How to rebuild your solar pitch without the credit

For fifteen years the federal credit did the closing. It gave a rep a number to write at the bottom of the page, it made the payback maths work, and it produced a December rush every year without anybody having to be persuasive. Take it away and a lot of solar pitches turn out to have been a discount with a presentation wrapped around it.

What replaces the rebate?

A comparison, not another number. The rebate was a promise about next April that depended on the customer having the tax appetite to use it. What replaces it is a promise about next month, which is easier to believe and easier to check.

Two lines on a page: what they pay the utility now, and what they would pay instead. Same units, same month, no twenty-year net present value. If the second line is lower, that is the pitch and it needs no decoration.

Why does the escalator matter more than the saving?

Because in month one the difference is often modest, and a modest difference does not move anybody. The argument is not the gap today, it is that one line rises and the other does not.

Utility rates go up most years. A fixed payment does not, or rises on a known schedule you can show them. Drawing those two lines over ten years, using their own bill as the starting point, is a more powerful piece of paper than any rebate figure ever was, and it never depended on the tax code.

What has to change in the appointment?

1. 01

   Ask for twelve months of bills, not one

   A single bill from a mild month understates everything. Twelve months shows the summer peak, which is the part that hurts and the part solar answers best.

2. 02

   Put the comparison first, the system second

   Panel brands, inverter choices and production modelling belong after the homeowner has seen the two numbers. Leading with equipment is leading with the part they cannot judge.

3. 03

   Handle the tax question in two sentences

   It will come up. Answer it, say you are not their accountant, and move back to the bill. How to explain the tax credit change to homeowners has the wording.

4. 04

   Expect to leave without a signature

   Deals that used to close in one sitting now take three touches. That is not a failed appointment, it is the new shape of the sale, and treating it as failure is how reps stop following up.

What replaces the discount as a reason to trust you?

Proof. When there was a thirty per cent incentive on the table, a homeowner had a reason to move even if they were unsure about the company. Remove it and the trust question becomes the whole sale, because they are now committing to a twenty-year relationship on the strength of you.

• Reviews, recent and answered. Volume and recency both count, and a company that replies to its bad ones reads as a company that will answer the phone in year three. See how to get more reviews for solar installers.
• Your own installs, not stock photography. Photographs of roofs in the towns you serve do more than any brochure.
• A named process. What happens after signature, who they will speak to, and when. Uncertainty about the next six weeks kills more deals than price does.
• Speed. Answering first is now worth more, not less, because every competitor's close rate fell at the same time. See speed to lead for solar companies.

What not to do

Do not discount your way back to the old number. It is the obvious move and it is a trap: you fund the entire policy change out of your own margin, on every job, permanently, and you train your market to expect it. The companies handling this well have not cut price. They changed which number leads the page.

And do not leave the old pitch on your website while running the new one in person. A site still advertising a thirty per cent credit sends homeowners into the appointment with the wrong number in their head, and the first thing your rep has to do is disappoint them. See solar website mistakes.