The Sales Cycle
The sales cycle is a pattern that you should model your pitch after. We always begin with some sort of intro or hook to catch the homeowner’s attention and break preoccupation. From the “intro” we move into building “pain”, which in other words means helping them identify what is wrong with their current situation. Remember, if they don’t feel like there’s anything wrong with what they are currently doing, they won’t feel the need to look into solar. Once you’ve built enough “pain”, you will present how solar is the solution to that problem. Now that momentum has been built, you’ll “close” which in this case will be setting the appointment.
The Sales cycle is the process that you walk through in your head as you make a sale. It naturally progresses from one stage to the next. As a new sales rep, if you are ever unsure of what to say or do next, just think of the sales cycle.
Pre-impression — The view that people form of you (and vice-versa) before you speak.
Introduction/Opener — Introduce yourself and begin the sales cycle.
Build Pain — Introduce a problem/need for the service that is present.
Create a Solution — Tell them how our program will alleviate the issue.
Close — Ask for the sale
Resolve Concern — Provide solutions to concerns and solidify the sale.
A typical sale requires going through the cycle several times. After resolving a concern, you begin again with building a new pain that you can solve.
Now if you think you’re done, you’re only part way there. You should be ready for the customer to have a concern and not want to set an appointment… this is where the art of selling comes in. Overcome the objection in a professional and tactful way, and then continue the sales cycle over again–transitioning into another pain point, presenting the solution and then closing again. You should be able to go through this cycle 3 times, standing your ground and walking the customer through the possible misconceptions and doubts about solar.
Pre Impression
The Pre-Impression is the view that people form of you (and vice-versa) before you start talking. They are always watching you. You must be observant and aware of your surroundings to help you make sales. Your pre-impressions are made entirely with body language. Your appearance must be clean-cut and professional. Take out jewelry including necklaces, bracelets, earrings, excessive rings, or anything distracting. Tuck in your shirt. Remember the note on ‘staying in character’.
If doors close before you say a word, or you know someone sees you and he or she does not open the door, most of the time, your pre-impression is not effective. In the pre-impression, your body language needs to communicate, “I am not a salesman,” and to tell them you are here to help give them a much cheaper option for their power needs. Communicating “I am not a salesperson on your doorstep” can be simple if you know what your body language says to a customer.
It is imperative that while walking between doors, you remain off your cell phone. So many sales reps will stop between doors and scroll through social media, take non important phone calls, facetime friends, or simply find something to kill time with. Customers will notice and pay attention to all actions between doors. There have been customers in the past that have called the authorities because a sales rep sat on the curb for long periods of time scrolling on their phones. Stay moving and intentional while walking between doors. If you need to take an important call, try and keep it short and then get back on the doors. Definitely refrain from taking calls while at someone's doorsteps.
These days, there are cameras everywhere. Make sure you NEVER look through homeowners windows or say things while at doorsteps that are inappropriate. It will always be caught on camera.
PROXEMICS
Proxemics is defined as the total space in which you communicate—such as a home, office, club, restaurant, etc. For our purposes, proxemics is defined as the doorstep or customer’s home. Proxemics is important because each place has its own characteristics that affect the way you communicate. For example, if you and a friend go to a restaurant, you will need to talk louder and sit closer in order to communicate effectively. However, you would not need to do this when the same friend comes to your office or home. In door-to-door sales, it is important to understand that the homeowner has an overwhelming advantage when you are trying to persuade them to buy your product. In sports, this is called “home field advantage”. You can reverse the effects of home field advantage with the “this is my office” attitude. YOUR OFFICE Convert every doorstep into your office. Your desk is your iPad, notebook or clipboard.
- Organize your office by noting which way the door will open.
- Do not block the customer’s view of the walkway to the door (this gives the customer a feeling of choice).
- Position yourself in the personal zone, 3-4 feet from the door (Space Zones), on the side of the door that will open to you. Avoid the side of the door that will trap you behind the door, requiring you to move to meet the customer, thus, destroying the feeling of your office.
