Develop a Winning Marketing Strategy for your Solar Company

How to Create A High-Impact Marketing Strategy for Your Solar Business

Effective marketing is essential for solar companies to reach new customers and promote their services. Developing a comprehensive marketing strategy takes time and effort, but pays dividends in increased sales and brand awareness. Follow these tips for creating a winning marketing plan.

Key Takeaways

  • Define your target customers and their needs
  • Diversify marketing across multiple channels
  • Focus messaging on customer benefits and value
  • Collect testimonials and case studies to build trust
  • Set measurable goals for leads and conversions
  • Continuously analyze results and optimize efforts

Identify Your Target Customers

Pinpoint the specific customer profiles you want to attract, like residential homeowners, businesses, farms, etc. Understand their problems and solar needs like reducing electric bills, achieving sustainability goals, or managing high energy consumption.

Mastering Solar Marketing: How to Identify Your Ideal Customer

The solar industry is booming, with more homeowners and businesses looking to harness the power of the sun. However, the key to successful solar marketing isn’t just understanding the product; it’s about understanding who wants it and why. Identifying your target audience is crucial to crafting messages that resonate, campaigns that convert, and strategies that soar. This guide will walk you through the steps to pinpoint your solar company’s target audience, ensuring your marketing efforts shine as brightly as the energy source you’re promoting.

  • The importance of demographic data in targeting potential solar customers
  • How psychographic profiling can refine your marketing approach
  • The necessity of segmenting your audience for tailored messaging
  • Utilizing local market analysis for strategic planning
  • Adapting to policy changes and incentives in solar marketing

Demographics: The Solar Customer Blueprint Understanding the typical profile of a solar energy consumer is the foundation of your marketing efforts. Demographics such as age, income, property ownership, and location play a significant role in determining who is most likely to invest in solar technology. For instance, solar products may appeal more to homeowners between the ages of 30 and 60, who have the financial stability to invest in home improvements and a vested interest in reducing long-term energy costs.

Psychographics: Beyond the Basics While demographics explain “who” your customer might be, psychographics tell you “why” they might buy. This involves diving into the values, attitudes, and lifestyles that drive consumers towards solar energy. Are they environmentally conscious? Do they value self-sufficiency? Understanding these motivations can help you create compelling content that speaks directly to the hearts and minds of potential buyers.

Segmentation: A Spectrum of Needs Not all solar customers are created equal. Some may seek the independence of off-grid living, while others are looking to reduce their carbon footprint without a significant lifestyle change. Segmenting your audience allows you to develop focused marketing strategies that address the specific needs and concerns of different groups, from residential homeowners to commercial entities looking to go green.

Local Market Insights: The Competitive Edge Your local market is a goldmine of information. Analyzing area-specific data on solar adoption rates, energy costs, and competitor activity can provide actionable insights. This data not only informs you about the current demand but also helps you forecast future trends and position your company accordingly.

Policy and Incentives: The Regulatory Landscape Government incentives and regulations are powerful motivators for solar investment. Staying abreast of federal tax credits, state rebates, and local initiatives can help you craft messages that highlight the financial benefits of going solar, making your marketing campaigns timely and relevant.

Crafting Your Message: The Art of Persuasion With a clear understanding of your audience, it’s time to craft a message that resonates. Your marketing materials should reflect the values and solve the problems of your target demographic. Whether it’s through educational content, case studies, or customer testimonials, your message should be consistent, clear, and compelling.

Choosing the Right Channels: Where to Shine The best message won’t generate leads if it’s not seen by the right eyes. Choosing the appropriate channels—be it digital platforms like social media and search engines, or traditional methods like community events and print advertising—is essential. Each channel has its strengths, and the right mix will depend on where your target audience spends their time and seeks information.

Adapting and Evolving: The Feedback Loop Marketing is not a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor. It requires constant adaptation and refinement based on performance data and customer feedback. Use analytics tools to monitor the success of your campaigns, and be prepared to pivot your strategy to better align with your audience’s evolving needs.

The future of solar marketing is not just about selling a product; it’s about selling a vision for the future. As solar technology becomes more mainstream, the companies that will lead the market are those that connect with customers on a deeper level, addressing their aspirations for a sustainable, cost-effective, and energy-independent lifestyle.

Identifying your target audience is the first step in a successful solar marketing strategy. By understanding who is most likely to purchase your products and why they’ll make that decision, you can tailor your marketing efforts for maximum impact. Remember, the sun doesn’t shine for just anyone; it shines for those who seek it out. Make sure your solar company is there to meet them when they do.

Diversify Your Marketing Mix

Employ a diverse blend of marketing tactics like SEO, blogging, social media, email nurturing campaigns, paid ads, event sponsorships, direct mail, and referrals. A varied strategy across channels gets your messaging in front of more potential customers.

Craft Customer-Focused Messaging

Center your marketing messaging around how solar benefits customers through dramatic savings, energy independence, revenue through PPA or leasing models, sustainability, reduced maintenance, etc. Focus on their needs rather than product features.

Leverage Case Studies and Testimonials

Spotlight case studies of satisfied local customers. Gather video testimonials describing their positive experiences. Powerful social proof builds trust and credibility for your services.

Set Quantifiable Goals

Define specific, measurable goals for your marketing initiatives like number of leads generated, sales inquiries, website traffic increase, ad clicks, and customer conversion rates. This focuses efforts and tracks performance.

Continuously Analyze and Optimize

Regularly analyze your marketing analytics across channels to understand what content and strategies convert best. Refine underperforming efforts and double down on tactics providing the highest ROI.

Following a structured planning process allows crafting an effective, diversified marketing strategy. But execution requires diligently monitoring results and continuously optimizing your approach for maximum impact.

Hot Take

  • Don’t get stuck in a channel silo – marketing success requires using the full toolbox.
  • Messaging focused on customer needs and pain points will always outperform pure product pitches.
  • Set marketing budget minimums of 5-10% of revenue to properly fund multi-channel efforts.
  • Take risks testing unproven marketing experiments – major rewards can come from straying outside comfort zones.

all right good afternoon everyone and welcome back to the solar surge weekly live training uh folks we are here every

0:12Wednesday 3 pm Eastern Time streaming out live to YouTube LinkedIn Facebook uh

0:17and of course the goal here is to deliver the maximum value in the area of solar sales now the reason that we do

0:24the live stream of course is so that you can ask questions and have your questions answered in real time so if you’re watching on YouTube you go ahead

0:30and put a question in the chat feed it’ll come up on our dashboard here uh if you’re on Facebook or LinkedIn just put a comment on the post and we’ll do

0:37our best to get those on the screen and get answers to you in real time at this

0:42point i’ like to bring in and reintroduce my co-host Dan freshley is the CEO of radiant solar as well as my

0:49partner here at solar Surge and solar surge University and Dan I’m really looking forward to giving this training

0:55with you today on a topic that I think is really critical to success which is how to develop a winning marketing

1:01strategy but before we dig into that Dan just want to welcome you back to the broadcast good to see you again yeah always good and uh guys as Joe mention

1:08drop any comments uh in here for us we really appreciate some of the comments we’ve had over the past couple of weeks

1:13there’s been some engaging discussion and so again as Joe mentioned we’re talking a lot about marketing advertising winning strategies today but

1:20it’s not limited to just that so drop comments in here any questions or just let us know where you’re coming from as

1:26well I always like to see where people are tuning in what parts of the country are really should say world for that matter I know we’ve had a couple people

1:32plug in uh internationally too which is really cool all right all right well in today’s

1:39training you know as we mentioned we’re we’re gonna be talking about how to develop a winning marketing strategy uh and this is so important too because

