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116. How to Improve Your Closes So You're Not Wasting Leads or Sales
36 Plays5 years ago
You need to improve your skills constantly if you want to earn a consistent, and generous, income from selling solar. One of the most important things that you can improve, besides how you get leads, is how you close them. The SELL is where all the money is made after all. Let me show you then not only some of the strategies I used to close more deals in a year than ever before, but also the mistakes other salesmen make that are losing them who knows how many sales.
One of the best ways I was originally trained for closing was actually by using Grant Cardone's Closer Survival Guide.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next
Taylor's Journey: From $50 to 150 Solar Deals
00:00:08
Speaker
level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong and 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 cells reps fell.
Learning from Mistakes and Industry Experts
00:00:19
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I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, following up like a pro and closing more deals.
Defining Solopreneurship
00:00:31
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What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
00:00:33
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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.
Post-election Reflections
00:00:41
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What's up, solopreneurs?
00:00:43
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Taylor Armstrong back with another episode, How Are Ya?
00:00:47
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I hope you had a dominant week, closed tons of deals, and I hope you're happy with the election if you're listening to this.
00:00:55
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It's the week after the election.
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Congrats, President Biden.
00:00:59
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And if you've been following all the posts on Facebook and everything, there's a lot of division.
Apology for Broken Link and Course Invitation
00:01:05
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But I think what our country needs is just accept the results and
00:01:11
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And be happy with the outcome and don't act like it's the end of the world.
00:01:15
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Some people I see, they're acting like the president's going to control their lives, like he is literally going to destroy their life.
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Or the opposite, some people are acting like the president is going to save them from all their struggles and all their problems are going to go away.
00:01:31
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But I think at the end of the day,
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If you were struggling before this election, you're going to struggle after.
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If you're dominating before, you're going to dominate after.
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People need to stop putting so much emphasis on the politics, on how they control their lives.
00:01:46
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Anyways, I digress.
00:01:47
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We're going to jump into an episode today.
00:01:49
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But before that, I want to apologize.
00:01:53
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Super embarrassing, but the link I have been talking about at the end of the episodes in the outros, it is the webclass.solarpreneurs.com.
00:02:05
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I actually found out it was a broken link and messed up the technology part.
00:02:10
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So super embarrassing, but should be fixed now.
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So go log on to that.
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You'll hear it again at the end.
00:02:16
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It should be webclass.solarpreneurs.com.
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There's a forum on there.
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You can enter in your email.
00:02:22
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And we are going to be launching a super exciting, super exclusive
Improving Sales Closing Techniques
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three step course that's going to teach you the three secrets I followed to hit the Golden Door Award in Solr, which is over 100 installs.
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So if you have less than 100 installs last year or haven't hit that mark, I want to give you the personal invitation to go and put in your email and then you're going to be the first notified to get that free training.
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So go jump on that.
00:02:51
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I apologize again.
00:02:51
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And to get to the content today, here's what we're going to talk about.
00:02:56
Speaker
How to know which part of your clothes needs improvement?
00:03:00
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It's something I get asked all the time by my reps, especially newer reps.
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Taylor, how do I know which part of the clothes I need to improve?
00:03:08
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How can I improve it?
00:03:09
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So what I want to answer first, preface that question, is I want you to go and look back on your cells or look back on your previous weeks.
00:03:21
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And look at your numbers, which hopefully you're all keeping track of your numbers.
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And look at how many appointments you actually went to that week.
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Did you go to more than two or three appointments?
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If you didn't go to more than two or three appointments, then there's your first problem.
00:03:38
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The issue is not the close.
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You're not giving yourself enough opportunities to close.
00:03:43
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And this is what I see over and over and over again, is newer reps, even experienced reps, they're saying, Taylor,
00:03:49
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not just me, but to any manager, right?
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They're saying, how come I'm not closing?
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What's going on?
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How do I improve my close?
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And then I'm like, well, how many appointments were you even in?
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And a lot of times with newer reps, they're only in one or two appointments a week.
00:04:06
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So I'm going, dude, or dudette, if you're a girl, if you're not in four or five appointments a week, then you're making it tough to give yourself a chance at success.
00:04:14
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Okay, because to all the top closers, I mean,
00:04:19
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Even if your closing ratio is 50% or higher, you got to be going to two or three a week to close one, right?
00:04:27
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That's the first issue.
00:04:28
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So for the managers that are listening or for any reps that are struggling, how many appointments did you actually sit in?
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Because if you're not seeing enough appointments, then you're not even going to be able to figure out how to
Lead Generation and Appointment Strategy
00:04:40
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improve the close.
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You're not giving yourself enough opportunities.
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So remember that mistake.
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Before you ask that question, ask yourself the question, how many appointments did I sit in?
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How come I'm not getting enough appointments?
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What's going on?
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So that's a lead gen issue.
00:04:55
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Okay, but after you figure that part out, let's say you are sitting in four or five appointments a week.
