09:47
Why entry-point installs beat solar-first sales
Upsells are everywhere in solar.
EV chargers bundled with panels. Batteries added at the last minute. “Free” add-ons used to soften a big upfront number.
This video looks at the opposite approach.
Instead of starting with the largest, most expensive system, we talk about using EV chargers and batteries as entry-point installations — a way to get a foot in the door, build trust, and increase customer lifetime value over time.
This isn’t about discounting or pushing people through bundles. It’s about sequencing. Lowering psychological barriers, proving quality early, and making each next step easier to say yes to than the last.
It’s particularly relevant for price-sensitive customers and winter sales cycles, where immediate feedback from solar alone can be delayed.
For context, this video was originally recorded on 8 January 2026, views & strategies may have changed since.
Featuring
Video transcript
Good morning. Today we’re going to be talking about using entry-point installations. You’ll be very familiar with upsells, but I want to discuss the reverse approach: entry-point installs.
Upsells are super common. For example, upselling EV chargers from solar is everywhere—hence the ads that say things like “free car charger if you buy solar panels with us.” But I don’t think enough people are using EV chargers and battery installs as a foot-in-the-door mechanism, rather than purely as an upsell.
With this approach, you start with the cheapest, lowest-margin installation to get in front of the customer and prove why you’re so good—your USP, the quality of your workmanship, and so on. Then you move up to a battery install to create immediate savings. This can be particularly powerful in winter, when customers won’t necessarily see instant feedback from solar generation and may have to wait until spring to see meaningful figures. With a battery, they can take advantage of off-peak pricing almost immediately.
This has a few key effects. First, the financial outlay for solar feels far less daunting. Second, at each step, the benefit of purchasing the next product is greater than it was before. When you sell everything bundled together, it can be difficult for the customer to separate the benefits of each component. They start thinking, “If I have the battery but not solar, what am I saving?” and you end up needing to prepare multiple quotes to cover all combinations. If you start with one product and work upwards—especially for price-sensitive customers—it simplifies decision-making. You can say, “Let’s start with the EV charger. Then I’ll put together a quote for the battery.” That’s the only quote they need to consider, which reduces paralysis by analysis and stops people getting lost modeling endless scenarios.
You may also find that the benefits of solar as a standalone product are maximized when combined with the other systems. Even if the solar system costs the same on its own as it does within a bundle, the impact can be enhanced by the systems already installed. That’s one reason retrofit is almost always an easier sale.
Another major advantage is that you can leverage data from the smart systems you’ve already installed to improve your pitch for the next step. You can say, “I can see your battery usage, and I can see that if you were generating this much energy during the day, you wouldn’t need to buy electricity outside the cheapest window.” Even better—and I’d love to see someone do this—is to create a live dashboard or spreadsheet that shows their savings right now with the current systems versus what their savings would look like if solar were installed too. On a day-to-day basis, they’d be able to see what they’re missing out on: “It’s sunny outside—I could be generating all of that. My battery would be full by the evening. I wouldn’t need to pay overnight.”
There are psychological benefits as well. This approach helps overcome the fear of commitment. Installing an EV charger on a wall is usually quick, and there typically isn’t much that can go wrong. It’s easier for someone to trust you with that than to trust you to put up scaffolding, work on the roof, and potentially interact with things that could cause leaks or long-term damage. Starting with the smallest hurdle builds trust and makes it easier for the customer to say yes to bigger steps later.
There’s also an element of habit formation. If you can get someone to associate themselves with being the kind of person who invests in renewable energy and technology, you’ve almost changed their buying persona. When you later pitch solar, it’s no longer “Do you want to consider investing in renewable energy?” It becomes, “You are someone who invests in renewable energy—this is part of your identity.” It’s much easier to persuade someone to continue a behaviour than it is to convince them to adopt an entirely new persona.
This can help with anchoring too. If you first present a £10,000 “everything included” system and then say, “We can get started with £1,000,” and they still get immediate value, then £1,000 feels like a no-brainer.
You can also use bundling strategically. For example, you might price individual components higher when purchased separately than when purchased together. I wouldn’t recommend doing this in a pushy way—like saying, “If you move forward today, we’ll take £1,500 off,” because that can feel manipulative. But you can present it transparently: “Because we’d otherwise need to come out multiple times, and because we can do everything in one visit, it costs us less—so we can pass that saving on to you.”
Another idea is to gamify the journey between products. You could create “levels,” and because you’re collecting data from smart EV chargers and batteries, you could build a dashboard that shows progress and makes it obvious when the next technology becomes a no-brainer. I’m looking to build something like this using a tool called Airtable. If that idea interests you, definitely get in touch—not for me to sell it to you, but because I’d love your feedback and input on how to make it as powerful as possible.
At the core, this is about shifting from one-time sales—which solar often is—to increasing customer lifetime value (LTV). If you can increase LTV in a market where most companies don’t, you have a huge advantage. Your cost per acquisition can increase because you know you’ll earn it back over time.
You can also support this with service packages—maintenance, cleaning, and similar options. Obviously not priced so high that it erodes the ROI, but structured so customers feel they’re getting ongoing value while you increase LTV.
If you want a copy of this document as we build it out, it already has a lot in it—modules on sales, nurturing, and more, and it’s growing over time. It’s going to have hundreds of items in there. Enter your email via the link in the description, or comment on this post. And if you want implementation support for everything we discuss, follow that same link. It’ll ask you a few questions about your solar business and we’ll see how we can help.
Appreciate your time. Have a good day, and I’ll see you in the next one.
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