If you're looking to take your solar sales or business to the next level, then you've found the right place. In this podcast, we reveal the tricks of the trade to make it happen in the solar industry whether you're a sales pro, marketer, or entrepreneur.
SOLARCON April 21st - 23rd, 2022GET YOUR TICKETS HERE: https://attendsolarcon.com/tickets/DISCOUNT CODE: solarpreneur25GET FREE SOLCIETY ACCESS!HOW: Send a screenshot of your receipt totaylor@solarpreneurs.com or support@solarpreneurs.comDOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Thanks to our sponsor Pi Syndicate for this episode!
SOLARCON April 21st - 23rd, 2022GET YOUR TICKETS HERE: https://attendsolarcon.com/tickets/DISCOUNT CODE: solarpreneur25GET FREE SOLCIETY ACCESS!HOW: Send a screenshot of your receipt totaylor@solarpreneurs.com or support@solarpreneurs.comDOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Thanks to our sponsor Pi Syndicate for this episode!
SOLARCON April 21st - 23rd, 2022GET YOUR TICKETS HERE: https://attendsolarcon.com/tickets/DISCOUNT CODE: solarpreneur25GET FREE SOLCIETY ACCESS!HOW: Send a screenshot of your receipt totaylor@solarpreneurs.com or support@solarpreneurs.comDOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Thanks to our sponsor Pi Syndicate for this episode!
SOLARCON April 21st - 23rd, 2022GET YOUR TICKETS HERE: https://attendsolarcon.com/tickets/DISCOUNT CODE: solarpreneur25 GET FREE SOLCIETY ACCESS!HOW: Send a screenshot of your receipt to taylor@solarpreneurs.com or support@solarpreneurs.comDOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Thanks to our sponsor Pi Syndicate for this episode!
SOLARCON April 21st - 23rd, 2022GET YOUR TICKETS HERE: https://attendsolarcon.com/tickets/DISCOUNT CODE: solarpreneur25 GET FREE SOLCIETY ACCESS!HOW: Send a screenshot of your receipt to taylor@solarpreneurs.com or support@solarpreneurs.comDOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Thanks to our sponsor Pi Syndicate for this episode!
SOLARCON April 21st - 23rd, 2022GET YOUR TICKETS HERE: https://attendsolarcon.com/tickets/DISCOUNT CODE: solarpreneur25 GET FREE SOLCIETY ACCESS!HOW: Send a screenshot of your receipt to taylor@solarpreneurs.com or support@solarpreneurs.comDOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Thanks to our sponsor Pi Syndicate for this episode!
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode!
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode! SUN SEEKER APPSUN SEEKERSunPath
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode!
INSTAGRAM: @ruben.can @taylorjarmstrongDOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode!
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode! -----------------
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! BUY YOUR D2DCon Ticket Here Use the code ArmstrongD2D to get a Solarpreneur Exclusive DISCOUNT!Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode! -----------------
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! BUY YOUR D2DCon Ticket Here Use the code ArmstrongD2D to get a Solarpreneur Exclusive DISCOUNT!Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode! -----------------
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! BUY YOUR D2DCon Ticket Here Use the code ArmstrongD2D to get a Solarpreneur Exclusive DISCOUNT!Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode! -----------------
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! BUY YOUR D2DCon Ticket Here Use the code ArmstrongD2D to get a Solarpreneur Exclusive DISCOUNT!Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode! -----------------
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! BUY YOUR D2DCon Ticket Here Use the code ArmstrongD2D to get a Solarpreneur Exclusive DISCOUNT!Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode! -----------------
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! BUY YOUR D2DCon Ticket Here Use the code ArmstrongD2D to get a Solarpreneur Exclusive DISCOUNT!Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode! ----------------- Speaker 1 (00:02):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:41):What's going on. Solars Taylor Armstrong here, your host, back with another episode, we're coming up on Christmas at the time of this recording. So if you're listening to this, when it's first coming out, Merry Christmas to you, hopefully you have a great day of no, so and So okay. You can take a break on Christmas, but if you're listening to this after the fact happy new year or happy summer, whenever you're listening to this hope you are having a prosperous year and are dominating. So today we're gonna keep it a little bit interesting and forgot to do my usual. We're here to help you generate more leads, referrals, and have a better time in the industry. So, sorry, I forgot about that, but we're gonna jump right into it. And first, before getting the content just need to say we are not going to have an episode on Friday if you're listening to this when it comes out because Friday's Christmas Eve.Speaker 2 (01:45):Okay. And I'm about you. But I typically don't listen to a ton of podcasts on Christmas Eve. So we're gonna take it a, we're going to take a day off and bring it to you the following Tuesday. So next Tuesday, we are releasing the interview with the one and only Michelle Lowry. She calls herself the queen of door to door. I think I'm getting that right, but fantastic episode we had with her. We're gonna be previewing that a little bit today, getting you excited for it. So for now we're keeping it here. Hope you have a great holidays. So the topic of 10 day is just really alternative Legion. And it got me thinking, I am going to Utah for the holidays. I'm leaving on the 23rd of December. I'm gonna be there for about a week, week and a half, and knock gonna be, you know, knocking on doors during that time.Speaker 2 (02:42):So how can you still be, be generating leads? And the reason I started thinking about this is because I heard from Michelle, Rishi is in the power organization, which if you haven't heard of power you love him. You hate him. There's a lot of people that hate power. Okay. It's basically kind of a network marketing in solar. They get their recruits kind of have it be a downline, like the network marketing organizations. So a lot of pros to it. Some people hate that model. A, but I know though there's guys crushing it, having a ton of success too. And what's really interesting about what they do is not a ton of 'em door knock. And there's something to say. Some of 'em maybe don't see as much success as they could. If they were door knocking for the listeners of the podcast. First premier peeps.Speaker 2 (03:37):You probably heard me talk more than anything about door knocking, just because I think that's the single best way to go out there and get leads. You can start as a beginner day one, go out and set a same day appointment knocking on a door, make a $10,000 commission depending on the market, depending on the system size, right? So door knocking is always gonna be bread and butter in my opinion here, but I think it's important to at least realize that there are other ways of Legion out there. We've had a lot of episodes on, you know, alternative forms of Legion. So you can go back and listen to those that go more in depth, pros and cons of both of them. But I'm just gonna reiterate a few, few things that I think are really important. And then just give you a sampling of some ideas and we're gonna go more in depth as well.Speaker 2 (04:28):On Michelle Lowry's episode, she calls herself to clean a door to door. So she is in the power organization, still knocking a ton of doors. That's her bread and butter too, but she recognizes that there's a lot of other ways to get leads. And if you're not doing these things, I think you could be selling yourself short. So it's important to realize 'em, it's important to start opening yourself to the idea of generating other leads, but a word of caution to those that embark on the other forms of Legion. Make sure it doesn't take the place of you going out and grinding of hitting doors of putting in work and effort. Cuz I've seen it way too many times in this industry. Can I say, oh, I don't wanna knock doors. How else can I get leads? I don't wanna knock. I'm just gonna focus on referrals.Speaker 2 (05:15):I'm gonna focus on online marketing. I'm gonna focus on going to BNIs bus, business network, and guess what they see, you know, that's more of like a long term game, right? Cause they're getting slow leads coming in that way, where if they focused, you know, most of their effort on hitting the doors and then also did those things on the side, they would see way more success because their way, and they're playing the long game and they're not willing to go out there. So just whatever you do do not let these things replace your bread and butter, which I think should be door knocking, whatever you're doing to get most of your leads, don't abandon ship and just dump all your eggs and other baskets. Yeah. I think you should have a primary form of Legion, which for me is door knocking and then the rest should be supplemental.Speaker 2 (06:08):Right. Okay. So here's what we're gonna talk about today. Two things. Okay. And the first just even a little bit about Michelle Lowry's episode next week, we go more in depth on this, but she talks about how does she does lunch and learns for real estate agents. And then also they've got some roofers that we, they work with. They get tons of leads out in Dallas, Texas, where she's working just from working with these roofers and doing lunch and learns with real estate agents. Okay. And I will admit I have not done this myself. Okay. So it's something that I'm gonna try, but maybe you call up a real estate organization offer to put on a lunch and learn, Hey Michelle, she's gonna tell you how she goes about doing this in the next episode. So, you know, don't take my word for it.Speaker 2 (07:01):I've never actually done it yet. but I thought that was a unique way. And then also working with roofing organizations, particularly roofers that don't do solar already. Guess what? These people have a huge source of solar leads because they're on the roofs of your potential customers. Right? So I thought that was genius. If you can use, utilize their network, utilize their customer base and work out some sort agreement, some sort of partnership that could be a lead source that just blows up for you. Okay. So again, listen to the next episode. She's gonna talk much more on that. Okay. But two things just to kind of preview that. Okay. But the number one source of leads that I forget about sometimes being in this industry for almost six years now, and I see experienced people forget about this too, because this is primarily something that you do when, and you're first starting out.Speaker 2 (08:00):But I think it's important also, no matter how long you've been doing solar, you need to remember this one thing and that is utilizing your power base. Okay. Hopefully, you know what a power base is, but that is the people that are closest to you, your inner circle of contacts. So that's your friends, that's your family, that's your people. You go to church with, that's your guys on your basketball team that you go play, you know, your rec league, whatever, that's your gym buddies. That's your in my case, jujitsu people that I do jujitsu with, it's utilizing all those people because not only can they be a great source of solar leads, a lot of these people are homeowners. But the other thing that I'm realizing they can be great recruits, especially if you're playing on, let's say a rec league, or if you're going to, you know, fighting jujitsu like myself, I'm already seeing that there's potential recruits from these matter of fact, I've got one coming in here soon.Speaker 2 (09:01):Just need to find, find a time to meet with them. So don't underestimate the power pun intended of your power base. And if you have, if you're starting out, if you have not done this, this is the number for one thing that I coach our new reps to do. Go take out your pen and paper, take out your contacts on your phone, write down all the people who own homes, write down all your buddies that parents owns own homes that could potentially go solar, get it out on a piece of paper. And then, and that is how you start working your power base. Your first sell should be your family members. Okay. And if you have not sold your family, you need to check yourself. Do you actually believe in your product? Okay. I actually had an experience last week with a buddy of mine in solar.Speaker 2 (09:53):And he's listening this, sorry to call you out, but you gotta sell to your friends and family. I was hanging out with one of my buddies and he is also in solar and we were at one of his, it was his brother-in-law's house and they don't have solar. So I get talking to him, I'm like, Hey, you guys got solar yet. And, and he goes, oh, we no, we don't. We've been here about a year and a half and I was actually gonna check it out. But then my brother-in-law who is my friend that sells solar told us to just get on a discount program for electricity first and just, just do that. And if it still gets bad, then we can maybe look into solar. So at that point he's telling me that he suggested him to not get solar to first, get on, look at some discount programs and then maybe do it.Speaker 2 (10:49):And we're talking about we're in Southern California where the discount programs are still usually like, I don't know, 25, I have 30% cheaper than you could get solar for. And that's still selling high. So at this point, I'm like, dude, are you kidding? Obviously I'm not gonna, you know, call him out in the family, gathering with everyone. But in my head, I was like, are you kidding me, man? Like you got your brother-in-law and he does not have solar in one of the most expensive states for electricity. You gotta be kidding me. So I was, I was surprised, but just goes to show. If you have family members do not be embarrassed to sell them your product. Okay? If you are embarrassed or if you are not pushing your family, friends, coworkers, whatever, if you're not pushing everyone, you know, to get on solar, to get on your product, are you really sold in your offering?Speaker 2 (11:49):Probably not. Hey, probably not. If you're not pushing them. So check yourself. If you have not made your power list, if you have not sold all your family and friends and potential people that you know that could have your product go and do this today, and most powerful sales you can get. And I see new guys come in all the time. This is where I was at a dis vantage, cuz I grew up in Utah. We recruit people out here in California. Some of these new recruits come in, they're coming in with 10 sales under their belt in their first month. How do they do it? They sold their family and friends. So I was jealous of all those people. They got super easy, quick sales because they knew they knew people out here. And I didn't so huge advantage if you know people in your market, but also think outside your market at my first sell or one of my first sales were my parents in Utah.Speaker 2 (12:50):Hey, so just cuz you don't have family in your market. Well guess what? There's companies outside of your market that are doing solar. So even if you don't work with installers in those particular states hit me up. I can connect you with people that work in basically, you know, every state and not every state, but I would say at least probably have the states. I can figure out a way to help you get glass on the roof of your family and friends. Okay? Hit me up if you don't know how, Hey, it's a little bit of a rant, but I just got thinking, especially as you are going to your holiday parties here, coming up on Christmas, you're gonna be hanging out with family. You don't have to sell solar, but make sure people know what you do. Does your family even know that you sell solar?Speaker 2 (13:39):Have you told 'em about your product? Do they know that you don't have to pay thousands of dollars outta your pocket to have panels put on the roof? They might not even know that. So your job when you're going to your holiday parties, when you're going through these family gatherings, at least make sure people know, right? At least explain to 'em give 'em some education at the very least. And you don't have to be like annoying about it. Hey, we're not doing MLM network marketing where you have to be that annoying guy that like sends all your friends and family messages on Facebook. Right? Where it's obvious you're gonna pitch. 'em Something thing. But you can be casual about it. Say, Hey, how's work going. What do you do? Yeah. Oh, I'm doing solar. It's cool. If you guys ever like looked into it for your house, it doesn't have to be an awkward conversation.Speaker 2 (14:29):Okay. And you're not gonna push 'em obviously if they, you know, express no interest then whatever, but they should at least know you're doing and you should be the first one. They hit up. If they are gonna go solar, right? The worst feeling in the world will be seeing aunt Susie have panels added on her roof by some random company out in North Dakota, because you didn't tell her that you were doing solar. Right. So make sure they know that. Make sure you don't let those ones slip through the cracks. And then the last little story I have with this is, you know, go to church or something too. Okay. I've gotten I think you or three sales this year just from people from my church. Okay. So give good reason to go to church. So all you sinners out there, get yourself to church.Speaker 2 (15:20):Guess what? In addition to hopefully being a better person, maybe you'll get some extra sales this year by going to church. Okay. So use that. And another point with that, I mean make sure people at your church know what you're doing. Hey, you can bring it up casually. We'll be sitting in Sunday school and I'll bring up a comment about door to door sales cuz that's all I do. It's my life. I sell solar. So any like principle, even if I'm talking about the gospel, the scriptures, whatever, lot of times it's gonna come from, like the story of, you know, me out there selling solar. So you're not, you know, that's not the purpose of church. Okay. So I mean, I guess don't get greedy with it. Okay. But people can know what your church that you're doing solar and even in competitions, I think I've told this story before company has sales competitions or whatever, use that as an excuse, go hit up the people at your church or maybe the people that you don't know as well, but are more acquaintance types.Speaker 2 (16:25):Hit them up. That's a good reason. Hey, I'm in a competition. I know we haven't talked much at church, but we're just doing this competition in our company to see how many people we can get information about solar. Have you guys ever looked into it dropped by their house? One of a huge, well, a huge sales organization that actually one of my buddies used to sell for living scriptures. Maybe heard of 'em. These are like church video videos about Jesus like cartoons, right? And these videos are marketed to members of the LDS church, right? Church of Jesus Christ. And what are they doing? They're just working their power base, essentially. Cuz if you come by, if you're a member of that church, you say, Hey, we're doing living scripture videos. You heard of 'em you're already a member. Well, if you're selling those things, you're probably a member of that church already.Speaker 2 (17:22):You have a connection and then really it's a warmer lead. So in a way they're just working the power base. So remember, always build those connections. Especially during the holidays, you, your friends and family, your neighbors know that's another thing I can't believe I'll go into neighborhoods all the time where I will sell not all the time, but there's been a handful of times where I have sold people, solar, where they've literally told me that their neighbor worked for a solar company or sold solar, whatever. So it blows my mind. If you are in a neighborhood and you have not told your neighbors about what you're doing, make sure you do that too. That would be another terrible feeling to see your next door, go solar with another company, knowing you could have helped them out. So do not let those people slip through the cracks. Okay? My rent is over. Have a good Christmas party, have a good time in the holidays and we will see you again. Next Tuesday. Don't miss out with Michelle Lowry's episode, super powerful, an alternative Legion on how she manages her time with a family being a mom and just being a super powerful female door, knock knocker in the solar industry. So check it out. Happy holidays. And we'll see you on the next one.Speaker 3 (18:48):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! BUY YOUR D2DCon Ticket Here Use the code ArmstrongD2D to get a Solarpreneur Exclusive DISCOUNT!Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode! ----------------- Speaker 1 (00:02):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:41):What's going on Solarpreneurs, Taylor Armstrong here with another episode. And as usual, we are bringing the heat, helping you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better experience in the solar industry. Hope you're doing well. We're coming up in the Christmas season in here at the time of this recording, and we got a special episode. Something that I haven't done before, at least not in this kind of format. So excited to run through some gifts for solars. pretty cool episode. I don't know about you, but I love hearing about different, cool, like findings, cool gifts, especially one that pertain to like sales and that can help me just have a better experience in my sales game. And so I'm gonna go through a list of gifts that you can get from maybe your people on your team yourself.Speaker 2 (01:40):You can send it to your significant other, have he, or she pick up these things for you, whatever you wanna do with it. These are all gonna make awesome gift ideas or incentive ideas for your team rather. So let me know if you like these type of episodes. Again, I haven't really done one like this before, so before we jump, it wanted to give a quick shout out and thank you to a couple new reviews. Guys. If you haven't left me a review or shared the podcast, please, please, please. Especially if you listen to multiple episodes, come on, leave a review, go share it with someone. We, we do a lot, put a lot of effort, end up bringing rush content every week. That is the one ask that I have go drop us our review or share the podcast, tag me on Instagram and much appreciation tos that shot me their Spotify year in review.Speaker 2 (02:39):I'm honored to see that I am at the top of few of a few people's lists on the spot wrapped. You don't know what that is. That's Spotify basically summarizing your most listened to content throughout the year. So I'm honored to see Solarpreneur podcasts at the top of a few of those lists. I onto a few reviews. We have a CF Henry 72. He says, great resource. So I'm older, but new to the solar field work for a company who presets appointments, but I'm very interested in doing my own appointment setting. I've jumped to a 50% close since I started listing in the podcast. Super stoked about society as well. Thanks Taylor, and to all your guests. It's nice to hear you guys talk about the things I spend so much time thinking about. See a penny, appreciate it. Keep crushing up. My man.Speaker 2 (03:31):And then we got a sports master 92. I love sports as well. He says I listened to I for the first time last week, my team was in a slump and I made all my reps start listening and we have had a big turnaround that quickly have and will keep recommending appreciate that. So again, leave this review and much love, much appreciation to those that have already done that. That being said, let's jump in into this. Hey, and I'm gonna go through these gift ideas. These incentive ideas order I am kind of doing in them here is generally kind of more expensive to less expensive, higher value to lower value. Okay. So if you were looking to drop some bigger money, don't wanna listen to the beginning ones. If you're looking for the lower ticket items, then maybe skip to the end.Speaker 2 (04:27):And before we jump into these, I will say that all these are gonna be in the show notes. So if you're at the gym, if you're driving your area, whatever, don't worry about writing these down because you're gonna be able to just click the show notes, see links for all of these. It's gonna make it super easy to go check 'em out and go buy 'em for yourself or for your teams. And another, I guess, disclaimer, before we jump into these, they're not all necessarily sales related, but if you haven't noticed in the podcasts or if you Haven been in sales for a while now, there are a lot of aspects of your life that directly relate to how well you're gonna do in sales. If you're not taking care of your body, guess what? It's gonna affect your sales game. If you're not eating right, it's gonna affect your sales game.Speaker 2 (05:17):If you're not sleeping, right, your sales are not gonna be as, as they could otherwise. So keep that in mind as we go through these gifts, a lot of these things have to do with that, have to do with treating your body and just different aspects of your life. So let's jump into it. And the first one is actually sales related. Okay. And the first one I think is probably the most important gift you could give, and that is the gift of sales training. Okay. So number one, go get some sales training in the form of a society membership. Okay? Most, most economical sales training out there super affordable right now we're at 99 bucks a month. You can go and give yourself the gift of education, learn from top floor professionals and get, in my opinion, the best feature we have in the industry.Speaker 2 (06:11):And that is direct feed feedback from other sales coaches, recording self in your presentations and getting feedback sent straight to your phone. Okay. So that's number one, get yourself a society membership. And the other piece of this is just other sales training. So we have the door to door con coming up door, door conference, that's coming up next month. The time that recording in January, and as I've mentioned in the previous few episodes, we have a discount code. It's Armstrong D two D. That is another great incentive idea. Great gift idea. Give yourself the gift of networking and education from the best solar salespeople best or, or sales on the planet. Okay. So that's number one, get yourself some education. Number two, we got a S segue mini, or you can also get a S segue, scooter. Another thing I've mentioned a few times, you follow me on social media or been listening to the podcast for a while.Speaker 2 (07:15):I think having a segue is essential. And for me, it's not, not even so much just the efficiency part. Hey, you're zooming door to door. It's saving me you time. But the other piece of this, for me, it gets me in a much better mindset. If someone throws me off their doorstep, if someone slams a door on me, I know in my head, I'm gonna be happy zoom into the next door of my sway. So that's the dual purpose of it. Get your SEG. I think bees round about 500 bucks for the segway minis. The scooters are more expensive. I think they're 700 to a thousand and I do prefer the S segueway versus the scooter S segueway mini. The reason is, is because I'm holding my, my slicks, my folders, my qualification cards. I'm holding all that in my arms as I go to the next door.Speaker 2 (08:08):If I'm on a scooter, little difficult to be holding stuff in your hands and writing a scooter, maybe I'm just UN uncoordinated, but in my opinion, a little bit easier to have a SEG versus a scooter. So that's number two. Hey, number three, we got an R ring. I think I'm saying that right. Or a whoop band and keep in mind. I do not have, I don't own all these products. I would say probably about half of these on the list. Maybe a little more than half I own and use pretty frequently, but the others I've seen 'em going around. I've had, 'em recommended to me. They seem awesome to me and I'm gonna get 'em soon. So that's why I have 'em on this list. And I think they would make great, you know, gifts and incentives for your team. So number three an R ring, if you have not heard of that, it's a ring that you can wear these round.Speaker 2 (09:04):I think about 300 bucks you wear 'em and they tell you your heart rate. They tell you how much sleep you're getting. They tell you supposedly when you're sick and all these stats on your daily life, they give you, you know, your exercise stats, stuff like that. Pretty much breaks everything down tells you exactly how your body's functioning. And the other thing is a whoop band. It does essentially the same thing, but it's just a band. Now it's a little bracelet you wear. So I list them both. And the difference between 'em and ordering, I think is 300 bucks. And then you pay about six bucks a month to stay connected with a membership. The what band you pay, just the membership, but it is last. I checked about 30 bucks a month versus like the six bucks that you'd pay for the ING.Speaker 2 (09:58):So a little bit give and take, and then just a preference, I guess. Do you like wearing bands or do you like wearing rings? It looks like they both do pretty much the same thing. I don't have either of these. So maybe one is better have to hear from our audience. Hit me up if you have one or if you try both of 'em and you like one better than the other, I think this is super cool. Especially if you are knocking doors or if you're train to be healthier, it's gonna help you major little stats and just a cool product. Cool thing to stay healthy. And especially with the sleep noticing how much sleepy get. Okay. So number four, we got a Peloton bike. Things are dope. I want one soon. I do not have one yet, but I have been on them a few times.Speaker 2 (10:43):So if you haven't seen these, you're probably leaving, living under a rock, but a Peloton bike is just the you know, bikes that give you the exercise classes and a higher ticket thing. I think these started around a thousand bucks. I've for, they're getting a little more affordable, but I've seen these going around in sales competitions has incentives has prizes for like sales tournaments. So I think this would be an awesome thing. Get your sales squad in shape and get your guys exercising or girls exercising for it. The winter at number, this is I think the highest ticket thing on here. Another exercise type item we got here, and that is a tonal it's if you watch sports, you've probably seen these in commercials, LeBron James, and the commercials, but it's basically one of those mirror type video things that goes on your wall.Speaker 2 (11:36):And then it has these arms come out. That's pretty much like a cable system. And then I guess it adds like resistance. You have all these trainings classes on there and you can do pretty much any, you know, gym movement. You could think of with these adjustable, like lever, arms, and then a bench that comes with it. That looks pretty awesome. And yeah, cool item to have. And yeah, this one, like I said is pretty high ticket. These are like three grand. So maybe this is like your top price, top incentive, whatever. Maybe it's your winner incentive for the, the quarter, but I think it's pretty cool item, pretty unique thing. That's gonna help your guys stay in shape. OK. Number six. Sorry to have so many health type items on here, but as you can see, I think health is super important to your success and exercising super important to your success in door to door sales.Speaker 2 (12:35):Or even if you're not doing door to door, anything in solar, it's gonna help you perform better because it's gonna get you mentally in a right space. Okay. So number six is a VI a mix blender. And I think these are essential because you need to be drinking in your grain smoothies. I love my greens smoothies. I'm off and on on 'em, but if you haven't tried a green smoothie, you put all your spinach in there, you blend it up with some fruit and some protein powder and you pour it down. The hatch, vitamin AIX, these things I think are about 300 bucks and the best blender, in my opinion, on the market, another sweet item you can use in your incentives and competitions and number seven, going along with a blend is an ice maker. Okay. And the reason I think this is cool is because when I think of sales teams, especially door to door, a lot of us start out in, you know, apartments, junky apartments.Speaker 2 (13:35):Maybe you got a bunch of like younger guys, like, like I'm on my team right now. We got a bunch of younger guys on our squad. In these apartments, there is never ice. And the story behind this, I actually lived an apartment. You know, my current apartment I'm living in, actually we not have an ice maker. And my dad, he comes out here, gives us a visit. My dad he's super into biking. He does like hundred mile road road, RA races, 200 miles. So he comes out and he notices we don't have ice. We're just drinking straight from the top. And he's like, how do you guys survive? I would die if I didn't have ice. There's no way you can guys are just drinking, water, drinking the top. I'm like, yeah, dad, that's what I've been doing for two, three years now.Speaker 2 (14:26):And I'm just used to it next day. He shows up at our house. He goes on old errands. He brings it back and ice maker says, I can't allow you guys to live. Like he, you man need your ice. okay. So I love having ice now. I can't go back to no ice. So we have a little ice, little portable ice maker, and I've seen some cool ones that are the Pella ice makers. These things are only like a hundred, a hundred to 150 bucks, pretty good value. And I think it's definitely worth getting your sales teams, especially if they're hanging out on apartments, whatever, get 'em a ice maker gonna make 'em happy. And number eight is an e-bike. And for those that let like biking or those that are, you know, biking fans, but maybe not the fastest on a bike, or maybe you need to keep up.Speaker 2 (15:19):I think e-bikes are sweet. It's kind of the new craze. A lot of people are biking around on these things. And what's cool is maybe you went out too far for a ride and you're too tired to get back. We'll just hit on the that's engine or I guess, whatever you call it, battery, turn on the battery and you're flying back home in no time at all. So I'm gonna link to this, but there's a pretty sweet one that's available. I think it's like four, you have four or 500 bucks. So pretty affordable too. Okay. Number nine is one that I think would be super cool for improving your sleep. I do not have this, but I think it would be sweet. It's called a chili pad. What it does. It's basically a pad you put underneath your sheets and it has water, I guess, kind of like a water bed running through and it set the bed to a specific temperature.Speaker 2 (16:15):So maybe you're always hot. Maybe you're selling out in Texas or Arizona and you're always just burning up every night. You can set this pad to be like 60 degrees, cool. You down, or maybe you're freezing, or maybe you're married like myself. Maybe both have different temperatures. You can set the both sides of the bed to be at different temperatures. You can sit. I don't know your wife, boyfriend, girlfriend. You can set theirs to be a hundred degrees and yours to be 50. So pretty cool. Another thing I thought would be super useful to help your guys improve on their sleep. Number 10. Okay. We got five more. We're going, Hey, and this, we could probably go all day, but we got five more and then we're gonna wrap it up. So number 10 is a massage gun. Okay. A lot of my friends have a, the gun, but you can get some pretty sweet massage guns on Amazon for like a hundred bucks.Speaker 2 (17:14):And to me it looks like they're all doing the same. I've used both of 'em. I've used that Aragon that are like 400 bucks. And then I've used a hundred dollars ones. They seem pretty much the same. okay. So I'm gonna wait to one that I think is 120 bucks and it seems dope. So whatever you wanna do, Aragon, we can get cheaper options. And if you are grinding, let's say you're out on a blitz. You're knocking 10 hours, whatever that day, nothing better than getting home and just taking a massage gun straight to the glutes, loosen up those muscles after a hard day of knocking doors or a day where you just ran. I don't know, six appointments. Okay. So that's number 10. Number 11 is something that I think is becoming more and more important. Let's be honest. Most of us are on our phones or iPads or computers.Speaker 2 (18:09):Oh, many hours during the day. If you're like me, you get to the end of the week and you get the notification popping up on your iPhone. This says, congrats. You averaged seven hours on your phone every day. Okay. and it's not like, you know, we're wasting time, but if you're using mocking apps, if you are using sales we're portals, if you are sending texts out to customers on the phone, if you were using your phone to get to your area, you're putting in directions, then you're racking up tons of hours, tons of time on the phone. So what's better to have than blue light blockers. Okay. That's those glasses that you put on. It's gonna block out the blue light and especially talking about the topic of sleep. You need to be blocking out the you know, this light as you're getting ready to hit the sack.Speaker 2 (18:59):Hey I still struggle with it, but if you don't have the routine of just shutting down your devices you know, an hour before you go to sleep, the next best thing is on these blue light blockers. So like 20, 30 bucks, you can get just these glasses gonna block out the blue light for you. OK. Number 12 is something I've been seeing more and more of, especially if you go to a lot of sales conferences like myself that is a remarkable, if you haven't seen these things are basically like an iPad and it's a tablet that you write on, but what's unique about it is it doesn't have, you don't get apps on it. All it is, it's a tablet and you can write on it, that's it. And then it categorizes