Transcript
Speaker: Look, in the solar business, there's really only two types of people.
Speaker: There's the ones that crush it, make six, seven, and eight figures, and then there's everyone else.
Speaker: The question is, which one will you be?
Speaker: Over the last four years, we've studied the sharpest solar sales and marketing professionals and how they build multi-million dollar incomes using only the best sales and marketing strategies.
Speaker: So how do these solarpreneurs do what they do and what makes them so successful?
Speaker: This podcast is your answer.
Speaker: Join us and thousands of sales pros, marketers, and entrepreneurs as we take the solar industry by storm and uncover what it takes to sell more solar with less effort.
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast.
Speaker: Okay, good morning, solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We have got the one and the only Ben Claybrook here.
Speaker: He is the master of online lead generation and has taught me a lot.
Speaker: Welcome to the show, Ben.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: It's great to be here.
Speaker: Cool, man, so good to have you on.
Speaker: Just a little bit of background with Ben here.
Speaker: He was the one that kinda got me started into the online lead generation for solar.
Speaker: I kinda doweled in ClickFunnels and built in some online funnels, but didn't really know how to use it to get leads for solar or anything like that.
Speaker: And then Ben, I think I found him through a Facebook group or something.
Speaker: Do you remember?
Speaker: Was it the ClickFunnels group maybe online?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I can't remember.
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Uh, yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So someone connected me through there and he was the first person I saw that was like using click funnels to get leads online.
Speaker: So I'm like, Oh my gosh, you can actually do that.
Speaker: I got to figure out what this kid's doing.
Speaker: So he got me on it, let me on on his secrets, kind of joined his coaching program and took his online course and got me started in all of it.
Speaker: So we want to hear from Ben today.
Speaker: How did you get into the solar industry and what's kind of your story behind that?
Speaker: So I was actually, I was going door to door for Vivint on the alarm side.
Speaker: So not even in the solar industry, I went door to door and on the seventh year I was pretty burnt out, pretty sick of it, trying to find something new to do.
Speaker: But like, I don't know if, yeah, you're familiar with the alarm door to door side of it, but like you make really good money in the summertime, right?
Speaker: So I would work like four to five months and then just go to Austria, go to Europe and just travel for the other eight months.
Speaker: and rinse and repeat every year.
Speaker: But after seven years of doing it, you start to go a little crazy because it's just like a plateau.
Speaker: You make really good money in the summer.
Speaker: So I remember I was in San Diego actually going door to door and I could just feel it.
Speaker: I was done.
Speaker: I didn't want to go door to door.
Speaker: So one morning I got contacted by a recruiter from SolarCity.
Speaker: And that was back in 2016, I think, right?
Speaker: No, it was 2013.
Speaker: That was a while ago.
Speaker: So they contacted me and I immediately went in for an interview, dressed up in my nicest suit I had.
Speaker: And that was super casual.
Speaker: So it was way overboard.
Speaker: But no, I loved it.
Speaker: So I was on SolarCity on the corporate side.
Speaker: So like where they send you appointments.
Speaker: And I just, yeah, I killed it from day one.
Speaker: Did really well just because they were giving me leads, right?
Speaker: So I wasn't
Speaker: Having to go door-to-door anymore.
Speaker: That's all I really cared about as long as I don't have to go door-to-door So yeah, they had guys that kind of worked in Home Depot and they would set appointments So I went and I built relationships with those guys so that would trust me with their leads and then they would I would go to like Yeah, three to five appointments a day and yeah, that was kind of how I got into the solar industry and
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Similar story.
Speaker: I think a lot of people went through that because for me, I heard that I can make more money knocking way less doors doing solar.
Speaker: Cause I was out there grinding and pest control.
Speaker: Do this.
Speaker: My buddy out here doing this was only knocking four hours and I was not going to eat.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, I need to get in on that.
Speaker: They got something figured out that I didn't know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: Cause I never, I mean, I went, no, I mean, I barely did any door to door for solar a little bit near the end, uh, just for fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How was that?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I'm still going door to door.
Speaker: I'm getting more, our company's starting to push towards a similar thing where we're just having people set up the leads and getting sent to us, but we're still going door to door a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Definitely not as long as pest control though.
Speaker: I'm sure it was the same in alarms, right?
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: In the summertime we would, because I run on the doors or whatever.
Speaker: Yeah, I started in Florida and Orlando and then Oklahoma City, Kansas City, all these different random cities we'd go to every year.
Speaker: We'd just go to a new one, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, you'd be out there and like, especially Oklahoma City and Florida, I just remember the rainstorms and the peak of summer.
Speaker: It was just crazy.
Speaker: Like you'd have your umbrella and it was just pouring for like a good 30 minutes and it would stop.
Speaker: But it was just crazy.
Speaker: Good times.
Speaker: I remember like, oh yeah, in Oklahoma City, we actually got hit by a tornado.
Speaker: And so I had to hide out in somebody's house where I sold them an alarm.
Speaker: Because I didn't have time to get to the car just hit so fast and so we all hid in their house till it passed over and like when we came out of the house there was like Those aluminum garages, you know, like some people do those temporary garage get like picked up and put on somebody else's house and like Oh my god like trees were laying down.
Speaker: I was like, oh my god That's the door-to-door life.
