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 what's up solarpreneurs, Taylor Armstrong here.
Speaker: Today we're going to be talking about the questions you should be asking before you choose a solar company.
Speaker: And these are questions now being six, coming up on seven years in the industry.
Speaker: I wish I would have known these things.
Speaker: I don't know if it would have changed my decision on the first company I would have worked for, but with so many companies available, it can be overwhelming.
Speaker: How do you choose the right company to work with?
Speaker: So this is going to be geared towards new people in the industry, but maybe you've been with the company for a while.
Speaker: Maybe you are exploring other companies.
Speaker: Then this podcast is for you.
Speaker: Or really just anyone that's looking for good questions to ask your company.
Speaker: Maybe you've been with them for a while and you haven't asked these things.
Speaker: So good questions to ask.
Speaker: So let's jump into it.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: If I didn't already say that, sorry if I'm repeating myself.
Speaker: And we are here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: If you're new to the podcast, welcome.
Speaker: If you are not new, thanks for coming back and thanks for always sharing and supporting the show.
Speaker: Before we jump into it, we're coming up soon on the conference season for Door to Door.
Speaker: We got Door to DoorCon coming up.
Speaker: We got SolarCon coming after that.
Speaker: My two favorite events for solar and all things Door to Door.
Speaker: So if you were planning on going to Door to DoorCon today,
Speaker: I am thinking about doing a little meetup.
Speaker: Would love to meet some of the listeners, hear feedback from you guys and just do a little hangout.
Speaker: So shoot me an email, taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Go grab your tickets.
Speaker: We should have a link for that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: We'll have a link.
Speaker: I'm going to put it in the show notes if you want to support the show.
Speaker: and get your tickets through our little link, then they'll be much appreciated.
Speaker: I think there's a discount code with it.
Speaker: But go grab your ticket.
Speaker: Send me an email.
Speaker: Would love to do a little hangout.
Speaker: Jam with y'all at DoorToDoorCon.
Speaker: And with that being said, I think that's all the little announcements we got.
Speaker: So let's get into it.
Speaker: So we're talking about questions you should ask before you link up with a solar company.
Speaker: And when I first started, I didn't know any of these things to ask.
Speaker: There's lots of things I think could have been improved.
Speaker: And the cool thing is just by asking some of these questions, it may be that the people you're talking to, the people you're getting recruited by, maybe they don't really think about things.
Speaker: Maybe they don't think about these things as they're recruiting people.
Speaker: And so it could be an opportunity for them to make improvements as well.
Speaker: Maybe you're with a company and you haven't asked these things.
Speaker: These could be improvements that you help your current company with.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I'm just going to just going to spout out a bunch of questions here.
Speaker: And I'll give some feedback why I picked these questions.
Speaker: And then as usual, I would love to hear from y'all from the audience if you have other questions that you think we're missing here.
Speaker: OK, but good question to ask.
Speaker: I think one of the most important things is to know who you're going to be surrounded with.
Speaker: Who are the guys you're selling with?
Speaker: What are they producing?
Speaker: So good question to ask.
Speaker: What are the top guys doing?
Speaker: How many sales and installs are they getting?
Speaker: If you're someone that wants to produce at a high volume, which hopefully everyone is that listen to this podcast, then I think the best thing is to be surrounded by those who are producing at a high volume themselves.
Speaker: If you're getting on a team where their top guy is doing like two, three installs a month, probably not the best opportunity for you.
Speaker: Unless you're going on to run that team or something.
Speaker: But if you're going to join a team, it's a bunch of low producers.
Speaker: Chances are you're going to get dragged down by those low producers.
Speaker: So try to be someone that is on a high producing team, on a team that's doing a decent volume.
Speaker: Hey, and then I think training is a really good thing you should be asking about.
Speaker: So especially if you're new, right?
Speaker: How often you guys have meetings?
Speaker: What type of trainings are there?
Speaker: How long does it take for people to get their first sale?
Speaker: If you're new in solar, right?
Speaker: You should know those things.
Speaker: You want to know how good are these guys that taking a brand new rep, getting them to his first sale and getting this guy paid.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because that's one of the complaints about solar.
Speaker: I remember talking to some pest control friends.
Speaker: And this is what the pest control guys think about solar is that, oh, it takes way too long to get paid.
Speaker: You got to wait forever.
Speaker: It's just funny because a lot of these other industries, you got to wait for backends and all that to get paid.