your notes into different folders. You can access 'em I super, you know, kind of lightweight, portable, durable, so cool thing to have.Speaker 2 (19:56):If you're going to a lot of trainings you don't have to be toting own 20 notebooks, losing them. Then you can easily set up folders. So as I've been going to the knock star events, the door door cons, all that I've been seeing more and more people get these I do not have one myself yet, but I think it is a great, I would love one. So shoot me one. If you're listening, I'll probably get one soon, but I think it would be a great incentive idea or great thing to get as a gift for you. Soul pretty friends, head number 13. You've heard me talk about this before. It, it is a boom, boom stick. Okay. If you have read the weight of the Wolf by Jordan Belfort, you know what I'm talking about here it is these basically essential oil sticks that you can just, you know, shoot up, snort up there as you are getting ready for your appointments.Speaker 2 (20:50):And the idea is that you trigger your senses and it's kind of a form of NLP neural linguistic programming. You're trying to trigger your senses and have that sense of smell attached to the really, just the sense of sick, excess, the sense of you closing the deal. So these things I think are awesome, gets me in the right mood to get out there and sell. You can get 'em in fruity flavors and nothing better than getting you fired up, go out there and sell. So these things are super affordable. You can get a pack of, I don't know, five for, I think 30 bucks, 20, 30 bucks, super affordable. Get one of these today. Okay. And our last two last but not least number 14, we have Nike gift cards or, you know, Adidas, whatever you're into. I was all about the Nikes, but I'll be honest.Speaker 2 (21:44):These Adidas I'm right now I'm rocking the Adidas ultra boost. I think that's what they're called. Yeah. Ultra boost. And I'm a big fan. Have a ton of cushion. Super comfy. Okay. Love Nike. But man, these Adidas ultra boost, they're no joke. So these are always, you know, if you've been in sales, you know, any shoes are just great incentives. Cause we're out on our feet, we're out to appointments. We're out knocking doors. You gotta have some nice kicks. Get that feet that foot support. Okay. And then the last one we got here is a lanyard. Hey, I've been talking with people over and over like, Hey, what do you do? It gets dark so early. Now out here in San Diego where I'm at it is dark by five o'clock right now. And so what do you do? How do you still get people's attention?Speaker 2 (22:36):Still get their trust as you're out there knocking. So I was recently asking a few of my mentors, Danny Pessie Taylor McCarthy. I'm like, guys, do you got any ideas? Anything else you do? So heard this from a people, but that is get a light up lanyard. A and Danny pissy actually told me this. He said, man, just look like a Christmas tree going to their house. They're gonna think you're some WCO nut job walking in the door tonight, join to sing Christmas carols. They're not gonna think you are sewing. 'em Something. So what a better way to grab the attention. They get a lanyard that looks like you're. I don't know, out Christmas, Carolyn. So that is number 15. Again, super affordable. Go and get your sales teams some light up lanyards, throw some name tags in there. It's gonna grab some attention.Speaker 2 (23:24):It's gonna generate credibility because you have your need tag in there and you're gonna feel great knocking in the dark, cuz you're gonna see yourself glowing in the dark as you'll look at your lanyard. So that's my 15 gift ideas for solar, premier or incentives. Let me know if you think of any other ones. Let me know if you appreciated this episode. If you like the gift ideas. I love hearing about gift ideas. I love Christmas and I hope you do too. So don't, don't be knocking doors on Christmas guys. Take Christmas off please. I know you're working hard. I know you're trying to hit your 120 deals for the year, but come on, take Christmas off. So let, let me know what you think of this guys. Share it with someone that needs some Christmas cheer in their life. Maybe send them one of these gifts and we will catch you on the next, on the next episode. Thanks again for listening.Speaker 3 (24:20):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. 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DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! BUY YOUR D2DCon Ticket Here Use the code ArmstrongD2D to get a Solarpreneur Exclusive DISCOUNT!Thanks to our friends at Pi Syndicate for sponsoring this episode! -----------------Speaker 1 (00:02):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's going on. So premiers today, we have a very special episode coming. We are here alive with my friend, a high performance coach, Mike and I just double checked his last name before we started the call. It's Mike Szczesniak. Mike, thanks for hopping on the podcast here with us today.Speaker 3 (00:59):Taylor, thanks for having me brother looking forward to this. Yeah.Speaker 2 (01:02):And then yeah, it's been a, a little bit common here. Mike, I know you've been helping out a ton of reps and managers, all types of people in the solar industry, and it's been pretty crazy just hearing your results. You know, we have a mutual friend, Mikey Lucas, I know you've helped him out a ton. He was on the podcast and was just raving about you, how you've been able to just help reps turn it around and achieve, you know, and seen results. And what's even more cool about it is we were just talking before this you've have you even knocked a door yourself, Mike, have you even done door to door yourself?Speaker 3 (01:35):Not to sell anything? Which is like, I, I gotta be really careful. I like M and M eight mile this thing, like, I, I don't claim to be a door to door sales guy. I just claim to know how to help. 'em Make a lot more money than they're currently making . Right. So but yeah, Mikey's the reason that we got into this space, which I'm sure we'll dive into, but yeah. Yeah, I've been in sales my whole life, right. Starting in eighth grade. My first job was selling retail. I built like started my first comp for anyone watching the video, like these duct tape wallets in fifth grade. So like I've been selling my whole life. But yeah, not door to door. So like can't even compare I sell on zoom and on the phone. So my job's way easier than y'all, but our systems sell really expensive problems for our clients. SoSpeaker 2 (02:24):Yeah. Well, that's awesome. I think it just goes to show for me, like you don't have to be like you don't have to be a master door to door guide and be able to coach people. And I know we'll get into that more, but I think a lot of what you do is help guys turn their mindsets around and just really achieve the right kind of mindset they need out on the doors, out closing deals. And that just was the show. I think that's probably, you know, 80% of the game is just getting your mind right. And getting all the thing that's happening above right as you go out there. But no. So we'll dive into all that and excited to kind of hear about your background, Mike, he has a podcast he's been coaching. How long have you had your coaching business going on now? Mike?Speaker 3 (03:04):Geez. Four or five years. And working with door to door specifically. I mean we niche fully into door to door during COVID. So I guess that's like year and a half come on two, two years or so that we've been working with door door though.Speaker 2 (03:23):Okay. Right on. So yeah. Incredible results. You've achieved for people. And I mean, with a last name like that, how could you not be a coach? I keep thinking you know, Duke's coach Micah. Yeah. Chef, coach Kate. I say, yeah. I keep looking at man. Yeah. so you guys must be something in the, in the water there with coaching, but , that's awesome.Speaker 3 (03:45):A hundred percent.Speaker 2 (03:47):Yeah. But so Mike let's get into yeah. I want to hear kind of how you transitioned specifically in the door-to-door space, why you got into coaching. I know you have a cool story with your anxieties and all that. So can you give us some of your background and how you got into whole, all coaching side of things that you're doing? Yeah,Speaker 3 (04:02):Totally. So like I mentioned, like been in sales, my whole life spent about a decade in the retail space from eighth grade through the beginning of my software career, cuz the beginning of my software career was unpaid training. I spent seven years in corporate as a software engineer. Well once I graduated college, I went straight down to wall street and wrote code for a living for seven years. And I used all of that money to pump into myself, my businesses, mentors, masterminds, coaches, whatever I could do, right. Like I wanted to grow. And a large reason that was just the people I had surrounded myself with. Like, you know, I started three companies while I was in corporate. The first was in the network marketing space. Second was in e-com and drop shipping and third was finally coaching and consulting.Speaker 3 (04:48):So I learned a ton in the first two, surrounded myself with badass humans that really preached personal development. They preached investing in yourself and I learned pretty quickly that I needed to deploy the money that I was in software engineering. Cuz you make pretty good money over there from a salaried perspective. It's pretty much like as close to Fu money as you'll get outside of commission sales or business owners or yeah. You know, whatever. So I, I knew that I had to deploy that. And like you mentioned, during that process, I was really quickly figuring out what anxiety and debilitating panic attacks were and wouldn't wish that on my like most mortal enemy. But this is at a time where like in corporate, on the outside, everything looked great, right? Like every year was big pay, raise, big promotion, like very linear climb in corporate America.Speaker 3 (05:41):And I was like the youngest, senior engineer on my team. I had the six figure salary. I had the luxury apartment on the up grease side of Manhattan with the fountains outside the doormen, the fountains inside. Like by the way only did that. Cause my roommate had connections. Right. But like all this stuff that we're supposed to want, right. Like the vanity stuff. Right. And behind closed doors, it was like nothing even close. Like it was completely in shambles. Hmm. Because I was experiencing that and I bring that up because after a year and a half of this journey, right. Like my first panic attack was wow. Right. Which kind of tells you about the mental side of this whole thing. Right. The new year. Granted of course you're a little hung over that day. I was like a single me three year old dude living in Manhattan.Speaker 3 (06:28):Right. Yeah. But you know, from that moment it was a year and a half journey of, you know, going to the doc, getting my chest, x-ray doing breathing tests. Like I legitimately thought it was a physiological issue. I had no idea what any of this stuff was like, never heard of anybody going through it and no one in my personal life could relate to it. Right. So like I thought my lungs straight up didn't work. Wow. And I'm grateful that I found out, like I basically self-diagnosed it afterwards. I'm like this, I started hearing like anxiety and like this kind of sounds like what it is. I started doing research and you know, I say I'm grateful because then they, would've probably just tried to push a bunch of pharmaceuticals into me, which I proved I didn't need with disrespect. That's just not a route.Speaker 3 (07:17):I would've more wanted to go for me personally. And mm-hmm after that year and a half journey being the engineering nerd that I am, I had to like reverse engineer. What was going on? Like what was happening in the attacks? Why was I going through what I was going through? And what I found Taylor was 100% of the attacks happened in a where I felt guilty for not working. Right. Cause back then remember I was doing the whole, I was selling 40 to 60 hours of my week to the corporation that I was working at. And then I would do the whole five to 7:00 AM, seven to 11:00 PM side hustle. Right. Like I very much fell into the toxic hustle mindset and like that, that call and it worked for me until it didn't and I was starting to figure out how and when and why it didn't mm-hmm right.Speaker 3 (08:10):So what that made me realize like, okay, cool. Well, how can I not feel so guilty? And I, I realized if I was able to show up more powerfully when I was working and pair it with a little bit of a healthier mindset, I might not feel so when I wasn't working. Right. And ultimately I realized I had no idea what it meant to be productive. Like no idea. I thought I did, but I was very quickly realizing that like doing things doesn't matter if the things you're doing don't matter. Hmm. So I like to say that that kind of like cracked the door open cuz productivity is just a small subset of the work that we do with our clients. Yeah. Right. For me it will always be my baby. I joked that it was like my gateway drug to high performance. Right.Speaker 3 (08:56):Cause it cracked that door open, but it, it wasn't for, you know, a couple more years I met some of the leading coaches in the world and like really kicked that door through and started coaching on my own. Yeah. But that started it. So you know, this company that is the results engine, it started as a side hustle. So like I, the third company that I had started and built it as a side hustle for a year and a half, then finally got to a point where I was like, screw it. I dove off the clip, figured out how to fly. That was two and a half, like three, I don't even know how many years I feel like time's moving faster now and just like COVID era. But that was probably about three years or so ago. Okay. And we've been running the business for about four or five years, so yeah. Little bit of a ramble, but hopefully that answers your question. Yeah.Speaker 2 (09:44):No, that's cool. Yeah. It's interesting. Cuz most engineers, I know they want nothing to do with that. You know, like personal development stuff, hiring coaches, I've never heard of like an engineer. Usually they, you know, know if they usually, they just think they know everything and , there's like no, no coaching to be at that I've seenSpeaker 3 (10:01):To be honest, it's like the fact that like I could communicate, like I, I don't resonate with engineers as much. Right. Like I think like one, but I definitely did not fit there. right. Yeah. So that almost was like to a benefit because I was like, okay, well I can actually communicate the work we're doing. And I used that. I was pretty average. I was like, I was a good engineer, but yeah. I wasn't like, I wasn't the best I wasn't any of that. I excelled because I could communicate and people liked working with me. Right. So I just used that to get where I wanted to goSpeaker 2 (10:33):To. So you had the skill set though. Prior mosts engineers don't have, you're good. The engineering and the talking part of it and stuff. That's cool. And so, yeah. Were you so it sounds like your anxiety, it was caused by, you were saying it was just caused by not like you felt like you weren't working enough type thing or was that the cause of it or how, what was the cause of all the anxiety? Exactly.Speaker 3 (10:56):I mean, it was just like, I have very high goals and very high expectations for myself, which I'm sure a lot of people listening to this can relate to. Yeah. But I didn't know how to navigate it. I didn't know how to work in alignment with those things. And I didn't know how to manage my thoughts around it. So I kind of had to learn a lot of that. It started with, you know, started with navigating my time effectively showing it powerfully when I was working. Right. Actually being productive, learning what that really meant. Not busy but productive. Yeah. And then it led to a really long journey of, you know, figuring out how to navigate my thoughts, learning what meditation was doing, personal development. It, I hate the word realistic, but like understanding how to like manage that balance between ring being realistic and being completely unrealistic when it came to those really high goals and expectations and like marrying those two together. But it was always work related. It was like, I just want to be more, do more and have more, which I think a lot of high performers can relate to. I just didn't know how to get there effectively. And I had to go on a journey to figure that out.Speaker 2 (12:06):That's awesome. It's cool to hear cuz as I'm sure you've seen too, Mike, a lot of people in this industry struggle with, I think anxiety, it addictions just different stuff going on. You know, a lot of us sells guys. We have a D D and I know there's a lot of like mental disorders in the space, stuff like that. Yeah. So it's cool to hear guys that have gone through this. Yeah. One of my best friends in the industry, he had, had struggled a ton with anxiety and I don't know if he figured out some of this stuff. I remember I went to his wedding and he had so much anxiety that Dave, his wedding, it took him, we sat there for the ceremony. We sat there like two and a half, three hours before he even showed up just cause he was literally in the bathroom just like puking. Cause he he's like so nervous probably. Yeah. Going through a panic attack. So yeah. And yeah, I don't, I don't understand this stuff, but to me at the time I, man, come on, it's not that big of a deal. I'll just get out there. You're making, you're making this sit here for three hours. Yeah. But no, I it's always,Speaker 3 (13:02):It's always tough. Cause if you haven't experienced it, it's like, you can't relate to it. And it's like, what, what triggers my anxiety might have nothing to do with you and vice versa to your buddy. Like what triggers his anxiety might have zero effect on me. Yeah. The part I didn't share about that January 1st, 2014 is while I was in the middle of that attack, I picked up my phone and I called my mom because you like, you want some connection in that moment. And I literally press mute on the phone cuz I was head a toilet, pu my brain's out and I like, I didn't want to freak her out. I pressed mute cuz I didn't wanna freak her out more than my tonality already clearly was freaking her out. Yeah. Right. Cause like my roommate was outta town. It was new year's day.Speaker 3 (13:47):So he always went up to Vermont on a ski trip or whatever. Yeah. And like, you know, I was like chilling on new year's day. Like what do I have to really freak out about like, yeah. I was 23 years old. I was a mid-level engineer already making a ton of money, beautiful apartment, just watching captain Phillips. Like it's supposed to just be lounging. Right. Like on the surface it doesn't make any sense. Right. But your body doesn't agree. And yeah. I wouldn't, I wouldn't wish any on anybody, you know? I don't think you'd cure it either, but like I think you just learned to navigate it a little bit better.Speaker 2 (14:27):Yeah. So no