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Many Door Knockers Overlook This Secret While Knocking...
255 Plays1 year ago
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Introduction & Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
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 fail.
00:00:19
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.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
The Secret to Solar Success
00:00:41
Speaker
What's going on, Solopreneurs?
00:00:42
Speaker
Today, we're going to be talking about a secret that so many doorknockers that I see overlook.
00:00:49
Speaker
And you might know this, but a lot of people are overlooking this.
00:00:52
Speaker
So we're going to get into it.
00:00:53
Speaker
I'm going to tell you what it is, but welcome to the show.
00:00:55
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:56
Speaker
We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
Doorknocking in October: Tips & Challenges
00:01:03
Speaker
We're coming up on my favorite season of doorknocking, and that is October 1st.
00:01:08
Speaker
that is around Halloween.
00:01:09
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Love it because people think you're trick or treating.
00:01:12
Speaker
They answer the door.
00:01:14
Speaker
But more than that, I love it because you got like the people that have the insane Halloween decorations.
00:01:20
Speaker
Generally, I feel like people are just friendlier towards door knockers.
00:01:24
Speaker
The one downside is it does start to get dark a lot earlier, especially as we come up on daylight savings time, which I think is in November.
00:01:32
Speaker
But hey, we can knock in the dark.
00:01:34
Speaker
We can do hard things.
00:01:36
Speaker
I see a lot of people, they just give up when it gets dark.
00:01:39
Speaker
So you got to learn to knock in the dark.
00:01:41
Speaker
You got to learn to prospect when things are uncomfortable, even if you aren't door knocking.
00:01:47
Speaker
Never going to be perfectly comfortable to prospect.
00:01:49
Speaker
But whenever you're listening to this, hope you're doing awesome.
00:01:52
Speaker
Hope you're closing tons of deals.
Podcast Availability & Listener Engagement
00:01:54
Speaker
And remember, we are free and available on Apple, iTunes, iTunes,
00:01:57
Speaker
or Spotify, wherever you can find podcasts, also on YouTube.
00:02:01
Speaker
And we'd love to hear where you're listening.
00:02:03
Speaker
So shoot us a message.
00:02:05
Speaker
I know we've got some people that like the video YouTube content.
00:02:09
Speaker
So we're trying to grow that, get some more video content out there.
00:02:14
Speaker
But either way, hope if you have not, you can take the time to share the show.
00:02:19
Speaker
leave us a review if you haven't.
00:02:20
Speaker
And that is really the main thing we ask for the podcast.
Engaging Potential Customers: Lessons from Nick Finger
00:02:24
Speaker
Hey, but so today's topic, the reason I thought about this is, well, it stems from an experience I had a couple years back was knocking with my boy, Nick Finger.
00:02:36
Speaker
Shout out to Nick Finger.
00:02:37
Speaker
He's listening to this.
00:02:38
Speaker
He's at a company called Voltaic and had a great time working with those guys.
00:02:43
Speaker
So shoot him a follow if you're not following him.
00:02:45
Speaker
But
00:02:46
Speaker
I was knocking with them.
00:02:47
Speaker
We're on a little blitz up in Victorville, California, out in the desert.
00:02:52
Speaker
And I remember we were driving in this Tesla.
00:02:54
Speaker
I'm thinking we've got our segues in there.
00:02:56
Speaker
We're about to get out, start hitting the turf.
00:02:58
Speaker
And then all of a sudden he pulls over in front of this house where the homeowner had just barely pulled in, was getting out of their car.
00:03:06
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I'm like, what are we doing?
00:03:07
Speaker
He's like, we're going to talk to this guy.
00:03:10
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He rolls down his window and just starts presenting to this guy, pitching this guy from his car.
00:03:18
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He rolls down the window and his first words were like, hey, we're waiting for you to get home.
00:03:23
Speaker
You finally made a bet.
00:03:24
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And I thought that was a great little...
00:03:27
Speaker
Break the preoccupation.
00:03:28
Speaker
Great little icebreaker.
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Speaker
Homeowner is like, what?
00:03:30
Speaker
What are you talking about?
00:03:31
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All confused.
00:03:33
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Goes into his presentation.
00:03:35
Speaker
Doesn't end up getting too far with it.
00:03:37
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But this was the first time I'd seen someone just like roll up on someone that literally pulled up in their driveway and try to get an appointment.
00:03:45
Speaker
So the secret is...
00:03:47
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And the topic of this episode is we need to not be afraid to just talk to people wherever they are.