1:45when you talking about success in a solar sales business you know having having great salesmanship having great

1:51sales skills is is excellent and that’s a lot of what we teach you in solar surge University is how to develop a a

1:57really finely tuned professional sales process and sales technique uh but if

2:03you don’t have a constant stream of opportunities where you can actually get down face Toof face or on a screen call

2:10Zoom call you know face Toof face with a real qualified Prospect doesn’t matter how great of a salesperson you are

2:16you’re not going to be selling anything because you’re just not on the playing field and so one of the thing that

2:21differentiates the best solar companies and the best solar sales companies out there is not just their sales script or

2:27their sales process but it’s actually their entire marketing strategy and their entire Marketing System that puts

2:34their players in a position where they can actually sell in close and so that’s what we’re going to be talking about

2:40today um now as many of you know there there are many different ways that you can Market your solar sales business you

2:45can do online marketing online advertising uh many of you maybe came from the door-to-door background which

2:51by the way just in terms of just from a repeatable scalable process the

2:56door-to-door system is still one of the best systems out there and that’s why so many solar sales companies are using it

3:02because it’s a way that if you follow this process you can have consistent predictable results that you can scale

3:08up as you grow your business so we can talk a little bit about door-to-door as well uh of course the the the technique

3:14that we use here at solar surge is an organic social media marketing strategy uh but it is a strategy and in fact many

3:22of you guys that are that are watching this live stream now many of you may have known me for six or 12 months

3:27before you ever got involved in the sales train training and in solar surge University and again that that is because of how we have structured our

3:34marketing strategy or our Marketing System to make sure that we have a consistent flow of opportunities in this

3:41case opportunities of potential people that want to learn how to sell solar professionally but we have a system for

3:46making sure that we constantly get that attention that we’re constantly getting new eyeballs onto the business onto onto

3:53ourselves so that we can actually make our offer so Dan you know what’s been your experience I know you you’ve been

3:59in in the solar sales business for a number of years now and I know you’ve tried a number of different strategies what do you think is the key uh the key

4:06question here or where should people start out in terms of how do I put together my marketing strategy and what’s worked for you in the past yeah

4:14absolutely um so there’s a bunch of different things you know I have like you mentioned Joe I’ve had a lot of

4:19Facebook advertising experience I have a door-to-door team uh that’s been you know really beneficial in the past so

4:26there’s a lot of different ways to go about it I think the first key strategy though is to identify as a business

4:31owner or as maybe just a solo you know solar sales professional what type of

4:37business you want to have and you have to just recognize the pros and cons of different marketing and advertising type

4:43of strategies so on the one hand for example if you’re relying heavily on

4:49Facebook uh Google YouTube and I’m referring to the ad content right on Facebook Google YouTube Tik Tok uh any

4:57of the social media type platforms you’re not as location limited right you can run that advertising in a lot of

5:03places you can do virtual sales now more than ever I know you know looking back on it I started pivoting to doing a lot

5:09of virtual sales even before you know coid and 2020 and all that happened and it was just very convenient and

5:16fortunate timing that I was already in the groove of that as you know the masses of people began to experience the

5:22the new virtual world and became more familiar with it so that’s one side of it right if you really want to focus on Virtual uh you want to do business Maybe

5:29you say you live in Virginia like I do and you want to sell in Florida or California Texas New York wherever you

5:35can do that from a virtual perspective um now the other side of it though too is maybe you want to really service your

5:42Market that you work in today maybe you live in Florida and you really want to service the greater Tampa to Fort Meyers

5:49you know areas and you’re willing to hop in the car drive places go do neighborhood canvasing knock doors

5:56that’s where a door-to-door model can work really well or you could even just do advertising but you still execute all of those opportunities in a face-to-face

6:04sort of way I had found over the years for me personally Joe to kind of answer the question that the virtual sale

6:10process was more efficient and it was a better use of my time energy resources and ultimately I was more profitable

6:17from doing it that way because it’s I I essentially figured out I could reach more people I could create more

6:23proposals do more presentations all by way of doing things in a virtual environment versus maybe driving an hour

6:29One Direction having a meeting that was an hour hour and a half what I did find as well is the more in-person meetings I

6:35did the longer the meetings took as opposed to Virtual meetings tend to be a little more punctual a little more

6:41timely so in the same amount of time it took me an hour to drive hour and a half to do the meeting hour to come home I

6:47could have done three Zoom presentations or with our model today how we do a lot

6:52of our stuff I could have probably knocked out four five maybe even six just video presentation proposals in the

6:58recorded format that we do which are typically about 10 to 15 minute video proposals so there’s different strategies there’s different options

7:05there I would say on a high level the quick pros and cons advertising you’re putting your money to work now the catch

7:11is and the con is you’ve got to have money to put that to work but if you have the money you have the resources to

7:16invest you’re putting that money to work you’re going out and it’s hunting for you right it’s creating opportunities for you with your dollars being your

7:23employees in that case now on the door to-door side there’s a huge benefit because frankly most times in door door

7:29you’re not paying for something until a result has been achieved so a lot of business owners look at that of being

7:35well hey this is a no-brainer even if I have to pay the appointment setter or this individual commission for doing

7:40their doing their job I’m only paying them once a result’s been achieved

7:45there’s also different compensation models maybe sometimes people are paid hourly so that’s that wouldn’t really work in that realm uh what I had found

7:53though is that in the end I typically would spend more money on the door to-door side of things because it’s not just the commissions I’m paying but

7:59maybe it’s the iPads I’m providing and the sales rabbit or canvasing tools I’m using and just other ancillary things

8:06that go along maybe I’m covering their transportation costs or whatever so I found that advertising in this online

8:12payer lead through companies like solar reviews who we’ve recommended and others in the past or just or your own personal

8:18Facebook advertising have ended up working better but happy we can dive into that a little bit more um but I

8:24think a lot of it starts when you’re starting out you need need to identify what type of business do you want to have do you want to do things more in

8:30person do you want to do things more virtually from there you have a path that you can begin to

8:35follow sounds good sounds good and you know I would agree with you Dan I think you know for somebody like me I prefer

8:41the virtual I prefer the online engagement because I can I can get in front of more people I mean I think that’s that’s the bottom line is I can

8:47get in front of more people that’s why I like YouTube so much is because I can I can get the content out there I can get

8:53the information out there so that more people will know me and then of course when it’s time to do business and this

8:58is you’re just part of My Philosophy here is you know is if you can provide value if you can be the person who’s

9:03educating your prospect you know you’re already positioned in their mind as as The Trusted expert when it’s time to do

9:09business now you’re already framed well you’re already positioned well it’s like okay this is the guy I trust all we have to do now is just kind of sort through

9:14the details and get the paperwork done and that’s mention to the other the other benefit and I don’t mean to cut you off Joe but the other benefit to the

9:20YouTube strategy is the the Evergreen nature of YouTube right and essentially

9:26meaning hey you put one video up and even if it goes viral for a 30-day period of time it’s not that that video

9:31is ever going to have negative viewership it’s going to continue to still tick up over time it might not be as aggressive but that content you put

9:38it out there that content lives forever so that’s a big value of the YouTube side uh for sure and obviously we’ve

9:43seen that firsthand here at solar surge as a business when it comes to how we help our our homeowner you know

9:50clientele absolutely no that that that’s a key point and so for any of you who are considering YouTube I think I think

9:55that’s one of the key advantages of YouTube over Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn is that generally you know

10:01those those other platforms it’s like oh what’s kind of trending today what’s on my feed today whereas YouTube a lot of

