How To Sell Solar Over The Phone

How To Sell Solar Remotely In The Era Of Social Distancing

Current events and unforeseen circumstances may force you to sell solar remotely for the next few months. Like most solar companies, you may currently rely on meeting your customers in-person, and you may be wondering how to transition to a remote process in the era of social distancing.

In this webinar we will discuss how it can be done successfully. Meital Stotland, Senior Solar Energy Consultant at Baker Electric, and Elliot Goldstein, Account Executive, Aurora Solar, are our guests. They say: If there was ever a time to learn, it is now when most homeowners are in their homes around the clock. In fact, some of the most successful, and fastest-growing solar companies have already adopted remote sales processes. All that you need to go remote are a few key adjustments to your typical sales process.

Have a look at this webinar to gain insights from experts who have sold solar remotely at some of the leading firms in the U.S.

Tim Sylvia, Associate Editor, pv magazine USA, will be the host of the webinar.

Content: How to set up a remote sales process What essential technologies are needed Recommended changes to your sales pitch and messaging Tips for closing sales over the phone and computer

This webinar was previously announced under the title Mastering the Consultative Sales Process to boost your Close Rate. This may take place later.

Listen To The Customer

Keep in mind that selling also involves understanding your clients and meeting their needs and desires. Listening is a critical component of the sales process and makes the customer feel valued. Discover your clients pain points, objectives, desired timeline, available budget, and motivations to serve them better.

Then, use that information to shape your solar proposals. This understanding will help you close more deals and increases your chances of getting high-quality referrals or positive online reviews on social media from your customers.

Always Think About Your Next Step

• Say you have called the customer, introduced your solar company, understood their pain points, offered your solar products as the solution, explained their best features, the impressed customer is ready to be on board and wants to install the solar panels, you have closed the deal. What will be your next step?

• Whether its a follow-up call or an after-sales deal, every conversation you have with your customer should sign off with a next step that will continue the following talk.

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Why Solar Is The Most Important Solar Sales Pitch Question

The following are the objectives for answering this question:

Explain why your prospect’s current electric usage isn’t sustainable.

To persuade your prospect to invest in solar, you must have a mutual, engaging conversation about their circumstances.

Data that is both substantial and easy to understand aids in the delivery of your message.

How do you explain the benefits solar provides to a consumer who isn’t sure if it’s right for them? One of the most effective approaches is to first learn about the customer’s present difficulties with their electric bill.

This is a teaching time for you to educate your prospect on why their current condition is not sustainable, Kenneth Williams adds. It’s better if you have their bill or can show them some visuals of their energy usage over the course of the year. Your prospect must understand that they have little or no influence over their current power cost before you can present solar as a viable solution.

Solar software, like as Aurora, provides strong visual tools for examining your prospect’s current energy consumption. This is also an excellent place to inquire about the customer’s motivations for adopting solar and any issues they may have, so you can customize your conversation to their top worries.

You’re not closing the sale if your prospect isn’t talking.

Build The Value Of The Appointment Itself

When setting appointments over the phone, you should be focusing on just setting the appointment only. In other words, you need to SELL the appointment ONLY.

That is, sell the value of the meeting on its own merits. When setting an appointment on the phone, often the prospect feels that to meet with you will be a waste of their time if they do not believe they will buy and since they have not yet seen your sales presentation, that is only natural.

Therefore, you need to help the prospect understand that they receive VALUE, they get some return on their investment of time, just to meet with you, regardless of if they choose to buy what you are selling or not. Figure out the reasons how the prospect benefits just by talking to you, and sell those benefits. The selling of the appointment on the phone can achieve this.

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What Do You Say In A Follow

Already spoken with a prospect, uncovered their pain points, and went through a few questions? The next thing you would want to do is move your potential customer into the consideration stage of the sales funnel.

Gather all the information of your prospect and restructure your proposal. Make sure the proposal covers their pain points and why they should opt for your solar product or installation services to tackle those issues.

Using the last sales call will demonstrate insightful values to your prospect and help them make thoughtful decisions.

Heres a quick follow-up script you might use after your discovery call with the prospect:

Hi , how are you today?

This is from .

I have been thinking more about how our solar company can help you with your problem . I thought you would be interested to see how we helped deal with those challenges themselves.

Even if you are not ready to make the buying decision, do you have time for a 15-minute call? I can share with you some of the unique features of our solar products and their benefits. Does around work for you?

