If you want to expand your presence and sell more solar-adjacent products and services there are many things you can do to upsell homeowners who are looking to upgrade their home, while saving even more money.
An efficient renewable energy system is much more than just a set of panels. From battery storage, to monitoring software, to energy-efficiency improvements, there are many products and bonus services that can add value to a solar installation, and save the homeowner even more money.
In our recent webinar, Money on the Table, we teamed up with Solar Power World to investigate how to sell additional solar energy products without scaring away your prospects.
In the summer of 2022, things are still heating up for solar plus storage (plus everything else). With the Investment Tax Credit being returned to 30% and extended for 10 years, plus increased home electrification efforts and EV adoption, more people are thinking about their home’s electricity than ever.
Selling solar + everything
Today, there’s a long list of products and services solar companies can offer, including:
- Battery storage
- Smart energy management systems
- Home energy efficiency improvements
- Electric vehicle charging stations
- Ongoing system care and maintenance
In fact, according to our recent Aurora Solar installer survey, 55% of solar businesses expect to include solar panel adjacent products such as battery storage, EV charging, and energy efficiency upgrades within the next 6 to 12 months. To get the ball rolling on future sales, our expert, Matt Bramson, SVP of Sales & Marketing at Elevation Energy, laid out three tips for selling new solar products.
#1 – Become a long-term partner
Matt recommends that any solar sales pitch should begin by properly framing the conversation around long-term goals. After all, solar panels are not an impulse buy or a casual purchase, instead, a renewable energy system is a long-term investment in a home’s electricity expenses and should be treated as such.
Solar sales, like any major purchase, are based on trust. So, showing a customer that your company will be a long-term partner is a good way to establish credibility.
A practical way Matt’s team does this is by first conducting an energy efficiency audit of the customer’s home. The recommendations from this audit generally save a customer 10-20% of their energy consumption right off the bat.
The team can then deploy those savings towards providing the customer an upgraded solar installation. Even if you’re not able to upsell a new client immediately, this strategy helps build a strong relationship with the customer — based on their whole energy portfolio, not just a sale — and can help you sell additional products or services down the road.
#2 – Create an easy-to-understand proposal
Solar companies can only successfully sell additional products when their sales proposals are easy to understand. System add-ons can be intimidating for customers who are already investing in three decades of home electricity, so anything that’s unclear may cause them to hesitate before making a purchase.
In fact, the Modernize Homeowner Sentiment Survey, found that more than 20% of respondents cited unclear or confusing quotes as the top reason why homeowners do not move forward with a contractor or home improvement company.
Aurora allows you to optimize your solar sales proposal for simple and effective client-facing messaging. Built on fully customized templates with consistent company branding at every step, Sales Mode helps your sales team create simple, interactive proposals that customers can access online and share with their friends, family, and neighbors.
Rather than jumping around between design, financing, and contracting in multiple software packages, Aurora makes it possible for a solar business to keep everything in one place. Using Sales Mode’s Contract Manager, for example, homeowners can seamlessly e-sign all of their transaction paperwork, using information that has automatically populated throughout the sales conversation.
#3 – Focus on value
More than anything, if you’d like to be seen as an energy partner, every additional product you mention in a customer meeting should be introduced with a focus on value, rather than price.
While working with new customers to discover the core reasons they are going solar, you can naturally bring up extra products as a response to their pain points. For example, if a customer’s electric bills have risen after the purchase of an electric vehicle, you can introduce ways that an efficient EV charging station and solar energy system can work together to minimize costs.
A couple major areas to keep in mind are:
Battery storage: In 2022, few solar add-ons are as popular as battery storage. Batteries have many benefits, including energy resilience against electrical blackouts and additional bill savings from self-consumption both overnight and when new electricity generation is unavailable.
To put the icing on the cake, batteries now qualify for the federal investment tax credit (ITC), which means that homeowners can recoup up to 30% of the costs of adding storage against their tax liability. For more information on how to explain the value of a backup battery system, read our complete, step-by-step guide to selling solar storage.
Energy efficiency: Besides battery storage, talking to customers about the importance of energy efficiency can also unlock the door to additional sales. From home improvements like windows, ceiling fans, and appliance replacements, to system monitoring software, you can help maximize the value of your client’s solar investment by showcasing opportunities to lower home electricity consumption and curb future energy bills.
Key takeaways
When pitched properly, introducing additional products during a solar sales presentation should never scare away new customers. By first establishing trust with long-term benefits as the goal, selling extra products and services is easiest when the information is clear and introduced with a strong value proposition.
To learn more about how to increase your solar business by broadening what you offer customers, watch the entire webinar on-demand — or download it and listen on the way to one of those appointments.
Then, if you’d like to see for yourself how Aurora can help making adding products like battery storage a breeze, schedule a personalized demo.
