How To Sell Solar Virtually

By The D2D Experts

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7 Min Read

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Last Updated: June 10, 2022

 

All right, today we’re going to talk about five tips on how to sell solar virtually. A lot of you guys are switching from door to door, to online selling, and it might be a struggle for you. it really is actually more mental than it is your actual salesmanship and selling virtually is a very common thing. I used to work for a company who did probably the majority of their business, all virtually. I’d see guys close over a hundred kilo wats in one month, just on the phone and on zoom. So, I’m gonna go through some best practices, not necessarily the sales presentation, but some of the best practices on how to get the most out of your experience with customers. That way you have the highest chance of success. We have tons of other sales, trainings, and videos. If you want to subscribe to the channel, click the link, let’s get a subscribe going.

Have The Right Tools

Let’s dive into it. The first one is, have the right tools. Now, as you can see, I am not an apple guy. The reason being is I have a touch screen. You know, you might have an iPad, but it’s hard to go jump around and hop back from proposal to this, to that, unless you use a proposal tool. So, I like to be a drawer. If I’m in person at somebody’s home, I have a notepad and paper, and I’m used to being able to draw things and show the customer visually how I’m selling them.  I want to be able to have tools like a stylist to be able to actually do that in person.  So, using things like OneNote or a whiteboard on your computer to be able to draw and say, you know, Hey, this is what’s going on. As you can see on my screen here, um, and we’ll go through that. A common thing in solar is you’re going to be drawing this graph of like, okay, here’s your current utility company. Here’s what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna finance this thing for 25 years. This all is equity. This all is going in the garbage, all this is savings. You’re drawing stuff like this. Then you’re drawing that metering. You are giving examples like, this is a house with solar, this house doesn’t have solar. Which one’s worth more? How this works is they have a little meter, it spins backwards and forwards kind of thing. You got the sun hitting. I’m a very visual person. As you can see on the screen, I’m always drawing. I might be asking them questions. I might be saying things like, what are the things you’re mainly looking for out of this appointment? How much is it going to save you? What are the things that you already know about solar? And so, I’m like writing all that down. I’m actually showing that I’m listening. The more you can visually show your customer what’s going on, that you’re listening, that you’re paying attention. The more that you’re going to have your customer engaged in that zoom conversation. Things like Calendly, things like zoom or some type of go-to meaning software, uh, you have some kind of visual drawing. You can do that with a mouse. You can do that with other things. But my, I love having the stylist, cuz it’s a lot quicker cleaner. I can get sharper lines. Um, and then also just having some kind of texting software, like vanilla message.com, there’s other ones out there, um, some kind of phone recording thing. Whether you’re going to do this all on recording, I would have a way to send that to the customer after you’re done. If they want to rewatch that recording, they can. I want have some kind of recording mechanism, zoom, and a lot of them actually give you the capability to record it afterward. 

Have The Mindset

Number two is, have the mindset that selling is the same on like zoom as it is in the home. A lot of people go wrong because they think it’s a whole different sales process. They try to like mix it up and they wig out. They think they can’t do those steps because they are not in person or they can only sell one person at a time, because how do you get husband and wife on a zoom call? They mentally think that there’s a difference of closing percentage. They mentally wig themselves out more than they need. Sell the exact same ways you would if you were in the home. What I mean by that is, don’t skip the sales. Don’t skip steps. In D2D, our solar presentation has a lot to offer on this. If I’m trying to build pain in the problem in the solar presentation, I’m still going to ask the questions like, are you doing this more for the environment or for the savings?And they’re like, oh, for the savings. They’re like, what does that mean to you? What does it look like and how much money do you spend X amount a year? If you were to move in 10 years, where does that money go? I’m creating the fear of loss and I’m creating the fear of missing out and I’m creating the, the urgency deadlines through, Hey ITC, credit’s going to go away an X amount of time and I’m creating utility deadlines and I’m doing the same stuff I would do as if I was in their home. But, I’ve watched people go try to sell virtually and they completely change their sales process. Don’t do that.

