Signs That Your Solar Sales Process Needs Salesforce

The residential solar installation market is becoming crowded, and winning customers often comes down to speed. Losing out to competitors through an inefficient sales process can stop you from scaling.

As the solar market grows so does the opportunity for residential installers. According to an article on PV magazine’s website, “Roth Capital Partners forecasts 25% year on year growth in both 2019 and 2020 for the U.S. residential solar power market.” Installations are forecast to hit 3 million in the US by 2021. These predictions, of course, have been somewhat thrown off by the pandemic but even with recessions and layoffs, “Wood Mackenzie analysts are now forecasting flat installations in 2020 and slight growth of 7 percent in 2021.” 

That does mean, however, that solar installers are facing two challenges right now:

• Making the sales process entirely remote (because in the wake of the pandemic this is the direction most businesses are moving)
• And at the same time, making it more efficient. Potential customers typically will request quotes from a range of installers at the same time. In a saturated market, the one who is able to trigger the sales process the quickest is more than likely the one who is going to get the deal. 

Where are you with your current solar delivery platform and what are the telltale signs that you have room to improve?

1. You are missing out on sales - A good sales process starts with good lead management. If you haven’t got a stellar system for lead management in place, quickly following up on your sales leads and qualifying customers to get them an accurate quote will be difficult. This costs your business in the long run.
2. The paperwork is real - If all of your necessary documents (quotes, permitting, site designs, financials, contracts, etc) are spread across multiple sheets of paper, it’s time for an upgrade. Having your information stored in Salesforce makes finding all your relevant data a breeze. The ability to get through paperwork more efficiently is going to allow you to get an offer to a new customer faster.
3. No oversight of the business - Having a clear view of your opportunity pipeline is imperative for forecasting. Not having a clear understanding of key information such as how many opportunities are in progress, how many are about to close and the overall value of the pipeline is going to make business very difficult. You need to know the status of each deal in order to schedule the appropriate resources for your upcoming installation projects. You also need to know how long each installation will take. Opportunity management plays a big role in your sales process. 
4. Handoffs between teams are broken - Your installation team doesn’t have all the information from sales, the services team doesn’t have everything from the installation engineers. It slows down the process and results in costly errors on site. An efficient sales process is going to allow streamlined updates and a uniform user experience, making it a cakewalk to manage your customer from one central location. 
5. Data entry and constant log-ins are sucking time - Having reps constantly moving between multiple systems to enter or find the data they need takes up time that could be better spent on lead follow-ups or creating quotes. Being able to quickly access data into one system gives a single view of your customer, which ultimately will save you time and effort when it comes to closing deals.

There is a better way! 

Endiem can help get your sales process in tip-top shape so that you are efficiently competing in a loaded market.  With our Salesforce solutions, you can get a system in place for solar lead management and pipeline management. With a single source of truth for all of your data, your teams will have access to everything they need to get the job done. 

We are offering solar businesses the opportunity to get a report on your current Salesforce setup, packed with recommendations on how Salesforce can deliver more ROI. It's free, just get in touch via this page.