10:07people will go to YouTube specifically to search for a particular product or ask a question um or they’ll go to

10:13Google to ask a question but Google will incorporate YouTube videos in their results it’s not just you know text

10:18based or blog articles YouTube will incorporate uh sorry Google search will incorporate YouTube videos in their

10:25search results based on how how relevant they believe it is to the question so many advantages to YouTube and we could

10:31talk more we could probably do a whole training just on how to develop a YouTube strategy or how to get started on YouTube because that’s personally

10:37what I’ve really been able to to dial up with um but we use other strategies as well I’ve used Facebook ads um currently

10:44using some paid leads from solar reviews so so this is not not just a company that we’re you know we’ve endorsed but

10:49we’re actually customers of as well um and have used them very very successfully throughout the years so

10:55there’s a lot of different ways to do it um but the key thing here is you have to

11:00have a system that provides predictable results which means that first of all you have to measure your results and Dan

11:06I’d like to ask you a little bit more about some of the kpis that you track to like see how effective a marketing

11:11campaign is returning um so you have to be able to measure the results and you have to be able to really step back and look at it objectively and say okay

11:17which of these marketing strategies are working and which ones are not and be able to do that in a systematic

11:23controlled manner because guys I I’ll tell you 90% of the solar marketing companies out there it’s not it’s not

11:29good results and if you actually run the numbers on it and I’m not trying to call anybody out or name names but if you actually run the numbers on it you’ll

11:35find that you’re paying you know three four five $6,000 per sale if you get any

11:40sales at all and that kills you as a starting up independent sales rep because if you put all your cash out and

11:47i’ I’ve talked to a number of sales reps that are getting getting started in the business or just getting started as an independent you know as an independent

11:53dealer or an independent rep and you know they I I can tell they they they got sold on one of these hey we’re going

11:59to fill your calendar up it’s going to be great appointments we’re going to set all the appointments for you we got the call center working for you it’s going

12:05to be great and then when you actually ask well how many proposals did you put out how many appointments actually sat

12:11down talk to you and then you realize like it’s not actually working and that’s the problem and again guys I get

12:17it because I every time I go on to LinkedIn every time I go on to YouTube I get it I probably seen half dozen ads today hey solar panel company do you

12:24need some leads you know and again I I get it it sounds great but you have to really know what works and what doesn’t

12:30in my opinion 90% of it doesn’t work and that’s why again we offer the free strategy call especially for those of

12:36you that are investing in solar surge University and putting in the time to learn the professional sales process we

12:42have to marry that up with an effective marketing process as well and so again that’s why we offer the free strategy

12:47call so that we can talk to you one-on-one about your particular situation and and frankly just share our

12:53experience of what works what doesn’t work in our experience and what does some of the numbers look like Dan at

13:00this point I’ll I’ll kick it kick it over to you yeah no it’s important I think one of the the big things here um

13:06we can kind of kick off with is on the Facebook side or meta right so that’s an

13:12area where you know for quite a long time people have been doing advertising that was where when I ventured off and I

13:17started radiant solar I really doubled down hard to understand okay how do you do advertising right how do you do

13:24Facebook advertising what does this look like and the playing fields are always slightly shifting I don’t remember the

13:30exact date but I know that Apple when they rolled out a new security feature in one of their iOS softwares it it

13:36limited the ability for Facebook to accurately Target the right audiences

13:41and so you got to kind of keep up with these things one thing you learn as a business owner as a you know a person

13:47looking to generate leads online for whatever your service is your in this case solar you’ve got it you find

13:53yourself being a jack of all trades right you’re trying to learn and master the lead generation opportunities and

13:59stuff that are out there so some of the quick ones that I pay attention to quite a bit on my side number one obviously is

14:05whatever my budget is right so when it comes to Facebook these are the main metrics that I like to look at is what

14:11is my my budget typically that’s going to be set in a daily budget right am I gonna spend $10 a day am i g to spend

14:17$300 per day like what is my my total spend going to be and there’s been a lot

14:23of times for those that are listening I mean you know this might be a big number to some small number to others but I

14:28think back in 2022 I spent about $170,000 on Facebook advertising now

14:34that number again for some might be big for some small but if you’re just starting out in the industry or you’ve

14:39got a small business that you’re looking to grow that number might sound huge but I can tell you as well that every dollar

14:46that I spent on Facebook advertising returned a multiple of about three to

14:51four on those on those dollars so I wouldn’t have spent the money if I wasn’t earning you know commissions and

14:58earning Revenue as a result of doing it now some campaigns have worked well some don’t I keep an eye on things and kind

15:04of track and what I really am focusing on just goes back to some trainings that we’ve done before but it’s really all

15:09about CPA or cost per acquisition right how much does it take how many dollars am I spending to acquire one new piece

15:15of business or one new sale there’s other metrics that I’ll measure as well but that’s kind of the big overarching

15:21one that my business kind of lives and dies on and then from there when I’m running an ad or running something on

15:26Facebook I want to focus a little more clearly on a couple other key metrics so you have your budget you obviously have

15:32your results right how many leads are being generated you have your cost per result they call it on Facebook or

15:38really it’s your cost per lead what is that showing but again don’t be fooled that just because you have a low cost

15:43per lead that means that it’s working great right it might not you might have the ad copy or the ad creative right the

15:50creative being the logo the design the image that is being served up or the video that’s being served up and the ad

15:55Copy being the caption and the writing that is in that that those things could not you know maybe they’re not uh

16:01meshing well maybe you’re attracting a certain client or a certain demographic or a certain whatever it is and so

16:08you’re getting really low cost per leads but none of them are converting that that doesn’t do you any good on the flip

16:14side of it though too you don’t want to have a cost per lead that is 80 90 $100 and you know you’re not converting

16:20those because if you have a thousand budget and you’ve got a $100 leads right you’ve got 10 leads 10 opportunities you

16:26really you better close one of those 10 in order to properly uh have a have a

16:32healthy CPA which typically a number that we’re targeting we’ve talked about this before but it’s anything that’s

16:37about, 1500 and less if you can get a thousand or less that’s really good if you can get below that 75500 you’ve got

16:43a really really good formula um but what I’ve seen is over the past you know two months I was testing a new ad it was a

16:49battery comparison ad that I have been running for a while um and I could actually pull some numbers here I’ve

16:55never never shared my screen here before Joe on our live stream so I think I can figure this out let’s see present let’s

17:04go share screen and let’s just go to this uh this window

17:11here all right coming through on your side Joe Yep looks good cool it’s small but it’s it’s there yeah it’s small um

17:18but this is a good example right so this is a an ad that I have been running um just looking at the data from September

17:231st to October 31st right just as an example I was only running this at $10 a day you know so it wasn’t a huge

17:29aggressive budget in the end I’ve actually only spent uh $69 on this this ad here overall but I

17:38can tell you that I have made one sale successfully out of the $69 that was

17:43spent so from a CPA perspective that’s a phenomenal CPA right logic would tell you hey if you can do that scale it grow

17:49it more now this particular ad the only reason I’m not scaling it more aggressively is because a lot of the

17:55clients that we were generating a lot of the lead interest were were people that already owned solar systems and they were looking to add on battery that’s

18:03not really the core product that I want to be selling is battery only now ideally the leads that were coming in

18:09here I was filtering them and saying hey we can’t do battery only but we can do a you know a solar add-on Plus Battery

18:15which is really the the target of what we’re looking to accomplish but what you can see is I have a $10 per day budget

18:21here 81 leads were generated at a cost per lead of $752 so really low cost per

18:26lead but again to the point I made earlier this cost per lead is very low because a lot of the people that were

