One of the worst mistakes you can make as a solar business owner is throwing away aged solar leads.

It’s important to remember that for the wide majority of solar leads, it’s not a matter of if they go solar but WHEN.

Just because the lead didn’t sign on the first or second or even third sit doesn’t mean they’re a lost cause. It just means they’re not ready to make the switch yet.

Which makes it your job to stay at the top of their mind so that when they ARE ready, they’ll think of you first. Doing so can increase your monthly revenue by as much as an extra 20%.

Here are 3 strategies I use to revive aged solar leads at Better Earth:

1- Build A Shark Tank

If a lead doesn’t respond after a certain number of days, you’ll want to add them to a shark tank. This is a pool of aged solar leads that reps can pull from whenever they have extra time on their hands.

Let me be clear: the #1 worst thing you can do with a lead is stop contacting it.

You should be reaching out until they either tell you to get lost or they become a customer. Don’t bombard them, of course. But don’t forget about them.

At my company, we keep exclusive solar leads in our pipeline for 2 full years. And then if they still haven’t signed, we move them to a slow drip campaign.

But we never actually stop contacting them (unless they tell us to).

It might not seem like it, but a shark tank alone can make the difference between closing just a few deals and closing a LOT of deals. It’s money on the table.

This strategy alone nets us millions of dollars in extra revenue every month.

And we don’t have to spend a single extra cent for it. It’s just a matter of commitment to the customer and the deal.

2- Reframe the Conversation

If you’re not sure why a deal didn’t close, it never hurts to ask.

Remember, you paid for this lead. Either from a solar lead provider, through a marketing campaign, or some other method.

If you don’t leverage it as much as you can then you’re just wasting resources. And potentially cheating yourself out of information that can net you future sales.

Don’t hesitate to call the lead and ask them for their feedback.

Alternatively you can do the “manager call” if another rep initially had the appointment.

At this point one of three things will happen. 

The call will result in a new opportunity to uncover a hidden objection that wasn’t solved in the first appointment.

In which case you can directly address it and resume moving the lead towards the sale.

Or it can get the prospect to open up about their experience, giving you critical info you can use to improve your process

Is it also possible the solar lead will just flat out refuse to share their feedback? Of course.

But those that do will give you invaluable insight into what you need to change.

Think about it. Without that feedback, you might never realize that your pitch failed to address their biggest concerns. Or that they felt there was a lack of communication.

Or that it felt too salesy.

The more feedback you get, the more patterns you’ll begin to see in your sales process.

Overlooking these patterns can doom your company.

But spotting and taking advantage of them can be what enables your business to function at a higher level, fueling organic growth.

Best case scenario here, you rescue the deal.

Worst case scenario, you get their feedback and improve your process to close more sales in the future. It’s a major win for you either way.

3- Always Be Running Campaigns

Staying top of mind with your exclusive solar leads is crucial, but it’s not enough on its own. You need to constantly be texting and emailing them about your campaigns. 

Let them know about your referral program. Offer them a reward for a testimonial.

The most important thing is to capture their attention so they book a call. Or at the very least engage in a conversation which will result in a call.

Without generating this kind of attention in your client base you will not grow. Plain and simple.

This goes for both leads and clients, by the way.

It’s a great way to get more deals without spending more. It lets you close customers who didn’t convert initially. It gets you referrals from homeowners you did close.

And it revives aged leads with almost no effort.

But you can’t just run the same offer over and over. So you want to constantly be creating limited time offers to incentivize people in your pipeline. 

For example, offer $1,000 cash to whoever goes solar in the next 48 hours. I use a variant of this all the time for customers who are about to close but are dragging their feet. 

There’s nothing more expensive than a customer who you’ve pulled permits for and went through the process… only to have them cancel on you.

The good news is, this is the easiest form of cash to pick up and drive more revenue. In fact for a lot of solar businesses these types of customers are a multi-million dollar opportunity.

4- Follow Up Like Your Business Depends On It (Which It Does)

If there’s one thing I’d tell any solar business owner to do more, it’s follow up.

Most CEOs have their team give up on solar leads way too soon.

They see their leads don’t close after a few sits and decide the problem is the quality of the lead.

So then they focus on something else, like their solar social media marketing.

By that point they’ve completely missed the mark, are leaving deals on the table, and wasting money on a solution that likely won’t help.

Like I said earlier, you’ve gotta continue to follow up or your leads will forget you exist.

Try it out yourself. Follow up on your leads for just 3 months. I guarantee it’ll make a drastic impact on your revenue.

Ideally you want to do this for 1-2 years minimum.

But if you really want to 10x your revenue, don’t ever stop contacting them until you get blocked or close the deal.

For every lead we get, we send them 1-2 emails a day and 1 text a day.

The idea is to stay in the customer’s ear as long as possible.

Use this structure for your follow up campaign:

• Week 1: Double-call them every single day. Every. Single. Day. Then send them a text and an email. If there’s no answer, don’t be afraid to follow up twice in the same day.
  • You could do this with the assistance of automatic email and text sequences… but the first week requires a lot of attention and should absolutely be more personalized.
  • At this moment your lead is a hot lead. The more you wait the less chances you have of closing them. So treat them as such.

• Week 2: Use the same strategy from Week 1, but do it every other day. If this lead didn’t sit for an appointment or reply during the intense outreach of the first week, you’ll have to dial it back a little to prevent getting blocked or marked as spam.
  • But the important thing here is that you never stop following up.

• From here on in you’ll use automated sequences to follow up for up to 2 years. 
• So your outreach after the second week should look like this:
  • Day 14-30: 2x a week
  • Day 30-60: 1x a week
  • Day 60-365: 2x a month
  • Day 365-730: 1x a month

If you reach out for 2 years and don’t get a reply, then at least you can say you did everything in power to close them.

Remember: if you approached them to go solar, chances are so has someone else.

The company that wins the prospect’s signature is whoever keeps their attention the longest. Don’t forget your solar lead is being marketed to every single day.

Consistent followup helps you break through that white noise.

On top of that, constant communication builds trust and confidence.

It shows the prospect that communication is key for you. That you won’t just abandon them once you have their money like they’ve heard so many other solar companies do.

I’ve seen way too many solar businesses grow too comfortable because they’re getting same day D2D and marketing deals while they’re leaving hundreds or thousands of other prospects behind and never contacting them again.

In reality, they could 2x or even 3x their revenue just from following up on those exclusive solar leads long term.
Zain Jan