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You're doing that consistently, but you're not closing them.
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Then you can ask the question, what part of the close do I need to improve?
00:05:12
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Now you have the right to ask that question.
00:05:15
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But first, figure out your lead gen issues.
00:05:17
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But to answer the second question now that that's been prefaced, I think we need to go back to discussion on tracking, measuring, and adjusting.
00:05:28
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I've told this story, I think it was probably in a podcast maybe six months ago.
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But something that I learned when I first started in the industry is that I needed to be recording myself on the doors.
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I needed to be recording my closes.
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So what I did is I started just hitting the record button on every single close I went to.
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I was getting in.
00:05:51
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Yeah, I figured out the lead gen.
00:05:53
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I knew I needed to improve the clothes now.
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So I started recording my appointments.
00:05:58
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But what happened was, and you can go back and listen to the full story, but just to kind of paraphrase for those that already heard it, is I went into this home.
00:06:07
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I started recording the deal.
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It was this Hawaiian guy.
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Things were going good.
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He was the only homeowner.
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And then about 20, 25 minutes into the appointment, he actually saw me take out my phone.
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I think he asked me a question.
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I need to look at my phone for something.
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He saw me take it out.
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The screen lit up.
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And he saw the recorder to bar going at the top of my phone.
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And he called me out on it instantly.
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He said, are you recording this?
00:06:37
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And it was in an angry tone, though.
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It wasn't like, you know, questioning.
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He's like actually could tell he was mad about it.
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And I was caught like a deer in the headlights.
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I had no idea what to say.
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And I'm just kind of like, oh, yeah, yeah.
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It's going.
00:06:57
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I might have said I forgot to turn it off or something like that.
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But I just kind of made like a quick excuse.
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Tried to kind of blow it over.
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He was mad about it.
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He's, what are you doing recording?
00:07:05
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You don't have my permission.
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I'm like, okay, sorry.
00:07:08
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And in my head, going back in hindsight, I should have just said, oh, I'm using it for training purposes.
00:07:16
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No big deal.
Recording Sales Meetings: Legal and Ethical Considerations
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But I was just caught, didn't know what to say.
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And I just apologized.
00:07:20
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I'm like, oh, I'm sorry, man.
00:07:22
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Yeah, I can delete it.
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And at that point, it wrecked the deal.
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He did not trust me at all.
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In fact, I think he only gave me like five more minutes after that.
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And I could tell he was just like super annoyed, super upset that I was recording him, which depending on the state you're in, in California, it's illegal to record someone without their permission, I found out.
00:07:45
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But other states, like Nevada at least, at the time of this I know you actually can record people.
00:07:52
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But anyways, maybe figure out the laws of your state before you do something like that.
00:07:56
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So funny story, but the principle stays the same though.
Consistent Practice and Sales Skill Enhancement
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You should be recording yourself in your appointments.
00:08:03
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You should be figuring out ways to improve.
00:08:06
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And you're not going to improve if you're not recording yourself.
00:08:08
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So how do you know which part of the close to improve?
00:08:11
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Start recording your deals.
00:08:13
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and then start drilling, start rehearsing, start practicing.
00:08:19
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If anyone's read The Closer's Survival Guide by Grant Cardone, this is one of the main points of the book is that you need to be drilling, practicing, rehearsing.
00:08:28
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And it's one of the biggest, I think, pitfalls of any sales industry, sales career.
00:08:33
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People are not practicing.
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They're not treating it like a profession.
00:08:38
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You look at anyone else in any other professional gig that they're doing, they're practicing.
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Anyone that's a pro athlete, they're practicing.
00:08:46
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Anyone that's a pro musician, they're practicing.
00:08:50
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And I think that's why people don't improve, especially people that aren't naturals.
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I know myself, it took me a long time to have success in this game, success in the industry.
00:08:59
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And the only way someone like me did it is just by practicing over and over and over.
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Okay.
00:09:05
Speaker
Most of you probably heard that there's a book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.
00:09:10
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He talks about you need to have 10,000 hours before you truly master something.
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So think about that.
00:09:15
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If you're not where you're at, if you truly put in 10,000 hours studying, practicing, rehearsing, drilling, okay, and you can have success before that.
00:09:25
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I probably haven't put in 10,000 hours.
00:09:27
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But the more you can put in that effort, the more you're going to put yourself ahead of the learning curve.
00:09:33
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So that's the biggest, I think, tip with that question is figure out, record, and that's how you're going to figure out where mistakes are being made.
00:09:41
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Then once you can isolate that, then you can start to drill, practice, rehearse.
00:09:47
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As you record, I mean, go, if you're new to the industry, have a manager listen to it, a sales manager.
00:09:55
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If you're trying to do this out on your own, which I don't recommend,
00:10:00
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But hit me up.
00:10:02
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Join in some of our coaching programs.
00:10:04
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So what we're all about is helping people develop the systems and figure out what needs improvement.