18:32clicking on it already owned solar systems so it wasn’t you know if you

18:37factor that and extrapolated that out it probably is not the most ideal um cost

18:42per lead number to be at total clicks 807 clicks I like paying attention to Unique clicks as well the unique clicks

18:48are telling me how many unique people are clicking on them you have your cost per click ratio you have your click

18:54through rate again how many unique people are clicking through or what what the percent of unique visitors is that

19:00are clicking through the ad to the actual lead form right the capture form the frequency is how often that ad is

19:06being served back up to the same person the higher the number this gets the the worse it is you don’t want the same

19:12people seeing your ad over and over and over and over again so you typically want that number to be a little lower what the impressions are the reach are

19:19and then ultimately how much have I spent so again when I’m really looking at this the main things I’m first kind of looking at is is what is my budget

19:26how many leads have I generated what are my cost per leads and then a lot of times I’ll focus on what my unique clicks are and my click-through rate to

19:32get an idea of if that number is in a good spot a click-through rate of 5% is a really good click-through rate here

19:38typically on a lower end I might see you know 2% 3% and then ultimately it

19:43translates to okay well how much have I really spent and then in my CRM I’m tracking okay well how many sales have I

19:50made right like where am I at how many appointments and those are some of the kpis I know focus on from the business

19:55perspective of saying how many appointments were scheduled Ed how many showed how many no showed how many

20:00canell how many um ultimately moved to the sale process and we keep a kpi

20:05Tracker of that activity as well but this is just a quick little overview of

20:11uh of what I like to track when it comes to Something in Facebook as an example just to uh to give sort of a reference

20:18as to you know an example that I’m running right now yeah Dan this is great this is great

20:24so um a couple things that I like about how you structured that first of all it sounds like even though on a yearly

20:30basis you know you’re spending over 100 Grand on advertising in a year but you’re running these campaigns in what

20:35appear to be smaller controlled experiments $500,000 at a time is that correct yeah yeah so part of what you’re

20:42doing as well is sometimes one ad the same copy might be paired to different

20:48creatives right so again you might have the same language but paired to three different visuals and I launch all of

20:54those at the same time at really really low uh daily budgets right because I don’t want to waste money I just want to

21:00see okay well what’s starting to get a little bit of traction if I notice that one of these the numbers is drastically

21:05worse or drastically better maybe I I scale it up or I turn it off so typically when I’m launching an ad I’m

21:11launching a derivative of three of the same ones with slightly different tailoring that tailoring could also be

21:17different audiences right maybe I’m going to Target demographics that are 40 to 60 years old 30 to 50 right whatever

21:25that is and just kind of figure out okay where is this trending which one of these are performing better turn those

21:30the good ones up turn the bad ones off so that’s kind of the first part and then you turn up the throttle on

21:36whatever you’re willing to to spend there again just knowing everybody that’s listening to this it’s probably going to take you around a thousand

21:42dollars to generate your first sale now if you’re if you are an individual solo

21:47sales rep and you’re really you’re working every facet of this process you’re handling the leads you’re calling

21:54the leads you’re running the appointments you’re recalling the leads you might be able to do do that at a lower price point right because you’re

22:00you’re putting super high attention to detail and you’re jumping on every opportunity right away you probably can

22:06get that down under ,000 750 500 but as you grow and you kind of scale your

22:11business you have to think about what kind of business do you want I would just say the one thing to know is that

22:17no one else is if you’re the owner no one else is going to have the same attention to detail that you have so if you’re jumping on the leades right away

22:23just assume that your employees or the people that work with you aren’t going to get to them quite as fast which means that your numbers are going to probably

22:28run a little bit higher but um I digress I don’t want to go too far down that

22:33that that well no no because I think folks need need need to know how to get started on this I know in the past and

22:39I’ve shared on a previous training uh in the past when I’ve had to generate some leads at low cost super low cost I have

22:45sort of a go-to uh Facebook post formula which is basically I use a an after

22:51electric bill I use an electric bill from one of my clients that has solar that shows their usage zeroed out and I

22:57just kind of black out their name and their personal details and I’ll just put it out there as a post and then boost the post and typically I can do that at

23:0350 100 200 bucks at a time um if I had to generate leads at a very very low

23:09cost but again that’s me doing the Sweat Equity that’s me like chatting with everybody that chats in and comments in

23:15and DMS in so you’re you’re going to have to spend some time filtering through the the the interested parties

23:21to actually get to the few who actually might be willing to commit to an appointment you know so they’re going to have some they’re going to have some questions oh is it free how much does it

23:27cost cost is it a scam you have to going to kind of sort through all that but again if you have more time and less

23:33cash that might be a place where you start is just put up an electric bill from one of your clients hopefully you

23:39have some clients that are successfully installed say hey hey my client just shared this with me this is what their electric bill looks like now now it has

23:45to be local to the the market in which you’re running the ad right the utility company on the bill has to be you know

23:51whatever whatever the the uh utility is in the area where you run the ad so that people will see it they’ll recognize it

23:57they’ll know exactly what they’re looking at uh and then that usually will generate some interest so Dan I know in

24:02the past when I’ve had to really kind of get things going with limited resources you know for just two 200 300 bucks

24:08worth of boosted Facebook post I’ve been able to get a handful of deals now granted I was running Those ads like

24:14immediately in my neighborhood like in my county and um I even ran my own electric bill at one point I had my own

24:20posts solar electric bill and I was able to get a handful of you know handful of deals uh right in my immediate area

24:27there and this this why this was right at the beginning of Co so everything was kind of in turmoil we were we were we were being very creative with how to how

24:33to get something going in the new sort of postco uh or or midco lockdown world

24:39and that was one of the the formulas that I found that worked for me yeah so

24:45so Dan what is your what does your sort of lead processing look like on the back end you shared with us some numbers as

24:51far as how many leads how many engagements you got on those campaigns so what what happens when somebody engages with one of your Facebook ads

24:57does it go to chat with you or chat with one of your appointment Setters or what how does a workflow good question yeah

25:03so the workflow that I have today obviously I had to grow too so I’ll share where I’m at today but I’ll also

25:08share again like for any of you watching I had to start as being the person who handled all the leads called all the

25:13leads Facebook messages all the leads right so like I was all of it uh but today the workflow for me is I really

25:21really heavily leverage our backend CRM system we’ve talked about it before in some other videos but it’s a custombuilt

25:27version go high levels platform uh and for those that you know are interested in how that works or kind of what we do

25:33here at solar surge or what I do with radiant solar again it’s a a perfect time book a free strategy call with us and we can dive in and kind of show a

25:39little more details as to what we do and how we do it but essentially Joe the way the the software works is the leads come

25:47in and a lot of times the call to action in the lead might be I’m sorry in the uh the the landing page or the form that

25:54they’re seeing the ad they’re seeing might be hey get this free download or get this comparison guide or whatever it

26:01is um it’s actually a good point and one thing I don’t want to get too off here but there was a comment that came in from one of our our Facebook uh Watchers

26:07here a little bit earlier saying they’re getting ready to get started in the Solar space what’s the state of the industry right now I’m seeing ads in

26:13Georgia for free solar panels for Georgia residents that’s one of those classic Facebook ads that you’re going

26:19to see from a lot of these uh you know below board advertising companies oh

26:26free this free that don’t fall for that stuff there is nothing free about solar

26:31now the argument that people are making is just simply saying hey we’re going to do a bill swap right we’re going to take

26:37your power bill from being here reduce it to zero and replace it with a solar payment here you’re gonna you’re going

26:42to divert your money to another area and they call that free right it’s obviously not free the point of it is though is

