Sales Tactics Learned in Mexico

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery. And you are about to become , Hey, what's up Solarpreneurs.

Speaker 2 (00:43):

I'm strong here live. I guess you won't be hearing this live, but I am here currently in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, I'm doing an episode, one of the show up for my peeps for my Solarpreneurs, because I knew, I know you guys are pushing out there. You're fighting to close deals and I'm coming at you with some sales tips, even from Mexico. So I apologize if you hear a little bit of background noise, I'm out here with the monkeys in the, uh, the wildlife here, here on the balcony of our a little resort. So you might hear a few little animals sounds some wind going through the trees, but I hope that inspires you to push hard and close the, well, I guess start this next quarter strong. So you can go out and plan for your next trip. Had this plan since, uh, December.

Speaker 2 (01:37):

So it's important to give yourself those pushes those abs and those flows. Last month, I had a big push. I was competing in the, uh, Knockstar. Uh, competition had my best month. I'm probably last year close 12 deals. Um, which I know for some of you, that's probably nothing. Some of you that's a lot. So for me, that was my best month in about the last year 12 deals, about four of them or, um, leads. And then eight of them were self generated deals knocking on doors. So, but that'd be a lesson. If you have a big trip planned, use it to motivate you. I knew this trip was coming. So that's part of the reason why I decided to do the Knockstar competition for the previous month, thought what a better time than to push myself close out the quarter strong and get in some extra deals before I go on the little Mexican vacation here.

Speaker 2 (02:36):

So that leads to the episode up today. I'm actually doing an episode on what I have learned while I'm here in Mexico. Guess what? There are sales, there are sales everywhere. And if you've been to Mexico, you know, these guys, some of the best, most aggressive salespeople in the world are in Mexico. You take one foot out of the airport and you were hounded by these guys. These guys are so most persistent. Um, I would say persistence camera series. You could find, I mean, they're hounding you for everything. They got their kids selling your stuff. You got on the streets. There's Mexican kids coming up and selling your bracelets. There's people selling you, whatever you can think of out here. So I got to hand it to the Mexican people. They fight for what they got and they are not afraid to go out and approach you and sell you whatever they're trying to, to sell that day.

Speaker 2 (03:33):

Okay. So the reason I'm doing an episode is because we're staying at a resort here in Puerto Vallarta, and if you've been to resorts. You know, that's another big thing that they sell down here is these timeshares. And so my parents, they got this timeshare, this Mexican timeshare, I think they've had at 10 years or so now it's been awesome. We go to Cancun. We go to, um, yeah, this is actually our first time coming down here, but you are part of the UNESCO. They give you like a few locations. You can trade them and swap them out. So we usually come once every couple of years to one of these Mexican locations, great time. But if you've been to a timeshare, you probably know that they're constantly trying to upsell you on their next package. My parents, they have one in the more basic kind of timeshare packages.

Speaker 2 (04:23):

So first thing they do when you step on the resort, they're putting pressure on the whole time, Hey, have you seen what benefits you can get with our next package up? And they're pushing for you to book an appointment. And so that's nothing new. And my parents, as you can imagine, get super sick of being pitched the next time share. Um, they come, yeah, like I said about once every couple of years, so it's not something that they wanted to really upgrade. And they've been to plenty of the timeshare presentations. So they're kind of over all that this time was a little bit different. We got here and I'm going to share the lessons behind this versus that little story. And then I'm going to share some lessons that actually I'm gonna apply it to solar too. But we get here in my, to my surprise.

Speaker 2 (05:09):

We got here after my family was here to my surprise. My mom says, Taylor, we actually, uh, we have enough, uh, time set up to go talk about, uh, the timeshare tomorrow. And I'm like, really mom, you guys hate both things. Why'd you sign up for that? And she said, Oh, well, the lady, she was super cute, super nice. And she says, it wasn't even like a presentation. Um, it was just, they're going to show me the benefits we're missing out on. She just said, Oh, you guys aren't even used maximizing your current timeshare plan. So what I want to do is just give you guys a free session. We're going to just meet up, answering your questions. And we're going to show you about the benefits you're not using. So you have quite a few things you're not even taking advantage of. So my mom, she thought that was cool.