doubt. And so for you, was it working with, like you mentioned, like your schedule, things like that, was it like therapy that helped you or was it like working with coaches or was there any one thing or was a combination of all that that kind of helped you get through all that?Speaker 3 (14:40):Yeah. Combination of all of it. I've never personally done therapy. I'm a huge advocate of it. I've heard. It's amazing. And I believe that it's a great work, a great bit of work. And I, I, I love to see that the stigma's being chipped away yeah. At it. Because it's not a weakness, it's like it's a tool and a lot of my most powerful, like most successful friends, like use it religiously. Yeah. As a tool to continue to grow. For me, it was just like this E like I think it's epic, like per development journey, just consuming everything that I could learning, how I navigated learning, what was most important to me and also just graduating through seasons of my life. And as I did that, as I started getting connected with systems that you are like building out systems that worked for me and then getting connected with the science of why it worked right.Speaker 3 (15:34):Again, being the nerd that I am, I need to understand why, what we do works. That was really, I, I kind of just dumb lucked my way into it. Right. It was just like catching pieces in every, every position. And obviously I had my own coaches and mentors throughout that process, like still have my own coaches, still a member of multiple, you know, high level masterminds. So I'm a massive, massive advocate for those things. Yeah. But it was kind of like this eclectic journey, I guess. Like you can't really put a, put your finger on like why something happened. Yeah. You know, at least I've struggled too, so yeah. It's kind of yes. Like all of the above minus therapy, but I'm sure I'll have that at some point in my life too. Speaker 2 (16:22):Yeah. That's awesome. I think that's important for our listeners to hear you guys that, you know, do struggle with that. But yeah, I guess just to kind of transition, I know we don't have a to time here, Mike, so you you've been coaching and I know you talked how you decided to transition in the door to door mm-hmm you tell us, why did you decide to kind of niche down into the solar space and is that, are, are all your clients right now? Are they in solarSpeaker 3 (16:49):Right now? All but one are the short answer. This question is Mike. Okay. But the longer answer is, so when we got into coaching space, I was very passionate about serving millennials. Right. I felt that we were a very misunderstood generation. I was working with a lot of older people in corporate and I felt like we were just misunderstood. So I was really passionate about people serving, serving in my age demo. But I also understood that most people didn't think like me and most people were not willing to invest in themselves at the level that I was, they weren't willing to get that uncomfortable. So I feel like I navigated towards working with commission sales and, and small business owners, because I knew that if I could at least loosely associate dollar sign with the promise, not making income claims, but you know, associate the work we would do to an increase in sales or an increase in revenue, then it would be easier for me to paint that picture and get paid what I was worth.Speaker 3 (17:47):Yeah. So that's where we started. And we, you know, when we were, when I, we started working with Mikey, him and I met through one of these masterminds, he saw me speak and he came up to me afterwards. He had just joined the mastermind. I had been there for, I don't know, a year and a half or so two years mm-hmm and he came up, introduced himself. He was like, dude, I need your help. And apparently this was my introduction to door to door sales. Like I'm from New York. No, one's knocking my door. Right. Like I always joke, like I think vivid has one office in all of my county, in New York. And other than that, it's pest control teams that get sent out to the Hamptons and long island on the summers. Right. So I was very, very foreign to the concept, but you know, Mike, he was like, Hey, I sell solar, I knock doors.Speaker 3 (18:34):I'm like, okay, that's weird. But like, cool. Let's, let's talk about what it would look like to work together. So we got to work. He, he got stupid results and I was like, is this a fluke? Like what's going on here because no other we've worked with sales pros and callous industries and nothing compareds to solar. Right. Nothing from an earning potential and also an opportunity for impact. Right. And like doing really good stuff in the world. And I don't think people outside of sales realize how important that is to sales people. Right. But that's another conversation. So Mikey being Mikey kept trying to get me to fire all my other clients and only work with door-to-door industry, specifically his team. Right. And I told him to kick rocks, I'm like, go away, bro. Like, let's just keep making sure that you keep getting results that you're getting.Speaker 3 (19:24):Right. so slowly but surely he started moving some of his guys into our program and we started working with a bunch of them. They got great results as well, and then COVID hit. And when COVID hit, you know, at that point we had, I don't remember exactly which industries we had staffing and recruiting. We had some consultants, we had some sports coaches, some content creators really like all across the gamut and people were doing well up until that, that point. But when COVID hit, they were all impacted in such different ways. Right. some of their industries were, we had one client who was one of the top sales guys, his entire company, and his whole team was let go. Right. He wasn't affected outside of the fact that all of their work went on his plate. So our work shifted a lot.Speaker 3 (20:11):The, and thankfully he wasn't, you know, he didn't lose his position, but like some industries were decimated dude. Yeah. And at the same time, our door-to-door clients were going through the roof. I'm like, I, I was so perplexed by this. Right. But that was ultimately the moment where we're like, screw it. Maybe I should have listened to this crazy dude from Vegas. And all of our messaging went straight to door to door. Nice. Now we have one client who's not door to door. And that's because I went to high school with him and he is a great dude and he just has seen our journeys. Like I know you can help me. Nice. But of that 99.9% that is door to door, I'd say probably like 87% of it or so is solar. Wow. So that's really where we've like kind of built a name for ourself, but we have clients, we've had clients in roofing, pest control, alarms, water filtration, windows. Yeah. Yeah. ASpeaker 2 (21:05):Lot of stuff. That's awesome. Yeah. No, I know you've had some CRA I mean, just before this, I was watching some of your testimonials and it's crazy to hear almost everyone, you know, doubled their, their sales, their commissions. Yeah. Just crazy stories. So you're obviously doing something that works for all your clients. But yeah. Can you tell us, I don't know, do you have any like stories of maybe one, one or two students that were super successful, maybe you got crazy results for 'em or maybe they're in a terrible situation. You helped turn them around, turn them around, get some massive results. Maybe just so some of listeners that haven't heard much about, you can hear what you've done for some of your students.Speaker 3 (21:43):Yeah. We, we, our clients are badass students. So, so let me start with this. Like our clients win because they're very good at what they do. Right. we just help them do more of it without burning out and while making their life super freaking dope. So that, that's the most important piece. If our clients didn't already know how to close deals, I can't help. 'em Close more of it. We're not sales training, we're not sales coaching, none of that. So that's, that's the insert disclaimer here. Right. Okay. But you know, we spoke about Mikey. I think when we started working with him, I think he added like 14 extra personal deals a month. So in Vegas for him, that was like an extra 50 grand a month in commissions. We've had clients go from, you know, two to eight deals a month.Speaker 3 (22:33):We've had go from three to nine. Earlier this year we had a client that was making about 50 grand a month. He graduated the, the year he, the month he graduated, he made a hundred, two grand. And I think this quarter we're recording this in Q4 of 2021 is 2021 or right. Yeah. I always forget the year. I just like stop caring about it. And then I say it out loud. I'm like, is that right? he stands to earn depending on how the installs line up, obviously, but he stands to earn close to half a million dollars in Q4. Oh gosh. Which is just wild. Right. 26 year old sales guy. Like what? Like that since pain. Yeah. So you know, really all across the gamut, but what we're helping all these guys with is really adding structure into their days.Speaker 3 (23:21):Right. Treating it like a business, knowing how to navigate that and execute consistently consistency is the number one word we hear in this industry street, consistency of output, consistency of income, consistency of energy management. Right. If we can't execute consistently, we're constantly chasing the wheel. We're constantly rebuilding the snowball and we're burning way too much energy to do it. Right. so it usually boils down to a lot of those things. But when we get those things dialed in the floodgates open, because when we execute consistently, that leads to all the discipline, all the self confidence, all the momentum that we're striving for. And when that's going, the energy manager just gets so much easier. Right. Like you, you know what I mean, when you're in flow state. Right. And it feels like every, any kitchen table that you sit down with is going solar.Speaker 3 (24:14):Yeah. Right. Like that's the, that's the, the holy grail. That's where we want to get to. And it takes high performance to get there. So we just work on those pillars. Things will like the productivity, right. Things like energy. How do we create it? How do we manage it effectively? Right. Because sales is a transfer of emotion and emotion is just energy and motion. Right. Right. So we might say, everyone's always like, oh, I just need more customers. Well, cool. What gets to that? Do you need to talk to more people like what's happening when you get a ton of no on the door? Or how do you manage it effectively? Mm-Hmm right. All these are the, these are the types of things that we're working with our clients. So it's great to talk about dollar amounts and deal value, but you know, most people get on the phone and they think they're just not saying the right thing.Speaker 3 (24:59):And I'll tell you what, like 99% of the time that's wrong. , it's not that we're saying wrong things. It's that our energy behind it is off. Right. Or, or we're not navigating it confidently when we can do those things half the time. It doesn't matter. Like, I, I look back at some of my sales and I'm like, wow, that was the worst question I could have asked to answer that object, handle that objection. Yeah. But it freaking closed because I came from the right space. My energy was on point. I came at that, the objection confidently and they knew I was coming to serve. Right. Yeah. So there's a lot going on behind the scenes. But that's kind of what we do and how we're serving our clients.Speaker 2 (25:43):Okay. No, that's awesome. Yeah. And I mean, it's crazy cuz most people, I think you probably agree. Most people get tons of sales training in their meetings. You know, most companies have their correlations, they're doing sales trainings, but I don't think very many people are focused on the mindset and the consistency and you know, the structure like you're talking about. So I think that is a big key that a lot of guys are missing is just having that extra piece like you're and about. And so for you, when you're coaching your clients, Mike, do you notice that like, are some people in different stages, do you coach 'em differently or do you pretty much have the same set framework for almost everyone? They all need help with like, I don't know their routine and stuff like that. Or how does that work when you first start coaching someone? What's what do you put 'em through? And what's the structure with all the,Speaker 3 (26:28):Yeah. So the, the structure, like the skeleton of what we take our clients through is pretty much well it there's two programs that we have, like our launch program is where we're taking pretty much all reps to build that foundation. And then we have our accelerator, which is, you know, guys and girls that are company owners, VP of sales, right. Regionals people striving for golden door, that type of stuff. That's like really intimate support. But everyone that goes through either those programs, the structures are the same. Okay. Right. Well, launch structure is always gonna be launch structure. Accelerators are, is gonna be accelerator structure. But what fills those structures? When I say structure, think of it as like a skeleton, right? We have a skeleton of what works, but what populates that skeleton is gonna be unique to their journey. Right. So that will vary slightly depending on where the clients are at.Speaker 3 (27:20):Right. And what they need to focus on. But we, we need data to get there. Right. So the short answer is yes and no. Like everyone has the same structure, but the action items that plot that fill that in or like how we navigate it will be different depending on where they're at. But that just to target, right? Like what you're struggling with right now, Taylor might be completely different than what Mikey's struggling with. Yeah. Now we leverage the same exact mechanisms to get the generate the growth mm-hmm . But the action items that populate that structure is gonna be completely different. Cause we're trying to solve different problems. Okay. Right. We just go up STR and solve the problems behind it, not the symptoms of the problems, if that makes sense. So yeah. It's tough to talk about it like specifically and abstractly, but like I guess the answer is yes. Ultimately you know, it's like, we we'd be stupid not to follow the structure. Everything is customized for our clients to make sure that we're working intentionally. Right. We're very data driven, obviously creating engineering nerd. So like, you know, we just, men lie, women lie numbers don't lie. So we just gotta gather the right numbers. Yeah.Speaker 2 (28:41):Okay. So say, for example, I know you've worked with a lot of people this, but so say you have a rep, maybe it's closing $5 a month, which is pretty decent in solar. That's pretty great. Money can pretty much every market. So what do you, I don't know if there's like pretty common things that you would notice with a rep that's trying to go to from five deals to 10 a month, but there's, is there some pretty common things that you notice that you like can help change right off the bat? It's like, okay, let's get this right. Let's do this. And this is gonna, these are gonna be the things that take you to tens. What are some common things or like, I dunno, factors or maybe it's energy. I dunno. What do you, what do you change with this rep to gets?Speaker 3 (29:21):So the, the first piece is obviously like sales is obviously numbers, right? Like it, but that's a blessing and a curse because everyone's gonna be like, oh, just go knock more doors, bro. Like you just knock more doors and the deals are gonna come. Yeah. That's not how it works. And you know that so like if you were to spend, if your energy's completely off and you just go spend another hour knocking, you're wasting that hour because those clients, those prospects are gonna feel that. Yeah. Right. So yeah, sales is numbers. So we gotta work the numbers, but we need to know how to make the numbers work for us. So the first thing is we have to figure out what does the volume look like right now? Right. That client who went from 50 to a hundred thousand dollars a month, he was knocking 20 doors a day when we started wow, just 20.Speaker 3 (30:13):He was hyper selective about what doors he knocked. He was literally only knocking a door that he knew someone was home. Like see someone through a window, saw them, just pull the, the driveway, whatever. Right. Wow. By the end of it, we got him to 30 doors a day. That's it? That's it. And cause he knocked so effectively. He was just like, even adding five doors a day. He was like, how on earth are we gonna do that? So that's where we have to start. Right. We have to understand what does that volume look like on a day to day basis? And what is the consistent since see, look like, okay. Because unfortunately a lot of people will just be like, oh, well, you know, they, they call the day short. They don't knock the doors that they say that they're knocking or they're like, not that they're lying, but they think they're knocking way more.Speaker 3 (30:55):So we track all that data because we need to look like, look at what the trends are. Right. Okay. Once we dial the mindset piece in, then we can slowly increase, increase that volume. But we need to do it effectively because we're not trying to just do it once and then burn out. Right. Because I think that's what happens far too often in the space because we hear so often just go knock more doors. You go and you knock a hundred doors one day, but you're used to knocking like 35. Yeah. Right. And then you don't knock for another four days. Right. If you're lucky and you get back that fast. Yeah. Right. Or you go and close three deals in a week and you make more in seven days that you've made in six months working your, you know, hourly paid paying job. And you're like, you allow complacency to kick in.Speaker 3 (31:46):Right. We need to, we need to build the consistency. That's the number one piece. Right. That's what it all boils down to. So what that looks like is going to change from client to client obviously. Right? Yeah. But those are a couple examples of like what we have to do to gather that data. Then the question becomes, how do we increase that volume? Not just going to knock more doors for the sake of knocking more doors, but how do we do it sustainably? Okay. Right. Cause that's the key. If it's not simple, it's not sustainable. And if it's not sustainable, what the hell are we doing this for? Yeah. Right. Otherwise you fall victim to the solar coaster because the complacency kicks in. You go really hard. You make a, your money and then you allow yourself to completely obliterate all the momentum that you've built. Yeah. And you have to build that snowball over again. That's not what we're about. So we're striving for that consistency. We have to poke around to figure out what's lacking and then we know what to solve. Right. You hit on energy management before. That's one of the most important pieces that we need to do to maintain that consistency. But we gotta know what it looks like first before we can spot treat. If that makes sense.Speaker 2 (32:52):Okay. So kind of like, I don't know, maybe similar to someone that's trying to go to the gym for the first time, instead of saying, Hey, you need to go to the, the gym seven times this week. Just like make it to the gym and do one pushup stuff like that. 700%,Speaker 3 (33:04):One extra. That, that client, when I was, you asked me for some numbers, I said, we took a client from two to eight deals a month. Literally he hit eight deals a month when we dropped his daily door volume down to one door a day. Right. because for him, the hardest was, and a lot of people experiences it's that first door it's his own door. Right. Like he couldn't get out and go and knock. Like that was a big barrier for him. So we dropped it to one door. But what happens then? It's like, I know Michael, O'Donnell's a massive advocate of mini habits. He's talking about it on his Instagram stories every other day. It seems. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Well, no matter who you follow, right. Whether it's the author of mini habits or, you know, John ASRA calls it, reducing it to the ridiculous right.Speaker 3 (33:48):Making it so ridiculous that it would be silly not to execute or, you know, Jim quick calls it small, simple steps. It's all the same thing. We chunk something down such that it's so simple that it would, would be absolutely ridiculous for us not to execute on it now for, for that client. What happened there? Well, like literally I think there was one day that he actually only knocked one door, right. Where he went out, he was just not feeling it. He knocked that one door. He is like, screw this. I'm going to Chipotle. I don't think it was actually Chipotle, but I love Chipotle. So I just used that in the story. But you know, every other day he went out and he is like, you know, maybe he'll do five. Maybe he'll do 20 some days he'll do 50. And he closed eight deals that month. Wow. Coming from an average of two. And the other part that we didn't talk about is the month before the eight, he did HED for the entire month. Wow. But we dropped that number down. So simply that, and we reduced it to the ridiculous, such that he could execute and we got the execution up. And what happens is, you know, every time you keep your word to yourself, those micro promises you're stacking wins, which builds them momentum. And that momentum leads to all the results that we want.Speaker 2 (35:05):Hmm. Right. That's crazy. So, but yeah, no, it's, and it's so easy as you've seen for guys to be lazy and the solar industry, cuz yeah. I mean it's the curse commissions are through the roof. So couple deals a month is great money. And so it happens to me too. I'll close I'll the other day I got, you know, first door I knocked same day, closed them. And then I had family in town. You know, we just had our kid, this was last Monday actually. So I guess I kind of had a couple good excuses, but I'm like, all right, I closed this till I'm done for the day. this one took off. So it's like, it's so easy. Get in that mindset. And I think if guys can conquer that and yeah, just do the minimum whatever the minimum exert at least do that minimum thing. And then it's gonna be a lot easier to do the next thing. Yeah.Speaker 3 (35:51):So I think the problem is like you, you had solid reasons to call that a short, like I think most people would understand family and Tom for holidays just had a kid. Right? Like those are good reasons. The problem is most of us have excuses that we mask as reasons. Right. Right. Like that's a huge difference. And I mentioned, consistency is the number one word complacency is the number two. It's those dirty sea words when it comes to solar space and really all commission sales. Right. But solar specifically, because the deals are so fat. So you know, it it's we need to make sure to navigate that properly.Speaker 2 (36:29):So yeah. That's awesome. Well, Mike, I know we're running short on time here, but I had kind of two more things I wanted to get to the first. Yeah. And the first was so with the clients you work with I mean, I've worked with coaches you know, many times as I've, as I've been selling, but something that I try to fight is like the day after I stop working with that coach, maybe they work. I don't know how long you usually work with someone three months, maybe whatever it is, what do you do or what tell people to not let their results dip after they're done working with you. Cause I think that's something that I've noticed. I'll work with a coach I'll be super dialed in, but then it's one part of my brain. It's almost like a relief after I'm done working with a coach, I'm like, oh sweet. I don't have to be as accountable. I'm gonna kinda let myself you know, drop down. So what do you tell people as you're done working with them? Maybe I know you probably, I don't know, maybe keep working with them, but if someone's done working with you, how do you kind of like hopefully inspire them to keep those results high in, not let it dip after you're done working with them. Yeah.Speaker 3 (37:31):I love the question and I love like the openness and transparency because I think a lot of people feel that way, but no one has the balls to actually say it. right. So here's, here's what I would say. We talked about sustainability, right? And we talked about consistency. Those, those are the keys, right? Because if we're doing something sustainably, we don't need the motivation of the accountability from someone else to allow us to continue to execute and our goal. And this is obviously not sustainable business practice for us cuz we're like not creating recurring revenue, but like our goal is to make it to the point where like our clients can walk. And you know, one of the clients that I mentioned, the guy went from 50 to a hundred K he's gonna do 500 K in this quarter. And he graduated in March.Speaker 3 (38:18):Wow. Like it just, it, he, he got what he needed and that was it. Like, that was cool. And now we have a working relationship. We're gonna partner on some stuff moving forward. Like that's amazing. Yeah. But notice that everything kept growing because we did it sustainably. Right. So when we do that properly, we have the discipline dialed in. That's all that matters. And you know, we just build it in a way that's in alignment with how we wanna operate our lives. You know, when you do that properly, you, you shouldn't need the external accountability. Right. And, and this is what I say, whenever clients are enrolling there's I believe there's two types of accountability. Right? There's the external accountability, which is what most people think of accountability partners, how much people rely on their coaches. Right. Whatever. It might be reverse pets, anything like that, or we're dependent on something externally to incentivize us to act.Speaker 3 (39:13):Right. And then there's the end accountability, are we accountable to ourselves? And for me that's the holy grail and bridging the gap from one to the other is what we help our clients do. Right. So I dunno if that answers your question, but our goal is to the point where our clients don't feel that way, because they know cool. If they need continued support and they want to continue growing, cuz they there's always another level awesome. We're here to support them. Yeah. But they don't need that if they don't like they don't have to go that route if they don't need that and the results aren't gonna go to if they don't continue to invest. Right. Yeah. Which unfortunately I think is something that gets sold in this space a little too often. But but yeah, hopefully that answers your questions really about the consistency and the inability when you do that and you have your non-negotiables dialed in the game changes. Right. And we just make sure that those are things that we can hit even on our worst days. Right. Then we don't need to be dependent externally and we don't have to invest in something that we don't necessarily need because people don't pay high ticket to get a babysitter. Like accountability. Coaching is a thing in the past. If there's not more baked into the coaching and the growth, then you're frankly wasting your money. yeah.Speaker 2 (40:24):Yeah. That's BA I'm sure that's something you help guys with as they're, you know, working through your coaching. But I like that what you're saying, you know, external internal cuz. Yeah. I, I think about a lot of these competitions I've won. I've had to like just get myself an insane, you know, external accountability. I dunno if you use that like stick app where you like, you know, bet money to charities, you don't likeSpeaker 3 (40:47):We do, we do something similar with our clients in some of the phases of our launch program. It's a powerful tactic man. Reverse bets are a crazy little little trick.Speaker 2 (40:56):Yeah. So it's good. But no, I think it's even more powerful if you can do that internally and not have to rely on all these, you know, gimmicks and external things sometimes. Bingo. That's awesome. So Mike, last question, and then we'll talk about where people can connect with you more, but what advice would you give to like we, we got a lot of managers in the space. Lot of we talked before the recording here just to how it's see how much turnover there is in the solar industry, guys quitting. So for maybe managers or just guys bringing in recruits, what advice can you give to those people on coaching them to, you know, stick, stick in the industry and start achieving success. And I don't know what advice can we giveSpeaker 3 (41:34):To those people? Yeah. I freaking love this question because it's so important. I, I was sharing with you Taylor, like one of my, one of my missions, which is weird, cause I'm like a transplant in this space, right? Like I'm not a, I'm not a door knocker. So I feel like in a foster at times, but like I see what's happening. And like for one of my missions is to help chip away at that turnover because we see like, you know, young guys and girls getting sold this pipe dream in these sunshine and rainbows and then sometimes like not given the support to really bring it to fruition. And obviously there's the, the agency of those people. Like they need to take advantage of the opportunity, but you know, it's our job as leaders to grow into the person that can support them to take your advantage of this opportunity.Speaker 3 (42:18):So I encourage every leader listening to this, whether you're really managing a team or you're just someone that gets looked up to because you're a stud in your company, you need to keep growing and you need to pour into the people around you, whether there are overrides involved or not, right. If you're a killer, you were able to take advantage and harness this opportunity and really allow it to change your life. And it's our duty to make sure that other people can do the same thing. And especially when they're overrides involved, like if your people don't win, then obviously your income is heavily impacted. So whatever your incentivization is, you know, I think we need to continue to pour into ourselves. Whether that's being in masterminds, hiring coaches, reading books, listening to podcasts, doing whatever you need to do to stay tapped in and growing.Speaker 3 (43:10):Because if you don't build those assets, you're not gonna be able to pour into your people. Yeah. And unfortunately I think it gets overlooked because the, usually a lot of the way that you grow in a sales organization is based on your sales volume. Yeah. Right. So if we don't all of a sudden then if we're not conscious of this and we're not really intentional around this, we have a bunch of sales studs that are now in leadership that might have no idea how to lead. Right. Other than leading a prospect into a transaction. Yeah. Right. So we need to focus on those leadership skills. Right. Go to the conferences. It doesn't matter what it is. Just keep doing it because I've heard it far too many times. Success of a new rep often is entirely dependent, not entirely, but it's very dependent on what regional they're working under.Speaker 3 (44:03):Mm. Like we gotta make sure that we are that regional or we are that leader. Or we are that person that inspires them to show up powerfully that helps guide them along this process. And not just throws them out to the wolves because you're are trying to play the numbers game too. And you're throwing at the wall to see what sticks. Yeah. Like if we're selling people a pipe dream, we better be sure to give them the resources and the support to bring it to life for them. Yeah. So end rant take for what it's worth. But like you gotta keep growing because you gotta keep pouring into people. Yeah.Speaker 2 (44:34):Love that a hundred percent. That's so true. Cause so many people, maybe they're good at sales, but they've never been in leadership roles. And I think that's a mistake. Some people MIS make just, cuz you're really good at selling doesn't necessarily mean you can teach it or you can lead. So yeah. I think, especially for guys like that, some important to go develop those leadership skills, invest in yourself, invest in the coach like Mike or we've got programs over here at solar and that's gonna keep things fresh I think. And help guys lead. So Mike, we appreciate your time and I know you gotta hop on another call here in a minute, but before we let you go work and guys potentially I don't know, apply to have you as a coach or connect more with you or find your podcast, give us your your plugs for where people connect with you a little bit more.Speaker 3 (45:19):Yeah. First of all, Taylor, appreciate you having me brother. This is this is super fun. I honestly, man, the best places is Instagram at Mike says yak on Instagram probably got a link back. Cause all the Polish is like really hard to spell. Wow. And be aware of the freaking crypto scammers everyone's getting fake profiles made. I'm never gonna DMU pitching crypto. I will DMU pitching high performance coaching, but never crypto . Right. so just sliding the DMS. If anyone has questions around anything, we talked about once like to go a little bit deeper on stuff, slide in there. Either my team we'll answer or if they don't know the answer, they'll flag it for me and I'll get you an answer. But yeah, that that's literally like the inside of our funnel anyway. So don't worry. You're not gonna follow and just get relentlessly pitched if you don't want to be, we will open conversation cuz it's social media. Right. But yeah. DMS are already, oh, always open. Feel free to reach out with any questions.Speaker 2 (46:15):Love it. Well Mike, thanks for coming on the show today. Today. Shoot Mike at DM. Let him know you appreciated the knowledge bombs he drops for our solarpreneurs here today and Mike, I'm sure we'll people connecting with you soon. Thanks again for coming on the show with us today.Speaker 3 (46:29):Thank you brother. Appreciate it. Okay.Speaker 2 (46:31):Talk soon. Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW!Follow Mike Szczesniak on Facebook10 Affirmations you can use to bring yourself back up to that powerful state of mind. Sales are easy.First comes the action then comes the motivation.I like myself. I love my job.I'm alive. I'm alert and I feel great.They've been talking about doing this already.We get to do this. We don't have to.They're lucky to speak with us. Not the other way around.I get off a private jet and go directly to their house.Some do some don't. So what.He who angers me controls me.BUY YOUR D2DCon Ticket Here Use the code ArmstrongD2D to get a Solarpreneur Exclusive DISCOUNT!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's going on Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong back with another episode. Hope you're doing well. Hope you're having a fantastic week of sales and just gonna preface this episode. I'm recording this around the time that we're putting our kid to bed here. So if you hear some banging on the door or some screaming, it's probably my kid. So I apologize in advance. If any of you are parenting experts, someone help us out. This kid is an animal. He's always a, you know, banging on the door, running out of his room, takes like an hour and a half to get him to bed. So I'm not definitely not qualified to speak on how to put kids to bed, but I am qualified to teach you how to close more deals and to have more success in the solar industry. And that's what we're gonna be talking about today.Speaker 2 (01:35):Specifically this episode, we're gonna jump into five hacks. You can use to have a better mindset in sales. And the reason we're talking about this, I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed on my friend Mike Szczesniak's podcast. If you don't follow him over on Instagram, go check him out. We'll put 'em in the show notes here. And we were talking about this very topic, but the other thing he is, I interviewed him for the podcast. That's section gonna be drop in on the next show here. And it just got me thinking Mike, you aren't familiar with him. He does not have a sales, well least a door to door sales background. He, his, I don't think knocked a door in his life yet. He's training sales reps to like double even triple their sales and he's doing it because he's helping 'em change their mindset.Speaker 2 (02:32):And there's, you know, more other things as well. But a big piece of success is just the mindset that we need to have in sales. And if you can tweak your mindset, it does wonders. I would say that's, you know, 80% of the equation here. So if you haven't thought how you can improve your mindset, that's what we're gonna be jamming on today. We're gonna talk about five ways. You can improve your mindset. And of course you are not gonna wanna miss out on next episode because Mike himself, he's gonna be on the show, dropping some heat, dropping some nuggets, and it's an awesome episode. So make sure you don't miss out for the next one. So let's jump into it five ways to have a better sales mindset. So number one, okay. And I've talked about a few of these bits and pieces and other episodes, but the first one is find your motivation, right?Speaker 2 (03:29):It should be pretty straightforward, but if you're not, if you've, if you've not figured out a way to motivate yourself and sell, it's gonna be pretty hard to get out prospect to get out and go on your next sales call. Specifically, if you are doing door to door for solar, you need to have some deep motivation. Okay. And something that helps with this is the seven wise exercise. And I talked about this probably been six months ago on a podcast, but super powerful exercise. You can take yourself through and that is write your wife or whatever you're doing at seven layers deep. Okay. So for example, if you set a goal in sales that you want to close, I don't know, 10 deals this month that you want to make. I don't know if 50 grand this month, whatever, write down seven layer deep.Speaker 2 (04:24):Why you wanna achieve that? Hey, so if it's, I wanna make 50 grand, why, why do I wanna make, why, why do I wanna make that this month? Because I want to give my family an awesome Christmas. Why do I