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 solopreneur, you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Speaker: What's going on solopreneurs?
Speaker: I'm excited for another episode.
Speaker: As usual, if you are new to the show, we are here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: I hope you're doing well.
Speaker: We're recording this podcast in the springtime.
Speaker: It's warming up here and it's the best time of the year because daylight savings time.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: We got an extra hour of daylight, which makes it so much easier to be out there talking to people, talking to homeowners, talking to prospects.
Speaker: And you don't have to have people tell you, oh, it's too late.
Speaker: It's too dark outside.
Speaker: We got an extra hour of daylight.
Speaker: I hope you're taking advantage of that.
Speaker: Today's episode, we're going to be talking about a super powerful principle that I'm realizing more and more is how customers can just get super excited about whatever you're offering them.
Speaker: I think it's kind of a ninja technique because you can take something that seems not even that great and make it sound just the best thing in the world.
Speaker: So I'm going to be sharing how to do that, how to get your solar prospects just stoked to go solar with you and to get them to sign up today.
Speaker: So we're going to be jumping into that.
Speaker: But before we get into the episode, I wanted to thank we have got two new reviews on iTunes.
Speaker: The past few weeks, I said, hey, it's been a little bit since people have left a review.
Speaker: Am I doing a terrible job on the show or what's going on here?
Speaker: And so I'm super grateful for, we got one from TNR.hda.
Speaker: It's a cool name.
Speaker: He must be from Star Wars or something.
Speaker: He says, me and my two buddies are driving out to California right now to sell solar for the first time and we are listening right now.
Speaker: This podcast has been a huge motivator and help for the past few months and we can't wait to see what new episodes you have coming.
Speaker: Also love these live door reactions.
Speaker: So appreciate that.
Speaker: Much appreciated.
Speaker: And we did, I think two episodes ago,
Speaker: a live door approach kind of breakdown and sounds like, sounds like they liked it.
Speaker: So we might, we may be doing more of those here soon.
Speaker: And the next one we had was from a Yoda speaking of star Wars, right?
Speaker: Yoda with six zeros after his name.
Speaker: He says, awesome podcast, bro.
Speaker: Been sharing your cast with some of the teams.
Speaker: This is my ninth year in solar and still learning something new everyday student mindset.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I love that Yoda.
Speaker: And just like the Jedi master himself, I think that's one of the most important things in any sales job, especially solar is to have a student mindset, always be learning.
Speaker: Because the second you stop learning, second you stop growing, you're contracting.
Speaker: What I've learned, there's no neutral in this business.
Speaker: You're either growing, you're either getting better,
Speaker: or you're getting worse if you're not sharpening your saw and making improvements every single day.
Speaker: So again, appreciate the support.
Speaker: If you want to leave us a review, it's pretty simple.
Speaker: You can go on iTunes, wherever you listen to podcasts, also on Spotify.
Speaker: Tap the stars and leave and click on where it says write a review.
Speaker: And the other best way to help grow the show, if you would like to support, is just by sharing it.
Speaker: So appreciate all of you that have tagged me on Instagram, posted on Facebook, shared it in any way possible.
Speaker: That is how we grow the community and help each other all have a much better time in the industry.
Speaker: So with that being said, let's jump into the topic today.
Speaker: So what we're going to be talking about, like I said, it's a super powerful principle that we've been using on our teams here in San Diego.
Speaker: And we've been having a ton of success with to get people that thought they never were interested in solar and to take them to get that interest level high.
Speaker: And so this secret technique, here's what it is.
Speaker: It's called comparing and contrasting.
Speaker: I'm going to get into how that's used here.
Speaker: You're probably like comparing and contrasting.
Speaker: What even is that?
Speaker: But if you can do this successfully in as you're knocking doors, as you're prospecting and even in closes, it's going to make things a lot easier.
Speaker: So what is comparing and contrasting?
Speaker: So I'm going to give you a little story.
Speaker: It's going to kind of illustrate why this is so powerful.
Speaker: So this is taken from online.
Speaker: It says, contrast principle affects the way we see the difference between two things that are presented one after another.
Speaker: Simply put, if the second item is fairly different from the first, we will tend to see it as more different than it actually is.
Speaker: And just to kind of illustrate for that, there's a story, maybe some of you have heard about this, but they did a study.
Speaker: I think it was at a university.
Speaker: It says it was at a psychophysics laboratory.
Speaker: What they did, they had these students take turns sitting in front of three pails of water.
Speaker: One was cold, one was at room temperature, and one was hot.
Speaker: And what they had them do, they said, hey, okay, put your hand in the cold water and then put one hand in the hot water.
Speaker: And then after setting their hands in the cold and the hot water, they said, okay, now put it into the lukewarm water at the same time.
Speaker: And what happens, you probably know the result of this story.
Speaker: The one that was sitting in the cold water, the hand that was in the cold water, all of a sudden it feels super warm.
Speaker: It's like, oh, this is nice.
Speaker: But the one that was sitting in the hot water, it feels freezing now because you went from hot to lukewarm.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So how do you use this in cells?
Speaker: What does this have to do with cells?
Speaker: You probably all experience this.