Speaker: Solar, we get paid after install.
Speaker: But I get it.
Speaker: There's usually not a ton of upfront money.
Speaker: depending on how they set it up.
Speaker: So that's a good thing to ask though about training.
Speaker: And you want to know who's doing the training.
Speaker: What types of trainings are there?
Speaker: What type of accountability is there?
Speaker: What's like their schedule of going out and working?
Speaker: And most solar companies, they're going to be flexible.
Speaker: There's not a lot of solar companies that are like, you got to be working 10 a.m.
Speaker: to 8 p.m.
Speaker: you're fired.
Speaker: That's a pretty hardcore company if you're with that company.
Speaker: But almost every company I know in solar, they're pretty flexible on how much you work.
Speaker: So you want some structure, but I would recommend getting with a company that has the guidelines, people going out, but also gives you some flexibility.
Speaker: But not too much flexibility.
Speaker: I like to be held a little bit accountable depending on what type of person you are, how good you work alone.
Speaker: And then here's a big one just on the projects in general.
Speaker: And a lot of these things I have in my questions to ask because I have been burned.
Speaker: I've been with three companies now.
Speaker: And yeah, at times the companies I've been with have not been very good at these things.
Speaker: And we'll probably do a separate podcast on how to know if you should leave a company because that's a good thing to know too.
Speaker: Kind of a grim topic.
Speaker: I'm not all about leaving companies over and over, but at some point it has to be done.
Speaker: So let me know if you would like to hear a podcast about that.
Speaker: But for this question, you should be asking who manages the projects?
Speaker: Do you have project managers?
Speaker: Who deals with HOAs?
Speaker: My first company I was with, they were really good at this.
Speaker: They had project managers,
Speaker: They had people that gave the customers updates every single week.
Speaker: I could pretty much sell a deal and forget about it, which I don't really recommend.
Speaker: Even if you do have really good project managers, definitely check in and stay in contact with your customers, with your pipeline.
Speaker: But even more so, if you are with a dealer or a company who does not have project managers, and keep in mind, most people will say they have project managers.
Speaker: But you don't really know what they're actually doing.
Speaker: So ask the company you're checking out, hey, how often are they giving updates?
Speaker: What type of project managing are they doing?
Speaker: Am I expected to manage all that?
Speaker: because I mentioned it in a previous podcast, I think last week, that this cost me deals by not knowing if the installer was giving updates to my customers like the other installer.
Speaker: So you want to know this if you're linking up with a different solar company.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Number four, what do you typically sell the jobs at?
Speaker: What pricing do you usually, how high do you sell the customer?
Speaker: How high do you price them?
Speaker: What type of commissions do you make?
Speaker: Do you do more leases or loans?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: and what type of reviews do you guys have a lot in there so i just kind of rapid firing but this is great to know you want to know what type of company you're getting involved with is that something that's going to be coming up if you're with a company that has terrible reviews then um that's something you want to factor into your decision because guess what if you have terrible reviews and
Speaker: it will make your job a little bit harder to sell.
Speaker: Most people, they go online, they Google companies.
Speaker: Not everyone's a lay down.
Speaker: So you want to know these things.
Speaker: And I'm not saying you shouldn't sell with a company if they have bad reviews, but it should be something that factors in your decision.
Speaker: And then just what do you sell the jobs at?
Speaker: I think it's good to know, like, what are people typically charging the customers?
Speaker: Are the guys I'm selling with screwing their customers over?
Speaker: Maybe they are.
Speaker: And then are they getting a lot of cancels?
Speaker: All these things are good to know.
Speaker: And in California, where I'm at, it is tough to screw someone over with pricing.
Speaker: But I'm
Speaker: You can sell pretty high and still save people a lot of money.
Speaker: But I think there is points where maybe you're selling a little too high.
Speaker: Yeah, you can send me a message if you want to know what that point is.
Speaker: But yeah, good thing to ask.
Speaker: And then just more leases or loans.
Speaker: Ownership is typically better for customers.
Speaker: Everyone hopefully knows that.
Speaker: But, you know, you get like Sunrun out in California.
Speaker: They're selling mostly leases, PPAs.
Speaker: So if you're new, maybe this doesn't matter to you.
Speaker: But if you've been in the industry for a while, if you're used to selling loans and all the company offers are leases or PPAs or that's their main focus, that's their big focus, and they have a crappy loan product or crappy ownership product, then you might want to factor that in your decision too.
