So sleazy even Sales Bros scoff

Solar companies have basically two main things they have to do to drum up business.

1. They have to do some kind of marketing to get attention and interest.
2. They have to do some sort of sales to transition interested prospective customers into actual customers.

In my humble (but accurate) opinion, the real slime exists in the first category with the lead generation ‘companies’. 

For every Sales Bro, there are probably 5-7 Sales Pros. (just a guess, maybe more like 1 for 10). 

But for the lead gen guys? It seems like there is no end to the army of them offering solar companies things like ‘appointments’, ‘leads’, ‘live transfers’, and more.

I am not 100% sure on all of it but I suspect there are a few reasons/things going on.

1. Making a website that takes visitors through a presentation or two (possibly videos) and collects their data (name, phone, address, zip code, etc.) isn’t very difficult.
2. Driving paid traffic via search engines and social media isn’t terribly difficult.
3. Buying ‘data’ from certain sources isn’t overly expensive or difficult (for example, the Sales Bro call I got the other day was someone who got my name and phone number because I had a credit check for a mortgage recently)
4. Hiring a call center in a country like the Philippines to hammer those phone numbers isn’t horribly expensive and certainly isn’t hard to find them.

Everything on that list can be handed off to Virtual Assistants (VAs) who work for very low wages in other countries. It isn’t unheard of for VAs to work for around 4 bucks an hour, add 2-4 bucks an hour on top of that if a VA manager is involved…

There is a particular country that seems to have no shortage of scammers. Not the one that produces princes, but one that produces the software scams. Those folks are pretty good with computers (like really good) and they are very eager to ‘earn’ business.

These types of lead gen ‘companies’ (usually just one or a few scammer level individuals) don’t care how they get the attention of the ‘leads’. They will use ANYTHING just to get them interested enough to input their data.

That includes making obvious false promises like ‘special programs’ (that don’t actually exist), ‘free solar panels’ (that are never free), or that the government or power company ‘will pay’, and more…

I call it a kind of bait and switch where unsuspecting homeowners get on a call expecting to hear some kind of free solar power installation program with a solar company sales representative who is then left holding the bag and has to break the news there is no ‘free’ in solar to the customer.

It hurts the solar sales person because now they have to have conversations with people who were tricked into getting on the phone and that sort of conversation isn’t an easy one to have…

The point of all of this is by and large, the solar companies I know are honest businesses that genuinely care about their customers. They are targeted by these sleazy lead generation ‘outfits’ much in the same way the potential solar customers are.

With bait and switch, false promises, and worse. This landscape is populated with scammers, money grabbers, and worse. 

It is so bad that even the Solar Sales Bros scoff at the number of unsolicited direct messages and emails they get from these guys…

 

You know it’s bad when a Sales Bro won’t take a lead and try to make a sale with it, know what I mean?

 

Moral of today’s story is when surfing around the internet, be aware of these lead generation folks that are trying to grab your info. I say it’s better to just not fill in any of the info, but that’s just my opinion.

As you might see by now, I have more of a problem with the lead gen side than I do the sales side and that’s why I am gearing up to release my new book Tucson Solar Insider Desk Guide for Buying Solar. 

It aims to educate Tucson homeowners on everything they need to know about getting solar for their homes. If that sounds interesting, you can click here to get on the notification list for when it becomes available.

Be Good!

Curtis