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Selling Solar Ownership Like A Pro In 2025
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In an NEM 3.0 world, solar ownership is something that has become a challenge to sell, but it doesn't mean it's unsellable. This episode points out things you should use in your presentations and general tips on framing the deal to be more suitable for the homeowner.
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Transcript
Taylor Armstrong's Sales Journey
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong. 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 fail.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you 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? 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.
Financing Options and Urgency in Solar Sales
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, what's up, solopreneurs? Today going to be talking about how to master presenting financing for solar, selling ownership. ah If you are in California specifically, the main products most companies sell right now are PPAs, leases, power purchase agreements. So with everything going on, we're going to talk about how we can present and approach selling ownership.
00:01:06
Speaker
We got some expiring tax credits. We got a lot of urgency for people that do want to own their systems. So let's talk about how to sell it. My name is Taylor arms Armstrong. We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:01:20
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in the to the podcast today. We're free and available on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, Coming at you every Tuesday and Friday. And I want to apologize. we've have We've had a few repeats of episodes. It's been crazy. um If you are not grinding right now, I don't know what you're doing.
00:01:37
Speaker
So um we're coming at you with fresh content, but ah we got to stay busy selling systems because that's what it's all about. We got to take advantage of this urgency right now. That's what I'm doing. I hope you're doing the same thing. but That being said, we do have some pretty exciting guests coming up.
00:01:54
Speaker
in the next couple weeks please continue to shoot me your guest suggestions i've had a lot of people send out suggestions for guests for people that are crushing it right now in solar so thank you so much for those people that have sent over your guest suggestions please keep them coming and i promise we're gonna have some exciting guests coming up here in the coming weeks so uh let's get into the topic like i mentioned previously um but Particularly in California, we're primarily selling PPAs, leases.
Transition to PPAs and Leases in California
00:02:23
Speaker
But my first, I would say six, seven years in solar, pretty much from 2016 to, I don't know, 2022, we were selling loans. We were selling financing for this system. We were selling ownership.
00:02:36
Speaker
And the reason for that was because before they made the switch in California to NEM2 to NEM3, you did not have to have a battery. It was one-for-one a buyback of the credits, um at least close to it. And it just made a lot of sense for people to own their systems because they could put it up. The rates were really low.
00:02:55
Speaker
We were getting people loans for 1.99%. you know one point nine nine percent And ah dealer fees weren't crazy high back then either. So it just made so much more sense to sell ownership.
00:03:07
Speaker
But ever since they made the change, from the NEM2 to NEM3 and now they're acquiring batteries. In my opinion, it's shifted to where PPAs and leases make more sense because when you consider the battery goes up, these batteries, they need replacements. If they're in the PPA, and then they got that replaced for them. And it's just a little bit easier too because you don't have to add in $10,000, $15,000 for the battery.
00:03:33
Speaker
Now it's just reflected in the power purchase agreement. They're not seeing this massive loan amount. And it's just little bit simpler to present to people. Okay, but all that being said, we have a pretty unique circumstance right now to where the tax credit expires at the end of this year. And ah every all the research we've done is saying that the systems need to be approved and in operation by the end of the year.
00:03:59
Speaker
So at the time this recording, we're in September. That pretty much means that this month, maybe next month, it's kind of the last couple months coming down to the wire where people can buy a system, most likely guarantee the tax credit.
Maximizing Sales Before Tax Credit Expiry
00:04:13
Speaker
i would hope that anyone selling it now can get it approved and installed by then. If not, then hit me up. Okay, and I'm speaking for California, but this is obviously nationwide for the whole country.
00:04:24
Speaker
and It's just a lot of urgency for everyone over the whole country. Sell these things, get them approved and installed by the end of the year. So if you are someone like myself that it's been that's been mostly selling power purchase agreements,
00:04:38
Speaker
leases, thought it would be helpful to brush people up a little bit on, hey, what are the key benefits? What are the key ways to sell a finance system? And I present it a little bit differently.
00:04:50
Speaker
i know most of our teams, lot of our guys have never even sold a loan or a purchase. And so I'm actually doing a training on this at our team correlation tomorrow. I thought, okay, go over a few things for our listeners.
00:05:03
Speaker
So, and let me know, i've I haven't sold as many of these lately either, even though it's all I sold for the first six, seven years of solar. So there's probably things that I'm rusty on too, but I'm going to do my best to refresh you, to let you in on the and the key things that are important when it comes to selling ownership,
00:05:23
Speaker
and hopefully it helps someone out there. And if you're seeing the video version of this, hopefully you're seeing my Backeye is almost gone. Last week was pretty bad. Got a lot of comments on the Backeye, but I keep getting beat up in jujitsu. Take care of yourselves out there. Don't get Backeyes like me. Okay, well, let's jump into
Aligning Sales with Customer Desires
00:05:41
Speaker
it. So the first point is make sure you give people what they truly want.
00:05:46
Speaker
And this is a point that I'm going to hit pretty hard with our teams out here just because so many people, especially in California, they are shoving the PPAs, the leases down people's throats.
