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Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. 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 sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask 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 2 (00:41):

Hey, Hey, Hey, what's going on Solarpreneur? Taylor Armstrong back with another episode and as usual here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better experience in the solar industry. So before we jump into today's topic, have two little announcements and one's kind of an ask. So number one, we are launching our new Solciety app. It's going to be coming out. Um, it should already be on the Google play store for those weirdos that are still using Androids. You can probably actually go get it already if you want to check it out. And for the normal people, the iPhone users, um, you're going to have to wait a little bit, I guess that's the downside with apple. They're a little more strict when it comes to, uh, you know, approving apps. So anyways, we're going to be dropping an episode soon about what's going on with that, but just wanted to give you a teaser.

Speaker 2 (01:41):

If you're wanting to get first exclusive access to that, be checking the app store, go to the Solciety.co And you can get first access first dibs on what we're going on, what we got going on with the soul side of the app, but it's gonna feature, you know, top training, exclusive discounts and a whole lot of other things. So definitely go get on that. When you have the chance, then number two, I'm thinking about actually to start charging a price on the podcast. No worry it's not money, but what I mean by that, I've been listening to a lot of, uh, Andy Frisella, his podcast it's called real AF, highly recommended. Um, he talks about right now, you know, mostly just issues that are going on in the U S for all of our, uh, listeners here in the USA. Um, but he starts out almost every one of his podcasts.

Speaker 2 (02:37):

If you listen to it with an ask and that ask, is it instead of paying them money to listen to it, you go share it with a friend you post on social media. You, uh, I don't know, help promote it somehow. And that's his price for the podcast and he, this guy's, he's got, I think like number one, business podcasts in the world, and I'd go check. But one of the most popular podcasts doesn't advertise on it at all, which he's probably the only top podcast like that, that I listened to, that doesn't have ads on it. He could be making seven figures, easy a year, popping ads on that thing, but that's his. Is it? You just go out and share it with someone. You talk about it. So I'm like, maybe I should start making that ask on my podcast. So we're trying to grow the Solarpreneur movement.

Speaker 2 (03:28):

So I want to make the same as to you. If you got value from this episode or any of our previous episodes, please go send it to someone, help us spread the word. We're doing all this for free. And to be blunt, I know I could be selling probably an extra deal a week with the time I spend on the podcast, but I choose to spread some value and help my peeps close more deals, because that's what it's about. And it's helped with me. The more I share what I learned. I know I, I get a lot of value from that too, and connecting with other people. So it's not like I don't want to be doing this, but anyways, that's my ask. If you got value from this podcast, please go share it with someone. And as always, you can leave a review to you if you feel so inclined.

Speaker 2 (04:15):

So with that being said, let's jump into today's topic. And this topic comes from just last week's experience, just like a lot of episodes do. So what happened last week? I was having a rougher week up until Friday. So how many of you have had a tough week? You're just grinding it out. You're knocking lots of doors. You're calling lots of leads, referrals, whatnot, and you're not getting anything. And I don't know about you, but if Friday comes around and I haven't closed the deal, I start feeling a little sick inside. I'm like, man, I need to get at least a few deals closed this week. I've gotten nothing. So that's why if you can get the deal closed early in the week. For me, it takes a lot of pressure off knowing that I have a deal closed thing going on the weekends, um, with some wins, if you will, but last week I didn't have any wins.

Speaker 2 (05:08):

Didn't have any closes. So I was getting a little stressed with it. I'm like, man, what's going on here? What do I need to do to get my few closes at least on the week? And so here's what I did. I looked, I looked for the low-hanging fruit. Hey, what do I mean by that? I looked for deals that I thought would be a lay down. And I've talked about this a little bit in the podcast. If you want to go back and listen to the podcasts around when we have Laney Dray, Mr. Door-to-Door millionaire on the show, we go into a few topics that have to do with this, but specifically in solar, what I mean is you go find people that potentially have not been talked to hardly the at all, if ever, Hey, and so I'm going to talk about how you do, and especially here in San Diego or in saturated markets, I think that's one of the keys to having success in these saturated markets is you got to look under the rocks for the deals you got to look and all the hiding places for these homeowners.