Speaker: Yeah
Speaker: I know I was in I did it in Texas and North Carolina and similar stuff man you got some crazy hell storms out there just out there trying to walk around with an umbrella and yeah did you guys go out in car groups too so you didn't have your car you're just like stranded couldn't do anything oh man because it helped to get in the doors though right if you got the raining cats and dogs gives you a good excuse to make your way inside the house that's right yeah that's right
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: And so how long were you at SolarCity?
Speaker: So how long were you in that position?
Speaker: I was there almost three years.
Speaker: It was two years, ten months.
Speaker: And I think I got just over a megawatt of solar installed.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So it worked out the, I, yeah, it was, it was quick.
Speaker: Like at the, at the beginning, I realized very quick that I had to build relationships with those guys that were setting appointments in order for me to kind of fill my pipeline.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Especially at the beginning where I didn't have like a pipeline to get referrals off of.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, I think we'll get into that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll go into that.
Speaker: So yeah, what we want to build on today, because especially what I learned a ton from Ben here is number one with his referral process.
Speaker: It gave me some really cool ideas as far as getting referrals.
Speaker: As our company, we're mostly knocking doors and it was very, very little referral based.
Speaker: So when Ben told me that you were, because you were getting most of your appointments just off referrals, right?
Speaker: At one point, just pretty much pure referrals.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, the first couple of months, I just hustled as much as I could.
Speaker: I built those relationships with those guys that were like appointment setters because they really had to trust you because they get a commission if the appointment sells.
Speaker: And if you're some new guy, right, they would rather give it to a seasoned guy.
Speaker: But yeah, I went door to door, so I was hungry, right?
Speaker: So it's like I would close a lot of them.
Speaker: I noticed really fast, though, the turnover rate was really high.
Speaker: So they would just not hear from me anymore.
Speaker: Or they would just fall off the face of the earth.
Speaker: That's kind of how you put it, right?
Speaker: You'd sell them.
Speaker: They wouldn't answer the phone anymore.
Speaker: And it's like, what's going on?
Speaker: So I quickly changed, kind of evolved to a very meticulous follow-up strategy.
Speaker: So every day I would spend a good hour to two hours just following up with all the people I'd already sold.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And I would do that by, we use Salesforce, but now I use, after we stopped using it, I just use my calendar.
Speaker: And so every time I'd sell someone, I'd just schedule a time like a week later when I need to follow up with them.
Speaker: And I would make sure that every person until they got to install is following up with by text and email at least once a week.
Speaker: And I really feel like doing that for consistently for like six, six months, it got my, you know, the people I was selling, it got them to remember me a lot more and it got them
Speaker: Yeah, I was just always top of mind.
Speaker: Even if there was nothing new to say, like with solar, sometimes you go three or four weeks where there's just nothing new, you're just waiting.
Speaker: Because they're hearing my texts or getting my texts and my emails, I'm just top of mind when they're talking about solar with their friend or something.
Speaker: And if you combine that with just making everybody save your number in their phone, you know, like even if you're just sitting there awkwardly while they save their number, save your number and just under a solar guy or whatever you want to do.
Speaker: That way they can easily just text you, right?
Speaker: You just have to kind of coach the people.
Speaker: And if you combine kind of that kind of referral coaching with meticulously taking care of people, then they'll think of you kind of naturally.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that was super interesting to me.
Speaker: And so how did you like develop this referral process?
Speaker: Were you just kind of like experimenting with ideas or were you just starting to like realize that people needed help?
Speaker: No, there was definitely a few of the, I'd always look at the top guys in the company and some of the top guys were doing at that time, like one of the guys was just selling over the phone.
Speaker: That's, he hardly ever did appointments in person.
Speaker: He never took appointments from the lead setter guys, the appointment setter guys.
Speaker: He always just did, it was like 90 to 100% referrals.
Speaker: I was like, okay, what's that guy doing?
Speaker: And I looked and his process was,
Speaker: Yeah, he would meticulously follow up with everybody he sold.
Speaker: And then, yeah, so it was really learning it from other people that were already doing it.
Speaker: But these guys, I noticed really quickly, you know, they weren't door to door guys.
Speaker: They were project managers, basically.
Speaker: And what they kind of thought of you was if you manage the projects, then you take care of the customers, they'll take care of you.
Speaker: It's kind of like when you see a couple walking down the street and either the guy or the girl is checking out another person.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: for the for the partner right yeah to me that's like what the customer feels like when you're constantly trying to get the new people and you're not taking care of your your spouse or your your partner you know what i mean the customer's like your partner so if you're always checking out the other people that's kind of what they feel like if you're not really staying on top of it um but yeah there was one other thing i learned from a door-to-door guy mike mueller actually
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because he was getting crazy referrals too.
Speaker: So I would kind of like take little bits and pieces from different people and kind of made it my own.
Speaker: But what he would do is he would send brownies to people.
Speaker: I think I told you about that.
Speaker: I loved it because it was like ridiculous.
Speaker: And I'm not usually very –
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I keep a pretty clear line between personal and business.
Speaker: So it was hard for me at first, but like we put together this card of just me and my wife saying, thank you for your business.
Speaker: Has a picture of us in there and just says, you know, look forward to helping you pay less for power.
Speaker: Here's some brownies.
Speaker: Enjoy.
Speaker: Just something really stupid, simple like that.
Speaker: They would go out in a nice little box.
