The Power of Value: Closing Deals in Complex Solar Sales

Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishima Ayede. I solve sales and marketing challenges and I'm making today's recording at home. It's a weekend, wifey is home, the kids at home. So there's going to be lots of noise in the background, especially since the kids are watching TV not far from where I am now. The goal of this podcast is not to talk about my family situation. We're here exploring all kinds of things around business education, especially when it comes to sales and marketing.

So if you're impressed by the time we are done, please spread the word so that your friends and family members in Nigeria and abroad can benefit from the questions that we tackle. They can do that by subscribing on spotifying YouTube, Apple or any player of their choice. And if you'd love to connect with me, you can call SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Now today on the podcast, it's also going to be another diary session for Rudolph, at least I

show most importantly because there are some people who are listening to the broadcasts who seem to be getting some value from these sessions in particular already have been reached out to by some people who are in charge of running sales teams or who are in sales teams and you know, they're trying to hit their goals and stuff like that. So some questions from there and basically people can relate to these sorts of things.

So I'll continue with the diary sessions and of course, hopefully some years in the future or some weeks in the future of Rudolph, LC and Cheryl can refer back to this to, you know, as a pick me up or as a refresher. So of course, in the meeting that we had the last time with them, you know, the daily check in to see where they've been. How many calls did you make yesterday? How many calls have we made today? Then I also started setting the expectation that now that we are getting towards hitting the calls because Rudolph hit his ten the day before, shown, made 13 the day before, Elsie made 8

the day before. So now that looks like the target attainment is now that it looks much more realistic, we now have to start moving to the level of these calls that we're making. Are we making good quality calls or making qualitative calls? Are we handling the conversation the right way? So future sessions are now going to be built around how to understand a complex sale. Because selling solar panels, selling inverters, selling batteries, selling alternative energy solutions, selling power solutions, selling whatever it is you want to call it is a complex sale.

And we have to realize that trying to sell these sorts of complex things is not the same as trying to sell simpler stuff. Because one of the reasons why some of you, and I'm not talking to Rudolph Cherwell at least because, you know, they've been doing this for a while. That's right. Elsie is. Well, of course, yeah, they also need some touching up there. But there are a lot of you, particularly those of you who are just discovering this kind of material, there are some of you who've been in business 234

or five years and you never come across something like this. You guys, those of you who are in that situation, a lot of you have been trying to sell complex, complex services and complex products, but trying to sell it with that simple mind frame. And like I keep saying on the podcast, selling a Gucci is not the same thing as selling wedding photography. Selling wedding photography and video is not the same thing as selling real estate.

Selling real estate is not the same thing as selling solar panels, solar systems. Selling solar systems is not the same thing as selling an airplane to airpiece. Now along this span of products and services that I've mentioned, a Gucci wedding photography, motor car, house, solar panel airplane, you can see that there's a range of simplicity all the way to complexity. And these things affect the manner in which we sell.

So this is the implication. The more simpler the sales process is, the more direct you can be, the more take it and leave it you can be. So the lady who sells a Gucci, if she's frustrated, she can't tell me the look guy, you've been here pricing a Gucci for 20 minutes. If you're not buying, please leave. Let somebody else come open my market. And in that context is not considered rude. It's a simple sale. So, you know, high velocity,

high traffic, you know, keep it moving. So the more simpler the sales process you're involved in, the more direct and the more keep it moving, the more if you're not buying come and go, you know, the more of that you can do. But then the more complex the scenario gets, the more consultative you have to be. So you pretend to be a medical doctor, not somebody who is selling a Gucci, because medical doctor has to ask questions, has to try and build rapport, has to try and diagnose what's going on before they recommend that you do something.

So for the Agusi seller, you show up, she says take these five cops. You take the cops, you know, you leave, you know, and that's it. It's not a problem. But for the medical doctor, you show up with the medical doctor and the doctor says, OK, this is what we're going to do. We're going to do surgery tomorrow. In your mind, you'll be like, how like surgery, How you didn't ask me anything, you didn't test anything. You just say we'll go and do surgery.

