Why solar installers get better on camera over time

▶ 0:00Okay, so if you've somehow avoided me blitzing your LinkedIn feed with all of the content from Solar on Steroids Live, we were there Tuesday and Wednesday this week and Joe said something as we were leaving that I thought was super, super interesting. He was impressed by how every single client that we met at the event that we shot some content with was able to literally, as the camera turned on, just rip ads instantly. No thoughts about it. Slick. Very, very few errors. Natural. Confident.

▶ 0:30And obviously, they have great expertise and knowledge as it is, but they're able to convey that very easily. Why is that? And for me, it's the whole idea that practice makes perfect, right? All of these clients we're shooting with every three months, and they're getting continuous reps in. A lot of the clients that you can see here are on their third or fourth shoot with us. And it's incredible how much you develop your ability on camera, both from a confidence perspective, but also genuine, like as a skill.

▶ 1:00You know, I spend a whole lot of time on camera. That's the only reason I can come on here and do a video without hardly any editing and just yap about something and be quite happy with the end result. But it's only because I put hours upon hours upon hours of time into speaking into a microphone, right? And it would be unfair of us to assume that on your first shoot, you're going to come out the gate absolutely kicking. Some clients do, absolutely. But others need a little bit more time warming up.

▶ 1:23And it would also be a little bit arrogant to think that if you've spent no time on camera, you are going to be able to come out and when that lens is right in your face and that you have to look directly down it, that you're going to be perfect. It's just not really realistic. You know, I can pick out a few different examples.

▶ 1:43Infinity Energy Services, they're doing their own YouTube stuff. Dan here is getting reps on camera. Sean from the Solar House, he's shot, did the full shoot the first day and then came and was really natural on camera with Eco for that. James from LCS has done two shoots with us. Dan has done countless presentations, many of which have been recorded.

▶ 2:03And that's why we were able to put a camera in his face and basically go tell us about the Duracell Energy products. And he just absolutely flies for 10 straight minutes with no errors. And it's also because he's incredibly knowledgeable about all the kits. So it's just very natural to him. He's said what he needs to say about 100 times.

▶ 2:18Same here, Chris from MOE, three, four shoots with him. He's spent time on camera and he's even spent some time recording himself on camera as well. Fraser, same again, just spent time on camera and also talking to customers about the kit. So if you've got the expertise and knowledge and you're confident in what you're saying and you've done the reps and time on camera, you really like you're going to smash it basically.

▶ 2:43Same with Leon here. Great example. So he's got his own YouTube channel, 11,000 subscribers. He's doing a video like every week, getting the reps in, spending a whole day filming. It's fantastic and it really does shine through because first time we had ever shot an ad with him at Sodor on Storage Live, he literally just went, I want to talk about SIG Energy SIG in store.

▶ 3:04Bang. I'm going to talk about it for 10 minutes. Straight. No errors. No restarts, no nothing. Just continuous speech. Same with George. We didn't actually get a chance to film with George at the event, but he's on second shoot with us, so he's doing amazing. Ali from Asia and all was filming content like every day. It's all about getting the reps in.

▶ 3:23And while we do, you know, because it is critical that you are decent on camera on that first shoot, otherwise the ads are going to feel that, we do accept that people need coaching through it. They need prompting. And that's why I go to the first shoot for every client. That's why I'm there on the day to not only to kind of feed you some information, but also to just encourage you and tell you when you're doing well.

▶ 3:46Also tell you if something could be improved. A lot of people, for example, start really stiff. They have their hands in their pockets, things like that. But, and they almost use like a TV presenter style voice or they talk too quickly and then they trip over their words. Whereas what works far better is if, as soon as you make that switch from, I'm not talking to a camera, I'm talking to a person.

▶ 4:07I'm just, I'm talking one-on-one. I'm walking someone around the install. If you make that switch, you're going to do much better, but it's also about getting the reps in. And that's why we shoot so regularly because people get better with every single shoot. So that was one of the main insights for us from Soda and Storage Live because we thought, oh, this is going to be tricky.

▶ 4:23Because basically we just decided we're going to pay for a videographer for the whole day on our own books, not charge a client at all. If anyone's there and they fancy it, we can get them content in front of their favorite products. Instead of focusing on getting our own content, we really just thought, well, you know, 10 of our clients there, let's just get loads of clips for them.

▶ 4:43And it's worked really well. And we were surprised by how quickly people were able to just switch and get rolling with the camera. So there you go. Practice makes perfect. Get the reps in. Even if you're recording yourself, just get the reps in.