Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
If You Don't Do This Your Deals Will Cancel
125 Plays4 days ago
In every presentation and close, we should leave no stone unturned before we fully commit to signing with the homeowner. In this episode, I share an experience that highlights this exact principle: leading to a drastic shift in the deal.
CLICK HERE: https://apply.solarpreneurs.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Taylor's Journey: From Broke to Solar Success
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. 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 how to avoid the mistakes I made in 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.
Analyzing Customer Cancellations
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, what's going on, solopreneurs? Today, we're going doing an analysis of some of my recent cancels, and I'm to give you what I think is the top reason that I have customers cancel. All right, and so welcome to the show. My name's Taylor 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.
00:01:00
Speaker
Hope you're getting ready for the summer
Preparing for Summer Sales: Join the Competition
00:01:02
Speaker
grind. Hope you're getting lots of deals closed. And hope you're having the unbelievable success in solar cells that you deserve. And hopefully this podcast is a small con contributing factor to your success. we arere gearing up here for the summer grinds and we have a competition season starting. If you are interested interested in joining us for some of our summer blitzes, would love to have a conversation. Please shoot us a DM or a email, taylorsolarepreneurs.com and would love to connect. But in the meantime, we're going be teaching you how to sell a whole lot more and hopefully avoid
00:01:36
Speaker
cancels because nothing more frustrating than selling these things then having
Tracking Patterns to Reduce Cancellations
00:01:40
Speaker
cancels. And something that has been helping our team recently is just doing in an analysis. We keep a spreadsheet. Every single cancel, we track it. Why do they cancel? What was a reason that this deal fell through the cracks? And you start to see patterns.
00:01:54
Speaker
emerge. Really, that's what helps you improve the process. So in tracking this, I noticed a concerning trends come up on some of the deals we are tracking. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not so obvious, but you're going to hear one of the biggest reasons I've had cancellations.
00:02:11
Speaker
And then going to teach you how to hopefully avoid the same cancellations in your
Cautionary Tale: The Cost of Buyer Friction
00:02:16
Speaker
process. So before we get into that reason, going to get into a little story. And so the story is this.
00:02:22
Speaker
I had a customer We signed her up last week. Things were going smooth. We get to the end of the deal. Then as we're signing her up, most financers lately, they require a you know checking account. They require banking information to put in the portal to you know complete the process.
00:02:41
Speaker
for the PPAs that we're primarily signing down here. And this lady, she's an older Mexican lady. And she was like, oh, you know what I don't have, I don't really have a bank account. It's more my daughter.
00:02:53
Speaker
think she just said that. She's like, oh, my daughter, she needs to be here for the the bank account so I can give that to you. you know, just turned in this little small issue we had. And then a long story short, we signed the deal, we scheduled a site survey, but I did not collect the bank account info. And I did let her know, hey, I'll need to come back for this. Fast forward to today, this is three, four days after the sale, I go back and i asked for the account info and then it's just a whole different dynamic. She starts to bring up excuses.
00:03:26
Speaker
Then it turns into, ah you know, what I don't really feel comfortable giving it. We have to get the daughter on the line. And then it turns into, I don't even have a bank account for me. and the daughter doesn't want to give it.
00:03:38
Speaker
Now we're at the point where it's like she says she's going to go create a new bank account and then give that to me. And this just turns in this whole thing that I think, and you know, who knows, maybe it would have been the same thing on the day I signed it. But the lesson I learned is why didn't I push harder for this information the day I signed her up for solar? Why didn't I do everything I could to leave the house with everything completed? Because when you leave loose ends like this,
00:04:04
Speaker
it just It just makes it so much harder to um complete the sale and it changes the dynamic. Instead of me being the needed, instead of me being, oh, you know, what I don't know if your home's going to qualify. We'll have to see. Hopefully the home's eligible. Now it's I'm chasing her for information. And she feels a dynamic shift from her wanting the thing to now being the one that's being bugged. That's feeling like, oh, this is a sales thing now. They're bugging me to get things. So, you know, a few lessons from this and hopefully you don't make the same mistake. Hopefully you complete everything the day you sign a customer up. But a few lessons I learned and a few reasons that I think makes it difficult. So just doing some of my own research, you got... You know, I went through the whole AI thing, had to give me some analysis. So something interesting i discovered, something called the principle
Principle of Friction: Streamlining Sales Processes
00:04:55
Speaker
of friction. Probably heard of this. The more friction you create, more customers you're going to lose. In research I was doing, it says behavioral economists call this friction costs, and that's every extra step increases the chance someone quits. And it gives the example of Amazon. If you go buy something from Amazon, you notice they have...
00:05:14
Speaker
basically one step to buy the thing. And they have ah even a one click checkout button. They can literally order the thing in one click. And even to add to that, you've probably heard of you can order different buttons for like household items. I think they have stuff for like shampoo, all these different household items. You can buy a button and click it. They will literally like order it just without even logging on Amazon, without going online.
00:05:38
Speaker
So how's that for reducing friction? How can we apply that in solar? You know, that's why Amazon gets so many sales. They make it so easy to buy things. And you think of things i I know so many times I've been thinking of buying things. And then when they have multiple steps online, it's like, you know, I'll do this later. ah This is kind of a headache. I don't know how much I want this.