00:10:11
Speaker
But if you don't record it, if you don't know what's wrong, there's no way you can make improvements.
00:10:15
Speaker
After you have some type of recording, after you can isolate what is going wrong, then just think about it.
00:10:22
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Are you having trouble closing?
00:10:23
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Have you gone to four or five deals?
00:10:25
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What type of objections are you getting?
00:10:27
Speaker
Do the people need to think about it?
00:10:29
Speaker
That means you're not building up urgency.
00:10:32
Speaker
If they need to think about it, they don't see the need to go solar right now.
00:10:36
Speaker
So what can you do now to implement building more urgency in your clothes?
00:10:40
Speaker
Forgetting a high cancellation ratio.
00:10:43
Speaker
Why is it?
00:10:44
Speaker
Survey your customers, figure out after.
00:10:48
Speaker
My biggest pet peeve is when I can't figure out why people canceled or why they didn't go solar.
00:10:53
Speaker
Drives me nuts.
00:10:55
Speaker
And because that's how you're going to improve.
00:10:56
Speaker
If you figure out why people didn't do it, then you can hopefully overcome that objection for the future.
00:11:01
Speaker
So if they canceled, figure out why.
00:11:03
Speaker
Was it because they found something in the contract they didn't like?
00:11:06
Speaker
Was it because they found a better quote and you didn't prepare them for that and you didn't see if they were going to shop around?
00:11:12
Speaker
You need to figure out what's going wrong and then you need to figure out how you can improve it, how you can isolate those objections.
00:11:18
Speaker
Okay, so that's just a quick tip.
00:11:20
Speaker
Figure out what's going wrong, which is why you need to record it.
00:11:23
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Get with your team, whoever you're working with.
00:11:27
Speaker
Join our coaching programs and we can help you, Joe, practice and rehearse these steps.
00:11:32
Speaker
But if you're with a team, start doing it.
00:11:35
Speaker
You know, lots of people we've had on the podcast.
00:11:37
Speaker
We had Frankie Lane a while back.
00:11:39
Speaker
He talked about how their company does.
00:11:42
Speaker
It was, I think, every quarter they do a whole day just devoting to pure role playing.
00:11:47
Speaker
Can't remember what they call it.
00:11:48
Speaker
They get like an Airbnb.
00:11:50
Speaker
They rent out a house.
00:11:51
Speaker
They have their whole team.
00:11:52
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And then they bring in, I think he said, an actual homeowner or someone who
00:11:57
Speaker
to be, you know, a homeowner and they go through just rep after rep.
00:12:00
Speaker
They're just drilling the whole day.
00:12:02
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So start with that.
00:12:03
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If you're a manager, if you're a company owner, what can you do to help your team start drilling, practicing, rehearsing?
00:12:10
Speaker
You should be having correlations, but how much of those correlations are devoted to actual rehearsing and practicing?
00:12:18
Speaker
You can do the door approach practices, but you need to devote time for people that are closing deals.
00:12:25
Speaker
Start devoting time to go through role plays and truly practice these because that's how you're going to master.
00:12:31
Speaker
Remember, practice doesn't make perfect, but whatever you practice becomes perfect.
00:12:36
Speaker
Sorry, I butchered that.
00:12:38
Speaker
But if you're practicing bad habits, you're going to master them.
00:12:40
Speaker
So you need to make sure you're practicing good habits because that's what you truly want to master.
Implementing Strategies and Closing Skills Training
00:12:45
Speaker
So that's the tip with it, guys.
00:12:46
Speaker
Let me know what you think.
00:12:47
Speaker
Let me know what other ways you're implementing to figure out what part of the close needs improvements.
00:12:55
Speaker
And then go out there, implement that this week, use it to dominate, and we'll see you on the next one.
00:13:02
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning into today's episode.
00:13:05
Speaker
I know when I got into the industry, I had almost no resources like this.
00:13:09
Speaker
So I hope this show is helping you get the success you deserve.
00:13:13
Speaker
If you found value from anything in this episode today, think about someone who can benefit so you and I can help people fulfill their potential.
00:13:21
Speaker
Zig Ziglar said, if you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want.
00:13:26
Speaker
So I promise by sharing this, it will help you grow and improve.
00:13:29
Speaker
The value bombs on today's show will take you one step closer to success, but it's always to the degree that you apply and execute the principles.
00:13:38
Speaker
I've spent the last few years interviewing the top solar experts and helping other reps and businesses discover their potential.
00:13:45
Speaker
If you want more help achieving your goals, then I put together an exclusive video training on three hacks that help me close multiple deals a week while knocking less than 10 hours.
00:13:55
Speaker
And who doesn't want that?
00:13:56
Speaker
So go check it out at webclass.solarpreneurs.com.
00:14:00
Speaker
Once again, that's webclass.solarpreneurs.com to get exclusive access to the training and take your skills to the next level.