Speaker: It costs me like six or seven bucks.
Speaker: So basically as soon as I signed somebody up, I send that out the next day.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Regardless whether they pass the site survey or not, right?
Speaker: It's just if they've signed a contract with me, they pass credit, it was worth it to send that out because I noticed a huge increase or decrease in the people that would, you know, fall off the face of the earth.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They got that personal touch and they're just like, wow, this guy actually cares.
Speaker: You know, he's going above and beyond.
Speaker: And that just made me way more memorable than all the other, because you're competing with all the other businesses out there, right?
Speaker: Because they all want referrals.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: And that's something that I thought was really interesting, really cool.
Speaker: I'm like, wow, this is sending out brownies.
Speaker: No one's doing that.
Speaker: And that was like one of the key takeaways.
Speaker: I'm like, wow, that's genius.
Speaker: Because if you can save your number, number one, you're saving each time you close a deal, you're saving their number or your number in their phone, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the key with that, you already mentioned, is putting it as like solar guy or something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because that's what I've been trying to do too.
Speaker: Every time I close a deal, just say, don't even ask for just saying, hey, I'm going to just put my number in your phone.
Speaker: So that way if you have any other questions or think of someone that can benefit, then you just know right away.
Speaker: and then putting it as solar because guarantee when I step out of the door, people forget my name, I think instantly.
Speaker: Oh, it's solar.
Speaker: And what's interesting, I just got a text yesterday.
Speaker: I think it was two days ago from a guy I closed like three, four months ago.
Speaker: And I guarantee if I hadn't put my number in his phone, then he probably would have been too lazy to like figure out how to send him the referral.
Speaker: But just because I made it convenient for him,
Speaker: He just pulled up his phone and said, hey, I just talked to a neighbor that is interested in it and sent off the text.
Speaker: So I was impressed with that.
Speaker: I'm like, wow, this actually does work because now I'm like top of his mind.
Speaker: It's huge, right?
Speaker: And like in every house, I would, even though it just sounds obvious to us, I'd always be like, look, you know, obviously people are going to ask you about it once you go solar, right?
Speaker: So just every time someone asks you about it, instead of like giving them my number,
Speaker: it makes it way easier for them if you just text me their name and number and just get their permission.
Speaker: So I would say that like three or four times in every appointment.
Speaker: And it sounds obvious, but people are always, you know, they'll give out my number and then they'll tell me they gave some of my number, but it just, nothing ever happens because people are too...
Speaker: get too, and I always say they get too busy to call me, right?
Speaker: Or they're shy or whatnot.
Speaker: But if you text me their name and number, I'll take care of them, you know, just like I took care of you guys.
Speaker: And if you're really crazy about your follow-up, if you're actually doing that, then they know that you'll take care of them.
Speaker: That's, I think the biggest reason people don't refer their friends and family is if they see that you just kind of fall off the face of the earth after you sell them.
Speaker: Nobody wants to send that guy to their friends and family, you know, but if there's this guy that's like religious about his followup, they'd be like, well, yeah, he's going to take care of my mom or my dad.
Speaker: And like people would refer me to all their family because they, they knew that I would take care of them, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: So it's that trust factor, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think that's huge.
Speaker: So step one, you would instantly put your number in their phone or yeah, in their phone, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Step two, you'd send out the brownies like as soon as you could.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What's the service you use?
Speaker: Is it send out cards?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sendoutcards.com.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's,
Speaker: It's a network marketing company, but I never signed up for that side of the business.
Speaker: I just was a customer of it the whole time.
Speaker: And I think the cost was still good enough as a customer.
Speaker: Did you run the numbers recently?
Speaker: Yeah, right now I'm using it and I think it's 17 a month.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You pay.
Speaker: Well, there's a couple of different tiers, I guess, of the service.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The one I'm on at 17 a month.
Speaker: And then I think the two pack of brownies with a card is like seven, seven bucks or something.
Speaker: That's nice.
Speaker: Did you do the hand signature?
Speaker: So it looks like you actually signed the card.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You can select my hand signature.
Speaker: So it's money, man.
Speaker: Yeah, if you have that system, people really notice and you always get the text back saying, oh, thank you.
Speaker: That's so awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then even the people, I've had a few people where I send it and then they cancel.
Speaker: But I like that at least if they do cancel, they should feel super bad about canceling.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they'll usually like, they're usually, yeah.
Speaker: When they do cancel, it's like, sorry, man, it's just not working out.
Speaker: And it's not like, you know, because what drove me crazy are the ones that just didn't respond.
Speaker: You're just like, just tell me if it's not going to work.
Speaker: You know, whether it works or not, just let us know.
Speaker: And once you start doing brownies and stuff like that, then I just feel like they're way more inclined to actually talk to you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's huge.
Speaker: So we're going to post that in the show notes.
Speaker: It's sendoutcards.com.
Speaker: Very cool.
Speaker: Go check it out.
Speaker: But yeah, I think that's huge.
Speaker: And then the other question I had is, in my case, our company has like project managers where they're actually sending out the updates and emailing them and everything.
Speaker: So that's my biggest struggle with the process is in my head, I'm like, okay, well, I don't need to follow up with them as much because the project managers, that's their job and that's what they're doing.
Speaker: So what would you suggest for people that are in companies where they have project managers and they're following up with them?
Speaker: Would you suggest still just like doing it yourself and...