00:05:58
Speaker
So in solar, it's the same thing. When we don't collect everything at the time of signing, it creates buyer friction. Now all of a sudden, This lady goes from her being really excited about it to now I'm adding more steps. We're making things more difficult.
Completion at Sign-up: Avoiding Decision Fatigue
00:06:14
Speaker
And all of a sudden it turns into like five different cells, right? Every time you go back for something, it's almost the start of a new cell.
00:06:21
Speaker
hey And I had another example of this. Customer is ready for... install and then we had a issue where someone in office messed up. They thought it was a different account that was um being talked about. They confirmed the install thinking it was another account that already had everything squared away. This lady, she gets a text confirming the install and turns out it wasn't ready.
00:06:42
Speaker
And so we had to go back, explain to her and almost cost us the deal because she's like, oh, what? I'm professional. Why did you guys tell me it was this day? And has someone in the office messed up? And stuff like that happens. But anything you can do to reduce unprofessionalism, friction, it will help you so much in the cell. Momentum is everything. Once momentum slows down, questions appear.
00:07:06
Speaker
They want to get family members involved. How many times you've signed up an older person and then you know, the second momentum disappears, they they want to get people involved. I've seen it the flip side too. We had an or older guy who um he had said he wanted to talk to his daughter. This guy was actually like 85. But the process went so smoothly. We had it ready for install.
00:07:29
Speaker
pretty quickly, called him, we were assumptive with it, said everything was ready, and he's he didn't bring up the daughter. We got him installed. So you see both sides of it. When there's speed bumps, when there's friction, it can just cause you know needless objections to come up and cause doubts.
00:07:46
Speaker
But when you do handle the expectations, when you do handle the process process properly, you'd be surprised. Some people go to install without complaining at all. And then there's a level of decision fatigue people get. if they have to make multiple decisions, then they will cancel. So another thing that we try to do, if you know someone needs a roof, you know see when someone needs a ah panel upgrade, try to include that as much as you can in the beginning.
00:08:10
Speaker
hey And sometimes maybe with the pricing, it might be difficult. So I've seen some cases where maybe it does make sense to go back after, let them sit on it and then explain to them a little price difference.
00:08:22
Speaker
But for the most part, whenever possible, makes so much more sense. Just sign them up the right way the beginning. Then you don't have to come go back. It's going to save you time. It's going to create one decision right from the beginning and it's going to eliminate that decision fatigue of them.
00:08:37
Speaker
You going back, having to explain something else and then they have to make a whole nother decision on it. So, so many things that, you know, you have to manage as a solar salesperson in 2026. But I hope you can learn from some of my
Tools for Success: Checklists and Welcome Calls
00:08:50
Speaker
mistakes. Sign people up the right time. Sign people up the right way the first time is what I meant to say there. And then you will see that this will help you reduce cancellations, will help you reduce that decision fatigue, and it will help you make more money in solar. say and So if you don't already try to create yourself some type of checklist, if you have a checklist of what needs to be done in each sale,
00:09:14
Speaker
um Our team, we have a welcome call that verifies everything has been done. And sometimes sometimes things fall through the cracks. You know, this particular one, it did fall through the cracks because they verified it without the ah the payment information. Now they've changed it that if we don't have payment information that we can't even so go to the next step, which some people complain, but I see it as a good thing, right? You want to have everything done the right way the first time. So if your company does not have a welcome call like that,
00:09:42
Speaker
then you create your own checklist and try to never leave the house until you've gotten it done. Okay, so I hope this helps you today.
Solar Sales as Chess: Strategic Closing
00:09:51
Speaker
Recently, I've gotten into a chess and I get on the chess app and, you know, I'm a beginner. The mistake I find myself making over and over is I blunder these pieces because I'll have what in my mind, what I think the best move is and I'll be one track thinking off, I move this, going to checkmate him. But what I fail to see is I fail to see their moves and the threats they make against me. And so I lose end up losing a lot of valuable pieces, lose my queen and I lose the game because I don't consider what they're attacking on my ends. So a lot of times in solar, we do the same thing. you can make this comparison. We sign people up. We think we're on the offense. We think we're winning, but we fail to consider what are the threats if you don't collect all the information.
00:10:32
Speaker
Okay, so next time you're closing a deal, think of that chess analogy. Hopefully helps you out. Shoot me a DM if you want to challenge me in some chess. Let's play. But in the meantime, go close some deals. I hope that helps you out today. Make sure you get everything done the right way the first time. it will make you more money. It will lead to more customer satisfaction and it will lead to more you satisfaction, which we want that's to be something you experience in solar.
00:10:58
Speaker
So go get them this week. Thanks for tuning in. and We have some exciting guests coming up. So tune in, let me know any guests or topic suggestions, and we'll see you on the next
Introducing Solar Scout: Data Platform Offer
00:11:06
Speaker
one. So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego. And as we were gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
00:11:18
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. It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
00:11:41
Speaker
It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too. 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, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show. you need to give my listeners a great deal, and they did.
00:11:56
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.
00:12:08
Speaker
Okay, back to the Hey, solopreneurs, quick question. 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?
Solcitee: Learning and Mentorship Community
00:12:22
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. 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. And it's called Solcitee.
00:12:47
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. Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to SoulCity.co to learn more.
00:13:16
Speaker
and join the learning experience now. This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to solcity.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.