Top 5 SLEAZY Solar Sales Tactics

These are the top five sleazy solar sales tactics that are preying upon homeowners and costing them thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars. I believe they must be stopped. I'm passionate about this topic because my very own mother was conned by a solar company, has been battling it for many years, and has now cost her nearly $20,000. This story, my mom's story, is one of the reasons that for so many, many years I was very resistant to solar. I sat in, observed solar presentations. I had them done on my home. I thought they were sleazy, I thought they were gimmicky. I thought they were false and misleading, and I didn't want anything to do with it. Now, I recognize that not every company does this, and I'm by no means painting a blanket across the entire solar industry, nor am I painting a poor light around solar sales people. I'm shining light because it needs to be shined upon for the sales gimmicks that I think are unethical, I think, quite frankly, should be illegal and to protect a homeowner. So if you're a homeowner, by the way, and you stumbled upon this video, welcome. I hope it helps you make an informed decision on who to work with. If you're a salesperson selling solar, I know some sales training teaches you to do these things and you may not even realize what you're doing. And I know that there are salespeople in the solar space that check their morals ethics in exchange for money, and they just say, well, if I can just get the deal, who cares? And I want to put an end to all of that. So without further ado, let's jump right in and get to it. First. Welcome, welcome back. Adam Bensman here, the roof strategist. And everything I do on my channel is designed to help you and your team smash your income goal and give every customer an amazing experience. And you might be wondering, hey, dude, you're the roof strategist. Why are you talking solar? I'll share more at the end of this video, but the fast version is this. I finally found a way that I believe in to sell solar and it is alongside a roof, with a roof with solar, not solar on its own. There's a lot of reasons that I won't get behind that I'll share more at the end. But for starters, let's get into tactic number one, the sleazy solar sales tactic that I see the most commonly, and that is false production expectations. We see solar sales people running around knocking doors, saying, Eliminate your electric bill for life. And that basically paints a picture in someone's mind with this big goose egg, a big zero. I don't Electric bill forever. It's not a realistic expectation. When you have connection fees and how net metering works, there will be some bills. And the other thing that happens is maybe the salesperson didn't size the system appropriately or the company didn't size the system. So the homeowner who sold on this incredible ROI and eliminating their electric bill is expecting a certain offset and they end up getting a lot less because the systems weren't sold size. That's why it is so important to set realistic expectations with the homeowner on their actual electric bill and their actual production. All right, sleazy solar sales tactic number two, falsely advertising their new monthly expense. Now, for those that aren't aware, if you see or prepare a solar proposal for a homeowner, there'll be, and you're using financing, there'll be a monthly amount listed. That monthly amount is making an assumption, but it's not like broadcasted out there until the salesperson communicates it. This assumption on your monthly investment assumes that you're going to take the tax credit for the system. I'm going to use some simple math here and correct me if I'm wrong, because math is not my strong suit. As I say math class four years in a row. People correct math in my videos all the time and call me an idiot. So I invite you to join them if I'm wrong. So let's say it's a $40,000 system. The 30,000, excuse me, 30% tax credit. It's 2012 grand. So this monthly payment is assuming that this homeowner is going to take this 12 grand and actually pay down that loan with the 12,000 to get to this payment amount. But what happens is if that's not communicated, that loan will re amortize, meaning they'll recalculate it. And then that all of a sudden that amount goes from whatever that small amount they were looking at shoots up because of the 12 grand that they were counting on getting put into the loan. Never was. So the reason that the lenders do this is it's more enticing, like, hey, your loan amount will be this much and we'll keep it at this much, assuming that you're going to, you know, make this contribution by a certain date, but then if you don't, the amount goes up. So without communicating to homeowners that they're required to contribute that tax savings towards the loan, they end up with a surprise bill that's far more expensive and in financial trouble because they already spent this money on a new hot tub. All right, sleazy solar sales tactic number three, taking advantage of retirees or low income households. Back to the false monthly payment expectation concept. If a lower income house or someone who's on tax free retirement income. I know people like taxes. Everyone pays