00:03:54
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And more specifically, as we're knocking doors, we need to not be afraid of people in the yard, people pulling up in their driveway, people outside, people watering their garden, whatever.
00:04:04
Speaker
Because so many times I see newer reps and even experienced reps, guys that have been knocking for a while.
00:04:11
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It's like they see someone just pulling up.
00:04:13
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They see someone outside talking to their friend and they skip these doors.
00:04:17
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Because they're like, oh, you know, I'm going to be bothering them.
00:04:19
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I'm just going to go to the other ones.
00:04:21
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And in the meantime, what happens is the person that was in the yard, they see you go knock all the other homes.
00:04:27
Speaker
And then they're like, oh, this guy's a door knocker.
00:04:30
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When he comes to my house, I know I'm not going to answer that door.
00:04:33
Speaker
True story has happened, I think, a lot of times to me.
00:04:35
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And so it took me a while to realize this.
00:04:38
Speaker
But...
00:04:39
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A lot of us, I would do it to an extent, but you got to be bold out there.
00:04:43
Speaker
You got to be not afraid to just roll up on people and show up.
00:04:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:48
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And the other thing that reminded me of this, you know, I learned from guys like Nick Finger, another guy that kind of like made me realize the importance of this is Jason Newby.
00:04:57
Speaker
He was one of the greats in alarms, one of the old school Vivint guys.
00:05:00
Speaker
He would tell us stories all the time of when selling alarms and
00:05:04
Speaker
especially those like earlier afternoon hours.
00:05:06
Speaker
He would literally just drive to doors where people were out friends or where garages were open.
00:05:12
Speaker
So, you know, a whole multitude of reasons why it's a really smart idea to do it.
00:05:18
Speaker
As
ChatGPT's Insights on Outdoor Engagements
00:05:19
Speaker
a matter of fact, let me just give you some of those reasons.
00:05:21
Speaker
Hey, some of these...
00:05:22
Speaker
You kind of obvious, but I asked chat GPT, chat GPT.
00:05:27
Speaker
I think it's four is the version they're on now.
00:05:29
Speaker
I asked like, what's why is it important to catch people outside?
00:05:32
Speaker
I did a little training on this and the slide I put was catch me outside.
00:05:36
Speaker
How about that?
00:05:37
Speaker
Maybe you guys have seen that YouTube video.
00:05:39
Speaker
If not, look it up.
00:05:40
Speaker
Catch me outside.
00:05:41
Speaker
How about that?
00:05:42
Speaker
But the reasons, according to ChatGPT, it's like you get higher engagement rates, right?
00:05:49
Speaker
People are already outside.
00:05:51
Speaker
They're in an open mindset, making them more approachable should be kind of obvious, right?
00:05:55
Speaker
Increased visibility and credibility.
00:05:58
Speaker
Feel like you're part of the neighborhood when you're out there.
00:06:00
Speaker
Positive initial impressions.
00:06:02
Speaker
You're not interrupting as much typically.
00:06:04
Speaker
It's a more positive impression when you just catch them outside rather than potentially interrupting their dinner or whatever they're doing inside.
00:06:12
Speaker
higher lead conversions,
00:06:14
Speaker
High community referrals.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the stat here, it says studies and field sales show that casual interactions in a community setting can have a 40% higher lead conversion rate than cold door knocking alone because these interactions feel more natural and less forced.
00:06:30
Speaker
Okay, so sounds pretty legit to me.
00:06:33
Speaker
Chat's UPT, it's got to be true, right?
00:06:35
Speaker
But 40% higher lead conversion rate.
00:06:38
Speaker
How many of you want 40% more conversions on your leads?
00:06:42
Speaker
I'd take that.
00:06:44
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San
Introducing Solar Scout: A New Tool for Sales Reps
00:06:48
Speaker
Diego.
00:06:48
Speaker
And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
00:06:55
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
00:06:59
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app.
00:07:04
Speaker
It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:07:09
Speaker
It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later cancelled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
00:07:18
Speaker
It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
00:07:23
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to use Solar Scout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
00:07:27
Speaker
But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about Solar Scout on my show.
00:07:30
Speaker
You need to give my listeners a great deal, and they did.
00:07:33
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.
00:07:43
Speaker
That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
00:07:46
Speaker
Okay, back to the show.
00:07:48
Speaker
Hey, so if you are not catching people outside, if you are scared to just talk to someone that's out front of their house, if you find yourself skipping those doors, think again and train your guys on this.
00:08:01
Speaker
Train your people because I guarantee there's newer door knockers
00:08:05
Speaker
There's even experienced door knockers that are like overlooking this and they're just jumping to close doors.