26:48you’re already paying for something so taking on the solar investment doesn’t cost you anything more in fact it

26:53typically would save you money the advertising that I like to run is typically more either product focused uh

26:59like you just said Joe maybe it’s like area focused I’ve ran my power bill before I’ve ran other customers power bills before so I’m doing something to

27:07have a little bit more appeal and relevance to people that are either a you know familiar with the area or B

27:13looking have already looked into maybe Solar Technologies uh battery technologies and they’re clicking on an

27:19ad that’s of interest to them because it pertains to that industry pertains to the technology um once those are coming

27:25in though I’m engaging them in my CRM platform that has some automations built in as I wanted to grow my business I

27:31knew that I could not handle every inbound lead every communication I needed to leverage some sort of

27:37automation to buy back some of my time so I was able to build what they call workflows inside of the go high level

27:43system that will engage for me right it comes off as it’s me I’ve written the messages and I’ve used Dynamic Fields

27:50where it brings in the homeowner’s name it brings in my name right so it comes off as a very personable message I’ve

27:56even done things just as a a marketing strategy here I’ve misspelled words on purpose to then double text right the

28:03little text you do afterwards with the aster to spell correct I’ve done that just to make it very clear like hey I am

28:09a real person on the other side of this I might not be the real person sending it right away but I’m the real person

28:14replying if you re-engage with me or if you call back I’m the one answering the phone and so I’ve built marketing and

28:20and just nurturing strategies around that so that my system could work for me I could handle the leads as people

28:27respond back or as people called in and then ultimately as I’ve grown I now have a um a virtual assistant who is calling

28:35on my behalf right their whole job is about booking appointments setting appointments you know for me and my team

28:41and that’s really what they get incentivized on so for me now I have a system in place where that all kind of happens behind the scenes but early on I

28:48mean when I ran my first couple you know I remember running it and just being glued to the computer because I spent my

28:54hard money and I was like I don’t know if this is going to work or not I need to jump on every single person that comes through here and you’re kind of

29:00desperate to figure something out but you know one win became another win and I was able to kind of get that snowball

29:06of momentum going and and then realize okay hey now I now I’ve earned the ability to kind of scale this and

29:12sometimes it means I I have to take some risks with things and unfortunately waste money as I’m trying to grow and

29:18find the next thing but it that wasn’t it when I first started I had to just bet on myself and try to figure it

29:25out yeah yeah and and and really that is where you guys should be starting right I mean you you shouldn’t be starting

29:30with absolutely zero resources there’s going to be some cost to get something up and running you know I would say minimum a thousand bucks right if you

29:37have a thousand bucks set aside that you can that you can you know put at risk to experiment with a couple of different ad formulas and then also have the time and

29:44attention to be able to to actually run down those opportunities as they come in right whether it’s DMS chats or El lead

29:51is texting you back with Dan system a Le you know his system will text outbound but when they text back then you got to jump on and engage live so so definitely

29:58be willing to do that um especially if you’re new to the virtual model right the last thing you want to do is trying

30:04to onboard a bunch of people with you if you’re just getting started in in Virtual sales what you want to do is get

30:10a predictable system again you know these are the things that have to happen all the times getting leads qualifying

30:17leads scheduling appointments or getting proposals out closing deals and getting commissions paid like you have to be

30:23able to execute that entire battle Rhythm I call it that’s that’s your main operation in the solar sales business

30:28you have to be able to execute that predictably repeatably yourself before you want to onboard anybody else or or

30:34scale up your system right because that’s the core operation of your business right there not just the sales

30:40piece the lead piece the sales piece the getting them installed the getting the commissions paid pieced and then knowing

30:46how much of those commissions need to be reinvested to keep the marketing engine rolling as well right you heard Dan talk

30:52about in the past of it’s sort of a sort of a feedback loop right it’s a feedback loop which means that a certain

30:57percentage of all of your commission Revenue should be automatically allocated you know reallocated back

31:02towards keeping the marketing going whether that means purchasing another block of leads or funding the next

31:08handful of advertising campaigns so that the the machine the engine continues to run and continues to produce produce

31:15results for you yep yeah that’s absolutely correct and the other thing too is I know we’ve talked a lot before

31:20about how and I know Joe we both really look at it this way but the CPA is kind of like that Holy Grail business metric

31:27but if we’re really boiling down a little bit past that not all CPAs are

31:32created equal right so to speak you’re going to have some moments where you might have acquired a new piece of

31:37business but it was only a three and a half kilowatt system right your margins and your commissions are not going to be

31:43that significant significant on that size system as maybe they would be if you sold a 30 kilowatt system so even

31:50though the CPA really is still sort of that number that I’m focusing on is hey can I get a new deal at under $1,500

31:57under ,000 that’s because I have a big enough sample size to know what my average system is and for me last year

32:04average system was about 10 and a half kilowatts so yes as a true average right have had some that were 20 kilowatts and

32:10some that were five kilowatts obviously didn’t make as much on the five and made a lot more on the 20 and when it

32:15averages out I know that a healthy CPA for me is $1,500 or less sometimes

32:21though if you’re really starting out early on don’t get blinded just by thinking like oh I got a new sale if it

32:27was only three kilowatts because you might not make enough money quite frankly to cover your advertising Budget

32:33on just that three kilowatt sale early on you might need to really focus on like what was my total revenues

32:39generated for my total expense in marketing what’s that relationship and that ratio um and I would suggest I mean

32:45we were talking about this the other day but if you can double your money right if you spend $5,000 and you can go earn $10,000 in

32:52commissions that’s probably a pretty good initial place to be we we would like with where we’re at in our business

32:58today to see it be a little bit higher than that even but I think if you had $2,000 to start out and you can take the

33:042,000 and go earn a $4,000 commission from selling a system you still netted $2,000 of profit now again of that

33:12$2,000 of profit though you probably need to set aside a portion of that

33:17figure out whatever that number is if we were just using those numbers I’d probably say at least $500 set aside 500

33:24to be able to reinvest back into more advertising and then take the 1500 and you can use that as your personal

33:29earnings your personal life money and then do it again and again and again right on one particular deal that’s not

33:35going to yield a lot but if you can scale it and get this going with three four five and six now you now you’ve got

33:42a really successful feedback loop happening and then the question just becomes okay well what kind of business do you want to have are you looking to

33:49scale out and build a huge team and provide leads and opportunities to other people or you’re just looking to have a

33:54nice self-contained solo solar sales profession which I think is all there’s value to that as well because there’s

34:01lifestyle flexibility that goes with that so just it just depends on you know what you aspire to

34:07accomplish great great well we have a question that came in here from Ryan Tong Ryan is one of our students

34:14enrolled here in solar surge University and Ryan’s asking have you ever done a video on end phase or Tesla versus gener

34:21also when you stack multiple batteries and increase continuous and Peak are the individual batteries still susceptible

34:27to tripping out on the individual specs for example if you stack two 5ps can each one

34:33individually still Trip at 3.8 kilowatts or they function as one with double continuous in Peak um so Ryan this is

34:40this is a great question really more more technical in nature but I’ll answer it since we’re on the training here um

34:45whenever you’re talking about an AC coupled battery like nphase or Tesla whenever you add more batteries or stack

34:52more batteries together technically what you’re doing is you’re you’re parallel connecting the battery batteries which

34:57means that you’re increasing battery capacity in terms of storage but you also are increasing the power capacity

35:04of the system so so instead of having individual 3.8 kilowatt batteries you

35:09essentially treat it as as a larger battery system that has double the power capacity or if you have three batteries