Speaker: At one point, I almost went with a company that I thought had just as good loans, financing, and ownership options.
Speaker: Then when I really dug into it, they barely had any options for ownership, and the warranties were not very good on their ownership products, just because they didn't really care about it.
Speaker: So good thing to know up front, good thing to ask.
Speaker: Hey, and another important one, what's the average install time?
Speaker: What type of growth opportunities are available?
Speaker: Not really related to those questions, but how quick are you going to get installs in?
Speaker: There's been points in my solar career where I have waited six plus months for an install.
Speaker: Not common, but you want to know what type of timeline you're looking at.
Speaker: Another big tip with this is ask other people.
Speaker: If you're just talking to the manager of the team,
Speaker: They're probably going to tell you what you want to hear, right?
Speaker: But I would go talk to other reps in the office, talk to people who have maybe been with that company for a little bit, say, hey, be real with me.
Speaker: How quick are your installs typically?
Speaker: Can you tell me?
Speaker: And then ask multiple people their experience of the office, of the company.
Speaker: You want to get the real feedback, not just the feedback from one manager, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So great question to ask.
Speaker: And then if you're looking to grow with the company, what type of growth opportunities are there?
Speaker: Are you just going to come in?
Speaker: Is it a massive company?
Speaker: Are you coming as a rep and not really have the chance to grow?
Speaker: Hey, ask them these things.
Speaker: Ask them, hey, what does it look like if I want to step in to manage a team?
Speaker: If I want to grow, if I recruit guys, is there any type of overrides on that?
Speaker: What do I get paid for recruiting for bringing guys in?
Speaker: You want to know what that looks like.
Speaker: How can you grow?
Speaker: Because you should always be looking to improve.
Speaker: You should be always looking to get better in solar.
Speaker: And then just the size of the company.
Speaker: How many reps do you have?
Speaker: What's the turnover on your reps?
Speaker: Do most people stick?
Speaker: What's your recruiting?
Speaker: Do you guys run ads, get recruits in that way?
Speaker: What does that look like?
Speaker: And then with payment, you want to ask, do I get paid M1s?
Speaker: Which is, you know, when you do the site survey for the job, the first milestone payment, do you get paid anything initially or is it all paid after install?
Speaker: Do I have to wait until permission to operate?
Speaker: And then what CRMs, what knocking apps do you guys use?
Speaker: What does that look like?
Speaker: How is the project being managed?
Speaker: So a ton of questions here.
Speaker: Hey, and I could probably go on and on with more questions.
Speaker: But just if just like anything, I would write down all your questions, have them ready.
Speaker: If you are looking at different companies, different options, if you're new, write down all these things.
Speaker: Make sure you don't forget and then shoot me a DM if you want like all these questions and list form.
Speaker: I just ran off with a bunch of them.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, there's a ton of great options in solar.
Speaker: The best option is out here.
Speaker: in San Diego, if you want to come work with yours truly.
Speaker: But whatever you do, make sure you hustle hard and factor all these things in your decision as you're deciding on a company to work with.
Speaker: And here's the most important question you should be asking.
Speaker: We saved the best for last.
Speaker: So don't forget this question when you're out investigating.
Speaker: And that is, hey, have you guys heard of the Solrepreneur podcast?
Speaker: Do you listen to it?
Speaker: If they say no, drop that company immediately.
Speaker: Don't check them out.
Speaker: They're not legit.
Speaker: Just kidding.
Speaker: But that should be a factor because come on, who's not going to listen to the greatest solar podcasts out there?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So remember, you are the average of the five people you hang out with.
Speaker: You've been hanging out with Taylor Amshon today.
Speaker: And don't forget, we're going to have some awesome guests on here coming up soon.
Speaker: So tune in in the next one.
Speaker: Share it, like it, subscribe.
Speaker: Thanks for coming on and we'll see you guys on the next podcast.
Speaker: Hey Solarpreneurs, are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your sales increase?
Speaker: Well so was I and the truth is I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going wrong.
Speaker: So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time we are doing a free sales diagnostic.
Speaker: We'll break down your sales process, figure out the holes in your business and see how we can help you improve.
Speaker: So at now we have six bucks for this month.
Speaker: So book a call now.
Speaker: Don't miss out.
Speaker: What you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: That's taylor at solarpreneurs with an S dot com.
Speaker: I'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out the time that works best.
Speaker: So shoot that email and let's increase your sales.
