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Contents

1. Business Strategy Cheat Sheet

2. Principle 1: Building trust is more important than ever

3. Principle 2: Choose the right tools
4. Principle 3: Learn from one another and your clients

5. Building a Lead Funnel

6. Creating a system for booking appointments

7. Closing Remarks

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Business Strategies Cheat Sheet

We recommend utilizing this time to focus on building your solar brand so you can emerge
from the current storm stronger than ever. Corporations and businesses’ are being analyzed
closely on how they’re reacting, and those who are building brands of compassion,
community-awareness, and taking proactive steps will be the ones who persevere and
ultimately win a bigger share in the marketplace in the near future.

Here are some General Strategies and Principles to help reassure your prospects that you
are taking the proper measures for their safety.

Whether you think the pandemic is a hoax and a political game played by those in
charge the facts are things are simply not the same anymore and who knows when
we will be able to go back to doing business as usual, if ever.. The current events
are reshaping the lives of people around the world and especially in the United
States.

To ensure the safety of your team, customers, and society as a whole, you can start
offering remote solar sales appointments as opposed to going door to door and
appearing to your customers as rather inconsiderate. These are the principles we
have learned so far from our most successful clients. We look forward to hearing
from others in the solar community with different strategies to share and feedback on
how these strategies have worked for you.

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Principle 1: Building trust is more important than
ever

We all know that building trust with customers is the most important thing for success
in sales and building the referral base. This remains true when conducting remote
sales. However, the strategies must be strengthened because building trust is more
challenging virtually than in person. When you’re in the person’s home you have the
advantage of them seeing your face and feeling your energy but when a presentation
is being made over the phone or zoom things can be very different even though the
concept of solar and the product itself is the same.

Here’s a video interview I did with a call center owner that talks about how to build
trust when selling solar virtually!

Building trust with customers starts long before sales appointments actually take
place. Now is a great time to reach out to past customers for reviews, create online
content, revitalize social media and build your virtual presence to build trust with
leads before they ever speak with a salesperson.

It is imperative that you do not ignore this global crisis during interactions with leads
but also be aware enough to not talk about it longer than you should. Bringing this
topic to light for your leads by asking how they are doing, showing solidarity and
sharing the measures your company is taking to address the crisis will build trust
during this time.

When it comes time to have a remote sales appointment with a lead, you can use
many of the same trust-building strategies you use in person. However, we suggest
you lengthen your rapport-building step instead of jumping right into a presentation
and start pitching solar. You need to really make sure your lead understands they
have a real person on the other end of the screen/phone and aren’t just witnessing
an infomercial.

Finally, it is very important to make sure your prospect is comfortable with the virtual
tool they are using before the appointment begins. You don’t want any frustration on
their end because of their lack of technical skills and experience with their computer
or software to be redirected toward you or your company.

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Please keep in mind that, anything can ruin the sale when pitching solar from a
distance and the less friction there is for the homeowner, the higher the chance that
you would get a sale and not have the customer cancel on you last minute.

If you haven’t scheduled a Solar Growth Call, you can do so by clicking here!

In the next Principle we’ll go over tools that would allow you to have higher
conversion rates from lead to sale and make your life easier as a result.

Principle 2: Choose the right tools

When selling remotely, we need to ensure that our clients get all of the same
important information that they would receive during an in-person appointment.
Choosing the right virtual tools is essential to making this happen.

We suggest using a virtual tool that:

• Allows your client to see you (very important!)

• Allows your client to see your screen (so they can see your slides,

design software, etc)

• Allows you to see your client’s screen (so you can see their utility

statements)

• Allows for chat and file sharing (to share resources, proposals, etc)

• Is user-friendly

• Can integrate with your other tools, most importantly your calendar and email
(to easily send invitations, updates and follow-ups)

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There are a huge number of such tools available. The most popular are
probably Zoom and Google hangouts.

There will be a learning curve when using any new software. Test it amongst
your team before rolling it out to clients so you can work out the kinks and
anticipate the challenges clients might face when using it at home.

Now, what I believe to be the best tool for selling solar most likely runs
contrary to what the solar sales experts out there might say...

You ready?

A Telephone.

Yes, you heard that right!

Here’s a video interview I did with one of my best long term clients who does
5-10 deals PER DAY selling OVER THE PHONE from his office in AZ!

The telephone has been used as a tool for closing high ticket sales in many
industries such as life insurance, stocks, bonds etc. Although, a lot of people
in the solar community believe that solar cannot be sold through such means,
I’m here to tell you that my most successful clients are utilizing this method
extremely well. I’ve learnt from the best of the best what it really takes to sell
solar over the phone and that’s why we have put together a special training
that goes over scripts, techniques for calling and follow up that can truly
change the operation of modern day solar business to the point where door
knocking and in-person events will become a thing of the past.

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Principle 3: Learn from one another and your clients

Transitioning to remote sales will likely be difficult for your sales team especially if
they don’t have the right sales training to accommodate with the changes that it
requires. Inevitably, some will be more comfortable with it than others. We suggest
working with your top salespeople to develop your remote sales process before
rolling it out to your entire team. Or, you can reach out to us, schedule a call and at
the end we will provide you with a zoom presentation that has done over $1M in
residential solar sales.

Remote sales appointments actually have a key advantage over in-person sales in
that it is easier for your salespeople to learn from one another by shadowing sales
appointments. Give your salespeople time to connect with one another both inside
and outside of sales appointments to strengthen consistency and strategies
throughout your organization.