So the more complex things become, the more you have to take a much more consultative approach. So it's not a matter of you talk to somebody for 5 minutes, drop a proposal and then next thing you start follow up with the person. When are you going to buy? When are you going to buy? When are you going to pay? Are you ready? Now we have financing options. You know, it just just doesn't cut it. So yes, those would be the next set of conversations that we're going to have over the course of over the course of a month.

So we'll be moving into those kinds of conversations. How, how qualitative was the kind of quality of the conversations that we're having? Then, of course, we had some situations that we had to troubleshoot. And one of them was dealing with price shoppers because Shell is talking to some people who own a hotel and what they want to do is they want to get solar, but just for 19 rooms in particular. And she was talking to me about how, you know, these guys are educated, you know, they're,

they're in the space, you know, they have the technical prowess, they have the knowledge, they have the experience. They've gone to China, they've travelled here, they've travelled there. So they know about this, they know about that. And I think she was getting too carried away with that. And it happens, you know, sometimes we're talking with the customer and we get carried away with the fact of how educated they are or how knowledgeable they are, how professional they are, how this, how this, how that.

No, that's not a problem. We should have a healthy regard for all our prospects, all our customers. But remember that you're a sales professional. So we should always be focused on the issue at hand. And the issue at hand is we're being consultative. We're trying to be a doctor. We're trying to figure out what the problem is. We're trying to see if our product or our service can solve that problem. And then we always focus the conversation on Bros, Auger,

Madam, young man, young lady, you know, whoever it is that you're addressing, this is the problem that we have identified. This is how my product or service is going to solve that problem. And this is how I recommend that we go ahead, always trying to refocus the conversation. So these people are obviously price shopping because since they have all the information and since they know how much all the raw material costs, because you can bamboozle somebody who has gone to China or gone to Australia and who knows the price of the solar panel and who knows the price of the battery and stuff like that.

So, yeah, you can bamboozle that person, but if you leave it at that level, if you're not doing need analysis, then the smoothest talker is going to win. They can bamboozle you and say, look, you know what, we've been in this business 20 years. We already know what's up. We already know the value of these things. So you know what, just give us a cool price and if we like it, we'll go ahead. If not, we'll just rash it.

This is one reason why I say that we should never, ever, ever be selling based on flow or based on charisma or based on packaging. Because no matter how smooth you are, one day you will meet somebody who is smoother than you. So for me, I don't rely on any artifacts, whether it's accent or education or good looks or whatever, because one day I'll meet somebody who is taller, who is finer, who is smoother, who is sharper, who talks better,

who, whatever. So for me, I stick to my process and my process will keep me free. So we should always have a process. So I told him that instead of getting carried away with all these things, you know the price of this, the they know this, they know this, they know this, they know exactly what they want and stuff like that. Just go back to need analysis. I'm trying to figure out what is it that they're trying to do and ask a couple of questions and we couldn't figure out exactly what is that they wanted to do.

So how I put it, no, I asked a couple of questions and then what they were trying to achieve was not very clear. So I dogged in on a couple of things. So say, OK, So what they're trying to do is they're trying to hook up 19 rooms, right? Correct. Most people who buy solar installations and stuff are typically trying to hook up the whole house. How come these guys are only trying to hook up 19? Is that oh, the reason why the one hook up 1919 rooms in the hotel is so that they can charge premium prices for these rooms.

Every other room will be a certain rate, but these particular rooms will give premium pricing because we can guarantee you that 247 your light will not even blink one time. And then I now started saying that OK, you see is now coming. This is now making a lot of sense what they're trying to achieve here and in my own opinion, what I think was in buying the solar panels, they're trying to achieve a financial outcome. You see, we try and dig in on the needs.