00:05:56
Speaker
And then they're surprised when they get cancels because some of these people, they didn't want a PPA or lease. They wanted ownership. But too many reps out there are dead sets on selling leases, PPAs or whatever they're comfortable with to their grave. right They want to they want that so bad. Maybe they think commissions are bigger.
00:06:14
Speaker
Maybe they don't even know how to sell. ownership. So they're just going all in on that. I had a story last week, it just happened where a customer, he was so set on getting a system without a battery because he's installing his own batteries. I guess he has an electrician who can get a battery super cheap.
00:06:36
Speaker
So instead of fighting him on it said, No, you have to get a battery with us. I'm like, Okay, well, we'll hook you up with panels. And then go for it. Get your batteries up there. There's no point in creating all this friction with things that are unnecessary. i had another customer last year where um this was already after the change where we needed to do batteries.
00:06:56
Speaker
And I remember I almost lost the cell because I was pushing so hard for the PPA for the lease when this guy, he wanted ownership. He wanted a ground mount system. I was trying to talk him out of that. And then ah got in the moment where he's kind of like, ah you know what, just I'm going to look at some companies that can do this.
00:07:13
Speaker
And I realized I'm like, Taylor, what are you doing? This guy, he told you exactly what he wanted and you're trying to talk him out of it. You you have a cell right here. And the minute I shifted that mindset, gave him what do he want, got him a ground mount system. He wanted to buy it cash.
00:07:27
Speaker
I ended up walking out of that house. It was same-day deal with a check for $1,000 deposit. So progressing where I practically lost it just because I was so set on getting him a PPA and explaining to him why he shouldn't do it. Hey, so just something to think about.
00:07:44
Speaker
At the end of the day, it's the customer's decision what they want to do. It's their home's, it's not our home. So if they want to do something, even if it's something that's a dumb idea, I've had customers sometimes want some strange things and want um really small offsets when they think people are leaving the home. had customers want some things that's to me it's really stupid what they're asking for but hey all we can do is explain the benefits we consider ourselves the doctors in the office right for explaining to our patient what they should do the treatment is from our expertise but if they don't want to do it that's on them right so sometimes they just want something else and hey
00:08:21
Speaker
Let's give it to them. Consider that. Don't shove what you want down their throat. Explain to them the benefits. Explain to them the expertise. Come across as an expert. Explain to them what you would do and explain to them what other customers are doing. Remember, people don't want to be told what to do. But if you can explain it from other people's point of view, if you can ask them questions,
00:08:40
Speaker
then most of the time they will do what you think is best for them. Most of the time they will understand, but ah they don't want to feel like they're being talked out of something that was their idea, right? They're never going to do it. Okay, so give them what they want.
00:08:53
Speaker
And so if you do get those customers that are wanting the ownership, which there's going to be probably a decent amount because... This is not a secret. A lot of people know that these tax credits are expiring. actually went to a football game, Utah, UCLA, last weekend and ran into a guy i go to go to church with. And the first thing he said to me was like, hey, I heard the tax credit's expiring. I might need a look back into that solar thing with you.
00:09:19
Speaker
This guy from an old ah church member, hadn't seen in probably a year. And he came up and told me that at the football game. So people know about this. People know tax credits are expiring.
00:09:30
Speaker
So use that to your advantage. Hit up people, hit up old leads. Maybe you have people that were dragging their feet. I would definitely recommend going into your CRM. Hopefully you have a CRM, a database of all your old appointments, people that didn't sign up.
00:09:43
Speaker
Send them that text. Hey, tax credit is is is expiring. These are the last couple months. These are the last couple weeks to guarantee that we can get you the tax credit and get your system up and approved. When's a good time to pop by with the info?
00:09:58
Speaker
Okay, shoot them a text like that. All right, and so once you get some new leads from sending out some texts like that, let's talk about some ways that you can present this a little bit different.
Ownership vs Renting: Customer Comfort
00:10:09
Speaker
Like I said, maybe you're used to selling PPAs and leases. So how should you present the ownership differently than the PPAs or the leases? Okay, first of all, the biggest benefit is They own it. People relate to that.
00:10:23
Speaker
And I remember my first six, seven years in solar, this was our main selling point is that people love owning things, right? They own their house. Hey, they own their cars most of the time.
00:10:34
Speaker
And so it's something that people are already comfortable doing. So I think the most powerful way to sell this thing is just related to things that they already have done. They bought their house. They bought their cars.
00:10:46
Speaker
Mr. Homeowner, the reason why so many people are doing this is because it's the same thing. It's just renting versus owning. Let me ask you, what's the main reason you you guys decided to buy a home instead of renting?
00:10:58
Speaker
Ask them questions like that. Hey, you were sick of... you're sick of paying rent, you're seeing rent go up, right? You can give them some good stories. i always tell people, hey, I remember when I was in my apartment, it was going up every year.
00:11:12
Speaker
we leased at 2,500 for one year, then it went up to the next year. Yeah, so what if you could do hypothetically, if you could do the same thing with your electricity and just lock in a rate, do you feel like that would be something that would benefit you guys?