Speaker 2 (06:14):

Because if you're just going to cookie cutter neighborhoods, knocking all the typical stuff, yeah, you can have success. But for me, I like to have success and be able to get more quality leads and not necessarily be sifting through, you know, a hundred people that have been talked to 20 times, which sometimes is the case, especially here in San Diego. Okay. Now you might not have this issue as much. If you're in newer markets, maybe your issue there, just getting people to believe that solar works. But if you're in California, pretty much anywhere in California, you gotta be good at finding these people that have not heard as much about solar gain. The other benefit to this too. If you can find those people that haven't, um, you know, been hit up a million times about solar, that haven't really checked it out, then it's a lot easier to price the deals.

Speaker 2 (07:11):

What's your worth. Okay. None of this, what drives me nuts is when a homeowner has 10 quotes already and I go, okay, price me at, uh, two, five a watt. I'll buy it from you, whatever, some ridiculous number. And they're just trying to drive the pricing to the bottom. Now we seen still close those people. You just got to build value, but I love it when I can just build value and not have to sit in, pull teeth and fight on price. Okay. Makes it easier when you find these people that are quote unquote. Laydowns right. So let's talk about how do you find these people? Okay. Some of this again is going to sound familiar, but I'm going to refresh your memory. And for those, maybe you haven't heard this before. Okay. But number one thing is go off the beaten path. And I brought up Lenny grey.

Speaker 2 (08:02):

If you haven't read his book yet, it's called more door to door millionaire. Um, he also has his door to door millionaire, original book, two books he wrote, and he has a section on this. The entire book is super valuable. So I definitely recommend you go check it out and buy it if you haven't already. But on page one 14, if you have the book he talks about, he calls the strategy off the beaten path. And just to kind of summarize it, he talks about how he was knocking with, um, one of his rookie sales reps and where they were just hitting up this cookie cutter neighborhood. And every single person was like, Hey, you're the third guy. That's come by this week. And they were just getting hammered out. They're not having success. So after, I don't know, an hour or something, he goes onto the main highway where always the cars are speed and buying everything.

Speaker 2 (08:57):

And there's houses also along the main highway. But these are the houses that the longer driveways that, um, maybe they add some, I don't know, farm animals out front Barnes, whatever. They'll have bigger properties, things like that. So he says, Hey man, let's go try these houses. So they go to these houses on the main highway, instead of just talking to the cookie cutter neighborhood ones. And he says, within 15 minutes, they are sorry. You said the first house they sold that one. Then 15 minutes later, they sold the other one. And this was like, you know, just around the corner from this cookie cutter neighborhood, they'd had been knocking. It's the point of this is, and the point that he makes is that sometimes you need to go the strategy of call the over quantity. Hey, and he calls this like the low-hanging fruit.

Speaker 2 (09:49):

Hey, these people, they're not going to be talked to as much. You can, you know what I'm talking about. If you go to any neighborhood where they have super long Dre ways, if there are more smaller towns, if they're super spread apart, all homes like these they're way more likely to have been hit up a million times versus your cookie cutter neighborhoods. So that's the first strategy, make sure when you're out knocking. And I know some people are with, you know, the bigger companies, maybe you're with the Sunrun's, the legacies, maybe you're assigned areas and you're not supposed to be knocking different places, but even if you're assigned an area, make sure you look for those houses that are spread apart. Try to look for houses where maybe they're tough to access. Um, maybe they're they have gates in front of them. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (10:42):

Just anything you can note, any clue you can pick up on that. Maybe it would have been tough for any other newbie sales rep or sales rep that hasn't been listening to the Solarpreneur podcast to get access to. So make sure you do that. So that's number one. Look for those houses that are off the beaten path. Okay. And tip number two, make sure you are conscious of new move-ins is another big strategy that I've implemented. Okay. And I didn't even finish my story at the beginning, but I was having a rough week when I started out, like I said, didn't have anything and Friday that's exactly what I did. I went to a place where I didn't think many people would have knocked yet and sure enough books, like one out of every three people I talked to in this neighborhood. Okay. It was a condo slash townhome neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (11:35):

That's another thing that's I would classify in the, off the beaten path. And depending on your area, depending on what state you're knocking in, maybe like shared roof spaces or condos, town homes, maybe they're not allowed to get solar. I don't know. You'd have to look at what the regulations, all that in your state, but here in California, you can basically put solar on anything, even if it has a shared roof space. So keep that in mind, these like places that maybe even look like apartment complex, sometimes these places are townhomes or condos. So be wary of that and make sure you're paying attention. And that's another, I would say classification that's off the beaten path. Okay. And then the second point, um, was, um, sorry to finish my story. I ended up closing two last week on Friday and Saturday, knock on those town homes, but lay down sells low-hanging fruit.