want give my family family an awesome Christmas? Because growing up, I didn't have great Christmases and I want to give them a better child ex experience than I had. So you get the idea, do this seven times. And if you do that, you're gonna have a pretty Bulletproof reasoning as to why you want something. As, I mean, I think this is a super powerful way to that motivation find the reasoning behind your goals. So first, you know, set the goals, then second, dig out the why behind it. Okay. Find that motivation. So that's the first tip with it. Okay. Do that exercise.Speaker 2 (05:17):Find out the why. Okay. Number two, use a vision board. Another thing that we've brought up in the show before, but if you're not using a vision board, I'm actually not currently, but I need to get mine back up, but this is, if you're not familiar with it, it's just a board. Some people even just throw like a square of tape on the wall, just something your mind can focus on. And you're putting basically your goals, your visions, whatever you wanna call 'em, you're putting it on the board. Okay. And it's super powerful because you're activating both sides of the brain that you're putting the text on the board and you're putting an image. So I print out the picture of what I want. So for example, one of my goals back in the day was to win my sales competition and win my trip to Hawaii that our company was doing.Speaker 2 (06:10):So what did I do? I printed off a picture of Hawaii. I put become the next Ironman. That was the name of our competi. I woke up in the morning and while I was brushing my teeth, I just stared at it. Okay. And I pictured winning the competition. I imagine what it would feel like, what it would smell like in Hawaii. I imagine the breeze running through my air, the sand between my toes. So you're just becoming super clear on what you want and you're manifesting it. Okay. And I know it sounds like I don't know some Sourcery whatever, but this is what super successful people do. Right? Hey, you go read success books. This is what they're talking about. They're talking about manifesting these things, manifesting your visions and your goals, and it's a super power way to do it. Okay. So try that.Speaker 2 (07:00):That's number two, create a vision board and we'll probably do more podcasts, go more in depth on this stuff, but I'm just firing at you quick five ways to start getting this better mindset today. Okay. So number three is affirmations. Okay. So have a list of phrase. Is this and man mantras, you can go to specifically when you're out there knocking doors, or maybe you're in a tough moment. Maybe you had two deals, fail credit, maybe had three other deals that just rejected you, whatever, slam the door. This is where I find it. Super powerful to just have affirmations and little freezes. You can do to bring yourself back up. So I'm gonna give you 10. Hey, a few of these I got from my friends over at kn star. Hey, but you can make your own. You can make the super powerful, write out a list of whatever your goals or sorry, whatever your phrases are that you, you can use to bring yourself back up to that powerful state of mind.Speaker 2 (08:03):So here's 10. Hey, we can put these in the show notes, but where you can write 'em down, whatever is easiest. So here it is. Number one, sales are easy. Number two first comes the action then comes the motivation. Number three, I like myself. I love my job. Number four, I'm alive. I'm alert and I feel great. Number five, they've been talking about doing this already. Number six, we get to do this. We don't have to number seven. They're lucky to speak with us. Not the other way around number eight, I get off a private jet and go directly to their house. Number nine, some do some don't. So what number 10. He who angers me controls me. Okay. So there's 10. You can use today. Try it out next time. You're on the doors. And also do these even when you're not having a tough time.Speaker 2 (08:56):Okay. Some of my most powerful sales weeks, I was doing affirmations morning and night right after I got done looking at my vision board. Okay. So strike your Superman pose in the mirror, do it before you go to bed, whatever. Start firing off these affirmations, guaranteed. It's gonna get you into a more confident state. It's gonna get you in that better sales mindset. Okay. So number four is have a morning routine. If you're not doing this already, you are selling yourself short, make sure you have a routine you can fall in the mornings that helps you stay focused. That helps get you fired up for the day and that you enjoy doing. And I talked about yeah, again, this was 78 months ago that I got done doing a 75 hard. Okay. And you can go back and listen to that episode, but super powerful thing to do.Speaker 2 (09:52):If you don't already have a morning routine, go check out 75 hard. I this is Andy Fela's program where he has you follow a specific set of things that you need to do in the morning. You know, do your two workouts for the day, drink or gallon in a water. Take your progress, picture just a checklist of things and stuff to keep you focused. So consider doing that or just write out a list of things that you're gonna do in the morning. If for me, it's go to the gym or do some type of exercise. Then it's read my scriptures, do some type of spiritual study. Then it's read a sales book or read, just educate myself. I read 10 pages of a book non-fiction and book. Hey, and then it's take a cold shower. Hey, for me, I do 32nd cold shower started out.Speaker 2 (10:44):Hey. And when I'm doing these things, I feel so much more dialed in for the day. Hey, if I don't do these things, my mindset is immediately not as good as it needs to be. And I feel myself less folk this. And if you're doing that, it should be challenging too. Hey, it's not easy for me to get through all these steps and I'm not perfect this the week. I've matter of fact, I've missed a lot of things that are on my list of my morning routine, but don't beat yourself up over it, reset, restart, and then go at it every new day, trying to hit your morning routines. Okay. So write out that, make sure you're following a specific morning routine. Okay. And the last step here last and final one, number five. You ready for? It is increase in knowledge. Okay. It goes along with something you could do in your morning routine.Speaker 2 (11:35):Hey, so listen to this podcast. So if you're listen the show today, then you are doing one of these steps, right? Hey, join a coaching program. You know, read your books, listen to audio books, audible. You should be doing all this stuff on the way on drives to your appointments and doing this. What I've found is it gets me more excited to go out there and try what I've learned. If I'm constantly educating myself, I'm in coaching groups, I'm fired up to go try something new that I learned a, and hopefully you're doing this. As you hear stuff on the show you're going out and trying that play. It could, I am much more excited when I'm constantly educating myself. When I know I can get out and try a new close in a home. When I know I can get out and try a new phrase that I heard on the doors, whatever it is.Speaker 2 (12:26):Okay. So make sure you are always staying educated, always trying to increase in your knowledge and it's gonna help with your mindset hundred percent. Okay. So hope you enjoyed these five ways. So again, number one was find your motivation. Find your wise. Number two was use a vision board. Number three was affirmations. Write them out. Use 'em throughout your day. Number four was have 'em warning. Routine. Number five was increase in knowledge. You're looking for another way to increase in knowledge. Make sure you go check out Solciety as our app. And we are getting the best of the best in their content. And we added the new feature to where you can get direct feedback, recording your presentations on the doors or in the homes. You can get feedback from myself and our other coaches that are in the platform. So that is one of the best ways to also increase your knowledge.Speaker 2 (13:20):Go check out Solciety. So that's it for the podcast today. I hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget. Come on the next show because we're gonna have the master of mindset. Mike says NAK himself. You're gonna hear some buyer tips to further your knowledge on this topic. And then also, again, a reminder, if you don't have your ticket to door to door con yet, go get your ticket. Love to see some of you there. Let me know if you're coming and go use the the discount code. Okay. We'll drop that in the show notes got exclusive discount code for our listeners. So that being said, we'll see you on the next episode, go close some deals. Hope you have an awesome and, or start to this week, whatever it is for you. And we'll see you on the next episode.Speaker 3 (14:12):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! BUY YOUR D2DCon Ticket Here Use the code ArmstrongD2D to get a Solarpreneur Exclusive DISCOUNT!Speaker 1 (00:02):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's going on Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong. Back with another episode we're in the month of December, we're spreading some Christmas joy by saving people money on their utility bills. So I hope you're having an awesome start to the month of December or whenever you're listening to of this podcast. And as always, if you haven't heard it before, I'm here to help you save time in closing more deals and generating more referrals and having a much better experience in the solar industry. So today we're gonna do, a quick announcement, then we're gonna jump into the topic of today and I'm gonna share something that helped me double my sits from the previous few weeks, a small tweak I made in my presentation as I was out knocking doors. And this is gonna be something that can be applied to whatever were doing in solar.Speaker 2 (01:43):Whether you're setting up more appointments, trying to close deals or doing online appointments, setting up leads over the phone appointments. We're gonna jump into that. But before we get into that wanted to make a quick announcement. And that is along with spreading the Christmas chair here of the season. What's the next thing that's coming up that you should have on your calendar. That is a door to work on. If you haven't been to door to work on, it's coming up in January, it's the best event, in my opinion, for door knockers across all different industries. And if you haven't heard our episodes on it, you can go back a year ago. We've done a couple door-to-door con review episodes, couple episodes of why I think you should attend live events. So go check those out. But I wanted to extend a special invitation to you, especially if you have not been to door-to-door con yet it's the premier event in the door to door industry.Speaker 2 (02:48):Some of the top guys in door to door in solar are gonna be there and you're gonna be able to network with the best and learn from just top people and entrepreneurship business, self development. So I hope I can see you there. And the gift that I'm extended to you is a little discount. If you want to go. And the second invitation I have with it is let me know if you're going, I'm considering doing a little meet up there, depending on how many people we can get going. First of all, shoot me a message and we will see if we want to do, we can get little meet and greet, lined up. We'd love to hang out with some listeners of the podcast there. And especially if you you know, use the coupon. Okay. So shoot me a message over on Instagram, on Facebook.Speaker 2 (03:44):And I'll just drop the code here. Okay. If you want to get your door to door con ticket at a solar exclusive discount, then use the code it's Armstrong D two D. And we're gonna put in the show notes instantly the door con, where you can get your ticket, but consider coming to it. And again, shoot me a message. Let me know if you're gonna be there would love to hang out with my solar premier peeps. That being said, let's jump into the episode. Oh, and by the way, door door con is in about a month. I believe it's the 13th through the 15th of January. So let me know. So today's topic is this it's something that I had been forgetting about. And primarily as I was out setting up appointments, knocking doors, this is something that I was not doing a good enough job on and coming up on the holiday season, something that I struggle with, that I know people struggle with just holidays in general, is appointments falling through.Speaker 2 (04:51):And there's all the things we can do to solidify appointments, double confirm, confirming them doing the lock close. I talk about, which is so, Hey, besides like a nuclear meltdown, is there any reason you guys will, will not be here at this time having 'em put it in their calendar. I've talked about these things and we'll probably do another episode on things you can do to solidify your appointments even more. But before you get into those ninja tech, think there's something super important that you need to remember about setting up appointments out there, knocking doors. And that is you need to create a massive problem in the homeowner's head. And those that are closing deals. If you're out there closing deals, you should be doing this. That's how you close deals, right? We all know that if you can create a huge problem in your perspective, customer's head, it's gonna be so much easier to close them.Speaker 2 (05:52):But how often are you doing this? As you set up appointments? I made a small tweak in my door presentation to really just kind of emphasize the problem more. And I noticed that almost right off the bat, my appointments sat more. I was having less cancellations. People listened to me more. The more I focus on the problem giving the solution and I was already doing this to a degree, but my presentation, I wasn't focus focusing on it too much. And I wasn't really hammering in the problem. And so something that helped me is just really identifying what are the big problems in your market for solar? Okay. I'm here in San Diego and there's some pretty massive problems with utility here. So it's somewhat easy and most people know what the problems are with. The utility down here in San Diego, in other markets, you're gonna have to be a lot better than I am this cause in other markets, utility is most likely a lot cheaper than San Diego.Speaker 2 (07:04):I think last I checked San Diego was I believe like the second highest electric rates in the country. So if you suck at selling, then come sell here because you don't have to be that good at sales to convince people that they should save money and switch, right? But for those you true salespeople that are selling in markets where maybe people aren't even saving money going solar, it's even more important that you hammer this down, that you figure out what problems are there and how can you all offer them the solution it's maybe in your market. Maybe it is really, really tough to, you know, identify the problem, but you still wanna help people just see that there's some small problem, whatever it is, cuz that's the first step, make sure whatever market write down the biggest three problems in your market with your utility.Speaker 2 (08:04):What problems are huge that you can help your perspective clients see? So for me, it's easy. Like I said, rates are going up here and an insane rate. And for us, you can go directly on utilities here and see a huge difference. If you go back 10 years ago in the rates, you can show your customer that and you can show 'em the current rates super easy. There's it's, you know, double the price today compared to what it was 10 years ago. So maybe that's a big problem. And for me that this is what I did change up in my door approach is I said, Hey, you guys noticed the problem with the increasing rates. All your neighbors have been noticing that the rates went up almost double this year, not double, but I just get them to agree that there has been some rate hikes.Speaker 2 (09:00):And luckily there's, you know, some pretty big spikes in the bills this year. And for most people we're coming off the summer months, right? I guess it's winter now. But San Diego people are just kind of coming off their higher bills cuz the highest bills tend to be in like September October-ish or in San Diego. So it's still fresh in their minds that they had some high bills. They had spikes say, so that's a problem. Hey, people are noticing that the rates go have gone up quite a bit this year. I'm sure you guys notice the same, right? Just a small line like that. Get getting them to agree. Doing the head nod made a huge difference. Now they're seeing that there is a problem they're agreeing with it. So adding statements like that, another problem that we have here in San Diego, and again, this isn't gonna apply to all markets, but here in San Diego, they charge people on the time of use rates, which means from four to nine, they increased the price of electricity.Speaker 2 (10:02):So another problem that I helped people see is, Hey, you guys notice how they switch the rate plans from four to nine. It actually cost more guys notice. Yeah. So what I'm, what we're actually out here are doing is just making sure people know to conserve as much as you can from then maybe it's more than notification the value add door approach, right? For some people use. So there's another thing. Figure out some type of problem to throw in there, get them to agree with it. And it's gonna make it just a lot easier for people to pay attention to you, for people to listen to what your solution is. Right? And then another thing that's very important in this, make sure you have some type of slicks. You're showing people, okay. If you can get side by side with the homeowner, you don't wanna be standing in the same place.Speaker 2 (11:00):Just pitching the homeowner for 10 minutes. Right? Most likely people aren't aren't even gonna listen to you that long. And the second issue is if you're just spouting out information facts, you're not engaging your customer, your potential client. They're not gonna pay attention and they're gonna close the door. They're gonna be busy. They're gonna have to take a phone call. They're not gonna, they're not gonna listen. So step number two in all this is engage and the best way to do this in my opinion is get some type of door slick. Okay? So our friends over at kn star university, okay, go listen to Taylor MCCA, these podcasts, if you haven't already. But he talks about how he uses slicks on the door. A slick is just like a laminate. You can pass them. And the actual information on the slick is less important than just using it to engage with the customer.Speaker 2 (11:56):Okay? Maybe it's a line. Like I say, Hey, did you guys get this in the mail? Did you guys have this notification come in, pass it to 'em make sure you're turning it to the side. So they can't just read it. Right? You wanna slip it almost like CRO chop to 'em have them grab it. And then what do you do? Boom, you swing right to the side pivot. You're standing side by side and