There's no get carried away with how educated they are or how much research they've done. What they're trying to do is they're trying to achieve a financial outcome. They want to pull solar because they're trying to get money out at the end of the day. So I now asked him how much do they charge in the hotel? She'll say he didn't know. By the way, when you're talking to people, I know when I say ask questions, it sounds as if I'm saying we should be asking questions for questions, say,

but these are the reasons why it is from doing small talk and just general gist that you will find out all these things. The hotel where it is, how much it is you stay in the room, you know, blah, blah, blah. You don't have to come out right and ask how much you stay in the room, but it's just from general conversation. Now. Oh, you guys run the hotel. Where is this place? Oh, by the way, I'm on my computer now. What's the website?

You pull it or say more this your hotel. The thing seems high classes say high class. How now is for everybody would say, what do you mean everybody? I'm sure one room here is like 300 a night. It was a 300 a night. How? No it's only like it's only like 97 K per night for the average room. Then the premium room IS120K. Now from their own level, they'll think you're making a small talk. It's not small talk to you. You're asking questions and trying to figure out information that you need so you can close the deal.

Be curious about everything when you're a salesperson. They say don't want to hook up 19 rooms. Why do you want to hook up only 19 rooms? Oh, you want to charge premium pricing for these one in particular? Oh, OK, that's interesting. How much do you charge the regular room? If we're able to hook this thing up, how much would you like to charge for the premium room? Now, the reason why these questions are important now is because when we're able to figure out the value that the people are going after,

especially in business cases, it is now that we can now quantify value. Hope you guys are listening. Quantify value, put a figure to the value. Because when we're talking about business, naira and Kobo, sometimes it is hard for people to understand or appreciate what's going on unless you put it in naira and Kobo terms. But when we're talking business, now, if you sell jewelry, you sell diamond rings, you know, you can't quantify the value because the guy is thinking about the love that he has for his girlfriend before he proposes.

So in that case, you know, you'd be asking more questions about, oh, you know, what's our birth month or what her bedstone or what's her Zodiac sign or what kind of person is she or you know, all those fluffy, fluffy stuff. So that you can now say, OK, bras, based on what you said, you should give her a purple turquoise, emerald 16 carats because based on what you said, she's like this kind of person, that kind of person.

I think she really appreciate it, blah, blah, blah. So you see, in that sense, what you're doing is you're trying to sell psychological benefits there, psychological value. So you speak in those terms. But then when you're talking to a business person who's trying to make a buck or something, you quantify naira and Kobo. You put some naira and Kobo on our conversation. Now, I'm not saying that when you do that, it will work.

It might not work. But The thing is, it is better than just assuming. These people are educated. They're price shoppers. They're going to pick whichever is the cheapest price. By the way, funny enough, what some of you don't realize, when you actually start doing things like this, you set yourself apart as a professional because Cheryl likes talking about achieving mental share. This is how you achieve mental share. You're not sounding like all the other people.

You're sounding different. You're sounding like a professional. This is how you achieve mental share. This is how even if they don't store your number, by the time you call again and say, oh, this Yoruba guy that we spoke to two weeks ago, Abby, how are you doing now? How far? And then conversation just flows again. So quantify the value. Now this is the exercise that I went through with shown and I hope Elsie and Rudolph were able to follow.

Now this is how we now quantify the value. So I now told you I would look, we have to find a way of figuring how much is premium rooms will cost. But basically this is what I want you to do. Let's guess that each room brings 120K per night. All of us on the call, we agreed that OK, based on the area in Lagos and 120 Ki, guess that will work per night. Then I multiplied that by 19. What we got was 2.28 million, so 2,280,000 naira.

So I now told you that look, when next you're talking to these people and then the thing goes back to price hacking where they start talking about, look, you know what, we're engineers, we've been in this business, we've traveled to China, we know the price of the solar panels, we've been to Australia, we've been to New Zealand, we've been to everywhere. So we know the cost of these things and these are the bits that we have here.