Speaker 2 (05:56):

It was different. And usually if you're familiar at the time shares, um, like my wife and I we've been to Vegas, they give you usually some type of bonus. They say, we'll give you the free two night stay. If you, all you have to do is listen to the timeshare presentation. So what impressed me about this one, and this is what I thought was really good, somewhat sneaky, but really good. They didn't say anything about it being a presentation. They didn't say it. Anything about it being, um, showing like the benefits of the next level up. They framed it as just something that they're going to answer. The questions they're going to show the benefits that they weren't currently using. And they made it not a big deal. They made it seem like super quick, painless harmless. We're just going to meet up, go over some questions and show you what the benefits you're not currently using.

Speaker 2 (06:49):

Okay. But little did my mom know this was just a way of getting the foot in the door. I mean, it's going to be this same presentation. You know, they're going to try and upsell you on the next thing it was really cool is they didn't say anything about that. Okay. So that leads me to something they did really well is they made it again, paying this. They made it something that was not a big deal at all. And because of that, my mom, she books, the appointment, she set up that point with these people to go hear the presentation when she is basically sworn every other time, we've kind of, she's not going to go to another one of these presentations. And what was the other thing that was impressive about it? They didn't throw out any of these incentives of any of these gimmicks.

Speaker 2 (07:32):

Usually there I go. We'll give you, you know, they're free excursion. We're going to give you, um, breakfast on us for the rest of your stay. If you come check out the presentation, but what does that do for people like my mom? That's an instant trigger. She's thinking, okay, well, if they're giving me something, then it's just cause they're going to sell me on the next thing. So what this sweet little Mexican lady did really nice that she didn't say anything about these gimmicks. She framed it in the way. It's just a conversation. We're not throwing out these gimmicks because if they would have thrown those things out, guess what? For someone like my mom, that would have been an instant trigger and it, okay, they're selling me something. No, let's not do it. So those were the good things that these people did, that this lady got to hand it to her.

Speaker 2 (08:19):

We need to get her some solar presenting some appointments for solar. Cause she did a great job on that aspect. And now we're going to get into the mistakes. Okay. So the story continues. Um, my mom later that night, I was kind of talking to her and um, she was, she was asking all of us. She's like, ah, this, I guess I got to go listen to this. And she started thinking about it again. I think it started to Dawn on her. I didn't really see anything, but it started to Dawn on her that it was probably just going to be another presentation. So she's been texting this lady that they set up the appointment with back and forth. And then my is this happened to all of us in solar. She starts just expressing some doubts, say, Anna, is this going to take a long time?

Speaker 2 (09:03):

You know what? I don't know if this is really worth our time because we're not planning on upgrading to the next, uh, timeshare. We're not planning on upgrading our timeshare. So she expressed some doubts and this is where things started to go South for this lovely appointment setter. Right? When my mom expresses doubts, instead of understanding, instead of empathizing with my mom, she goes straight to the aggressive approach. And basically she's like, well, you already set up the appointments. Um, we actually can't cancel it. And then she didn't unders have that understanding mindset at all with my mom. Okay. Um, and so my mom, once she saw that this lady was getting all aggressive, she starts kind of making some excuses about why we can't go to the, to the presentation tomorrow to their question and answer session, if you will. And then, um, we're planning to get up, go to the pool early.

Speaker 2 (10:04):

So my mom she's like, okay, I'll go. But only if we can do a 8:00 AM. And then we got to, we have some stuff planned on the day. We can't do it. And this lady, again, she doesn't understand at all. And so this lady starts throwing out that we can't change the appointments. And then my mom, he had already actually scheduled to change rooms. And the next day my brother was coming in suite, um, switched to a room with a couple extra beds. And that was one of her excuses for trying to reschedule appointments. So my mom tells the lady, look, we can't, we can't meet later. We have to do it at eight because we're scheduled to change rooms. Then this lady, she starts at this point trying to save face and saying, Oh, well, I actually heard you talk to housekeeping. And yeah, they said that we actually have to change it.