Speaker: Maybe some of you do cold showers, hot.
Speaker: But if there's a contrast, if there's a difference, you notice it a lot more.
Speaker: So here's how we use it in sales.
Speaker: We take something that maybe wasn't as exciting for the customer and we contrast it.
Speaker: So I'm gonna give you a few examples of something we've been using as we're knocking doors, and then also give you an example as you were out closing deals.
Speaker: So how do you use this if you're out knocking doors?
Speaker: You need to contrast what you were offering with what was offered in the past.
Speaker: So especially for those that are in California or those that are in hotter markets, there's usually a reason that people haven't gone solar, right?
Speaker: Maybe it's because they heard that there are liens on the home.
Speaker: Maybe it's because in California, there's a lot of people that lease their solar that maybe it wasn't the best program for them.
Speaker: Maybe it's because they heard that there were roof leaks, whatever it is.
Speaker: So what you're doing, you're basically taking out all these bad things, all these terrible reasons why people have not gone solar, all the horror stories, and you're contrasting it with what you do now.
Speaker: So as you compare and contrast, all of a sudden it makes your offering look a lot better.
Speaker: Okay, so how do you use this on the doors?
Speaker: If you're knocking doors, for example, in California, a lot of times we get, oh, solar?
Speaker: No, not interested.
Speaker: So if you are listening to this, you can play this back over and over.
Speaker: This has gotten me so many appointments in the past couple of weeks and want to thank our team.
Speaker: They Jason Newby here in the squad.
Speaker: This is something we've been talking about a lot in our meetings.
Speaker: So I'm sharing some company secrets.
Speaker: Hopefully I do not get, I don't know, reprimanded or something for this.
Speaker: But I was doing it to a degree before, so nothing too new here.
Speaker: This is a sales principle for sure.
Speaker: But the way you do it, let's say you're knocking on the door.
Speaker: Taylor, no, you know what?
Speaker: We've checked into solar.
Speaker: Doesn't make sense.
Speaker: Oh, for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm sure you had.
Speaker: Pretty much everyone's looked into it.
Speaker: I'm guessing when you looked at it, it was probably like a huge upfront cost.
Speaker: So that's what was going on, right?
Speaker: Or just say any, you know, any contrasting principle you can think of.
Speaker: So what's one reason that someone hasn't gone solar?
Speaker: The upfront costs, the leases, the liens on the home, whatever negative thing.
Speaker: And guess what?
Speaker: As you're saying these things, customers, I've noticed 90% of the time, even if that's not the reason that they did not go solar or they're saying they're not interested, they will agree with whatever you're saying.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And sometimes it's just to get you off their porch or whatever.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They'll agree with it.
Speaker: Yeah, it was probably, it was, you know, it was going to be like 40 grand.
Speaker: It was going to be like a lot of upfront costs for us.
Speaker: And a lot of times the reason they haven't gone slower, they don't understand.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Maybe they were offered the exact same zero down program.
Speaker: Maybe they're offered no upfront costs, but they're
Speaker: A lot of times they're just misunderstanding.
Speaker: People do not understand how solar works.
Speaker: As you're contrasting this way, they're going to agree with you.
Speaker: They're going to say, oh yeah, there's a huge upfront cost.
Speaker: Oh yeah, there's liens on the home.
Speaker: Oh yeah, we are concerned about our roof.
Speaker: Whatever you're telling them, most of the time they will agree.
Speaker: Or if not, a lot of times they'll tell you the reason.
Speaker: They'll tell you why.
Speaker: And then the key with this, dig deeper.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So they might agree.
Speaker: They said, oh yeah.
Speaker: So the upfront costs, it was pretty high.
Speaker: Sounds like.
Speaker: See if you can get them to expound.
Speaker: And if you haven't heard the podcast,
Speaker: It's called Mirroring.
Speaker: I think this was 10 episodes ago.
Speaker: We'll put it in the show notes here.
Speaker: But Mirroring.
Speaker: And then I'm drawing a blank.
Speaker: But it's from the...
Speaker: book never split the difference um the author he calls it mirroring and then the other one sorry i'm getting a brain fart here but go read that book we will post it in the show notes but that is how you get people to expound you say oh sounds like you guys were we're gonna have to pay a ton for this and then they will expound or they'll say oh yeah it's too expensive and you say oh expensive
Speaker: get them to expound on it.
Speaker: Those are two techniques, two powerful techniques to get them to expound.
Speaker: So that's how you do it and you contrast it.
Speaker: So after you get them to kind of spill the beans, tell you what they were offered before you say, Oh, cool.
Speaker: Well, you know what?
Speaker: That's actually why I'm here.
Speaker: Cause you know, almost all your neighbors, they're the same when they looked into it, there's going to be some huge upfront costs.
Speaker: There's liens on the home.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have checked that out either.
Speaker: So what we're doing here, it's actually quite a bit different.
Speaker: The reason you're in, if you can pull out personal names with this, that's why I talk about using a name list all the time.
Speaker: I talk about name dropping makes it more believable, more powerful.
Speaker: So the reason why Judy across the street actually looked into this, cause she didn't have to pay anything.