35:16has triple the power capacity so it’s not as if loads are connected to an individual battery they’re connected to

35:22the overall battery system where the System Controller is essentially load balancing between all the different

35:28batteries uh great question Ryan not not again not really on on today’s topic but appreciate the question happy to answer

35:34those as they come in for what it’s worth or too and I don’t want to get too off Joe I that’s one of the things I’m

35:39excited about these these 5p batteries though is the ability to stack those together and how that can kind of

35:45differentiate end phase from some of the other battery options out there so uh we’ll have to maybe talk about that in

35:51another video or maybe just make that like a a short form video that’s on the YouTube channel um we’ll probably do for

35:57a comparison at some point but uh I know the battery hasn’t largely been rolling out yet but it’s there’s a lot of our

36:05install Partners now that are carrying it and offering it so yeah yeah know the new 5p battery is super exciting I I

36:11actually had a couple proposals out this morning for some systems in uh in Florida using that new battery um and

36:16that’s actually a good segue to what I wanted to talk about next because of course the the marketing system that you

36:21all probably are most familiar with that I use here at solar surge is the social

36:26media organic well you know content marketing essentially right and so in other words I want my content to get in

36:33front of potential customers so that when they want to do business or when they want to talk shop on a solar power

36:39system they’re thinking of me they’re thinking of solar surge first and they’re clicking the button and and

36:44they’re they’re they’re taking my call to action my invitation to you know book A U uh book a call to get a free no

36:50obligation quote that’s how we phrase it on the main Channel um but the strategy

36:55that went went behind that that was all about you know I I just decided that I wanted frankly I wanted the entire

37:02industry to know that I’m the go-to person to talk to about solar technology particularly solar batteries and that’s

37:08why if you look at a lot of the top content on the channel they it’s basically product comparison videos it’s

37:15product comparison videos similar to some that you might see in other spaces like you know different kind of tech

37:20gear uh videography photography gear you might see videos comparing one brand of

37:26camera to different brand of camera I just do the same thing for solar panels and batteries and so I’m I I try to put

37:32myself in the mind of the consumer right like if if me if I were shopping for products like for example when I shop

37:38for a new camera for YouTube I may go to YouTube and type best YouTube cameras or

37:44best YouTube cameras for 2023 and just kind of see what pops up and I’ll I’ll watch the content I’ll see what what

37:50resonates with me are there are there particular features that I should be looking for are there particular brands that I should uh be looking for and so

37:57so the solar sech content strategy is to have that type of content for people who are comparison shopping Solar Power

38:04Systems right so they might be comparing different brands of solar panels or different brands of inverters or

38:10different brands of batteries and chances are if you go to YouTube and you type in you know any of the top brands

38:16solar panels batteries inverter one versus the other you’re going to find a piece of solar surge content with me or

38:22with one of our other team members explaining the pros and cons the benefits and how one product Stacks up

38:28against the other but again that was part of a larger strategy I if I first had to have this strategy of I want

38:33everybody to know I’m the go-to person to talk to about this particularly the batteries right I and I just decided

38:39everybody should know about this everybody should know about this and then when this time to do business you can you can book a call with me or you can book a call with one of our team so

38:47this is something that you know maybe not all of you have to do to the same scale that I’ve done it on YouTube but

38:52you want to develop the reputation as you’re the go-to person to talk to about solar in your area and that’s why I I

38:59say that as you’re doing sort of your initial marketing advertising or lead purchasing to get your your first full

39:06you know handful of deals in in parallel to all that you want to be developing a

39:11social media library of content of all your successful installs if you have any kind of training content any frequently

39:18asked questions videos videos that you might want to put on your Facebook page or your LinkedIn page you should be constantly building that library because

39:26that’s that’s the long-term going to pay you back with the organic lead flow where you might think I mean V virtually

39:32it’s it’s zero cost of acquisition it’s just the cost of making those posts right and the more and more that the

39:39platforms start recognizing you as an authority in that space and again it could could just be local to your market

39:45right it may not be in a nationwide audience but the more the platforms can pick up and recognize you as an

39:50authority in that space then they’re going to be more likely to recommend your content to more people and more

39:56people people and so again you have sort of that that flywheel effect you start building up a number of a lot of

40:01momentum and then that’s going to flow you additional leads that you don’t have to directly you know pay for and

40:08purchase yeah it’s a great Point Joe I think that’s another thing that I’ve I’ve certainly used in the past as well

40:14and and frankly not to the extent that I even should um that’s an area that it’s always on my too list of like hey you

40:21know get more social media content out there even for myself and for for radiant you know Al but it can be

40:27something as simple as posting successful projects like you mentioned or just like building up that brand awareness and that local market

40:34awareness um and those are also opportunities to run advertising with them if you want to right like all the

40:40social media channels allow you to boost your post where you can try to get it out there to a little bit more eyes um

40:46and so you know it kind of goes hand inand right you can use it for your own organic stuff you can choose to run advertising with it if you want to as

40:52well or you know in the case of the YouTube content uh you can chop up some of your video and use that in

40:59advertising if you wanted to um I know that I have I haven’t really used it to the extent that obviously we’ve used

41:05here at solar surge but I have a radiant solar YouTube channel that initially when I did it there was a handful of

41:11video topics that were frequently asked questions that I just wanted to have living somewhere that I could easily

41:17share this back out with you know customers time and time again or even things as simple as like how to activate

41:23your solar system uh just things that add value and funny enough I think I have a video that’s on how to activate

41:29an N phase solar system that’s had thousands of views on it which certainly those aren’t all for my customers

41:35they’re just people that went online and they were looking for something because some other contractor some other salesperson dropped the ball didn’t tell

41:41them how to properly activate it so they ended up finding my video now that doesn’t do me any good in the moment

41:46because they’ve already gone solar but maybe they have a friend maybe they’re willing to refer somebody yeah who knows

41:53so again that’s kind of part of that Evergreen strategy there too yeah yeah you just want to be out there

41:58you just want to be known I think uh Grant Cardone has a kind of colorful way of saying is like if they don’t know you

42:04they can’t flow you and it’s very true I mean people can’t do business with you they don’t they don’t know you exist and so you again you want to be out there

42:10and you want to be known as the expert in your space you know to the extent possible uh and Dan you talked about

42:16frequently asked questions that’s a great place to start if you don’t have any content ideas or you don’t think that you’re you’re expert enough to do a

42:23product review like might like like I might do you know just start with frequently asked questions what what are

42:28frequently asked questions that your sales manager taught you hey a homeowner is likely going to ask you this about

42:34solar and if you can just answer that question could just be a short two or three minute video put it on your

42:39Facebook page put it on your LinkedIn page you know just put it out there right and just start getting in the routine of doing that again it’s a

42:45long-term play this is not going to be how you jump start your business this is going to be more how longterm you start

42:51capitalizing on the investment that you’re making and getting your business off the ground now so that two three four years from now people just know

42:58that you’re you’re the go-to person to talk to about it yeah yeah you know one of the thing Joe that I I recently uh

43:04started doing as well so so here at radiant we also have a roofing division and a roofing team because a lot of the

43:11projects we work on involved needing roof Replacements and I had learned from somebody and this is a relevant strategy

43:16that you can also be used in solar so for a long time I’ve offered referral you know incentives right where it said

43:22hey you refer somebody that person goes solar it’s a $500 incentive to you 750 a th000 whatever

43:29the number is depending on what sort of you know pop of activity in business uh

43:34growth I’m looking to get another thing you could do because the the catch to doing that sort of thing is you’re the

43:42the person that referred someone is not going to earn that money until conceivably months down the road and I