Speaker: So the project manager, because SolarCity kind of evolved to start having project managers do stuff like that for us.
Speaker: And so what I kind of evolved to do is I would ask them to CC me every time they emailed the customer.
Speaker: Some companies won't do that if they're just too big or too corporate or not.
Speaker: But usually, you know, if you've got the relationship with the project manager, they can CC you without a problem.
Speaker: And then I would just text the customer.
Speaker: So, Hey, it looks like we got this.
Speaker: Hey, it looks like we, we got an update on the permit.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: So every time I get the email, I just find that people are more inclined to read their texts than they are the email.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And because when I was doing the full project manager, I would send the email and send the text anyways.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So now it just made my job a little bit easier because I would just send the text.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And if we're waiting on something, especially, oh, it's like one of the biggest things, I think, like this guy that was doing 90% referrals, he always said when a thing comes up, like a main panel upgrade or the roof or re-roof, attack it immediately.
Speaker: You know, a lot of times, I remember, especially at the beginning, I had the tendency to kind of postpone it.
Speaker: So it was like an awkward conversation I've got to have with the customer now, right?
Speaker: I'm like, oh, great.
Speaker: And I would put it off a day or two or a week sometimes, you know, because you just know maybe it's not going to work out for the customer.
Speaker: And so you just put it off because it's a bummer sometimes, you know?
Speaker: So, but what he was, he was always like, just attack it that same day.
Speaker: As soon as you get that message, just pick up the phone and call the customer, you know, just tell him, look, I know it sucks.
Speaker: It's sucks for me too, obviously.
Speaker: Um, but just immediately attack when problems come up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think that was one of the biggest things I learned from him.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: And I think that's why it's so big to model the people who are already successful because that's how, I mean, that's how we all get our best ideas.
Speaker: Go look at the top guys, model them, do what they're doing.
Speaker: And that's how we're going to get the results.
Speaker: We don't have to reinvent the wheel here.
Speaker: Just go and look at what the top guys are doing and then create your own system.
Speaker: I think that's what Ben did.
Speaker: And that's how he got these killer results with it.
Speaker: Some people have the problem where in their company, maybe they're like the top rep or maybe it's a smaller company and they don't have top reps to kind of model.
Speaker: But I think that's why it's important going to other, I mean, reaching out to other people who are successful.
Speaker: Like in this case, we're doing the podcast to try and get the top reps, see what they're doing here.
Speaker: So I see you're a big component of learning, Ben.
Speaker: And when we were working together, this is something that he always got me on.
Speaker: I would ask him questions and he would just slam me every time.
Speaker: He's like, dude, go Google it.
Speaker: I'm like, come on, Ben, just tell me the answer.
Speaker: I don't want to Google it.
Speaker: You're supposed to be in my dictionary.
Speaker: So he would slam me every time with that.
Speaker: Just tell me to go Google it.
Speaker: As you can see here, you're a big component of learning.
Speaker: Looks like you got a million books back there.
Speaker: You love to read.
Speaker: So has that been a big component to your success too?
Speaker: Is just always learning and reading all those books back there?
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: I mean, if you're not reading, because there's just so much value people can put in a book.
Speaker: You know, you think about if you could just get one nugget out of a book, then it was worth it.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: But one of my favorite authors is Dan Kennedy.
Speaker: So if you follow like Russell Brunson or anything from ClickFunnels, I think he learned a lot of his stuff from Dan Kennedy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: These guys were huge.
Speaker: And I still think they're extremely relevant because a lot of these, like –
Speaker: A lot of the thing, like the marketers, they'll have a course or they'll teach something, but it's just regurgitated or repackaged.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Because the core principles most of the time are the same.
Speaker: But yeah, if you're looking for a good book, check out Dan.
Speaker: And he's probably got about a hundred books.
Speaker: So a good place to start would be, I think it's the ultimate marketing plan.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: We'll post that in the show notes too.
Speaker: Ultimate marketing plan.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: And have you ever tried my thoughts on doing with your referral process too?
Speaker: Have you ever like plugged them in and into kind of like a quick funnels, quick funnels has the action edX and all that where you can send out the automated emails.
Speaker: What's your thoughts on like plugging each deal you close into like a, I don't know, a MailChimp or a quick funnels action edX and just sending them out like automated emails.
Speaker: Have you ever tried anything like that?
Speaker: I've thought about that a lot.
Speaker: And the only issue, yeah, I didn't get to that point of automating that just because, so my follow-up after somebody gets installed was always, I would follow up every other week until they got PTO.
Speaker: And then once they got PTO, I'd follow up after the first month, just so they were clear on how net metering works.
Speaker: Cause people always forget no matter how many times you say, it's just, it's, it's just something about,
Speaker: having them send you their utility bill after they have solar and then you circling on there, this is what net metering is and emailing that back to them so they can see on their bill.
Speaker: They're like, oh, okay, that makes sense.
Speaker: And so I'd always do that after the first month, after a first full month.
Speaker: And I always email them and say, hey, send me your utility bill so we can go over net metering so I can make sure it's producing.
Speaker: I always said, make sure it's producing what...
Speaker: Um, what we want it to be producing.
Speaker: So it sounds like we might've done something wrong kind of, so they're always quick to send me their utility bill.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, and then I would follow up again after three months and then six months and then a year later.