taxes. Not everybody pays taxes. There are ways to not pay taxes as a retiree and there's ways that people don't pay taxes otherwise. But that's about besides this video. So let's say that they have a $40,000 system. They put on the roof, $12,000 tax credit. If their tax liability, which means how much they're going to owe in taxes that year is not meet or exceed the 30% tax credit amount, which is in this case 12 grand, then they don't apply for it. They can only apply for how much of their tax liability there is. So if you sold a massive system to someone who doesn't pay taxes anymore and let's say their tax liability is like five grand a year, but the system was monstrous and is like $18,000 tax credit, they can only deduct two grand, which again changes that monthly expense. So this part of the message gets is often failed to be communicated to homeowners that to apply, excuse me, to qualify for the tax credit, your tax liability needs to meet or exceed the tax credit. Okay, it's that simple. But again, many people don't communicate that they'll sell the system to a retiree. The retiree hands the paperwork to his or her accountant or does their taxes and they're like, well yeah, you don't qualify for tax credit. And then now that monthly payment that they were banking on on a fixed income shoots up even higher. Totally not cool. Not at all. Again, it's why it's so important to communicate this. This brings me to sleazy sales tactic number four. And that is putting solar on a roof that is 10 years old or older. Now I go to argue that it should be much younger than that, but that's kind of the general rule of thumb. Oh, we can put solar on a roof as long as it's 10 years old or newer. Okay, yeah, if you don't want to do 10 years or older. 10 years or newer. Here's what is again overlooked. If someone sells a solar system to someone with a 10 year old roof, yeah, we'll put solar on it. Here's the amazing ROI and all this money you're going to save. What they don't communicate is that an average cost to detach and reset that system is roughly $8,000. So people who are making a commitment to, to swap one bill for another generally don't have eight grand laying around extra for their roof replacement. That part's not communicated. This, again, is one of the reasons that in our system it is a roof with solar combo, because it does truly and in my opinion, inarguably. And if you disagree, drop a comment below, produce the highest possible ROI for the homeowner. Because again, if they have to replace the roof, let's say it's even in five years. Five years in, you're barely seeing an ROI in the solar system. Now you go to get a quote for your roof and you're like, wait a minute, it's an extra eight grand, and then all those savings get flushed out the window. Not ideal. If it were me, I just personally don't believe in selling solar to a homeowner unless they're putting on a roof at the same time. There are obviously exceptions to a rule. Let's say you did the roof a year or two ago going back to those customers, or. Of course. But what I don't want to do is provide this without providing the right information to a homeowner to make a decision. You could say five years is great. Seven years is where we start to get into that gray area. Ten years to me, is way too old, way, way too old to put solar on a roof in the best interest of a homeowner. So again, if you do decide to do that, you need to communicate it to your homeowner. And in our system, we put roof with solar on together, and that way there's no issue. All right, this brings me to the big can of worms, which is number five. Sleazy sales tax and number five. And I'm going to guess that there's going to be some comments in the comment section below, by the way. Invite them for all of these, whether you agree or disagree. But this one, I think, is going to probably stir the pot the most, and that is selling homeowners on the emotional benefit of going green to help the planet. Now, if you start looking into what it takes to produce solar panels, you'll find that there's a tremendous impact on mining on our environment, which requires fossil fuels. There's incredible foreign dependency, incredible fuel consumption, fossil fuel consumption to ship those panels from our foreign, these foreign countries that we rely upon to the US and then once they're installed, they have a finite shelf life. I know it's not a shelf life, it's not food, but they have a finite production life. And then we need to either dispose of or recycle those panels, which either again costs more energy. So selling it on this green concept people do because they say, hey, you know what, Save the planet, let's do it together. And they're playing into the emotion because we know that people make buying decisions based on emotion. And I see why it's being done. I just quite frankly don't necessarily agree with it. Because of looking into the actual requirements of producing these panels, it is very hard for me to see that that is actually green and good for our plan. If you want to learn more on this, I recommend watching the documentary Planet of the Humans. I know that Michael Moore is a very controversial filmmaker. I don't love everything he's done, quite frankly. We'll