- Now position yourself properly and use your desk as if you are busy pointing (writing phone numbers or names or you can just doodle—the point is to be busy). When the customer sees you busy (in your office), you communicate, “I am not a salesman, I’m a professional and I belong on your doorstep (my office).”
Now the advantage is yours. Proxemics is key to your pre-impression. With the attitude that “this is my office,” you will communicate confidence and establish control of the conversation. This advantage will continue in your initial approach.
THE CUSTOMER
As you walk up to the door of a customer, you should mentally review information that will help you understand what type of customer you will be selling to. This will help you identify the needs of the customer and thus tailor an effective initial approach (“Fitting In”). Ask yourself these questions as you approach the door: • What is the income level of the neighborhood? • Are the cars new or old? • What is the education level of the neighborhood? • What general ethnicity is the neighborhood? • How many other neighbors have solar panels? • Is the yard taken care of by a service or by themselves? • Is there evidence of children? Any questions that you can ask yourself to gather a pre-impression of the type of customer that you will be selling will help you tailor your initial approach.
Dressing the Part
Actors refer to dressing the part as “getting into character.” You dress the part to prepare you to use your body language effectively. This process starts before you ever leave your apartment or airbnb. What you wear, your haircut, what you carry, etc., communicates something. You need to assess what you want to tell a customer and then dress accordingly. Ask yourself this question, “What kind of solar representative am I?”
- The “neighborhood solar guy” here to help you and your friends.
- The “local solar expert” here to help the community
- The “Route Manager” here to maximize the route potential for your technicians and site surveyors who will be in the neighborhood the following weeks installing systems and doing site surveys.Choose your “part” and then determine the clothes your “part” will wear and what you will carry. For example, if you choose to be the Route Manager, what would a Route Manager look like? Would he/she carry a clipboard, or a notebook, and so on? Many accessories can help you feel and act your “part.”How you dress can indicate your social class, reveal your value, underscore your image, or make an artistic statement. Ideally, people should evaluate each other based on individual character, but the assumption of appearance not playing a part is naïve. In fact, it plays a HUGE part! Effective sales reps must cultivate good personalities. They must dress well, and appear professional, well groomed and in good physical shape. Details are important. All of a person’s actions and mannerisms add to his or her overall level of credibility. For a blunt application to sales: emo clothes, brand new flashy basketball shoes, face jewelry, pins on clothing and anything out of the ordinary for solar sales rep will distract customers and reduce your number of sales.
Space Zones:
Be aware of the space between you and your customer. You do not want to be too close and invade the customer’s privacy, yet you do not want to be so far that you cannot communicate effectively. Edward T Hall identified four main body-space dimensions or zones: Intimate, Personal, Social, and Public.
“By manipulating these distances, you can increase the speed with which warm, empathic bonds are formed and deepen the intensity of your relationship. Equally, it becomes possible to assert authority more easily, communicate status more swiftly, and impress your personality on others more effectively.”
Intimate Zone
Distance: 6-12 inches
This zone is reserved for relatives, a spouse, children, parents, and close friends.
If a customer opens their door and you start in this space, you will certainly be invad- ing. However, it can be very effective to use the intimate zone when you have gained the trust of the customer and you want to provoke a powerful increase in interest. Use the intimate zone sparingly and carefully. If used incorrectly, you will incite defensive behavior on the part of the customer.
Personal Zone
Distance: 18-48 inches
This is the hand-shaking zone and is reserved for casual friends, business acquaintances, neighbors, and colleagues. Literally, this zone is “arms length.”
On the doors, you want to be in the personal zone. Start out about 24-48 inches from a customer. This gives the customer, and you, enough space to read body language. If a customer backs away from you when they open the door, let them. They need space to observe you and your body language.