Speaker: Um, so yeah, at that time I didn't start using click funnels till the very end of my, uh, solar city career.
Speaker: And then once we started using click funnels, I actually heard about it on a podcast from a entrepreneur on fire.
Speaker: You know, that jail, the, it was a good one.
Speaker: And then, and then I use ClickFunnels.
Speaker: Like I built up the webinar pretty much after.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, no, when I first got it, I didn't even use it.
Speaker: I had it for about six months and then I started using it, you know, like signed up immediately, got excited and then didn't touch it cause I was too busy.
Speaker: But then, yeah, I created a webinar to kind of keep selling my, my old cold leads basically.
Speaker: My point was I had a hard time automating.
Speaker: I'm just careful about automating too much with my customers just because they can feel it a lot of the time, especially if it's not done right and people don't like automation.
Speaker: They don't want to feel like they're just, you know,
Speaker: not being taken care of.
Speaker: So I kept a lot of it as genuine and authentic as possible, but I did still have templates.
Speaker: So when I would follow up with the one month, three months, six month mark, I had an email template.
Speaker: So I would just copy and paste and then just swap out stuff.
Speaker: Um, if I were to automate it now, I would just have like a MailChimp or active campaign for once it PTO is when I would trigger it for that customer.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's smart.
Speaker: And for those of our audience that don't know what that is, I know we probably have a varying range of audience here, but MailChimp, that's just a service where you can plug in emails of your customers and just send out kind of mass emails, right?
Speaker: Same with ActiveCampaign.
Speaker: QuickFunnels, you can do the same, but obviously QuickFunnels is building out the online sales funnels, which we're going to get into here.
Speaker: in a second.
Speaker: But yeah, that, that reminds me of the time.
Speaker: Another thing I learned from Ben here is he used to use the webinars, um, to send all your past leads, right?
Speaker: You built out a webinar online and then sent it out to kind of all your people that were on the fence.
Speaker: And what I, maybe we can talk a little bit about that, but that reminds me of when I did that.
Speaker: I sent out the automated email and you probably remember this, but I forgot to put, I didn't test it right.
Speaker: And instead of showing their first name on there, it showed hi, first name.
Speaker: And then that's the danger of automating.
Speaker: If you don't test it out, I think that killed my conversions.
Speaker: Cause I was here.
Speaker: If they say, hey, first name, and it doesn't actually say their first name, they're like, oh, this guy is just, what are we just like, a robot sending us all emails, and then no one responded or did anything.
Speaker: So I think that's true.
Speaker: You got to make sure you're testing these things and make sure it's set up right, and you don't want to do too much automation.
Speaker: Got to be careful with that.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: So cool.
Speaker: Let's kind of shift gears here.
Speaker: And I want to get into so right now you run solar lead generation lead generation agency, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And your big thing.
Speaker: And how did you let's hear that history?
Speaker: How did you get into kind of this online space of generating leads online?
Speaker: What's that story?
Speaker: When I was going door to door through college, I studied computer science.
Speaker: So I always liked programming.
Speaker: And then at SolarCity, I got super into project management.
Speaker: And then, yeah, near the end of it, I heard that podcast from JLD and he talked about ClickFunnels.
Speaker: So I figured that would be a great kind of connection, right?
Speaker: Because programming I love, but I don't have time to sit there and program something from scratch.
Speaker: ClickFunnels kind of made it easy to build stuff, you know?
Speaker: So yeah, I built out that webinar and I sold like three deals just from that very first launch, just from the contacts I had just sitting there.
Speaker: I sent those out.
Speaker: Those people signed up on there.
Speaker: Well, there's something there.
Speaker: So then once I built that webinar, there was a bit of a learning curve with ClickFunnels.
Speaker: You probably noticed that even though they make it sound super easy.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: And so, but it's easier than programming from scratch, definitely, right?
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Trying to glue all the pieces together.
Speaker: But so after I built that up, my wife, Cornelia, she got into ClickFunnels too and kind of built out a course for herself.
Speaker: But once we got good at ClickFunnels, we noticed there was a lot of people that needed help building out their funnels.
Speaker: And so we basically started the digital marketing agency where we would just build sales funnels for people.
Speaker: They would give us the access to their click funnels and we would build up the funnels.
Speaker: And since I know Photoshop and all that, I can make them look pretty.
Speaker: I got the programming side so I can make them actually work.
Speaker: And then from that point, I started learning traffic like Facebook ads.
Speaker: Google ads, not so much, mostly Facebook ads at first.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so over the last three years, we've kind of evolved it to where we were first just building out funnels and then, then we added on traffic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so now we work on her side of the business is like expert based,
Speaker: entrepreneurs.
Speaker: So like one of them is a food photographer.
Speaker: She does really well like award-winning.
Speaker: She sells a course on food photography.
Speaker: And another one is like a sex therapist.
Speaker: So like, there you go.
Speaker: Which is online about sex therapy.
Speaker: And then another one is like a restaurant coach basically.
Speaker: But my side of the business is all focused on solar just because that's what I've always been passionate about since being recruited to SolarCity.
Speaker: Since we got the funnel side down, I started kind of taking on more and more solar clients.
Speaker: And lead generation is totally different than selling courses online.
Speaker: But it does have some of the same principles.
Speaker: The first client I took on was actually from Texas and there were just a lot of sleepless nights.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I get, yeah, I really care.