Speaker 2 (10:55):

We have to switch your room later. We can't do it at that time because they won't have the room ready. So basically she starts throwing out these lies and trying to save face in order to get the appointments. And at that point it just frustrates my mom and she canceled the appointment all together. Okay. So kind of a disaster felt bad for this appointment setter probably lost out on her commission, but what were key mistakes? If people are trying to reschedule an appointment, don't be difficult, work with them and then be assumptive gave this lady would just been like, okay, H yeah, that's more than enough time. We actually have to be pretty quick. Um, eight works. We'll see you there tomorrow. And then that's it. My mom was showed up. No questions asked. So it's the same thing. As you were setting up appointments with the people that you're on the doors with, or you're on the phone as you're having these texting conversations, number one, make sure you get this conversation set up with the homeowners.

Speaker 2 (11:49):

If you are going to have a texting conversation, get it started beforehand. Make sure these people have your number saved. Say, Hey, Mr. Jones, can you text me just a thumbs up emoji? So I have your number. Get that emoji relationship going, Hey, and then don't make it difficult that people need to reschedule. If people need to, people have concerns. Number one, be assumptive with it, empathize with whatever they are going through and have templates have scripts set up. Hey, what are you going to say? Have you trained your team on this more importantly, if you're a manager, if you don't have scripts, if you don't have templates set up, you're losing out cells, immune, you know exactly what to say. If someone texts you X, Y, Z, huge cyber response written out for all these things. And that goes for your team too.

Speaker 2 (12:36):

Right now, my wife and I were watching a show called undercover billionaire, which highly recommend our friend Grant Cardone is on it. And this is something he does. He's out there training. Um, these, this gym he's working with in the show, you can go watch it. It's obviously just going to give you the reader's digest here. But he is, um, trained in basically his, his gym team to get more gym memberships. I think they're a snap fitness or something. They're in Pueblo, Colorado. And one of the first things I saw that he did, he goes and sets up all the scripts, all the templates. Exactly what to say when people are on the phone, when people are having texts and conversations. Okay? Cause that's a lot of people don't realize it. They think they're saying these right things when you're losing appointments or you're losing sales, just like the people here at Puerto Vallarta.

Speaker 2 (13:26):

Okay. So don't make the same mistakes as these learn from the good things they did. Okay. They made the appointment no big deal, which helped them initially set the appointment. But like we see over and over people, he cold feet. People realize that they are being, that is, you know, a sales presentation. Same thing happened with my mom. Okay. When I'm out there on the doors, I do the same thing. Hey, we're just dropping by. Don't use those trigger words. Don't say appointments. Don't say a pitch. None of that. You do be exactly like this little Mexican lady say, Hey, we're just dropping by just having a quick conversation. First. Our engineer's going to check and see if it benefits the home, prepare some info. And then yeah, we're just going to drop by as same as the rest of your neighbors. Answer a few questions.

Speaker 2 (14:07):

If it makes sense. Great. If it doesn't no problem, we're not doing anything because if you can make it seem like no big deal, that's going to set you apart. Cause that's one of people's first concerns. If you look in the brains of the homeowners, what are they concerned about? They think it's going to be some long drawn out presentation. They think you're going to do a hard sell on them. That you're going to make them say yes right then. And they don't want to have to make a quick decision. All will sings. It's going through the buyer's head. So you got to understand that these are their thoughts. And then as you are setting up these appointments, cover these things beforehand. Okay. They think it's going to be some long thing. Hey, Mr. Jones, I don't have time. I'm actually meeting with about a dozen of your neighbors.

Speaker 2 (14:50):

I have to be pretty quick tomorrow. So don't worry. It's not going to be some long thing. We're just going to look at it and make sure it makes sense. Okay. They're thinking they're gonna, they're going to have to make a yes or no decision, which we all want them to. Okay. But my line is, Hey, when I come back, you guys can either opt in or opt out. It doesn't make sense. No worries. We're not going to do anything. If it does, then all we do is submit an application. See if we can qualify the home. Okay. Take the pressure off of them. Buying or deciding, make it, make the pressure beyond. You have to figure out if you can do it for their home. Cause that's the big thing. It's just a couple lessons I learned from Mexico. Let me know if you guys have had any experiences like that on your travels, on your vacations, hope you, you took a few things you can share with your team or a few things you can use, or you, as you were setting up appointments, a S but loved the Mexican culture support. Next time you hear support all those guys because they're hungry. They're not afraid to approach next though. And neither should you. So I'll see you on the next show.

Speaker 1 (15:51):

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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.