Social Zone
Distance: 4-12 feet
You may use this space if you run into a group of neighbors and give your initial approach to the group. However, for the most part, you will spend your selling time in the Personal Zone.
Public Zone
Distance: 12 feet +
This zone is mostly used for training or a speech. This zone is not useful on the doors, say “hello” in this zone when approaching someone who is in their front yard or garage so you don’t scare them.
Position
Where you stand in relation to a customer should never be left to chance. You should angle your body so that you are not standing square to the customer like a soldier at attention with your feet solidly planted; this is a confrontational position. Instead, turn your body to the side and put one foot behind the other in a relaxed manner. You can even turn your body completely to one side and look at them with your chin directly over your shoulder. This position will make it more natural for you to point at the other homes on the street that will be serviced. Stand, when possible, at an angle that will show the customers the logo on your shirt; this gives you a great deal of credibility. Scripting your position is very effective during your pre-impression. However, after you have started your initial approach feel free to move around.
Full Pitch
Intro:
Hey how are ya? Good. Real quick, my name’s _____ with Aveyo. I’m taking it you’re the homeowner? Yes Awesome, I’m the person in charge of running the energy reports for all these homes (or mention the neighborhood name), and we’re out here because we’ve had quite a few neighbors who’ve been pretty frustrated with the rate increases that have been happening with _______ (power company). There should’ve been a notice sent out about the price increase coming up, did you guys see that come through?-- it would’ve been by mail or email. No
Build Pain:
That’s alright, most people throw it away. But it basically talks about ______(Power company’s name) raising the rates here soon. Is it you that pays the power bill or somebody else? Yeah I do.
You probably remember last year the rate increased about 8% total, and the reason why neighbors are upset and calling us is because the power company is going to be raising the rate 12% in literally just one month. (each market will be different so be sure to customize this accordingly).
Solution:
So, my job is to help people avoid these rate increases by going solar. You probably remember a couple years ago solar didn't make much sense because it cost so much money out of pocket and took forever to see a return...You remember that right? (head nod) Recently, A LOT has changed. The reason so many neighbors are deciding to go with us at Aveyo, is if you qualify for our program, it's literally ZERO dollars upfront - so your install fee is completely covered. The second thing is we take your current bill and get rid of it, and we give you a fixed payment that doesn’t go up which allows you to avoid inflation and future rate increases from the power company. Our goal is to get this fixed payment to about the same or a little more than your current ______(Power company’s name) bill.
Pull Back:
Now I don’t know if you guys do qualify for this program, that’s why I came by. The way we find out if you can qualify for this is a few things. First you have to be the homeowner. You guys are not renting correct? Second, you do have to have a credit score of 650 or above, are you guys good there? Awesome. Lastly, do you know roughly how many kilowatt hours your home uses per year? No, I don’t. No worries at all, most people don’t. That just shows up on your power bill
Close:
Do you get your bill through email or by paper? By email. Gotcha, if you’ll just pull out your phone real quick… (point and look at their pocket until they pull it out) I can show you where to find the kilowatt hour information. So what I’ll do is take a picture of the bar graph and send it to our energy specialist and they will crunch the numbers and let us know if you prequalify for our program.
Be ready for an objection. Most people will have concerns after the initial close
(Get the usage. Set the appointment. Solidify the appointment.)
Set Appointment and Confirm:
(After you have collected the bill)
If everything comes back and looks good, my energy consultant will stop by and go over the proposal with you. We normally like to meet with both spouses if available, do you live here with a spouse or is it just you? Ok what time would are you both normally home? So it looks like tomorrow at 5pm I could have my energy consultant stop by, will that work to meet with both you and your spouse? Perfect, and he will just sit with both of you at the kitchen table if that’s okay?
Awesome. It normally takes about 45 minutes unless you guys have questions. Well it was great to meet you, and we will see you guys tomorrow
WHAT TIME DID WE SAY AGAIN? HAHA GREAT THANKS, SEE YOU THEN!
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