Solar Solutions case study: a commercial pipeline after being burned by cold callers

Word for word from the video, with filler words such as “um” left out.

Josh, would you like to talk about, a bit about yourself and Solar Solutions? Yeah, so we're a solar company.

So it's been running for a few years now. Not massive, but we're getting bigger and bigger. Yeah, we're basically pushing for the commercial stuff at the minute, which you guys have helped us with a lot and done a lot for us, to be honest. Yeah, I appreciate that ... and like I was saying the the clientele is very good.

They've all been vetted. So it's it's nice to go see a customer and they're actually engaged and want to progress with it, and- Yeah, no, for sure ... we're not also fighting, two or three other contractors really to win the job. So pretty much finding that it's, they have the trust in us, really.

And- Yeah ... it is just the pricing it. If we price it ridiculous, they may ask for other people, but it seems that it's just the pricing it, so it's really nice. Yeah. No, perfect. Yeah. It's been good- And, ... and I'm looking forward to see where it goes. 100%. 100%. And how long have you been working with us on this side so far?

I think it's the start of the year, isn't it? So probably what, six months? Yeah. Yeah. Seems about- Yeah, we've done some domestic stuff with you ... that long. Yeah ... did some domestic stuff and now the commercial, and the commercial is just flying, really. Yeah, no, appreciate that. And which part of the service has been most valuable to you guys specifically?

I like the fact that I'm very busy and I'm trying to manage everything, as well as an electrical side to the business. So the CRM system's good for me because I can be all out driving all over the place, looking at jobs, doing everything. I ... But I can just check in on that system, and my appointments are there ready to go.

It's not just a ... It's not just on WhatsApp "Oh, this is your appointment." I can actually just, rather than bothering you, can just go on there and check that. Yeah. I also actually really the ... When you get a point of WhatsApp group yourselves, and, p- people put leads in, and see if they're of interest to you.

Yeah. Gives you a sort of rough location and things like that, and you can go, "I dunno." Yeah. "I dunno about that. I'm not sure about weather." Yeah. It's the YoSushi approach, isn't it? Yeah. I, yeah. I like it 'cause you can just pick as you go, and then a- y- you get a load of WhatsApp through, and there's a lot of leads coming through.

So at night- Yeah ... you can just go through and go yeah. Yeah." 100%. Good. Yeah, no, I li- I like that. That's one of my favorite features as well. And also, you might not know this yet, but if you actually check onto the platform now, there's a clearance section. So you can actually- Okay ... see we've got leads on there that are actually massively discounted, like up to 50%, because they've just not been able to be all- be allocated yet.

Yeah. So it's there's nothing wrong with them, but they- No ... might just be, like, slightly less attractive, maybe a bit smaller or something like that. Yeah. We've basically discounted those specific leads so that we can, get more of them gone. Yeah. But it is probably- That's another one

it's probably the type of it's probably the type of roof, like it might need some work to do with the roof or- Yeah ... location, really. That's what it is. If ... We typically find you just, if you can get the metal roofs, which there's plenty of them on there. But- Yeah ... you can explore and do the cement board roofs as well.

100%. Have you worked with any other leads gens in the past? We have, yeah. And this is the problem that we find is there's a lot of them out there that aren't doing what they say they're doing. Yeah. There's a lot of people that are cold calling you and trying to get you to do them with them, and we've done a few, and we've wasted a lot of money with them.

And that's- ... that's why people are a bit ... What's the word? Just a bit concerned about it- Yeah ... and a bit skeptical, yeah. What happened? You just... it takes some money off you, and then you don't really hear anything. You may get the odd lead. Wouldn't really class it as a lead.

It's just a telephone number. You can contact them, and they just basically fob you off. And before you know it, you're just, yeah, you're just chasing yourself round and you've not really got anywhere. And, you've put some money up front for it as well, and you've done a lot of legwork yourself.

Yeah, no, 100%. And in terms of us on the commercial side, how do you think that sort of differs then with some previous experiences? When you go on the CRM system, like your portal, you've got the client's info there once you've registered it, for it email address, things like that, picture of the site.

And you can also see what somebody has spoke to them about. So you get some basic... What they're looking for. So it's always good to have that insight before you go, and you get an insight to the customer a bit and know what they're looking for, which I- Yeah ... quite otherwise, it, you're meeting a customer and you don't know anything about 'em.

Whereas if you know what they're after, you can gel a bit that way. Yeah, 100%. It's, giving you the information up front and, you guys being able to model based on that sort of stuff. And what's the sort of average deal size that we've been bringing you? Either pounds or pence or kilowatts, fine.

I would say we've... At the minute we've been doing smaller domestic stuff, which is like probably 20, 30,000 pound. So you're probably looking at you're probably looking at probably up to 1,500 kilowatts from that. Okay. We'd like to go bigger, and we're just kinda building up to it a bit, really.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. We can definitely get you some bigger stuff passed over. And in terms of the volume of opportunities that we're putting in front of you, is that something, that you're quite happy with? We t- we tend to try and prioritize getting as many leads in the chat as possible.

Yeah. No the leads are good, and th- there is plenty of them. I remember at one point I was driving down there and one, one one- ... and I was thinking, " Fucking hell, I can't keep up. I can't keep up." Yeah, but no, there is, there's plenty of them and it's good. It is- True. Yeah You, you can buy one of the smaller packages, which isn't, ridiculous money, and then you can build on it.

So if people are a bit nervous, then at least, you're not asking for £10,000 up front or something like that. You can start smaller and then get the relationship and build it up and know, could trust you then, really. Exactly. Yeah. That's the thing that I really try to push as well, is that we don't care necessarily about what sort of package you go on initially.

Our priority is to make sure that the cust-customer service is good. We can get you in front of these customers, you can see, what you're getting into, and then we can build up from there, 'cause that's the biggest thing nowadays, isn't it? It's like skeptic-skepticism and and stuff like that.

And we've got it to the point now where even when you book in an initial call with us, before you become a customer we're already sending over leads before you even become become a customer, just to show you that we've got stuff going on and that's in that area.

So we're really trying to help people trust us, that we can actually get leads and all that sort of thing. In terms of the sort of performance-based approach where we get you on site in front of the customer and, you're only paying for something that's tangible, right?

Is that something that you see being, like, scalable for a company like yours? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we can just build upon it really, and like now we're getting ... Everyone will know that solar leads, especially commercial, it can take a while once you've met the customer, even if the customer's happy, with the DNO and, all the paperwork involved, structural surveys and things like that, it can be quite a long process.

So we're now getting it now where they're all started to roll through, and then we can just build up from there, which is good. Hundred percent, yeah. All right the final question is would you recommend us to other companies looking to get a more consistent flow of work? Yeah, definitely.

Definitely. And if you ever need us to vouch for you, even someone to give us a call or something like that, we'd definitely vouch for you. Yeah, appreciate that. This is why we tend to do these videos just so that you don't get hassled. But- Yeah. Yeah ... keep that in mind. Yeah. Appreciate that.

Give us a call. But yeah, no, thank you for everything. Yeah. Cheers, man.