So you know what, give us a sweet quote and then you know, we'll go ahead and and get this thing going. When the conversation goes to price, when they start price haggling. I told him this, what you do, you quantify the value, put it in Naira and Cobo, put it in figures, put it in numbers. So you see, I'm not going to use the company name by the way, because I haven't gotten the permission of your guy to mention, you know, the, the solar panel, the solar power company, that's my client, your guy who is paying me.

So, so this is what you tell, I told them, this is what you tell them. You listen to them. First of all, you know, of course, you congratulate them on their, on their breadth of experience and their knowledge. And you know, congratulate them that they are, you know, that they actually are looking for the best and willing to do the research themselves. Then you now refocus the conversation. You said XYZ company, we're dedicated to solving our customer problems.

And based on what you said so far, I think your immediate problem is that you guys want to make 2.3 million naira every single day from your premium units. Is that correct? Of course, they will say yes. You see, we are refocusing now on naira and Cobo. And then you say, look, our organization, we work with the best materials. We have a dedicated team of five engineers. Our combined experience is over 30 years in installing and managing solar solutions.

We also have remote monitoring capabilities because this company actually does have remote monitoring. That's one of the reasons why I like working with them. You know, it's nice to work with a company that if there's a problem that once I will call you and say, look, Olga, you know, we've been seeing one or two things. You know, it'd be like say, you know, we'd be around on Monday, let's come and check it out. You know, every time that you're dealing with a vendor, that is when The thing is spoiled.

You will have to now call them and then start chasing them. So any back to what I said, quantifying value now narrow Alcobo using numbers. So if I understand your problem correctly, you guys want to make 2.3 M every single night from these units, correct? You say correct. We have a dedicated team, 5 engineers, 30 years experience. You can see numbers in managing solar solutions. We have remote monitoring capabilities and we are committed to making sure that these 19 units will have uninterrupted power supply so that you can deliver on your brand promise for these premium units.

That is what you say to refocus. You're using figures 2.3 million naira. We're trying to focus them on how much it is that they stand to gain if this thing works. Quantifying 5 engineers, we have plenty stuff, 30 years experience for quantifying it. You now mention remote monitoring. So you can see like I'm not saying this will work, but you can see that we are now refocusing the conversation. If you leave it on their own level of you know what, we were engineers, we've travelled,

we've been to New Zealand, we've been to China, we've been to Pakistan, we've been everywhere. We know the cost of solar panel, we know the cost of lithium, we know the cost of whatever. You know, young man, you know we're guys now let's let's be straight here, give us a correct price. Let's go ahead. If you leave it on that level, the smoothest person will win and if you're not smooth, you will lose. So this is the reason why I tell people sell based on system, not based on packaging.

You will not always be the smoothest person. I have been out talked before and I think I can talk a great game, but I've been out talk before it happens rely on the process. So in this case, pretend you're a doctor, diagnose the situation, get feedback from the client that you understand what the situation is. This is the business thing. Speak in terms of value in a very quantitative, quantitative sense. So that was my suggestion.

Then I also reminded the team about something that some Victor Antonio calls the value Trinity. Victor Antonio is an American sales trainer. He's also in the complex sales space. They sell telecommunications. Well, his background was in telecommunications before he went before he went solo into his into his consulting. And so Victor Antonio talks about a value Trinity and he says that whenever you're talking to customers, talk in terms of what they value, have conversations on trying to figure out what it is that they value.

And that every customer, he's trying to achieve 3 things. Number one, financial benefits, money #2 psychological benefits #3 physical benefits. And that is Victor Antonio's value Trinity. Excuse me. It's not the best, it's not the only framework. But remember, I say that if something is simple and easy to remember, it's easy to apply. So that's the reason why I teach it, because it's easy to remember physical, psychological and physical.

Sorry, financial, psychological and physical, we try to figure out what kind of benefits they're looking for. And in this hotel scenario, the way I gauge those boys who own the hotel, I'm thinking for them as a financial play. But of course, you can still enter psychological, definitely. So that's all you should be trying to figure out. Now remember what I said about if you sell jewelry, if you sell wedding rings down is mostly an emotional or something.