Have A Decision Makers Present

The next thing is decision makers present just like as if you have a sale, your likelihood of selling them and closing them on a $30,000 solar system and only one leg is there is really low. So, step number three is make sure to have the decision makers present.

Reminders And Follow Up

The fourth one is the reminders and follow up. This is when you’d use a system like Calendly, where they can self create their own appointment, date, and time. Then in the paid version of this, you can set up auto reminders to email them. You can have these auto reminders and then you can have some auto follow up. One of the softwares that a lot of people use in solar is, vanilla message. You can create campaigns. You log in here and you go to your current campaign, or you go into custom message and you create these templates that say things like, Hey, are you still able to make your meeting at five? If they cannot make it, you can send them a link to reschedule. You’re able to customize this. You have the ability to create a post-sale follow up funnel. It is perfect for a quick follow up message. Something like, Hey, just wanted to send the message and see if you’re still interested in moving forward. If yes, please reply and we can talk more. You’re creating this AI texting automation, and if you’re smart, you’re then doing this at a fast, rapid pace to go create more. This creates time efficiency and more engagement with your customers. It is great that you’re able to text back and forth. You know, the day of emails is kind of dead, like the day of like calling a lot of people. It’s kind of inefficient. 

Have All Necessary Information Ready

Alright, step number five is have all the information necessary ready, and pulled up, be prepared for your meeting.  Right here, I can click through and I have my proposal ready to go. I have my banking and financial, here’s sunlight, financial portal, ready to run credit. I have my follow up campaign. Everything is  there that I want to show them. I’ve got their bill pulled up, ready to go. So if I want to analyze their bill with them and show them, Hey, as you can see right here in November, you had, you know, this much going on and in January it was lower. And then look at your July, you know, and you can show them what they are paying. By having it on your screen you can analyze the bill right there with them, show them all the different charges, show them the different blocks and utility increases. The more they use, the more how they’re getting penalized or whatever the utility company provides. So what I’m gonna be doing is you can see right here on my screen is I can show them. It’s like dude, $870. That’s just to run your power. I can, I can have all this. And then I can readily jump right back to the proposal and be like, okay, let me show you here on your proposal. You know where that, where your panels are gonna go and you can really visualize and let them kind of taste, touch, feel, see everything that you’re doing. The other thing that a lot of people end up doing wrong on this whole virtual present presenting is, they do all the talking and they don’t listen.

 

Slow Down

It’s easier to kind of read body language and, and, and see a customer when you’re in the home. But, on zoom or virtually, you tend to just automatically go into like vomit on them mode. My recommendation is slow down and map out your questions. Maybe on a piece of paper, maybe you have like a notepad, you’re writing down questions and you’re saying, okay, I need to make sure I ask these 10 questions throughout my presentation to ensure that the customer is engaged. You don’t want them sitting there watching the football game while you’re trying to sell your heart out. You don’t want them texting and watching Netflix the whole time. You want to make sure that you’re asking them questions. It forces their attention to stay engaged into what you’re doing, because it’s easy for them to get distracted and pretend like they’re listening to you.

Email And Follow Up Appointment

 The next step is, I’m going to email you the information we’re gonna meet again on Thursday. The next step is you’re going to get an email with all these things that we just got completed, and you’re going to get a call from our site survey expert. The next step is for you make sure that is clear and then give a email summary report at the end of that saying, Hey, just loved our call. Appreciate the time you spent with me. Here’s my phone number. You’re showing this sales courtesy to show and, and walk them through a path to success. These were my basic tips on how to really run a successful solar virtual training or a virtual presentation. We have a ton more videos and content on our online university. Here, we continue to film, train, capture content with the best of the best. We realize a lot of people in this time of social distancing are migrating towards digital. That’s not a bad thing. Sales are sales. You can still go out and sling a bunch of deals this way.

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