00:11:26
Speaker
So you got to build the problem, right? That part's the same. Make sure you hit hard on the problem. Utility rates are going up. Bills are going crazy. Blame it on Trump, whatever. Look at all the problems, why rates are going up. But then once you have that problem,
00:11:40
Speaker
You need to relate the ownership aspect and why they should own their power. hey And then there's some pretty pretty cool calculators, things like that you can use. We would always use a spreadsheet calculator. We would input their yearly energy usage versus what their yearly financing payment would be.
00:12:00
Speaker
And I made it super simple to break down. it Hit me up. um Could probably share a copy of that if you're interested. interested Just little simple calculator. But ah that's the biggest thing. And that's the biggest difference, I would say, is just make sure you relating the ownership of things they're already used to with how they can make the same decision when it comes to their electricity.
00:12:21
Speaker
Okay, and then the last key to this, make sure you're avoiding trigger words.
Positive Language in Sales Pitches
00:12:25
Speaker
I would say this this is even more important in ah explaining financing and ownership than explaining leases, PPAs, because there's a lot of words that can just turn people off, right? So particularly loans,
00:12:39
Speaker
ah You should never be saying loans. You should never be saying we're taking out a loan to go solar. Instead, you can say, hey, we're we're doing financing for it. Same thing, but less scary. hey And then just some other trigger words in general. um I'm going to go over with our team tomorrow in a training too. But contracts, you should never say contracts, say agreement. Payments, never say payments, say investment.
00:13:02
Speaker
Buy, never say buy, say own. Sign, never say sign, say autograph or approve. Cancel, don't say cancel, say flexibility. Appointments, say pop by instead of appointments.
00:13:15
Speaker
Say no out of pockets instead of free. And then deal, instead saying deal, say program. So a lot of little things, and we've done podcasts on this in the past, but especially when you're talking about owning about taking out loan don't yet do not say the word we're taking out a loan for this hey we would always call it a program right it's not that we're just we're not selling them solar we're doing a program where the bill they pay the redirection program i know taylor mccarthy and that's his word for it you're just redirecting what you're already paying for power towards the ownership of the system And it stays set, right? So if you think about all the money you've dumped, Mr. Homeowner, do you have a wild guess how much you think you've paid for your electricity over the past 30 years? Probably lot.
00:14:01
Speaker
So if you had something where you could just keep it set and then eventually ends, just like how you can... eventually own your home and you won't pay anything else for your cost of living.
00:14:12
Speaker
Do you feel like that'd be a good idea? Okay, well, so today all we do, the reason why we're out is because so many people are trying to get in on this just because with what's going on with tax credit, and we do have We do have to walk the rate now and make sure we can get it up before the tax credit expires because it will not make sense after that.
00:14:32
Speaker
So we'll get this in with you, Mr. Homeowner, and hopefully it gets approved. I can't promise anything. But um if if that's all that happens is we lock in and you guys are set at $150 a month instead of paying $180 and it continues to go up, do you see any reason why you guys wouldn't be a big proponent for that?
00:14:53
Speaker
Why that wouldn't be a win? No? Okay, great. So we'll get you copies everything. i just have to get the application in. And then ah hopefully it gets approved, but we'll make sure to follow up with you in a week or two after our team does the site survey and after everything goes through.
00:15:08
Speaker
And hopefully it's a thumbs up. Good luck. Okay.
Simplifying Solar Sales and Creating Urgency
00:15:12
Speaker
Something like that. So make sure you are ah building a ton of urgency with this. Make sure you're doing some solid takeaways. We still got to get approved.
00:15:20
Speaker
And I promise you, if you do this, you're going to have an insane amount of business before the end of the year. ah Make sure to grind like crazy. People that are not all out right now, you gotta be crazy.
00:15:32
Speaker
It is the best time to sell solar probably in the history with all the urgency we have going on. So I hope that helps give you a few things to think about, a few things to chew on as you take advantage of this urgency.
00:15:43
Speaker
But remember, keep it simple. Don't make it complicated. Really, we're just, it's a pretty similar process, but make sure to relate it to ownership of things they already know. Avoid trigger words, avoid the scary words,
00:15:56
Speaker
And that's pretty much it. If you do that, you're going to sell a lot of systems before the end of the year. So send this to someone that maybe has not sold ownership on all of it. Maybe they need a little refresher. Hopefully it helps them out. Please continue to send me suggestions for topics and guests that you would like to see on the show.
00:16:12
Speaker
Happy selling this week. Go grab some deals and we'll see you on the next episode.
Solar Scout Platform Announcement
00:16:16
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door door sales team here in San Diego. 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.
00:16:28
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage. Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:16:41
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 given neighborhood. It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
00:16:55
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, if I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need give my listeners a great deal. And they did.
00:17:06
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 That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor. Okay, back to the show.
Top Solarpreneur Episodes Cheat Sheet
00:17:21
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs? Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:17:24
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.
00:17:34
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start? What episodes should I listen to in the podcast? You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:17:49
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 Solrepreneur.
00:18:02
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. So go download it right now. It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com. Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com. Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs. We will have that in the show notes. Go download it right now.
00:18:27
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them. That's going to show you how. So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.