00:08:12
Speaker
And I've trained a lot of guys where I've actually like seen what they're doing when I'm not shadowing.
00:08:18
Speaker
And some of these people will just clock in, feel like they're working in their head and they'll purposely go to doors where it seems like no one's home.
00:08:25
Speaker
I know it sounds crazy, but especially we were running like a setter closer program where people were paid.
00:08:31
Speaker
They were paid like a small amount hourly and they would do this.
Success Stories: Outdoor Engagements
00:08:35
Speaker
That's why I don't recommend paying people hourly, right?
00:08:37
Speaker
Paying per appointment or something.
00:08:39
Speaker
So you don't want people just like going door to door and feeling like they're working and, you know, purposely skipping homes, things like that.
00:08:48
Speaker
Okay, so yeah, and then it's like another strategy.
00:08:52
Speaker
Again, like going to homes with doors open.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yesterday, matter of fact, I actually got a deal where the lady was outside of watering her garden.
00:09:04
Speaker
So this is another thing.
00:09:06
Speaker
Maybe you're like on a side street.
00:09:08
Speaker
I was actually
00:09:09
Speaker
These were like townhome type things.
00:09:12
Speaker
And I was on the house.
00:09:15
Speaker
It was like a unit in front of it.
00:09:16
Speaker
But to the side, these fences weren't super high.
00:09:20
Speaker
So I saw behind the fence, this lady was just watering her plants, watering her garden.
00:09:24
Speaker
So I'm like, sweet, there you go.
00:09:26
Speaker
Free conversation.
00:09:27
Speaker
It's a free conversation.
00:09:28
Speaker
If someone's out there, you don't have to go burn through five doors to get that.
00:09:32
Speaker
So I go talk to her, turns into a great conversation, goes exactly how chat GPT said it would go.
00:09:39
Speaker
She's more open, ended up getting a deal out of it, locked and loaded.
00:09:43
Speaker
And this was like probably three hours worth of work, right?
00:09:47
Speaker
And set the appointments and closed her right after that.
00:09:51
Speaker
So, yeah, just goes to show, like, make sure you are having those interactions.
00:09:57
Speaker
Another thing that you can do is look for potential referral partners out
Referral Partnerships: Engaging Workers
00:10:02
Speaker
there.
00:10:02
Speaker
Hey, I have another friend that I go knock with.
00:10:05
Speaker
from time to time.
00:10:06
Speaker
Shout out to Mike Ujoa.
00:10:07
Speaker
But he introduced this to me.
00:10:10
Speaker
He would go and we'd be in his truck, you know, driving to the area.
00:10:14
Speaker
And we would occasionally see people out, you know, like workers doing landscaping or handyman, stuff like that.
00:10:22
Speaker
And something I learned from Mike is he stops at all these people and
00:10:27
Speaker
all these workers, and he pitches them on becoming referral partners.
00:10:31
Speaker
So he has like some promotional material, he grabs a number, exchanges contact information.
00:10:37
Speaker
And I know he's gotten several referrals and created some great partnerships from doing this.
00:10:41
Speaker
Okay, so this is another thing.
00:10:43
Speaker
How often are we overlooking opportunities like that?
The Art of Bold Approaches in Sales
00:10:46
Speaker
Maybe there's people who are in front of homeowners all day long.
00:10:49
Speaker
that they could be your referral partner.
00:10:52
Speaker
But why aren't you presenting to them when you're out driving around?
00:10:55
Speaker
Why aren't you stopping for those people?
00:10:57
Speaker
So look for things like that and just be bold out there.
00:11:00
Speaker
Hey, I love something I coach my reps on.
00:11:03
Speaker
I was with a newer guy just a few weeks ago.
00:11:06
Speaker
And this guy, he's a pretty experienced door knocker.
00:11:09
Speaker
But we go up, we're knocking together for a little bit.
00:11:13
Speaker
one of the first doors, he saw someone outside and he's like, Oh, we'll come back to that one.
00:11:17
Speaker
I'm like, no, dude, let's knock it.
00:11:18
Speaker
They're out front.
00:11:19
Speaker
They're in the garage.
00:11:20
Speaker
I ended up setting this appointment.
00:11:21
Speaker
Didn't close.
00:11:23
Speaker
Um, but I had a great conversation with them in her garage and what, um,
00:11:27
Speaker
Well, my friend in this will, if you're listening to this, I know he learned his lesson.
00:11:32
Speaker
But what we'll learn is that I think he had it in his head that we're like interrupting people because this this lady, she was actually working on her car in the garage.