What Other Sales Channels Can You Use

In the rush to sell online, its important to note that there will always be a place for well-established off-line sales channels too.

Customer referrals are still the gold standard of sales opportunities, offering the best conversion rates, but of course, these arent an option in a new business until youve made your first sale.

Its always a good idea, to begin with, a starting customer base of friends, family, and acquaintances. These are the people who will believe in you, your drive, commitment, and vision. Leveraging your personal brand is a crucial first step in setting out in any sales business.

Other great ways to generate trade are by forming partnerships and attending and getting involved in solar-related events, like conventions and seminars.

Advertising your business both off and online can also reap great rewards.

And remember that even in this day and age, theres still a place for door-to-door sales. Face-to-face is always a fabulous way to present your product to customers and establish rapport and trust.

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Establish Your Business And Enterprise

there are several ways you can set up your business. One of them is to buy a franchise of an existing business. This approach allows you to skip some of the business-building and get on board with an established enterprise that already has a foothold in the market.

Clearly, you have to offset the advantage of a quick start against the cost of buying into the franchise and any ongoing commission payments. Still, it can be a great first step in the industry, so its worth researching what franchise opportunities are available.

The alternative is to go it alone and build up your own business from scratch. To do this, youll need to establish a business presence and meet regulatory requirements like registering the business and getting a tax identification number.

Youll also need to obtain any relevant sales permits and make sure that you research the licenses you need to produce, install, and sell solar technology in the area or areas you plan to operate.

Designated solar contractor licenses are available in several states, so you should check if these are applicable in your area.

Before you do any trading, make sure that you take out some insurance for your business. General liability insurance is essential, and if you are going to employ staff or use vehicles in your company name, you will need the relevant insurance and liability policies.

How To Stop Solar Telemarketing Calls

1. If it is a human calling you, say Please put me on your do not call list or do not contact me with unsolicited offers. This will communicate clearly to the sales person that you are not interested with the proposition they are making.

Be aware that they are trained to handle objections and might want to ask you why you arent interested. Being stern and not giving in is key to handling pushy salesmen.

2. Register your phone number on the national do not call registry list. You can register by visiting this website, or you can register by calling 1-888-382-1222. Call from the mobile phone or landline that you want to register on the no call list. If you go the website route you will have to verify your ID by your email. On their page they state that registering your phone is free and after your register, other types of organizations may still call you, such as charities, political groups, debt collectors and surveys. They also state that if you receive an unwanted call after 31 days from registering on the do not call registry, you can report it here.

3. Block the phone number on your cell phone. With repeat offenders, they can be blocked by going to your recent call list by accessing your phone app. Select the number that you want to block and hit block caller.

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Demonstrate Expertise Through A Certification

As well as learning all about solar technology, its a good idea to demonstrate your knowledge to customers by obtaining a certification from the North American Board Of Certified Energy Practitioners NABCEP. They offer a range of certifications at reasonable rates. This certification has been shown to increase earnings potential by an average of $11,000 a year.

The Answer Is Simplicity

In November 2012 we did an investigation that showed that only 8% of people could work out the cheapest tariff when presented with six different energy deals. Its hardly surprising that most people dont even bother trying to find out the best deal for them, even though some could save hundreds of pounds a year.

Thats why we are calling on the government to ensure that prices can be easily compared at a glance, like on petrol forecourt displays. A single unit price would allow people to find the cheapest energy deals with ease.

At the moment, the maths just doesnt add up. Its time to simplify the process and cut down the jargon, so that we can all have clear, easy-to-compare gas and electricity prices.

Useful links:

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Create A System For Booking Appointmentswith Rapid Response Times

Its critical that you have an internal system that allows you to respond and book appointments with prospects as fast as possible. A major benefit of an inside sales approach is that you can pitch and close the homeowner that same daywithin the same hour evenof when they request the quote.

Research supports that the time when a homeowner is requesting the quote they are most likely to buy and youre more likely to connect with them then. In fact, one study of 3.5 million leads, found that calling within the first minute of lead generation can increase your likelihood of conversion by nearly 400%.

To support lead generation, your website needs to be set up with a way to identify prospects and gather their contact information so you can follow up quickly. Options include: a pop-up form that allows them to enter their phone and email or a chatbot.

However you structure it, youll want to make sure that your team is prepared to immediately follow up with the prospect as soon as they enter their contact information. Elliot has seen success 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. Depending on the size of your team, this could also be the salesperson themself.