Schedule a call and let’s see how we can grow your solar sales!

Additionally, it is OK for your customers to understand that this is a new process for
you and your team. Being up-front about your new process will help build trust. Your
customers are your top resource when it comes to learning more about how the
virtual process is working and how to improve it. Their perspective on the sales
process is the most important perspective of all and there is no one within your
organization who can fully see the process from their perspective. Asking them their
opinion shows that you value them and are interested in improving their experience.

Transitioning to selling solar remotely will have its challenges. However, when all is
said and done, remote selling will strengthen your sales team by building new skills
and giving them additional tools to use when the era of social distancing comes to a
close. In fact, you may even want to consider including remote selling in your normal
repertoire once the crisis is over and we go back to normal again.

Granted, remotely selling solar won’t be for everyone and may never be as effective
as in-person appointments for some who have never had a proper training on it, but
it also comes with benefits. First, it will save your team time, since they won’t have to

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travel hours to get there and back for someone to just not show up for their
appointment. Think about it, how shitty is it when you’ve driven an hour and a half to
get to your appointment just to have someone who’s clearly not taken this as
seriously as you do and instead of canceling ahead of time they just bail on you.
When doing remote sales, if someone is to not show up you can call on another 50
people and set more appointments in the same amount of time that you would be
driving back to your office.

Here’s how Jonah went from driving 6-7 hours a day to his appointments to selling
solar over the phone!

It could expand your service area by allowing you to reach leads it is impractical to
otherwise. And it demonstrates that your company is in touch with the times and
willing to experiment and integrate new practices for the benefit of your customers.

Offering remote consultations sends the message to your clients that you value their
health and safety and take the warning from scientists and doctors very seriously.
When you are competing for a homeowner’s business against another company,
your proposal to do a remote consultation while your competitor proposes an in-
person consultation will immediately tell your customers which company is sensitive
to what is happening in the world. Online generated leads using a funnel 9/10 times
will not price shop you around simply because the leads are exclusive to your
company which means that you will not have to enter a race to the bottom on price
just to win them over. That is a terrible way to do business and it’s a well known fact
that everyone in the solar community suffers from it.

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Building a Lead funnel

A remote solar sales approach can benefit significantly from an inbound marketing
and sales strategy—in which interested customers come to you. Even if your
company already has an outbound sales approach of door-knocking or reaching out
to purchased leads, adding an inbound strategy can help you tap the pipeline of
customers that are already looking for a qualified solar installer.

To build a funnel of inbound leads, you’ll want to invest in your website or have a
landing page informing your potential customers on how solar works and why it is a
no-brainer as well as collecting their personal information so you or your team can
reach out to them and set an appointment. Having a strong online presence will
make a difference to modern solar shoppers who are likely to do their own web
research before moving forward in the solar sales process.
Learn how our process works so you too can start getting inbound leads of credit
qualified homeowners looking to go solar!

Creating a system for booking appointments

It’s critical that you have an internal system that allows you to respond and book
appointments with prospects as fast as possible. Our best clients are selling millions
worth of residential solar each month and the reason why they’re doing so well is
because they have the sales aspect of selling solar and following up down to
science. A major benefit of an inside sales approach is that you can pitch and close
the homeowner that same day—within the same hour even—of when they request
the quote.

Research supports that the time when a homeowner is requesting the quote they are
most likely to buy and you’re more likely to connect with them then. In fact, a new
study of 3.5 million leads, found that calling within the first minute from when
someone fills out a form can increase your likelihood of conversion by nearly 400%.

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To support lead generation, your website or landing page needs to be set up with a
way to identify prospects and gather their contact information so you can follow up
as quickly as possible. Options include: a pop-up form that allows them to enter their
phone and email (this can be especially effective if you offer something of value,
such as a solar factsheet) or a special offer of some sort (these work extremely
well!!!).

However you structure it, you’ll want to make sure that your team is prepared to
immediately follow up with the prospect as soon as they enter their contact
information. Having a dedicated person or people who are responsible for quickly
calling new leads to book an appointment, while their interest in solar is still top of
mind is the key to selling residential solar over the phone and from a distance.
Depending on the size of your team, this could also be the salesperson himself.

Here’s what our clients say about using our system!

Best practices are to gather the information needed for a solar quote in this first
appointment-setting call—particularly information on their utility bill, the address
where solar would be installed and of course confirming that their credit score is 650
& above which makes them eligible for solar. That way you can have a compelling
and personalized quote ready to present during the sales call. This also allows your
team to identify early on if a prospect is not a good candidate for solar (for instance,
their property is too shaded, damaged roof etc.,), before investing a lot of time.

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Closing Remarks
Solar is here to stay and that is for sure, however the industry is very rapidly
changing to where solar becomes more and more affordable for the regular person
and soon the need for salespeople will be a thing of the past.

Leading Solar sales experts say that the way solar is sold now will change forever in
the next 3 to 5 years. Margins would become very insignificant and there will be new
technologies developed by the industry giants like Tesla allowing homeowners to
choose and design their own systems as awareness for renewable energy grows
without the need to pay a commission out of pocket to the sales individual.

Now, whether or not this exact timeline will turn out to be true, I would highly
recommend you take advantage of this window of opportunity and not wait until it’s
too late.

Now is the time to make a change!

Hope you enjoyed reading this, if you have any questions regarding selling solar
remotely or generating exclusive leads & virtual appointments, simply schedule a
call!

Ivan Pashov
Founder & Head of Growth
MaksyMedia.com

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