43:48heard this analogy from someone one time where it’s like that’s like telling somebody hey uh give me a referral and

43:53I’ll give you $500 three months from now that’s it’s like telling a kid hey if you brush your teeth tonight you can have a candy bar in three weeks the kid

44:00wants the candy bar now right they they want the candy bar now the same way someone that offers you referral if you

44:05if you put a monetary value around it they want an incentive for doing that now so again like everything you got to

44:12kind of track and measure this but there’s a strategy that we’ve started doing where we’ve been giving out gift cards $25 gift cards to each person that

44:20gives us a phone number na a name phone number email and address of a referral that they have right and the more

44:26information we can collect the more legitimized that lead actually is and really the whole value there and the

44:32whole pitch is essentially hey if you value how I’ve helped you and you think there’s other people that you know friends family co-workers people you go

44:40to church with that would have you know similar excitement and value out of what I’ve done for you would you mind just

44:46giving me their name and number I’ll I’ll reach out to them have a conversation now again if you’re going to do that at let’s say $25 a gift card

44:53you just have to know and expect you’re probably going to have a similar CPA if I do the quick math on that 25 times

45:00let’s say it takes I don’t know a 100 gift cards well that’s $2500 that I’ve spent I would say that

45:06that’s probably too much money but if I could do that at I don’t know 50 gift

45:12cards if I gave out 50 $25 gift cards to people anybody that gave me contact info

45:17for a a possible homeowner lead for solar that’s 1,250 bucks I’m spending in

45:23gift cards but if it generates me one sale that’s an effect Ive and healthy CPA number to be at so that’s just

45:28something to kind of keep in mind as an alternative strategy as well you know and I would even argue and say that

45:34you’re probably going to have even better performance than that because these These are referrals right these are people that are coming through you

45:40coming to you through Word of Mouth hey Bob down the street gave me your info I’m reaching out because he said you

45:46might be interested in solar you know you probably are going to have better success with them because you’re not

45:51just some random person online there’s actually a a human connection to that person so just another possible strategy

45:58that people could Implement I know we’ve been doing that a little bit and uh and seen some decent results out of it so

46:03far we’re just only you know two weeks into trying that strategy that’s great that’s great well

46:09I’m interested to see what what the the final results look like on that um again you know be creative guys even even

46:15folks like us that have ways that we’ve been doing it for years you know you still want to have a little bit of speculative spend right controlled

46:22experiments right small controlled experiments where if they fail hey you’re not not risking the overall health of the business but hey if it

46:28works and it’s scalable then now you have another lead acquisition method that you could potentially scale up um

46:34Dan I know we’re running well not really running out but kind of getting down to the wire here I saw another question come in that I’d like to put on the

46:39screen here uh Paul Sutton asked do you guys have any tips on how to find an EPC after the sale most of the local

46:46installers have their own in-house Crews here thanks um Paul I’m interested where

46:51where you’re located um I know most of the organizations that we’ve worked worked with and most the the um dealers

46:57that I’ve spoken to typically already have the EPC relationship in place before the sale is made so I know like

47:04the way that it works here at solar surge we have a network of about eight eight different epcs across the country

47:10um and they tell us you know what their pricing is what equipment they offer what their installation timelines are

47:16what their what their commissions payment schedules are and so we we present that to our our team of dealers

47:22so they know exactly kind of what the terms are it sounds like you may be relationship where where you you’re

47:28selling the solar system as an independent dealer and then you’re you’re shopping it out potentially to multiple epcs to to bid on the job or to

47:35fulfill the job so if you can um oh it looks like you’re in Massachusetts Cape Cod uh if you could maybe maybe flesh

47:42out your question a little bit just with some more some more context for us I’d be happy to to uh to take a stab at

47:48answering that but that that’s an interesting model um having a sales or completely independent selling the deal

47:53before they know which contractors actually going to fulfill it Dan have you ever seen any any Arrangements like

47:59that no not not in that case because I think in that

48:04scenario that would be more it sounds like that would be more of a true like almost subcontracting type of

48:11relationship right where you are Contracting the deal under your name

48:16effectively or your business entity and then turning around and finding a a sub or an EPC in this case but really they

48:22would be a sub that would be coming in to do the project for you where like you said Joe most of our model actually is

48:27we’re representing the actual contractor so there’s no subcontracting that’s happening in any form of our project

48:34because at the end of the day the when we sign the deal with one of our homeowners they’re signing directly with

48:40the contractor themselves we were just essentially viewed as the the sales rep or the sales entity on that project um

48:48for what it’s worth Paul as well one of the partners we have here at solar surge operates in uh Massachusetts as well so

48:56if you’re having a hard time with that conversation that could be something that you know maybe consider booking a

49:01strategy call with us we can talk through you know not just this particular install partner for

49:06Massachusetts but the broader scope of solar surge what oper What markets we operate in where we think a good use of

49:13advertising strategy could be best um something to keep in mind as well um

49:19looks like I just Paul commented back in here I sell and install myself and hire Subs but want to get away from the

49:24project management I’m 60 yeah definitely don’t blame me there as far as uh having to manage that side of it

49:31so I would say look if you’re coming from the side of the business where you understand the selling and the install

49:37process that might give you I mean I can tell you for me coming from that place and know Joe you coming from that place

49:45ASE as contractors ourselves um it helps us articulate things in the sales

49:50process a little bit differently because we really can relate to the ultimate installer as the things they’re going to

49:56have to handle and therefore we can set better expectations and do a better job in the process of the sale so that that

50:02might be something Paul where again if you book a free strategy call with us we can talk through what that might look like if you were just a a sales rep in a

50:09dealer that’s partnered with solar Surge and with our installers so that you don’t have to handle the subs and the management and all that we do that the

50:16installers do that you just handle the the the the advertising the lead generation the front-end sales

50:22Consulting and then just trust that it’s handed off properly to the uh to the the

50:27ultimate install entity so yeah Paul and and appreciate the

50:32engagement here I I think there’s a lot a lot more people like Paul and myself out there frankly that that would like

50:38to you know transition from the you know being the sales team and but also being the physical electrician the physical

50:45contractor into more of a of a sales and marketing dealership type Arrangement and so um we we may actually do some

50:51content specifically for guys like us that are going to make that transition of contra contractor to sales business

50:57owner uh but as we’re we’re running down to the last 10 minutes here folks I would like to touch on the last topic

51:02though which of course is for those of you that can buy leads right you you do have the capital you do have the

51:08resources that you actually can buy leads or buy appointments and and really how to do that the right way now again

51:15you you’ve heard us we’ve endorsed multiple times a company called solar reviews when it comes to paid leads now

51:21this is a company that Dan and I used for years in the past back when when was on the Contracting side of the business

51:27and we had an internal internal full-time employee sales team that we would buy batches and batches of solar

51:33reviews leads to provide to our sales reps and then teach our sales reps how to go through and execute the design and

51:38sales process but the thing when it comes to paid leads or paid appointments is to me it it all comes down to the the

51:44intention level of the prospect right and so there are many different ways that marketing companies attract leads

51:51in before they package them up and they sell them to you and so that that comment from the gentleman in Georgia

51:56was a perfect example earlier is if if if the marketing company is running ads that say free solar panels in Georgia or

52:03the government’s going to buy solar panels for you in Georgia and so you know the prospect clicks on the clicks

52:09on the link thinking that they’re going to get something for free they’re G get something for nothing that’s going to be a very very low intent Prospect compared

52:17to somebody that went to a solar calculator website put in all their information about their electric bill

52:23their address and then was you know was actively trying to find information of what solar panels cost in their area or