you're walking 'em through the actual information on that. So if you can combine your problem, selling your problem, presentation on the door with having your proof of that, slipping it to 'em having 'em handle it. Having 'em see it having 'em taste it. Okay. Not taste it. But you get the idea, engage in as many of the senses as possible. These are gonna help people digest that there is a problem happening.Speaker 2 (12:47):There, there is stuff going on and that they need to pay attention to what you're saying. Cause people, I, most people are visual learners. Okay. That's the thing we forget. If we're just speaking to someone they're only taking it, especially on their doorstep. They're already thinking that you're bugging them. That they're, that you're pitching 'em on something. So if you have something in their hand that they can see, it's gonna add credibility to whatever you're saying. They're gonna buy, they're gonna buy what you're saying. Right? They're gonna believe a lot more that the rates are going up or whatever's going on. But whatever your market is, go look up. If you don't have some type of door slick, make your own right. Go buy the knock star ones. Okay? Love supporting those guys. But worst case, just go print off something, go to a print shop, go to your local staples, whatever.Speaker 2 (13:40):Just find some type of I don't know, article that's relevant, some type of rate plan. It's where your utility is something that can be added into your presentation and it's gonna help out tremendously. Hey, so these are the two things that help me. Not only set up more solid appointments, but like I said, also get them to generate more interest, get them to listen more and get them to sit down. Cuz guess what? Even if you're super assumptive, even if you're saying all the right things, if the customer doesn't believe there's a problem, they're not gonna see a reason to sit down with you. Right. And that's something I realize over the last few weeks and something that helped me boost my sit down rate is just making sure I hammer down that problem. Cuz if you can hammer it down, they're gonna see a need to actually sit down with you, hear you out and buy your product.Speaker 2 (14:38):So don't forget. Make sure you include this in your presentation. Take a look at whatever you're saying right now. If it doesn't include something on the problem of your market, the problem, the, our product, which is solar can solve, go and write it down. Write down three of the biggest problems in your market promise is gonna help you and send this to someone who's been struggling to set up appointments this week. Hope that helped hope you have an awesome week. Love you guys. And again, hope to see you at door to door con shoot me a message. Let me know if you'll be there. Let's plan a meetup or something if possible and use the code when you're getting your ticket. So we'll talk to you soon. I see you on the next episode.Speaker 3 (15:25):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's going on Solarpreneurs, we're back with a another episode, and this is another feature we have with our recent sponsor on the show, and that is pipes in to get. So we've got the man behind kind of the, I would like maybe like the scientist behind the scenes working on the backend of all this. So he's going to give us yeah, just get a stoked about pipe syndicate. Tell us a little bit more about what's going on. So we've got Austin Underwood on the show, Austin. Thanks for coming on with us today.Speaker 3 (01:11):Yeah, thanks for having me today. Yeah, so we I came on to talk about a company that we've been involved with and Taylor's been doing some stuff with called PI syndicate. It's basically a program that we've decided as a mastermind to help solar wraps any real wrap in the door door industry, but primarily solar. I mean, you get all these kids that are coming in to do quite a bit of money all of a sudden, and they don't really know what to do with it, or maybe they're not as smart as they, as it could be. And they don't really know that. And so we help them manage and kind of help really just manage that money. So we're, we're helping them utilize our skills to make that money go further for them as they're, as they're younger and they don't know what to do with it, or they just don't know how to get into certain aspects of, of the investment pools that they want to.Speaker 3 (01:58):And then a big portion of that is tax mitigation. So we help mitigate the taxes on your income side. And we do that a numerous of ways. I mean, we really just decided that we needed to start something that would help out the reps. I there's so many different companies that come in and help the owners, the CEOs, the high level executives. Everybody wants to take care of those guys, but nobody's really talking about, you know, that, that new rep that just started in solar, that you know, is going to crush it and make, you know, 250 K this year, that just came out of nowhere. And and nobody helps that kid, right? He, he gets his tax bill. He goes to a CPA. He thinks he's doing everything the right way. And he doesn't really know that there's a different way to do it, or there's more opportunities than he really thinks there are.Speaker 3 (02:40):And so we wanted to start something that would really help, not only the companies, because we have corporate memberships, we have memberships that include CEOs and owners and things like that, but we wanted a lower level package for the reps. So I rapped could afford it. And a rep could come in and, and say, Hey, I don't know what to do here. I don't know how to file these. I don't know what the right expenses should go, where we just take care of all that for you. We've designed it to be a white glove service. That'll just take care of it for you.Speaker 2 (03:10):That's awesome. And it's cool. Cause you guys have, you know, different packages, different levels. So there's really no excuse for anyone not to being, be getting help from you guys financially. Cause yeah, I mean, yeah, they're lower packages. Maybe it's just the taxes you want done.Speaker 3 (03:24):Yeah. Well, and we, we do the three packages. There's about three main ones and we do them for a reason is we really want, you know, we go anywhere from 5,000 to 30,000 and we do that because we know that there are different needs for different people. Some people aren't in a place this year, you know, some of those new reps, aren't in a place to need all of the benefits with a 15 and $30,000 package, but they definitely needed a $5,000 package and, and vice versa. Some guys are too far. But what, what we do allow is as you grow, we grow with you. So you eventually can move into those spots and not have any problems.Speaker 2 (03:54):Yeah, that's awesome. So yeah, we're going to talk more about that and get into more detail here, but I wanted to hear from you, do you Austin, we were talking yesterday and you told me your background. What's really cool. Austin has just kind of the rags to riches story. I grew up in pretty humble beginnings and all that. So I wanted to see if you would tell our listeners kind of like your upbringing, your story with that, and then how you got more involved in like, you know, door to door and like financial side of things.Speaker 3 (04:21):Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we, we we grew up in Utah, so we're from salt lake city, Utah, but we grew up in a little suburb subsidiary section and a Ned called Magna super far west. And it's a, it's a really humble little city. I mean, it's, it's really small compared to most cities in Utah. We we struggled a little bit with, with financial matters and you know, it wasn't like I ever went without things for the most part. I mean, there was a few times that, you know, things got a little, a little sketchy, but for the most part, you know, we, we made it work and, you know, I think for the time and the era, you know, my parents were bringing in like $30,000 together. Like both of them were working, full-time multiple jobs at one point. And you know, it was just hard to figure it out. Right. You know,Speaker 2 (05:07):And you're not that old, so that's right. Yeah. Cause some people are like, oh, maybe he's maybe Austin's like 60 years old.Speaker 3 (05:14):Yeah. I'm only 25. And I I just decided like, you know, at a young age, I, I'm not going to live like this. I can't, I can't do this, this isn't for me. Like not even just the money, but just the security behind what the money brings. Right. It's really not about the money it's I wanted to be able to first off utilize how to use the money. So what do I need to do to keep the money that I'm going to bring in? Right. Not just trying to generate millions and millions of dollars. Like I think most people think, right. You could have a million dollars but use it the right way and still have more money than somebody with $5 million that uses it the wrong way. Right. Yeah. And so that's kind of where, where I started out and I really was just like, yeah, there's gotta be something I can do.Speaker 3 (05:53):So actually, one of my first jobs as I went around to a local restaurants and things like that, and I was like, Hey, that disgusting garbage brick wall thing that you guys keep your garbage Kennan. I'll scrub it out, you know, for like 20 bucks an hour, I'll come every Saturday and I'll do it all. I just ride my bike over there and you know, I was like 13 years old and I needed money for something. Oh, I, well, I wanted to go to a T I wanted to go on a trip to New York city to visit my uncle. We were never really able to go on any sort of traveling trips. I didn't really start to travel until I got into my early twenties when I could pay for it myself. The, the most I had ever really traveled as we would drive somewhere, anywhere we could drive, we could kind of go, but that was it.Speaker 3 (06:32):I had never been, I didn't get on an airplane until I paid for my ticket by myself. And I just happened to be 13 years old. But I just, I just, I went crazy all summer and I just hustled as hard as I could. And so I started doing that and I got that company up pretty, pretty good. I think I was doing at one point like 50, 50 restaurants within riding, riding, riding my bicycle distance. So there's a big street. If you drive out to 5,600 west where it's just lined with restaurants up and down, both sides of the street. So I just went and talked to every, every single one that I could. And, and I had an uncle that was in the franchise world and he was like, well, yeah, you can come do you know mine? And I was like, okay, you'll let me come do these.Speaker 3 (07:16):You already agreed to it, but here's the catch. I don't have a car. I can't drive on 13. So you gotta come get me and take me to all these things. So I made him come and pick me up and go do that. And so that's kind of where I realized like, okay, so if I do this something by myself, I'm obviously gonna make a lot more money. I have to rely on anybody else. I can do the work myself. And so that's when I kind of was like, I got to a point where I actually had a little bit of money. And so I thought I have to figure out how to manage this money the right way. And so I started just kind of doing, taking some small classes doing some college stuff, you know, some community stuff kind of going through and figuring out like, you know, how do I do this? How do I do that? What's the tax side. I mean, you know, what is the tax sides of these mean? Speaker 2 (07:57):That's cool. Most, most people aren't thinking about that. Well,Speaker 3 (08:00):They're not right. And I think that's the problem is that I don't think that there's enough education for people available. I mean, cause it's out there and you can find it, but how hard is it defined? It's a lot easier to find a dumb video of, you know, a super rich kid online doing something stupid with money. So that's the envision people have in their head and I needed, that's not real. And so I was like, I have to figure out how I can manage this money the right way.Speaker 2 (08:23):I think that came just from like your upbringing and seeing that you guys learned growing up. So you're like, okay, I want to figure out how to like,Speaker 3 (08:29):Yeah, a hundred percent. I don't think my goal in life when I decided that I wanted to be able to make some money. My goal was never to be the richest man in a room. My goal was to be stable. That's all that I wanted. There was so much unstability growing up in a poor family and you know, things just are all over the place. So I wanted the stability of what the money could bring. And so my idea was never to make a lot of money. I mean, in theory, that happens, I guess, where you, you do make good amounts of money being pretty strategic and smart and cautious about what you're doing. But for the most part, it's really just, I wanted the street, the strategic ability to be safe and content, right. Savings accounts, things like that, that most people are like, not important. I can do that later. Well, that's not true. You need to be doing that now.Speaker 2 (09:16):Yeah. That's a good point. And that's cool. And so you were in a, were you already in college at that point or was this still in high school? You're doingSpeaker 3 (09:25):No. So it was, it was still in high school. So the high school that I went to had a a secondary program where they'd ship you out to a college campus, just the slick campus, the community college campus. So I was doing some classes from high school to try and get some of that knowledge that I wanted for that.Speaker 2 (09:40):Okay. That's awesome. And so yeah, especially, I'm sure you can agree with social media and everything. Like you're seeing, you're just seeing people flash the big cars and how many people I mean, I have people I know that just got, make rent, they fancy cars and all that. Just go show it off on social media and then they're not actually making that type of money. Well, yeah,Speaker 3 (10:00):Exactly. It's funny. Cause you, you really see the difference between somebody that has a lot of money and somebody that doesn't right. Like you can tell the difference, you know, and it's about, you know, and I think that's just my, my analytical analytical mind thinking is like my thought process is, is the dude that has more money lives in a normal size house drive normal cars. He's not spending money on frivolous things that he doesn't need. Right. The ones that need to feel like they have more money than everybody else push out the other way. And there's nothing wrong with that. If that's the life you want to live, do it by all means, just make sure you can really afford it.Speaker 2 (10:35):No. Yeah. And what's cool is you guys, won't talk more about this, but you guys are teaching people that like kind of have the best of both worlds. You got your clients that have the nice cars and all of that, you know, getting it probably off a passive income, they were using it like is avoid taxes, things like that. Yeah.Speaker 3 (10:50):Well, and that's yeah, we, we definitely don't want to refrain from people buying the things that they want. Like that's our goal isn't to say live, you know, as frivolously as possible. Like we, I, there was, I had a conversation with a guy yesterday and I was like, you know what? I think the best ideas of what you should do is go buy $140,000 car go buy that Tesla model X, you know, that new plan version just launched. And we went through why it was something that he wanted and I went through why it was actually tax advantaged to him to do that. And so we go through both, both sides of life, obviously there's a fine line to walk amongst. But we're definitely not a group. That's going to say, you know, go buy the Corolla over the Tesla. Like that's not something that we want to do. We want to help you get what you want, get it when you want it and make it work for you the best.Speaker 2 (11:42):Yeah. That's awesome. And yeah. And Austin, how did you get more involved in kind of like, you know, the door to door space and I know you worked with door to door experts, those nails for awhile. So how did, you said you got in the, kind of the financial education, how did you transition into kind of helping the doorstep?Speaker 3 (11:59):Yeah, so-so is actually out consulting some other companies on on financial footings and things like that. The financial foundations, I actually just wrote a book about it. That's going to be launched with a PR company out of Alabama. But so I was, I was kind of doing that. I was, I was, I was consulting those other companies on the financial structures, like the very beginning basics, right? Like the foundations of the financial processes that they were missing. And and I had a guy that I knew that was working at the D experts. He was there in intro CFO. He's just kind of filling in as Sam was trying to find somebody else over at the door to door experts. And and he called me and he's like, Hey, you know, this is a really cool opportunity.Speaker 3 (12:46):I really liked this guy that I'm working for. You should come over and interview with me and see if it's something that you would even really think about. And I was like, okay. Yeah. So I actually went over there to to do that with him. And, and the position that he was looking for was actually a just somebody to kind of help oversee his books and, and do some of this stuff. And all internally, it was all internal when, when I first was over there and I went to him and I was like, Hey man, look, you know, we've had the bootcamps and they, you know, they have these events that everybody's coming to. And I was like, I really think that there's a bigger market for the door to door industry that people just don't know about.Speaker 3 (13:21):I think all these company owners, aren't, aren't realizing how much more they need to pay attention to the financial sides of things. Because I think, and I especially learned in the learning as I'm going through the door to door industry more and more is they're so sales focused, right? Everything that they, everything in their mind can be fixed with more revenue or revenue, more sales like that, that's their job. That's what they're good at. That's what the exact day, no. Or that had exactly that, how to do that. And so we're able to, I was able to say, look, look, there's a secondary system to this. The admin side is no fun. Nobody likes it. But the admin site includes the financial footing. It includes, you know, the staff, they experience like all of these things, the operations that aren't as aren't as known or, or not as practiced.Speaker 3 (14:04):And so I was able to convince Sam, like, we need to come in and do this and I'll go out and do this. And I started traveling, you know, to company, to company. I was going twice a week out to Atlanta, then Washington and Illinois than Idaho, just kind of everywhere. And it really just started to blow up. And so it really became a a staple to the, to the door. And her name is like, Hey, we're not only are we a consulting company, but we're a consulting company that, that helps you with your finances, which is pretty unknown. Like