And it's something that will happen to me when I went to go and buy the ring that I used to propose to my wife many, many years ago, the original ring, because you know, that one eventually got stolen because I bought a correct ring. You know, I, I used the one month salary to buy a ring that's back when I was working in the UK. You know, the things you do when you're young and in love. I know now people look at me and say what?

How many 1000 lbs on top my ring, you know, buyers in love. I don't agree buying the ring anyway, pains me that The thing is lost. And man the ring was unique, was really unique. And the sales lady that I met in our shop, I can't remember the shop, she did a wonderful job. I came in on it to buy engagement ring. And excuse me me that I have no sense of style and I don't know anything about fashion or whatever. I was clueless.

So she sat me and asked me some questions. How did you guys meet blah blah blah. Tell me about her. Sounds like she's a really cool person. What are her favorite colours? Why the kind of how does she dress, how does she spend her day, blah, blah, blah, you know, all kinds of things. Or when it's her birthday. Oh, OK, that means her birthstone is this and it also happens to be her favorite color. OK, we, you know, a classic.

How do she put it again? Now the classic, you know, whatever, whatever is either gold or silver. So we have the silver range, we have the gold range. But because it is a purple something rhinestone, it will go well with gold something. As she did a masterful job. I said OK I liked it. I told her she doesn't mind I want to discuss with mom. See she agreed a snap picture I sent to my mom. My mom say wow, correct, I bought it and you know sealed the deal, correct thing.

The babe that was in that diamond store, she was doing value Trinity. What benefit? Clearly I was coming, I think from a psychological mind, you know, mind view. There's some guys who go there and say give me the cheapest ring here. That's a different set of conversations. But either way, somebody shows up. Value Trinity. What are they trying to get? Are they looking for financial benefits? Are they looking for psychological benefits?

Are they looking for physical benefits? And then speaking those terms. And in this case, I really think those boys were speaking or looking for financial benefits. So financial benefits now what kind of financial benefits can we have when we're talking solar and inverter and then do the same exercise for your business. So in their own case, the chief benefit was 2.3 million naira daily. If they can't get this thing to work, and that's what I assisted shows you keep hopping on, then other financial benefits, you know, reduce electricity bills,

what else? Reduce the operational costs for a business. What else? Reducing fuel generator costs. Those are some of the financial benefits that people can argue when they're talking solar. Then psychological benefits, Peace of Mind. And in fact, for me, when I bought my own inverter system, that was the main thing me and my wife were experiencing our first born. And any small thing, you know how it is with some pregnant women, because then my wife's nose was swelling up and she was getting very oily.

And any small thing, she would just be hot. And then small times will now be cold. I was now thinking Omar, with the way her temperature is just changing up and down. If by the time the baby comes here and also these things that will have a terrible situation on our hand, as in she'll be hot and she'll be upset, baby will be hot, baby will be upset. If both of them are upset, may I'll be upset. So the main reason why I got my inverter system, actually, that was just the main thing,

psychological. But some of you who are selling inverters or selling whatever, you will never know because you're never asking people these questions. No welcome. How can I help you today? OK, you like to buy a solar panel blah blah. Oh by the way, where do you live? How has light been there? Good or bad? Oh OK, it's been terribly bad. But you said you've lived there for like 3 years. How come you haven't done anything up till now?

This way he has these kinds of questions that you now know that OK, the reason why before do OK with living with bad light for three years but now excuse me, the one to get the solar solution is because they have a baby on the way. That is the psychological thing you will now start keen in on using to follow up on. Oh congratulations you're going to be parents. When is the baby coming? Baby is due November. If you're a match in your head now you now know or OK this is March, baby is coming in November.