Speaker: You know, when I take on a client, it's like, I stress more than I do about my own, especially when I'm using their money for the ads budget.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I stress more than I do about my own money for the ads budget.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: We're just talking about this beforehand, but that's what I'm trying to do too is expand out into other clients.
Speaker: Especially if someone's paying you, you feel like you're on the line.
Speaker: You have to be getting them results.
Speaker: You just feel terrible.
Speaker: I thought I knew how to do this, but...
Speaker: It's like way harder than you thought because it's true when you listen to all these podcasts and things, everyone talks ClickFunnels, makes it sound so easy.
Speaker: But when you get into it, there's a lot of like aspects of it that's a little bit tougher.
Speaker: I mean, you got to learn to build it.
Speaker: You got to learn how to push the traffic to it.
Speaker: got to learn how to follow up and do the retargeting campaigns and all that.
Speaker: So definitely a lot, but yeah, how would you suggest, I mean, we got, we take a solar rep or someone that wants to like get into this online lead generation space.
Speaker: How would you suggest to them to start like learning how to do that for themselves or they want to like get an online lead generation?
Speaker: There's two ways to do it, right?
Speaker: Both are going to cost money.
Speaker: You spend a lot of money testing a lot of different stuff, you know, until you find winning stuff or you pay for coaching or consulting.
Speaker: Both are going to cost money.
Speaker: Just one, it's going to save some time.
Speaker: Who knows, maybe if you're, if you're test, cause I, I really don't think there's any like super genius marketers out there.
Speaker: There's just great testers and people that might, you know, see what other people are doing and then, you know, take the good stuff and combine it together for their own campaign.
Speaker: But they're just constantly testing, you know, and then, and then Facebook and Google, they'll throw curve balls at you or you got to start from scratch.
Speaker: Like they used to have, Facebook used to have an audience of homeowners.
Speaker: So how easy is that?
Speaker: You just say, okay, I want to target homeowners.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With this ad and start my ad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And now Facebook changed it in, I think it was July.
Speaker: They got rid of the audience, just gone from one day to the next.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I mean, they warned you like a month in a head, Hey, we're going to get rid of some audiences, but they didn't say which ones.
Speaker: And so then from one day to the next, you have no more homeowner audience.
Speaker: You do have that still on other, other networks, but that's why you've got to kind of search the different networks.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: So to bring it back to the point, if you're just getting into it,
Speaker: I would say look what other people are doing that's actually working.
Speaker: You know, watch webinars is what I did at the beginning, a lot of webinars and read books on it.
Speaker: And then if you have money, then pay for coaching because that'll get you there a little bit faster.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's huge.
Speaker: And yeah, I mean, that's basically what I did with Ben here.
Speaker: I knew I saw that it was possible.
Speaker: And instead of just testing it and running trial and error and probably spending a lot more money, it made more sense for me to just pay someone who already has had success and knows how to do it.
Speaker: And then that jumpstart that, I mean, that just...
Speaker: took me to a whole different level because rather than like spending all the time of trying to figure out myself, you can just find someone who's already doing it.
Speaker: Then yeah, if you know, you're going to get results, then it makes sense.
Speaker: Just pay them.
Speaker: So that's, I mean, I think that's huge.
Speaker: And that's probably what you did.
Speaker: That's the whole concept of funnel hacking, right?
Speaker: Just copying what other people already did.
Speaker: So did you have any like early coaches or mentors or anything when you started generating leads online or were you just, like you said, just watching webinars, reading books?
Speaker: I know I bought a lot of programs too.
Speaker: I don't even know how much I spent on programs.
Speaker: It's worth the investment though.
Speaker: If you can save you a little bit of time, I don't even remember what they're all called.
Speaker: There's so many of them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Each one is just like reading a new book.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: If you can just take one little nugget, cause I figure each of these, these people, as long as they've got good reviews, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Um, I mean, somebody has gotten results and the way marketing is, yeah, it's like, it's just not,
Speaker: Super predictable, I guess.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Cause yeah, there's no guarantees in marketing.
Speaker: You know, you could spend a hundred thousand on Facebook, but they're not going to guarantee you're going to get the installs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, but not, if I could just take even like a nugget from each of these courses or books, it was worth it for me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know about you, but I'm sure it's the same way.
Speaker: You got all your books.
Speaker: I don't have that many books, but I have quite a few too.
Speaker: And then I have the whole bookmarks, all the bookmarks of all the courses I bought.
Speaker: It's like a mile long of all the courses and everything.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you want to learn something, you got to be willing to spend the money.
Speaker: And I know lots of people that they just want to learn, but they're not willing to invest to spend the money.
Speaker: If you can get even one little nugget from all these courses, then that's going to be worth it.
Speaker: Maybe there's some that I know there's some I invested in that maybe it wasn't the best use of my money, but I think it's true.
Speaker: You got to be those that pay attention.
Speaker: You got to spend the money to start learning, right?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: And it's always, yeah, for me, at least when I, when I work with people, I love working with the people that have actually tried it themselves first.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Cause once haven't, they're just like, just, just do it.
Speaker: Just generate me some leads.
Speaker: They don't, they don't know the pain, you know, it's like the, the, the work it takes to generate decent quality leads online, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's what's,
Speaker: And it's true.