leave it there. You can probably read between the lines. And at the same time I found that to be quite illuminating to the actual cost to our environment of solar panels. Now, all that being said, do I think that providing solar to a homeowner is a good idea? Yes. Do I think that providing solar to a homeowner is a great way for them to break the monopolistic handcuffs that the utility company has on them? Yes. Do I think solar is a great way to provide more energy freedom? Yes. Do I think solar is a great way and needed for our world to grow beyond our grid capabilities? Yes. All of that I totally agree with and there is a very, very valid argument for solar energy. But what I'm not quite sold on is selling people on the idea that, that they're making this incredible move to save the world together. So there's the top five sleazy solar sales tactics. Again, quick summary. Number one, false production expectations. Number two, false monthly payment expectations. So they understand that the tax credit's got to be applied to loan. Number three, taking advantage of retirees or low income household that cannot take advantage of the tax credit. Number four is installing solar on older roofs and not communicating the cost, the true cost to that homeowner of getting that roof replaced with the detach and reset. And then number five, playing into the emotions of homeowners, telling them that they're helping the planet when it really might not be that case. Now, I told you that at the end of the video, I'd share with you a little bit more about why I made this video. I resisted, as I shared before, for many, many years, getting into solar, despite people using my sales system that were getting into solar, that were begging me to get into solar, adapting what I'm teaching into solar, despite the fact that I have tons of solar salespeople that watch my channel because the tactics apply. I needed to be in solar in a landscape that I believed in and that did right by the customers. And it wasn't until I met up with Cody, my partner, to co develop the system and test it behind the scenes. Cody's company is using it currently. We've rolled it out with a handful of other companies. Of course we have other folks using it now beyond its beta testing, and it's been widely available through our platform is to sell roof with solar together. And what this does is it creates an amazing experience for a customer to get the highest return on investment on the roof with solar. It provides an incredible way for that customer to deal with one central point of contact as opposed to multiple. It provides a way for the roofing salesperson to nearly double their income without having to run more sales appointments because we're in front of one customer and able to add solar. And it provides an opportunity for a roofing company who might be tempted by solar to avoid the pitfalls that many people do, which is I'll start a solar division, which isn't a division, it's a second company. And this second company requires separate operations, separate marketing, separate sales. And then they have another company that's competing in the solar landscape. Whereas when you go roof with solar, you're able to train your team to then offer solar to every qualifying homeowner right at the kitchen table. For them to add solar to their roof with incredible benefit on the retail front, by opening up alternative financing vessels, which are much cheaper than roof financing and even though the ticket price is higher, by leveraging the solar financing vessels and factoring in their monthly electric bill, believe it or not, the monthly investment total of their roof loan payment plus their electric bill is often higher than a roof with solar combo. So there's a tremendous economic value there. And then on the, on the storm damage side, there's a tremendous economic value because the homeowner has the opportunity to pocket all the insurance proceeds and get the work done fully financed. So long as it is all the work on the scope of loss is done and invoiced ethically, fairly and 100% compliant. That homeowner can now do whatever they want with the money. They can buy a pool, they can take a vacation, they can invest for kids college, they can get a kitchen remodel. They can blow it at a casino for all you care. The point is, that's a tremendous value add for them to take those proceeds. So especially if they need deductible help, and instead of saying, we can help, you say, hey, what if I just put money in your pocket? If you're short on cash, we have this other vessel there. And again, depending on where they're at with their electric bill, you know, you might be adding a few hundred dollars a month, but you're offsetting the electric, adding in a roof. And many homeowners find it to be a tremendous opportunity. So for those reasons, we get to help roofing companies nearly double without having to get new customers, without having to compete in the solar landscape, where an average acquisition cost is $2,000 to $3,500 by just playing in the roofing world. So if you want to learn more, there's a link in the description, or you can Text demo to 303-222-7133. That's all for now. If you want to hang with me, hop into this video and I'll see you soon.