Speaker: She didn't have to take money out of her checkings account.
Speaker: She didn't have to win the lottery.
Speaker: She didn't have to, I mean, there was no money she had to come up to do this.
Speaker: All it did for her was it gave her a much cheaper bill on what she was paying monthly.
Speaker: And then from there, boom, you can do a takeaway.
Speaker: Not everyone qualifies or whatever you want to do.
Speaker: So this is super powerful.
Speaker: Contrast that way.
Speaker: So contrast with what they looked at in the past year.
Speaker: to what they're going to get if they go solar with you and then do a takeaway.
Speaker: So I guarantee you, if you are not doing this right now, as you're prospecting, it is going to help so much, especially in these saturated areas.
Speaker: And what if you're in an area where solar is pretty new?
Speaker: Well, then probably even easier.
Speaker: You'll still get some of the same stuff.
Speaker: You'll still get people saying, oh, yeah, we don't have money.
Speaker: We can't afford it.
Speaker: It's a perfect opportunity to contrast.
Speaker: So it works whether you are in saturated markets that have been hit a lot or whether you're in newer areas where maybe solar is pretty new.
Speaker: Okay, so that's the first way.
Speaker: And then second, if you are closing your appointments, if you were out there closing deals, you can also contrast in the close.
Speaker: So a lot of these same word tracks, a lot of these same lines, obviously you can use them in the close.
Speaker: But something that's really powerful as you're closing, you can get them excited about what you're doing.
Speaker: And then when they see what the actual numbers are, they can get even more excited.
Speaker: So what I mean by that is let's say you're in an appointment.
Speaker: You know that their monthly bill with the financing is going to be, I don't know, let's say 120 a month.
Speaker: Well, what you can do is say, Mr. Customer,
Speaker: Yeah, it looks like it's definitely going to be some savings for you.
Speaker: It's probably going to be in the range of 140 to 150.
Speaker: What we're doing though is we actually submit an application.
Speaker: And once we submit this, we're going to get your exact numbers.
Speaker: And then you'll be able to see exactly what we're talking about here in the rate and everything.
Speaker: So something that's really powerful, if you can get them excited on paying, I don't know, ballpark $150 a month, imagine how excited they're going to be when their credit gets approved, application is passed, and they're only paying $120, right?
Speaker: So it's the same thing.
Speaker: You're taking that bucket of water, you're taking that hand from cold to lukewarm, right?
Speaker: Some people, if you have surprises, they're taking it from hot water to the lukewarm and their customers are all of a sudden not as excited.
Speaker: So how can you take them from the lukewarm to the warmer water?
Speaker: How can you get them more and more excited on this?
Speaker: You sell them on ownership.
Speaker: And I know out here in California, we enjoy helping people save some big money, but it's not like that in a lot of markets.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: So for you that do not really sell on savings or that don't get savings for your customers, then maybe you're selling purely on ownership.
Speaker: right?
Speaker: And then once they see that maybe the bill, instead of paying an extra, I don't know, $30 a month, but it actually gets their bill equal to what they're paying, how excited are they going to be?
Speaker: You're telling me I can own something, have an asset, something that's valuable for my home, and I can pay exactly what I'm paying right now.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Where before maybe they thought, and you're not lying to them.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you don't, you know, don't just tell them lies.
Speaker: But the key is you don't always have to give people exact numbers.
Speaker: I don't do this every time, but it is very powerful when you can give someone, you know, a ballpark number.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: As long as they're not drilling you for exact numbers.
Speaker: But a lot of times I'll just give them an estimation and then they're going to be that much more excited when they find out exactly how much they're going to be saving, exactly what the terms are.
Speaker: You do need to make sure you're selling them on the ownership, on the principles of going solar though.
Speaker: So those are two ways I use comparing and contrasting.
Speaker: Start using it in your closes, in your cells, in your door knocking.
Speaker: Let me know if you have any other ways that you can trust.
Speaker: As usual, you can hit me up on Instagram at Taylor J. Armstrong, on Facebook, on all the social medias.
Speaker: And I can't wait.
Speaker: We've got some exciting guests coming up.
Speaker: So make sure you tune in to the episodes that are coming up.
Speaker: And last thing before we leave, we hope to see you all at SolarCon is coming up here next month in April.
Speaker: We'll post the link to it in the show notes if you haven't gotten your exclusive solar printer discount.
Speaker: And we'd like to thank our sponsors, Pi Syndicate, for supporting the show.
Speaker: So if you haven't got your finances in order, if you need help with your taxes, let me know.
Speaker: We'll post that again also in the show notes where you can get linked up with them, do a call.
Speaker: They've helped me tremendously in my financial journey, helping me actually get into investments that are getting me good returns and not having to spend a time researching stuff because I like to just have a coach that can tell me, hey, this is good.
Speaker: This is bad.
Speaker: I don't have to spend a ton of time on it.
Speaker: So go check them out and we will see you guys on the next episode.
Speaker: Keep crushing.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
Speaker: What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day.
Speaker: For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
Speaker: That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry.
Speaker: And it's called Solcitee.
Speaker: This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day.
Speaker: Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
Speaker: So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
