay, then we move on to the next thing.
Speaker: Instant my way towards the next thing, which is the consumer protection guide.
Speaker: We sign that, we go through that.
Speaker: Hey, and then we pull up the agreements.
Speaker: We go through all the positives of that.
Speaker: They say, by the way, remember I told you, Mrs. Homeowner, that you'd have the time to review it and your right of rescission?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So here's where it says that too, exactly like I told you.
Speaker: So this is all their terms and conditions.
Speaker: It's all their guarantees.
Speaker: We have to get it approved.
Speaker: It's contingent on our approval of the home.
Speaker: But this is all their guarantees with it.
Speaker: And this is exactly like I told you.
Speaker: Um, the time you have to review it and, um, yeah, if for some reason you feel terrible, let me know, but you're not going to call me tomorrow and tell me you'd change your mind or anything, right?
Speaker: Mr. Homeowner.
Speaker: Oh, no, no.
Speaker: I just want to make sure that I'm doing the right thing.
Speaker: Typically how it goes.
Speaker: Hey, so inch it forward little by little.
Speaker: And this is how I think you can get those people over the edge.
Speaker: And then the other thing you probably heard during that recording is she she's asking me kind of about the process, what the next steps are.
Speaker: And so I've found it's valuable lately to have some type of you can have maybe a screenshot or use a little like pamphlet.
Speaker: We have our company like brochures that show the process, walks them through.
Speaker: OK, first we're doing enrollment process, site survey, final design, et cetera.
Speaker: It walks them through this step by step process.
Speaker: So I find it very useful to actually have that pulled up, either save a photo of the process on your iPad, your computer as you're going through the presentation, or pull out the little company pamphlet, company brochure, and just show them exactly what's happening right now.
Speaker: Because I think it just clarifies a lot of the...
Speaker: you know, maybe fears.
Speaker: I think people think, oh, he's signing me up and they're coming tomorrow or next week to do the panels.
Speaker: And each of these past two accounts that were, you know, giving me a lot of resistance fighting it.
Speaker: I think it eased their fears because I show them, hey, this is a long process.
Speaker: We're not Amazon Prime now.
Speaker: We're not showing up two days later with panels on your roof.
Speaker: hey, we got to go through this process.
Speaker: We got to take our time.
Speaker: We got to make sure everything's working here.
Speaker: So yeah, this is the process.
Speaker: And then you heard me in the recording say, you have up until this point to make sure you guys love the decision, to make sure you're happy with it, to make sure there's more reasons that you want to stick with this versus stay with your current situation in the utility.
Speaker: If you think of more reasons, then by all means, stay with the utility.
Speaker: But this is what we're going to follow.
Speaker: And we just asked that at this point, by the time we get to hopefully your home approved in a final design, we just asked that at that point that you have, you know, a decision because we are going to be putting our time, money and resources into it at that point, too.
Speaker: Does that sound fair?
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Hey, so that's something that can help a lot.
Speaker: Okay, so we'll play a little more of this recording and then, yeah, give a few more of my thoughts and then wrap it up from there.
Speaker: Okay, but yeah, I mean, I have to play with everything.
Speaker: We're being checked out.
Speaker: while we're talking here?
Speaker: Can you think of any reason?
Speaker: I can't think of any reason, especially if we don't have to pay anything up front.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's going to be that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I don't think, I see a problem.
Speaker: I do need to talk to my mom about it and see if she wants to proceed with it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Do you think we should grab her and see if she has any questions about it?
Speaker: It would be better if I talked to her on my own.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Am I going to be the only one in the application or does she need to be on it too?
Speaker: Up to you.
Speaker: I mean, if you're on the title, I'm going to just put you on there.
Speaker: But would you want her on there?
Speaker: It doesn't matter to me.
Speaker: I just didn't know if it makes it better if there's two people putting their permission in there.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So yeah, you heard how we transitioned.
Speaker: She's like, uh, that's I'll do the application.
Speaker: That's as far as I'm going to go.
Speaker: Um, and then something I think people should be doing more of, like we want to eliminate this whole soft close as much as possible.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You heard me.
Speaker: I'm probably closing it a little too soft, whatever, but there's some people that will just like, I think lean way too much on closing people soft and say, no, this isn't, you know, there's people saying, oh, this is no commitment at all.
Speaker: And it's,
Speaker: cancel it anytime that I don't agree with that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Make sure they know it's an agreement.
Speaker: I mean, show them their cancellation period.
Speaker: If you have to, whatever, don't get them thinking that they're going to cancel, but just, you know, make sure it's, um, something they know they can do if they feel terrible about it, whatever.
Speaker: Hey, but, um, something that I think too many people don't do is like checking for those hidden concerns, hidden objections.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So you heard me there like, okay, well,
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: I know you need time to talk to your mom, do your thing, sleep on it.