Speaker 2 (12:36):

And then the second point that I was getting into before I started rambling, there was make sure you're conscious of the new move-ins. And I've talked about this multiple times as well on the show here, but make sure you're going on to Zillow, make your spreadsheet of your new move-ins. If you're assigned an area, go look up all the new people that moved in. This is the way you can target those people. You can bring up specifics in your door approach and Hey, we're just letting all the new move-ins know what's going on in the neighborhood. You guys, you probably didn't hear yet. You guys just moved in, right? Because what's super cool is you can see literally when people moved into their house right on Zillow. Okay. And I know there's a lot of other apps. Um, I'll have to put some in the show notes, but there's apps.

Speaker 2 (13:23):

You can get that realtors use where you can see like way more data than this. You can see, like if it's in a trust, the homes, um, like who is on the title of the home, things like that. No, there's a couple paid apps out there. Make sure you're doing that. And the best reps I know in the industry, um, are you using the strategy third going, of course, they're going to go like train reps and cookie cutter neighborhoods. They're going to knock and cookie cutter neighborhoods themselves, but they're mixing it up. Okay. Some days they're going to just the new move ins and goals. And if you're doing this strategy, make sure you're knocking around the new move ins too. You don't want to be driving for miles. And then only knock one door. I would suggest knocking all the way around, um, you know, the two neighbors on the side and then the three neighbors across the street minimum.

Speaker 2 (14:17):

And hopefully you have a name to drop where you can bring up the fact that you're, um, letting the people are in and say, Hey, do you know, the people just moved in next door? It's a good opener for their neighbors. Hey, but anyways, so the top guys are using all these strategies. They're going to the off the beaten path. They're doing the cookie cutter neighborhoods and then they're doing the new move-ins. Okay. And then the last point with all this is target the homes that already have solar too. Guess what? Especially here in San Diego, in California, there's a lot of homes. I've had solar for a long time. A lot of these people are getting huge, true bills where their solar is not covering everything they're using for their energy. So be conscious of that, make sure you're knocking these homes, especially if you know, maybe they have a pool or maybe if it just seems like, okay, this house is huge.

Speaker 2 (15:14):

They should have more than 10 panels up there. Especially those homes knock them. Cause you're going to get lots of people that either number one, they're being super conservative still. Cause they don't want to have those huge true-up bills or number two, they're paying huge, true bills. The utility that's not being covered. And these people, they already have solar. You don't have to sell them on the idea of solar. You just have to sell them on adding more panels, which is usually a super laid down low-hanging fruit sale. So that's the three tips guys, make sure you're knocking off the beaten path, including condos and town homes, depending on which state you're in and the laws and regulations around that number to make sure you're knocking the new move-ins. And even if your assigned areas, make sure you're looking those up and being aware of who maybe just moved in then number three, make sure you're also knocking the true-up systems that people that already have solar and another thing out here in California, a lot of all the new homes have to be built with solar.

Speaker 2 (16:22):

So for us Californians, that's another strategy that's our team has implemented go to those homes that are being built with solar because none of these homes that are being built with the systems already are sized to what the homeowners are using. So if you can find that out, you can go and look at this data. You can see how long people have been in the home and you can target maybe the people that just moved in, but also keep in mind target the people who've been there for a year because the new movements that's typically the one objection they have is that, oh Taylor, yeah, we don't want to do it. We want to see what we're using in the home. So in that case, make sure you're keeping these people in your follow-up list. And then also targeting people that have been in their homes, you know, six months to a year because they do have some data on what their electric usage history is.

Speaker 2 (17:12):

So that's what helped me this last week. That's how you turn a bad week into a good one as well. Make sure you're mixing it up, go off to that low-hanging fruit, but more importantly, just make sure to grains. Cause even if you're going after the low-hanging fruit, that's not an excuse to work less. And I'll be honest. Sometimes I've gotten a couple of deals from that and I've, and I've, uh, not worked as many hours as I should have. So make sure if you're using these strategies, use them with responsibility. Okay. Work just as hard as if you're grinding out in a cookie cutter neighborhood and you're only booking one out of every 10 appointments. Cause if you keep that same mindset, that's how you're going to have a lot more success is doing a combination of these strategies. So I hope that helps go share it with someone that could use the tips that's having a slower week, get out there and close some deals.

Speaker 2 (18:05):

Hey, Solarpreneurs 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. 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 the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.

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.