You now know how to start following them. You don't know how you be close marking them or how you give them space. Ask, be curious when the customer is in front of you. Ask questions when I say these things, asking questions, qualification and discovery. Some of you who think is academic is not academic. This is the key to being good in sales, to improving your sales. Be curious and be asking people questions and let this thing be conversational.

But don't worry, it takes some practice anyway. So psychological benefits, Peace of Mind for solar for me, when I got my inverter system, that was it. I just want a Peace of Mind. My wife was always sweating. She was always saying I'm hot, I'm hot, I'm hot. I just say one more. I can't wait until the baby comes here before we start trying to sort this out. Therefore, some people energy independence OR self-sufficiency for my mom, our own solar system.

That's the reason why we got it because today you hear that energy grid is down 2 weeks and the problem with and the problem with these sorts of things. So I got distracted. My wife is looking at me podcasting. This is the reason why I need the studio. Anyway. She was smiling at me. I guess I've been talking too much about our family situation. So and so. The reason why we need a solar form, see where we got it was precisely because of that energy sufficiency.

Small time solar panel, solar energy grid will collapse 2 weeks. And the problem is we were from Benoit State and it's not see Bennu State is priority. So by the time they restore Abuja, restore Lagos, restore ocean, restore, you know, Bennu State would have been like one month without light and we can continue with this crap. So self-sufficiency, the comfort for some people, this is a psychological thing of brand as well.

Then when you step into their house, you see a first class system, wires looking neat, everything looking sci-fi. They don't have tubular batteries like I do. Tubular batteries are those big heavy batteries. They have lithium batteries, you know those slim sexy ones that are painted white or silver. So for some people it's your brand image that when you enter into their house, you see that man, this guy has a 21st century house on point.

But you will not know unless you engage people in conversations. You will not know which of the value Trinity are you supposed to be hitting physical, financial or psychological. And then when it comes to physical benefits, you know, also this thing of generator noise, that's a physical benefit. For me, that was a key thing. That's why I didn't want generator because I didn't want it to be that I travel for a job. My wife has to now go outside to the back of the house.

You know you're now looking for key, looking for engine oil, trying to pull the cable to start the generator and then all of that. Anyway, it applies to every single business. The value Trinity financial benefits, psychological benefits, physical benefits. If you need some help with brainstorming how this applies to your business, you have chatty PT on your phone and you have Google Gemini on your phone. If you can't think these things up by yourself, if there's nobody to talk to, go and sit down.

You say I am a Nigerian female who sells jewelry to people within the ages of so so so and so my ideal customer audience is blah blah blah blah blah. I'm trying to figure out talking points when talking to potential customers using Victor Antonio's using Victor Antonio's value Trinity model. What are the financial benefits that people can get from behind jewellery? What are the psychological benefits people can get from buying jewellery?

What are the physical benefits that people can get from buying jewellery? You now see it send it will come up with some good ideas, the ones that make sense, write it down. The ones that don't make sense, delete and then that's how you begin to practice and practice and practice when you talk to people. Those are your talking points now on the benefits and those are the kind of things the kind of benefits you're trying to figure out exactly what it is that they need over time you will get better, you will get smoother what you rely on the process.

It's not it's not all about packaging is good package yourself die, you know, so make sure you dress well, make sure you talk good, make sure your hair's on point, you know, yeah, package yourself. But it's all about the system. It's a system that will save you when it comes to selling, not packaging because one day we all run into somebody who are packagers anyway. 30 minutes. Let me just bring it to a close here. It's a weekend at the time of this recording.

So our next meeting is going to be on a Monday and you know, whatever it is we discussed, I'll come back here, diary session so that you guys can benefit from, you know, some of the things that we talk about over there. But for those of you who like the diary sessions and who have reached out, thank you very much. It's nice when I try something new on the podcast and then people say, oh, I like this or I don't like that.

You know it's good because at least I know that you guys are paying attention and I know that it's either delivering value to you guys or it's not delivering value to you guys. Again, if you'd love to connect then you can call SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you all same time, same place in your headphones or in your speakers.