Speaker: And I'm sure you're always learning new ways because, I mean, there's a lot of people now generating leads online in the solar space.
Speaker: So have you seen a lot of differences?
Speaker: Are you always like learning different ways of generating leads too?
Speaker: Or did you kind of find your one set way and just stick with that?
Speaker: I'd say, yeah, it's always evolving, I'd say.
Speaker: And I'm more about...
Speaker: Trying to evolve the marketing side enough to where the sales side is easier.
Speaker: Because just giving somebody a ton of leads can just be a lot of work for them, right?
Speaker: And so I'm trying to evolve the process to where we're able to set more appointments automatically instead of just leads going to the person.
Speaker: And there's just so many automation softwares out there that's definitely doable.
Speaker: It's more just about finding the right hook to get people to take action with the right urgency instead of them just giving you their number and then you playing phone tag back and forth for weeks.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, and that brings me to another point.
Speaker: I mean, this is something I know we've talked about before, but...
Speaker: I'm sure you've seen it, but when you get a lead, the second half is you have to know how to contact them and actually set an appointment.
Speaker: In your experience, let's say we've got a lead here online, but how do you go about contacting these leads?
Speaker: I just...
Speaker: So if you're the type of person that's growing an agency, one of the lessons I've learned on the agency side is not every company or person you're working with is equal.
Speaker: I remember that first client I took on,
Speaker: I was, the leads were actually, it was in Texas and so the cost isn't that bad in Texas.
Speaker: We were generating leads for about 10 bucks a lead and we're doing pretty consistent in like one to two a day after we found the winning campaign.
Speaker: So the first month didn't go well at all.
Speaker: We were like testing, I was testing so many different things.
Speaker: And another lesson I learned was not to end the test too soon.
Speaker: A lot of times you test something and then you'd be like, it's not working after like a day.
Speaker: You'd be like, it's not working.
Speaker: Scratch it.
Speaker: We'll go to the next thing.
Speaker: It's like, that's way too soon.
Speaker: You know, you got to let at least a hundred people, you know, click on it or something just to see if you've got enough data to see if that's a winning campaign or not.
Speaker: But yeah, so after we found the winning campaign, finally by watching, you know,
Speaker: It's like a gradual process first you watch the click rate the click through rate and then the lead rate right how many leads you're getting then your cost per lead and then finally the cost per acquisition, right?
Speaker: But I remember it got going where it was flowing really well, right?
Speaker: I was like, oh finally I can sleep again and like yeah, he's like these leads aren't answering the phone This is you know, these are terrible leads.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like well So we had the conversation.
Speaker: I was like, well, how soon do you call him?
Speaker: He's like, yeah about usually within three days like
Speaker: Three days, are you kidding me?
Speaker: They filled out the form in three days.
Speaker: Yeah, because he's like, you know, they don't even know they fill out a form.
Speaker: I'm like, well, obviously it's been three days.
Speaker: You know, we do so many things.
Speaker: There's so many distractions.
Speaker: Another thing I like to do is when I see a solar ad, I'll go through the process and put in my real number.
Speaker: And I like to see how quickly they call and I like to see what text messages they send me to follow up.
Speaker: Just to completely see because what's the worst can happen?
Speaker: They realize, hey, you're a marketer.
Speaker: People do it to my stuff all the time.
Speaker: It's like, I like to go through and then like the ones that are on top of it, they're calling me within five minutes.
Speaker: Like this one was within 30 seconds.
Speaker: I put in my number.
Speaker: I got a call within 30 seconds.
Speaker: That was from Sunrun.
Speaker: I just tested it on Saturday because I saw the ad pop up.
Speaker: I was like, we'll see how they do on a Saturday evening.
Speaker: Probably within 30 seconds.
Speaker: I was like, wow, that's impressive.
Speaker: They weren't too big on the email follow-up though.
Speaker: I was curious about that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We know that was in my other email.
Speaker: So they might be, I haven't checked that, but I know just the call blew me away.
Speaker: And so that's, that's what I mean by each person I work with.
Speaker: I realized very quickly it's not always my fault as the marketer or as the agency.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A lot of times people just aren't calling them.
Speaker: nearly fast enough or enough, you know what I mean?
Speaker: So the process we found the winning process to be to call immediately as soon as you can if they don't set an appointment right away with the Calendly service.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then text instead of leaving a voicemail, just text them right away right after you call if they don't answer.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then call again the next day and leave a voicemail on the second time you call.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then we've got like a six to seven day follow up email campaign that goes automatically.
Speaker: That's like one email every day.
Speaker: You've seen that.
Speaker: It's kind of like an educational thing about solar, the equipment and stuff like that.
Speaker: And the whole goal, it's all like about baby steps, just like going door to door.
Speaker: So that first contact, if they answer the phone or if they don't, it's just to get them to talk to you on the phone.
Speaker: So your call to action basically on that initial text, it should never be to set an appointment.
Speaker: It should be, when's a good time to chat?
Speaker: Really quick.
Speaker: Make it sound super painless, right?
Speaker: Just like on the door, you would never say, you know, with the alarm, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's sign you up now.
Speaker: It's like, let's take a quick look at your back door just to make sure, you know, we can take care of it.
Speaker: Something little baby step.
Speaker: It's the same thing I found kind of online, right?
Speaker: Yeah, that's true because that's something that took me a while to learn.