52:30what’s the payback on solar panels in their area and then they opted in to have an installer contact them that’s

52:37going to be again a very different buyer in terms of their their intention level and that’s why I like what the folks at

52:43solar reviews do so much is because their philosophy is very very similar to ours at solar surge which is provide

52:50useful valuable information to the prospect upfront in the form of product information or education industry news

52:58and then if and when the prospect wants to opt in to actually receive a proposal from a Solar Company they can click the

53:04button and opt in right but it’s not one of these bait and switch or one of these false advertising or promising them you

53:10know free something for nothing so again that that’s why choosing the right marketing partner if you’re going to buy

53:15leads or buy appointments you you really want to see what information are they putting out into the marketplace to

53:20attract those leads right and how how committed is that lead likely to be when they actually get connected with you or

53:27is it something where and we’ve probably all seen the past it’s like oh what did I click on I I didn’t click on that who are you why are you here why are you

53:33calling me you know you don’t want to be that guy Dan your thoughts yeah yeah I would 100% agree with that I think

53:39understanding and also too just being able to talk intelligently uh with the homeowner about whatever their you know

53:45call to action was right they saw something they engaged with something that obviously you know uh uh had them

53:53intrigued enough to say hey I’m going to submit my information to this so you kind of need to be able to if you think

53:58about the logic of the flow of that conversation you need to be able to pick up from wherever that initial submission left off to understand okay like what

54:05was your expectation coming into this initial conversation you and I are having and your expectation was formed

54:11based on what your previous exposure was which is why I have a problem with the whole you know the the free concept of

54:18solar again I get what people are trying to articulate in that but they’re just saying it in a way that I think is very

54:24misleading because I can’t tell you the amount of times that I’ve seen ads or I’ve maybe back when you know worked

54:30with some of the companies that that’s the advertising they were running and I’d get on the phone with somebody and be like they’d say oh yeah I saw this

54:36thing about free solar I’m like well and then you’re trying to like walk it back but do it strategically and you don’t

54:42want to waste money but you also need to be straightforward and transparent and not lie to somebody uh and so I just I I

54:49think you know the reason why we’ve liked Soul reviews especially compared to some of the other paid for services

54:56out there it’s because they do the best job I think of delivering high enough quality leads right but giving you the

55:03ability to still fully articulate your value and engage them in the sales process there’s other pay for lead

55:09models out there where it’s a very kind of blind process where you don’t ever get the phone number or the email

55:16address from the person submitting the lead you have to do everything through their platform um and I don’t like that

55:21at all because immediately it puts a whole emphasis on who’s going to give me the best price becomes a race to the bottom and you

55:27can’t articulate your value right if anyone that’s ever any homeowners that have ever tuned into this you know these

55:33live trainings we always encourage it because you’re going to learn our exact sales process but a big part of it too

55:38is like we are not going to be the cheapest price solution and nor should you want the cheapest price but I know

55:45that my level of expertise my knowledge yours Joe and the companies we work with like demands a higher value demands a

55:52higher price if you want it done right you want it done correctly uh and so having the ability to engage your your

55:59prospects or the leads that you’ve you know bought or generated and articulate

56:04that value that is value selling at the end of the day and um so we we prefer

56:11that I think solar viws does a good job of it and as you kind of alluded to before Joe we’re doing a little bit of a

56:16a personal test right actively right now um as a company to kind of you know and

56:21maybe we’ll report back on some of these numbers and the data and what we find because I’m sure there’s some people that would be interested but we’re we’re

56:27testing things with solar reviews to see you know what a batch of leads is able to produce for us and how many

56:33appointments and how many proposals and how many sales do we ultimately you we we’ll we’ll have full transparency with

56:39you guys I mean just just to be fully transparent two days ago Dan and I bought $3,000 worth of leads in Florida

56:45from solar reviews now they didn’t all come in at once they they’re coming in over over a two to three week period so

56:50as we have a chance to to work with those opportunities and see what the the conversions are we’re going to share with those you know what our what our

56:57kpis are um and and again what we’re looking for is ways that we can boost um

57:03boost sales volume in particular targeted markets because that’s one thing that we can’t necessarily do with

57:09our YouTube audience is we can’t say hey I want I want triple the leads just in

57:14let’s say Tampa Florida or Orlando Florida but with solar reviews I can do that right and so I know what the market

57:21conditions are across the country I know in which Metro areas we can most competitive where we can offer the the

57:27lowest labor rates where we can offer the best leasing rates or the best uh financing rates and so that’s why we’re

57:33we’re reincorporating that back into our marketing strategy so that we can boost volume in certain targeted markets where

57:39we know that we’re we’re most competitive and of course that’s that’s the beauty of the virtual model is we’re not we’re not really physically bound so

57:46we can take our solar surge professional sales process and we can marry that with solar reviews Marketing in a very very

57:53targeted manner to boost business where we want to be doing more business exactly and that’s also I think the

57:59power of a lot of the the advertising as well like you said Joe before I think for anybody new starting out buying

58:05leads or running advertising or maybe both right you want to have multiple acquisition channels and strategies so

58:10maybe if you’ve got a $5,000 budget you allocate 2500 towards your own stuff 2

58:16200 towards a paper lead model knowing of course you’re going to pay a higher premium for the payer lead Services

58:22because someone else has built a business on top of that right but you kind of want to you want to have both of

58:27your strategies working but then I think long term like you said Joe is building your own brand building your own organic

58:34you know um lead generation strategy in parallel to the things you’re doing daytoday but the benefit like you were

58:41just mentioning of the online side of it or advertising is I can Target down to a zip code I can Target down to a very

58:48Niche location so if I know I’m running a an ad with a power bill that’s only relevant to T Tampa it was a too power

58:56bill I can run that there in Tampa and then I can run another control experiment in Miami with you know FPL or

59:03Duke or whatever right like you can do those different things and you can really hone down and say I want to take

59:08leads from this particular area which you can’t really do in a uh in a YouTube or like large organic you know sort of

59:16way um because the world can find your content you might get people that inquire with you from Seattle Washington

59:22even if you work in you know uh Savannah Georgia right so that that is one of the

59:27benefits of the online side of things yep yep real quick here I see a

59:33question came in from Barnaby I’ll put up on the screen what is the pricing for leads with solar reviews uh Barnaby

59:38great question again after our current campaign is over we’ll we’ll kind of present the full numbers right now we’re

59:43anticipating an average of about $120 per lead uh for the Florida market and Florida is one of the preferred markets

59:50right now uh because of the factors I mentioned you know lower labor rates lower uh leasing rates lower uh dealer

59:57fees or lower financing rates so I think Florida right now if I had to pick one Florida I’d say is the best solar Market

1:00:03in the country currently of course having net metering one for one full uh where a number of other states are

1:00:09moving away from it well folks that pretty much does it for the hour live training here again we

1:00:15are here streaming out to Facebook LinkedIn and YouTube uh every Wednesday at 3 p.m. eastern time uh we thank you

1:00:21all that have uh commented in and had your questions coming in so that’s why we’re here on the live training uh of

1:00:26course for for those of you who are interested in learning how to sell solar virtually we have the free download

1:00:32below this is the solar surge three-step virtual sales process it’s the same process that I use personally and so

1:00:38there should be a link in the description down below if you want to get it it’s a free download all you have to do is put in your email address and

1:00:43then that’ll also put you on our email list so whenever we’re doing the free live trainings like this you’ll get an

1:00:48invitation to be able to join in for that as well well folks that pretty much does it for this week Dan thanks again again for

1:00:54all of your insights and uh look forward to see you back here same time next week on the solar surge live

1:01:01training

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