Speaker: But let me ask you, hypothetically, if everything checks out and everything's exactly how we're saying, nothing more, nothing less, is there any reason you can think of right now where you think you'd be better off staying with the current utility?
Speaker: And I think it's good to just check for those hidden objections, right?
Speaker: Because sometimes you get to this point and like you don't even know what they're thinking.
Speaker: Maybe they're thinking, oh, I want to talk to my realtor friend.
Speaker: He said this.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Like you want to check, dig those possibly hidden objections out, isolate them.
Speaker: And then maybe isolate them even further and be like, oh, well, you know, I want to talk to my realtor.
Speaker: I want to just do some research, whatever.
Speaker: OK, well, that's great.
Speaker: And so if if everything goes good with the realtor, he says it's great.
Speaker: And your neighbor says it's great and everything matches up with what we said.
Speaker: Any other reason you wouldn't be happy with a program like this?
Speaker: No?
Speaker: Okay, great.
Speaker: Yeah, you're getting them all out on the surface, right?
Speaker: And you're checking for it.
Speaker: Okay, so that's one thing.
Speaker: And then the other small mistake I made here is just making sure you get all decision makers involved.
Speaker: I should have done a better job about actually getting the mom there.
Speaker: And lucky for me, the mom came
Speaker: And we were able to get her on board.
Speaker: She was totally cool with it, which was great because if she wasn't, then I don't think this deal would have closed.
Speaker: But yeah, you want to make sure you get all the people involved.
Speaker: And I've seen so many people where it's like literally the husband is sitting in
Speaker: the room next to us watching TV or yeah, you're probably heard not the greatest audio quality, but the mom was sitting in the other room watching the football game.
Speaker: So I should have gotten her more involved in the process from the beginning because it's like, you know, she's saying, oh, it's better if I talk to her.
Speaker: We all know that's not true at all.
Speaker: It's much better if we talk to the decision makers.
Speaker: Because they're going to have objections.
Speaker: They're going to have things come up.
Speaker: We want to be there and get through those with the other parties.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like, you know, the spouses, daughters, whatever, they're not trained.
Speaker: They haven't been selling solar.
Speaker: They don't know about solar, so they don't know how to respond and overcome objections.
Speaker: that the other decision makers may have.
Speaker: So whenever possible, get them involved with it and don't make the mistake I made of just letting them sit and watch TV in the other room, you know, demand attention.
Speaker: You don't have to be a jerk about it.
Speaker: But something you can do that works well for us in California is just a line like, hey, yeah, I know football games on.
Speaker: I love football.
Speaker: Trust me, I wish I was watching that right now.
Speaker: But hey, we'll be quick.
Speaker: The only thing is the state, they have us go through the info with everyone on the title.
Speaker: We can say, you know, the state does crack down here in California, but whatever.
Speaker: They do have us go through it with everyone on the title.
Speaker: You can just say they...
Speaker: Just because unfortunately, there's been situations in the past where one title holder didn't get all the info, then there's confusion.
Speaker: And yeah, it's just cause unnecessary confusion and all that.
Speaker: So we just want to make sure that while we're here, we can answer all the questions and have you guys on the same page.
Speaker: Because also we typically can't, you know, come back just because we're in so many of these two.
Speaker: So it will be super quick.
Speaker: So yeah, if you want to just grab her, we'll be super quick and then just go through all the information with both of you.
Speaker: So something like that usually works well.
Speaker: Make sure you get all decision makers involved in the process and don't let's just let them watch TV on the site or whatever.
Speaker: Demand their respect.
Speaker: Demand the time.
Speaker: You're the professional.
Speaker: You're giving them the privilege of sitting in their home, explaining them how they can save literally tens of thousands of dollars in most cases, I guess, depending on the market.
Speaker: But save a lot of money and put themselves in a much better situation by going solar.
Speaker: So make sure you remember that you are the prize.
Speaker: You are giving them your valuable time.
Speaker: demand the attention and yeah, make sure you do everything possible to get the account closed up when you're in the home.
Speaker: So I hope that helped.
Speaker: And guys, if you want to potentially join our squad here in San Diego, be with some of the best of the best in the solar industry, go in the show notes.
Speaker: We have an application open where you can apply.
Speaker: Someone on our team will reach out to you
Speaker: Maybe myself or someone else on our team will reach out to you once you fill out the application and set you up with an interview.
Speaker: So don't delay spots are filling up quick.
Speaker: Make sure you get your application.
Speaker: We would love to possibly have you on the team.
Speaker: And we'll see you on the next show.
Speaker: Let us know if you have suggestions for guests or topics.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker: I love you.
Speaker: We'll see you next time.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
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.
Speaker: One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
Speaker: What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
Speaker: You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
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 Solopreneur.
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Speaker: Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We will have that in the show notes.
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Speaker: And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
Speaker: That's going to show you how.
Speaker: So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.