Speaker: I thought when we're getting these leads in, I was thinking they're going to like golden prospects.
Speaker: They're going to be all ready to go.
Speaker: But really, I mean, maybe they're warmer, but you got to take them through the smaller steps just like you're knocking a door because it's tough sometimes.
Speaker: You call them, you immediately push to sit down with them.
Speaker: And some of these people are like, oh, I don't know.
Speaker: I don't want to sit down.
Speaker: I thought you were just emailing me some information.
Speaker: I just wanted information, right?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So it's like, if you don't know how to give them the reasons for that information, then it's going to be super tough to get in.
Speaker: So everything you got to give them the reason, right?
Speaker: The reason you want to come back is, oh, I need it.
Speaker: I just want to check out your roof and then also make sure we got it right with the design.
Speaker: And I'll just run through it quick with you.
Speaker: Make it no big deal and push to get in the door, right?
Speaker: Super painless, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it's huge for anyone that's getting online leads or building these for other companies.
Speaker: It's something I think you've got to coach the people through it and make sure they understand because otherwise, yeah, definitely not going to be getting results.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's a great point.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Cause and if you're able to, like you said, as long as you coach them, right.
Speaker: I found that to be, yeah, I'm still learning that coaching, you know, the clients just like you'd coach your customers on giving referrals.
Speaker: If you coach them right, then their expectations will be,
Speaker: appropriate right yeah it's huge well cool Ben I know we gotta wrap up here pretty soon but we've gone through a ton of information and I know like you said it's not something you all take in one day at a time and this is kind of your specialty that's how I learned this from masters like Ben here and so someone that wants to learn more about this or kind of put themselves in the world of online lead generation where can they find out more about you or maybe check out your courses or anything
Speaker: The website is solarfunnels.com.
Speaker: I can't believe that one was available, but I got that one a while ago.
Speaker: And then I think like a cool special offer for your guys would be the webinar funnel.
Speaker: I think that's a great start just cause a lot of guys have these, you know, cold leads that are just sitting there.
Speaker: But they're not doing anything with.
Speaker: So they can get it on the marketplace from ClickFunnels for $2.97.
Speaker: I figure if they just go to solarfunnels.com, I don't know if I can just send you the link.
Speaker: We'll do like slash,
Speaker: What should we do?
Speaker: Slash webinar?
Speaker: Yeah, we would do that.
Speaker: And I'll do it for like $197 or something.
Speaker: And then the people that buy that funnel, I'll make sure to include the training on how to record the webinar, the training on the referral training, and the training on the slides and everything.
Speaker: And also the email templates.
Speaker: I put all of that in the training.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That'd be a cool offer, I think.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: And that's something that if you have these old leads, especially if you do it right, don't do it like I did and don't mess up the name and everything.
Speaker: But if you do it right, then you can get all these people that are on the fence actually contacting you.
Speaker: So we will link to that.
Speaker: That's going to be huge.
Speaker: solarfunnels.com slash webinar, right?
Speaker: Yeah, we'll do that.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: We'll put that in the show notes and definitely check out his stuff.
Speaker: Ben can teach you how to start getting these leads and my results with them.
Speaker: I didn't think I would get that good of results, honestly, but he started teaching me how I started building out my funnels.
Speaker: And I think I closed three deals from them within a month.
Speaker: Then you started doing the agency.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And now I'm making money building up for other people.
Speaker: So I'm no expert, but yeah, I mean, just take out that middle portion.
Speaker: Don't wait.
Speaker: Don't spend all this time when you can just take a shortcut and learn from experts.
Speaker: So we're going to post that and then get his webinar funnel.
Speaker: And then from there, you can definitely check out his course.
Speaker: I know he has like a webinar just on your solar funnels.com, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You watch that, learn from that.
Speaker: And it's definitely a good way to jumpstart your way into this.
Speaker: marketing world here so cool any final thoughts you want to share with the solar industry or the the solarpreneurs here ben keep up the great work and always be testing i'd say okay that's true it's a big test and it's something he's ben's getting on my back too is
Speaker: I thought Ben gave me one ad to run and I thought that ad would work forever, but it's true.
Speaker: You gotta be swapping out ads.
Speaker: You gotta be testing results.
Speaker: We'll start not showing up anymore.
Speaker: Definitely always pay attention to the other ads.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: It's like one of the biggest learning things and people probably don't use it as much.
Speaker: So always take screenshots of their ads and then just click on the learn more button and take a screenshot of their landing page.
Speaker: You can usually tell which ones are doing well.
Speaker: It's hard to know which ones are profitable and which ones aren't.
Speaker: Sometimes you can see, if you see a lot of social proof on an ad, especially on Facebook, you see like 30, 40, 50 likes.
Speaker: for hearts, whatever that stuff is, you know, then, then you can tell that when they've been running it for a while, so it must be doing okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Well, thanks for being on the podcast, Ben.
Speaker: And thanks for letting us pick your brain for a minute here and definitely find out more and we will continue to be in touch.
Speaker: Thanks again, Ben.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: What another amazing episode of the solarpreneur podcast.
Speaker: Now, before we take off here, do us a favor and go leave an honest review on your platform of choice or wherever you're listening to this podcast.
Speaker: It helps us get the word out about the solarpreneur movement and impact more entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and marketers just like you.
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Speaker: That's going to impact you and help you take your sales game to the next level.
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