Most solar business owners will admit they don’t have an organized approach for follow up on solar leads.

Yet it’s the single most important thing you can do to generate exclusive solar leads for your solar business.

 

This gives you an easy way to get a leg up on your competition.

Mastering follow up methods and effectively teaching them to your team is a game changer way to dominate your market.

 

Conservatively speaking a decent follow up campaign can increase your sales by 50% without buying a single new lead from solar lead providers.

Especially when you consider that 80% of successful sales require five or more follow-ups on average.

 

Never forget: it’s not a matter of IF the solar lead will go solar, but WHEN.

That means they’ll choose to go with whoever’s at the top of their mind when they’re finally ready to make that decision.

And if you don’t make an effort to stay top of mind, they’ll quickly forget you and choose a competitor with a better follow up game.

 

So what can you do?

Be systematic in your approach while maintaining a personal touch with customers.

Bake your follow up process into your company culture – make it a part of who you are.

 

Be relentless. Be unreasonable. Be committed.

 

All of these will only build your credibility.

I mean, if you’re relentlessly, almost unreasonably, committed to your product, why shouldn’t the customer be as well?

 

Below I’m gonna walk you through the core aspects of the same follow-up strategy I use to convert over 1,200 exclusive solar leads at Better Earth:

1.Text

 

For a lot of customers, text is the preferred method of communication for follow up.

 

When getting the info for a solar lead, always make it a priority to ask “What’s your cell number?” or even better “Where can I text this to you?”

 

If a customer asks for data during a sale, see if you can text it to them. This is a great way to make the ask feel like an organic part of the conversation and less pushy.

 

Text does have its limitations though. For one, it offers the customer an “out”; they can stop responding at any time. 

 

Loss of tone is another common challenge. It can lead to miscommunication, so if you’re not careful you can end up giving your solar lead the wrong idea. Use emojis to help to bridge this gap.

2.Phone Calls

 

Phone calls are the salesman’s preferred method of communication. Reason being, a solar lead has to actually communicate their objections on a phone call instead of just leaving a text message unopened.

 

Sales is just communication. And the best, most clear, form of communication is actually talking to them using your voice.

 

Making phone calls can be intimidating sometimes. But this is where “unreasonable” has to come in.

Don’t let anyone convince you that you’re being too aggressive – they’re trying to sell you to NOT make a sale or do your job. And your job is to provide for you, your family, and your business.

 

At the end of the day, it’s just a numbers game.

The more calls you make, the more sales leads you’ll convert.

 

Also, be sure to leave voicemails. Use every point of contact you can to your advantage. A missed call from an unknown number isn’t gonna serve you in any way.

3.Email

While email shouldn’t be your primary method of follow up, for some customers, it will be necessary.

Just like the saying “If a tree fell in the woods and no one heard it, did it really fall?”, the same goes for an email that is never read. If the customer doesn’t read it, you didn’t follow up.

 

Think: who emails you? Anyone. Who texts you? Your friends/family – people who have your attention. 

 

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t utilize email, though. The idea of follow up is to get in front of the solar lead as much as necessary to get them to respond. As long as you’re not spamming multiple messages, leveraging every available channel can only increase your chances of getting a response.

4.Social Media

 

A lot of people overlook social media management for their solar business. They set up a page, maybe direct some traffic to it, and then wonder why their engagement is so low.

 

That’s not gonna cut it. Getting solar leads off of social media should be seen as a long term investment. If you expect to run a few ads and generate thousands of followers, you’re gonna be disappointed.

 

Take the time to post articles you know are relevant to exclusive solar leads. More importantly, take the time to interact with anyone who leaves a comment. You don’t have to do this every day – in some cases even once a week is enough – but you SHOULD be doing it.

 

Use DMs in addition to calls, texts, and emails. Things like Instagram DMs, Linkedin messages, and Facebook messenger.

Your objective is to hit customers from every angle possible to get their attention, and that includes their social media.

Communicating with your exclusive solar leads through every possible channel also shows them you’re more organized, established, and committed to them as a potential customer.

 

Imagine if someone only sent you texts.

You’d probably have a very different impression of them as a business compared to one that made the effort to text, call, email, and DM you.

 

These are the four basic communication methods: text, call, email, DMs. And you should be leveraging each and every one of them. 

 

Now we’ll move on to some more advanced strategies.

5.Advanced Follow Up Tactics

 

While I don’t have a way to measure this, I adamantly believe that one of the top 10 reasons people miss out on converting a solar lead is self-sabotage.

 

They get in their own head. They feel they’re being pushy, they’re afraid to offend the prospect, and so they back down when they don’t need to.

 

You know what I say? Resist the urge to back down. Be uncomfortably persistent. Push through the awkwardness.

The more you push, the faster you’ll learn how to make it feel less awkward and make the conversation flow.

 

You should be following up with solar leads so much that you get to know them in the process.

As you get to know them, send a “this made me think of you” text or email. This makes the conversation feel less like a transaction and more like two people connecting.

 

Also, get creative with your communication.

Try double calling them. Send them a Venmo or a CashApp – $1 is fine – as “part of their future savings when they go solar.” Send GIFs.

Send memes. Send articles. Send pictures of yourself at an install or getting lunch with your grandma or playing with your cat. 

 

My personal favorite? Send selfie videos.

They’re great for making yourself stand out because NOBODY ELSE uses these. Plus they have so much more potential than just selfie pics.

One of my reps recorded a quick song about their solar lead. Another put on a comedy skit about something they’d discussed.

 

Make it personal to the customer whenever possible.

Ask if they saw this or that update about their favorite fantasy baseball player.

Show them a local tour date for their favorite band.

Send them the release date for a video game they’re looking forward to.

This is why getting to know them as people is so important.

 

Actually show up! Have their address? Show up. They’re not home? Talk to their neighbors.

They ARE home? Talk to their neighbors anyway.

Never miss an opportunity to build your pipeline – even in your follow up.

 

Stop erring on the side of safety.

Staying within the average number of follow up touch points will only make you blend in with competition.

Accept that in a lot of cases, the solar lead will perceive you as “salesy” until you exceed the average follow up procedures of your competition and begin to appear “unreasonable.” Only THEN do you begin to stick out to them..

 

Also, as a sales leader or business owner, you must be tracking follow up stats on each member of your team.

It’s absolutely vital to your success that you maintain interest in your customer – no matter how immediate or long-term of a sale they might be.

And how do you ensure your company maintains interest in its customer base?

By ensuring that each individual team member is interested in every exclusive solar lead. 

 

Remember… the purpose of follow up is to say to your customer: “I am interested in you.” You must be creative, not boring. You must be consistent, not sporadic.

The future of your business will be determined by your willingness to get creative, relentless, and consistent with your follow up, along with your ability to incorporate that approach into the fabric of your company culture.

 

This all begs the question: when should you finally stop following up? When they tell you “Stop”.

We follow up with our customers for 2-3 years. If they don’t tell us to stop contacting them but we do anyways, it’s a potentially lost sale in my eyes.

That’s the five core steps of my follow up strategy.

Try implementing this into your sales process and see what happens.

If you commit to it and execute properly, you’ll start getting far more value out of each and every solar lead – whether they’re generated or you buy them from a solar lead providers. Zain Jan