00:11:43
Speaker
So Will, he was thinking, we're going to interrupt her.
00:11:46
Speaker
She's busy right now.
00:11:47
Speaker
She can't talk.
00:11:48
Speaker
She's working.
00:11:49
Speaker
And sometimes it's these stories we tell ourselves in our head, right?
00:11:53
Speaker
Oh, they're busy.
00:11:54
Speaker
Oh, they're talking to their friends.
00:11:55
Speaker
Oh, they're on the phone.
00:11:58
Speaker
Oh, they're like, we create these stories in our head that just are not true most of the time.
00:12:03
Speaker
It's like whatever we tell ourselves in our head, it's going to be manifested.
00:12:06
Speaker
So instead of creating this image that you're bugging people, you're bothering people, what I tell all my reps is like, hey, think you're the UPS guy.
00:12:15
Speaker
Think you're the FedEx driver.
00:12:17
Speaker
Because have you ever met a FedEx driver that rolled up on a house and saw the homeowner out front?
00:12:22
Speaker
Like, oh,
00:12:24
Speaker
You know, it looks like they're busy.
00:12:25
Speaker
I'm going to come back to this house.
00:12:26
Speaker
No, they grab the package.
00:12:28
Speaker
They go out front.
00:12:29
Speaker
They get the signature, whatever they need to do.
00:12:31
Speaker
They don't think twice about it.
00:12:33
Speaker
And neither should we.
00:12:34
Speaker
And that's why I love using apps that have like the name, too, because you can have that same persona.
00:12:39
Speaker
You can have that same mindset.
00:12:40
Speaker
And it's like you walk up, even if it seems like you could be interrupting something.
00:12:45
Speaker
You got a job to do.
00:12:46
Speaker
You got an important thing, an important message to share.
00:12:49
Speaker
You've got something that can literally save them tens of thousands of dollars for
00:12:53
Speaker
over their time as a homeowner.
00:12:56
Speaker
So think of that next time.
00:12:58
Speaker
Be bold out there because you know you've got a product that can change their lives in a lot of cases.
00:13:04
Speaker
That's how I feel about this and that's how you need to feel too.
00:13:06
Speaker
So if you have that same conviction, I think it's going to eliminate a lot of this fear, a lot of these negative stories we tell ourselves as we're out door knocking.
00:13:14
Speaker
So I hope this inspired you.
00:13:16
Speaker
Stop skipping doors where people are outside.
00:13:18
Speaker
You're leaving money on the table.
00:13:20
Speaker
You're not talking to people that need to be talked to that need to hear the message of solar.
Upcoming Guest: Jonathan Brunazzo & Referral Strategies
00:13:24
Speaker
And then speaking of referral partners, hey, we have someone coming up on the podcast this next episode that I think has mastered working with referral partners and just mastering the game.
00:13:36
Speaker
of getting leads and getting referrals.
00:13:39
Speaker
His name is John Brunazzo, Jonathan Brunazzo.
00:13:42
Speaker
He is, I think he's pretty much every year been one of the top reps over at Power.
00:13:49
Speaker
Everyone should know Power, solar company, great company.
00:13:52
Speaker
But a lot of these guys are really good at setting up referral partnerships and working leads like that.
00:13:57
Speaker
They're not as big.
00:13:58
Speaker
They do have people that knock doors, but they have a unique way of getting leads that I think some of us who only door knock don't do enough of.
00:14:06
Speaker
So you're not going to want to miss this episode with John Brunazzo.
00:14:08
Speaker
Make sure you tune in.
00:14:10
Speaker
It's coming up on the next podcast.
00:14:12
Speaker
Thank you for listening.
00:14:12
Speaker
Thank you for sharing.
00:14:14
Speaker
Send this to someone who needs help.
00:14:16
Speaker
with this or can use some inspiration.
00:14:18
Speaker
And remember, if you're looking for a team to join, we've got a few spots open.
00:14:21
Speaker
Click the link below to apply to join our team and sell with the best of the best in Southern California.
00:14:27
Speaker
We'll see you on the next one.
00:14:29
Speaker
What's
Top Podcast Episodes: A Cheat Sheet
00:14:30
Speaker
up, solopreneurs?
00:14:30
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:14:32
Speaker
Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
00:14:43
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:14:50
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:14:53
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:14:58
Speaker
So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and I would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solarpreneur.
00:15:11
Speaker
We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet.
00:15:20
Speaker
So go download it right now.
00:15:21
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:15:25
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:15:30
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:15:33
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:15:34
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:15:36
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:15:42
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:15:43
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.