What Is My Role As A Palmetto Sales Member

• Leverage Palmettos easy-to-use, all-encompassing sales technology platform
• Develop relationships with new and prospective customers
• Meet with homeowners to deliver presentations, discuss options, and present proposals
• Study and be able to outline optimal financing and system design solutions for customers
• Manage customer expectations and sales cycle procedures for projects in progress
• Generate opportunities by cultivating referrals from new and existing clients
• Develop a keen understanding of the solar industry with an emphasis on the technical aspects of solar power systems and financing

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Manage Your Area Intelligently

When you understand the way that the modern buyer operates, you can adapt your approach to better meet their needs. This starts with the way you manage an area and make customers aware of you.

Clients like to spend more time in the awareness and consideration stages, so find ways to make them aware of your company before you even knock on their door. You can do this through email lists, flyers, mail campaigns, web ads, or business cards. Imagine how much easier it would be to present a solution to clients who know youre coming and have had an opportunity to consider your option and generate questions already. It completely reframes the nature of your conversation with them in an extremely positive way.

Another really strong way to build a natural presence with potential customers is to work around your current customers. When you start working an area, you should start right at your customers, asking them if they know of anybody in the area who has been inquiring about your service, expressed any interest in alternative energy, complained about an electric bill, or anything along those lines.

Tips To Make A Successful Sales Pitch Over The Phone

A sales pitch on the phone is very different than making a sales pitch in person. Its an important distinction to make. It will change how you approach your pitch,

A sales pitch on the phone is very different than making a sales pitch in person. Its an important distinction to make. It will change how you approach your pitch, how you sell, and how you interact with your prospects and customers.

With phone pitches, you need to keep in mind that there are a few factors working against you:

• Its often a cold call people are less receptive to them
• You have less time to win over the prospect
• Many sales reps have a fear of making sales calls

So why do you still need to make sales pitches over the phone when you can connect in many other ways email, social media, text, video chat?

Tamara Monosoff from Entrepreneur explains:

The reality is that even in our internet-based world, few tools are more effective and necessary for generating sales and sales appointments than the good old telephone.

Here are 5 tips from our sales recruiters on how to make a successful sales pitch over the phone:

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A Little Research Goes A Long Way

Theres a common thread between most of our cold calling scripts to get appointments:

Personalization

A thoughtful, personalized pitch is more likely to help you score an appointment than sticking to a totally generic script. Even if someone gets the sense that youre trying to sell them something , they can at least appreciate the fact that you made the effort to do your homework beforehand.

Consider the sort of research you can conduct in under a minute that will lead to talking points and details to help you win appointments.

For example, a quick Google search can confirm someones role at a company in addition to their social profiles:

and Twitter can be a treasure trove of information to support your cold calls. This includes company roles, milestones, and recent content that could clue you in on something you can help them with.

There are also a number of third-party tools out there which you can use to supplement your cold calling efforts. For example, tools such as Skrapp can find a users email address and confirm company roles based on the addresses you already have.

The few seconds it takes to research prospects or confirm your information could be make-or-break during your cold-calls. In other words, its time well spent.

A Solar Phone Script That Delivers

When it comes to selling solar panels, contacting clients over the phone facilitates solid relationships that are the key to developing loyal, satisfied customers

In our previous post, we focused on six mistakes that undermine potential sales. Today we will be sharing tips to help you create the ideal telemarketing script.

According to salesman extraordinaire Jordan Belford, the real-life character portrayed by Leonardo Dicaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, a well-composed telephone sales strategy that is void of smoke and mirrors will create amazing results. A perfectly balanced, rhythmic, almost hypnotic sales script keeps you in control while still encouraging productive dialogue turns skeptics into believers, and prospects into lifelong customers

Belfords sales ideology is especially relevant if you are a solar panel contractor. Unlike social media and mainstream advertising that contribute to soft relationships – better suited for selling razor blades and power tools – telemarketing facilitates solid relationships that are the key to developing loyal, satisfied customers. With that in mind, here is a brief guide to creating the ideal telephone solar sales script.

Dont overwhelm your prospect during the call

Start your call correctly

Example of a successful introduction

Hello, Mr/Ms My name is MJ and Im calling from . How are you today?.

Captivate with questions

Some examples

Questionsto anticipate

Will panels devalue my property?

Adopt the right tone

In Closing

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