you have to hire somebody basically just to take it over. I was showing these owners how to help them. So not just doing it for them and then leaving them and saying, well, if you want me to do more, it's, you know, another $10,000 or, you know, these, these companies, these CFO guys they're expensive. And so if you could learn to do it by yourself, when you want to, right. I mean, we're all hustlers out here. That's what we're doing. You know, slinging doors is not an easy job, so anything else we can make that easier for that? You don't have to cost you a fortune, you know, we wanted to be able to be a part of that.Speaker 2 (15:04):Awesome. And so I'm sure you had a lot of experiences seeing what people were, I don't know, not focusing on mistakes. I'm sure they were making, is that a lot of these companies, they not even have CFOs and they were just kind of trained to do things. Yeah.Speaker 3 (15:15):So a lot of these companies, they didn't have CFOs, they didn't have bookkeepers, they didn't have anything.Speaker 2 (15:20):Wow. And so you would help them set that up and run it.Speaker 3 (15:24):So I would do a few different things. I think the majority of the companies that will lend to either didn't have QuickBooks or some sort of a CRM or not CRM at some sort of tracking tool for their actual books. And so I helped them kind of figure it out. Some of them did. But I, I worked with the systems they were using and they weren't awesome. And so I would either convince them to switch or I didn't, and, and either way was fine. I, I really have a bias towards QuickBooks. I just know it really well. I got my certification in it because I wanted to be the best at it. And obviously things have changed and I'm probably not the best at it anymore, but you know, there's a point in your career where you don't do some of the things that you used to do really well. Yeah. But aSpeaker 2 (16:03):Cookbook is pretty, pretty, somewhat simple. It'sSpeaker 3 (16:05):Super simple. I mean, it's just really intuitive. Like it knows what the customer experience should be. And so I really liked that, especially with owners that don't want to push a budget to a financial footing or a financial team it really just makes it easy for them to be like, all right, I can set up all this automatically. And then I never have to go back in here. It'll just kind of do it by itself. And so it's really easy to do. You just have to know what you're doing. Yeah.Speaker 2 (16:26):Awesome. And so cool. I know you gained a lot of experience doing that, working with Sam, seeing other companies, I'm sure. Learning from their mistakes, things like that. And now you're a CFO. I hear it's a, you're in, that's the name? Green energy coercion.Speaker 3 (16:40):Okay. And yeah, and then PI send the kid as wellSpeaker 2 (16:43):By any yet. And so yeah, you guys are doing incredible things. We just talked with Josh and Jerry on the podcast who were also part of that. And yeah, it's been really cool seeing how you guys have things set up structured and you really focused on teaching these reps. I was just talking with Josh about not just like selling, but all kinds of aspects of it. And I think you teach your guys the finances, you teach them the social media, teaching their recruiting. That's really cool to see. And so what gave you I guess why, why did you guys start pious indicate and what's what's kind of your whole goal around that. I know you talked a little bit in the beginning, butSpeaker 3 (17:19):Yeah. So I would say the main reason is that is that me and Jerry have been around enough companies to know how much is truthfully going wrong. Even without people knowing what's always wrong. And so just being able to compile a by, you know, I've probably consulted upwards of 200 companies by now. And so being able to see that many different companies doing that many different styles and that many different types I think it's really drove the pie syndicate drive because we were, we were sitting in a room and we were talking about we were actually in St. George at, at Jefferson JKRs office. Well, that's where we first started talking about PI syndicate and doing some of this stuff is, is out there with Jefferson. And we were just talking about, you know, there's so many mistakes they're being made every day that I don't think people know that they're doing anything wrong.Speaker 3 (18:09):And so how do we create a, something that not only it can be an outreach program for them to learn about it, but something that like a mastermind that will really help them learn. And so we developed by syndicate off of all of the bad things that we've seen happen in solar and in past, and, and in roofing, like we took all of the bad things that we could find and all of the things that people didn't know or that we had seen, even if we only had sought once we still brought it to the table. And and so that's kind of where we got the drive for, for PI syndicate. And what we want to do with it is really get the knowledge out there. You know, there are masters masterminds all over the place and, and they're all great. And so I thought, you know, it's not going to be that hard to push one more.Speaker 3 (18:50):That that really is something that truthfully helps people that really makes them, you know, learn and experience things in a different way than they ever have before. And, and I mean, it really is something different. And so we even are so confident in what we're doing. You know, we, we went in to the drawing board and we said, look, we, we want people to know exactly what we're here for. And so we actually do something very unique. You know, when was the last time you were able to go to your CPA and say, Hey, if you don't save me more money than I'm paying you, I'm out,Speaker 2 (19:18):Right. That's a pretty strong guarantee, pretty strongSpeaker 3 (19:22):Guarantee. So we actually guarantee our, our pricing. So if we cannot save you more than what you paid us we'll pay you the difference in what we don't save. You were, we'll, we're willing to put our own money up to bat to say, we know what we're doing, and we know we can do this, let us show you. And if we can't do it, then you're right. And here's, you know, here's that difference backSpeaker 2 (19:42):Incredible. And it's like, why wouldn't you do it with that guarantee? You don't hear it out from CPAs or financing.Speaker 3 (19:48):Never, never. And so we want it to be different. We want him to be able to push our name out there differently. And that's how we've decided that not only do we have the knowledge we know that we do, but you know, a lot of people don't put their money where their mouth is. And so we thought, you know, we're going to be the first to do that.Speaker 2 (20:02):Yeah. Now it's really cool. Cause I've heard a few just, you know, Mikey, you guys hopping on calls with people and it sounds, it seems like it's almost the same exact things they're hearing from their CPA, the exact same thing. Oh, they told me to do this. I'm going to owe this much in taxes. And then you guys are just telling them, you know, the same, it's the same stuff. They hear it from everyone. Cause all that is pretty standardized advice. I mean, they're, they're telling you the same stuff over and over. Yeah.Speaker 3 (20:27):Actually we make jokes and, and we say, you know, CPA firms are like our silent partners. Every time they go and talk to a CPA firm, they always come back and follow up with us and see the difference in and switch over. And so we, we, we, we joke and we call them our pro our silent partners. But but it's true. I mean, we were actually just having a conversation with a guy the other day yesterday. And he went to a CPA and he's like, okay, you've got to spend 150,000 to $200,000 to save 60,000 in taxes, but you're still going to have to pay 40. And me and Jerry just dropped that. We didn't even know what to say. We were, I mean, we were stunned. We were like, that's an incredible observation to give somebody, spend $200,000 to save 60 bucks, but you still have to pay 40,000 times since at the end of the year.Speaker 2 (21:14):Hopefully they have a lot of money.Speaker 3 (21:16):I'm like, that's, I'm, you're, you're talking about, okay, well, if you go spend $260,000, then I can get your tax bill down to authority. How does that make any sense who would want to do that? Who thinks that that was a good idea to, to offer it as a buy. And it's just something that you see every day, the CPAs are doing everything they're supposed to, if they're not doing anything wrong and I'm not talking about it with them in any way whatsoever we've just dedicated and prided ourselves on monitoring the changes that happen when they happen categorizing expenses correctly what the mileage is, right? Offs are things like that. That just, most people don't think to dive deep into that are a really big difference that make a huge difference to not spend the 200 K to save.Speaker 2 (22:03):Huh. Right. Yeah. No, that's really cool. And do you think I mean, like you said, there's a lot of good CPAs out there and I know they're doing, you know, the best with their resources and everything, but do you think it's that they don't have the knowledge on these things or they don't want to like necessarily tell them to do these things?Speaker 3 (22:21):I don't, I don't, I don't know. Honestly, I think that there are definitely CPAs out there that have the knowledge to do it. I do think that the CPA certification itself gives them some pushback on what they can and cannot offer people to do. And so one of the things that we really do differently is we actually have our CPAs on staff. But me and Jerry are not CPA. So we run everything through CPAs, everything is done the right way. Everything is above board. We're Uber transparent with everything that we do to refrain from any sort of auditing. Or if you do get audited, it's knocking the park as long as we've been in it long enough. And we're doing everything that we're supposed to be doing the right way. I mean, there's no way that you're going to fail an audit.Speaker 3 (23:05):It's just not every once in awhile, there's one weird little thing that that gets passed or, you know, something that they find that's just really weird and random, but, you know, for the most part it's, it's pretty solid. Yeah. But I do think that, I think that that's really that I, I don't think that it's still, they don't have all the information. I don't even think that this, they don't want to share the information. I think that there are certain things that they just can't do, or they're not allowed to talk about because they have specific certifications and they don't need to get their certifications taken away. I mean, that's not worth it to do that for them. And I, and I wouldn't suggest they do that either. Yeah,Speaker 2 (23:37):Yeah. No, that's good. That's good stuff. Yeah. Cause it's like, I've worked with a lot of CPAs too. And and some of them have, you know, finance coaching, do they type stuff they do. But the disconnect I've seen too is a lot of times they don't, they're not all communicating with each other. Like, you're talking about how you guys have it kind of your own internal CPAs. You're communicating with them. So everyone's on the same page or they gave me this advice. This is what's going to happen where other you know other CPAs I've worked with like, yeah, I get advice from one thing, but their CPA is not gonna necessarily help me do that. And then me not having good financial knowledge necessarily. I don't, I don't know necessarily how to like explain to them, well, Hey, I want to do this. Or this is what's best because they're just all me kind of the one size fits all stuff.Speaker 3 (24:22):And it's interesting, I think, and one of the things that we do differently than that as well is we're, we're pretty limited on the capacity we want to grow at because I think that's the problem. I don't think that it's, that they're not communicating. I don't think that it's, they don't know what they're doing. I think that they just grow so rapidly. They really just say like, okay, you're one CPA. You handle these 50 clients, but then this other CPA is gonna handle these 50 clients. And when this guy goes on vacation, this guy's kind of picking up that slack. But then there's the disconnect because it's not his actual client. So I think the scaling is just too fast. They just don't know how to keep up with it. They might just add some people do it. Great. I mean, there are massive CPA firms out there that just crush it.Speaker 3 (24:59):I think H and R block is huge. They're nationwide. They're everywhere. Obviously they scaled it up at a very scalable rate, but I feel like for the most part, you know, those are just generalized CPAs. They help random regular people. Yeah. You know, do their taxes and stuff. So they're not really going to go that extra mile for somebody like you, who's on the doors who's knocking, who's got, you know, LLCs and things like that that are quite a bit more to actually function through the actual filing. And so they, you know, they don't really want to do any of that. So they don't push that extra mile to do that, which is fine. They probably don't get paid to do that. Honestly, they don't.Speaker 2 (25:33):Yeah. And that's, what's cool. You guys are guaranteeing it too. I'm sure you guys back in it, it's like, you want to know it it's right.Speaker 3 (25:40):But then that's why we, we do you know, that's why we limit our, our capability of growth is because we know how much we can, we can really truthfully take on and still keep a truck in the way we want to. And so we're, we're pretty particular about who we want to let in and where in the, in the, in the stages that we have. And so it's more along the lines of, we definitely want to help everybody. We can help. But we want you to, we want you to come to us or, and say, Hey, look, this is what I've got is what I have. And then we would, we would literally sit down and do a call with you and say, you know, this is the plan. I think you should be a part of, this is why this is what I think we can help with. And this is how fast I think we can get it done in, in, in addition to the filing and the bookkeeping sides and the white glove service of it. All right. Mikey offers some specific coaching with it that he does with these guys. I mean, he's been on calls with these guys every day, seven days a week. I mean, he'll call it, he'll talk to anybody whenever they want to talk to them.Speaker 2 (26:31):Yeah. I know. He's helped me a ton. And that's, what's so cool about it. You guys have so much personalized attention. It's like weekly follow ups say, is this, how's this going? And yeah, I've never had this much just financial attention from anyone I've worked with. So yeah.Speaker 3 (26:45):And we do, we do some other cool stuff as well. You know, we really want to, to be able to get in person with these people, meet them face to face, have these conversations one-on-one. And so we we're down here in Las Vegas and, and we'll invite people down and want them to come and experience this with us and do these events with us. And the purpose of that is to have those one-on-one conversations, have the ability to sit down and have a personalized conversation about something that's a pretty uncomfortable topic to talk about to most people like you don't want to tell people how much money you make. You don't want to tell people how much trouble you're in or debt. And and that's why we need that personalized edge side to not just be the CPA that they kind of have to tell, but we want to be there, you know, be there and have a friendship aspect to it to be like, listen, dude, we, we got you, we're going to be able to handle it and take care of it. And we're going to be able to make sure that you don't ever have to do this again, but we have to have you tell us the truth. And so we, we need to be able to build that relationship to be there. Yeah.Speaker 2 (27:40):That's awesome. And so walk me through, you guys have people coming on and like if someone wants to start working with you guys, what are some common things you see that like almost no one has said, and I can tell my experience to kind of how to spend, to kind of get onboard and start working with you guys. But if someone signs up by us in to get tomorrow would order kind of the steps you have them go through just to give people a demo. AndSpeaker 3 (28:01):Yeah, absolutely. So, so first thing that we usually have everybody do is do a consultation call with Mikey, Mikey kind of evaluates where you're currently at what you're really thinking you're needing and then what we think we, we can do for you. So Mikey, we'll do an introduction call he'll go through everything that he has in his list to go through. Are you budgeting? Do you have the right account set up? Are you utilizing QuickBooks or some sort of tracking system? Are you, are you budget sizing out everything or just personal, you know, separating out credit cards, things like that. He just goes through all of it with you, just, just on the surface touching base, making sure it's getting done. Right. and that's where we kind of start. And so that allows us to build out a financial group blueprint of sorts to be able to say, okay, well, you know, I think, you know, knowing this information, you know, I think he needs to be in this package and this, and so then we go back to the, the, the client say, okay, this is what we suggest.Speaker 3 (29:04):Obviously they can, they can say no, or they can want a different package than that. And we can have that conversation with them, but we give them our best thought of where they should be and what needs to be done next kind of creating that financial blueprint plan and steps. And so that's kind of where we start in. The onboarding process is actually really good. We've brought on a few other guys. We have a VA, we've got some other guys in Utah that does like three days, three, three times a week. Check-Ins you know, Monday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, really just trying to make sure you're keeping up on all your updates, making sure that, you know, everything that we know at the same time, and then as well, we utilize a really great app that we really love called Pronto.Speaker 3 (29:46):Maybe you've talked about that before, but but we really love it. And we put in me, Jerry, Mikey, any bookkeeper, the CPAs yourself all within that Pronto group set. So any questions you have, anything that could come up, somebody in that chat will be able to answer that and you have access to that chat 24 7. And then we also do some other cool things where we've thrown in a little bit of perks with doubt in the onboarding process, you get a, you get access to an attorney. We've started a a a partnership with a company that'll help with legal troubles, things like that. You know it doesn't happen super often, but if it ever did happen at something that you want that most people don't really think about, you know what, 22 year old kid has a lawyer on retainer, none. So we, we, we S we supplement that out with some of that stuff. Yeah,Speaker 2 (30:36):It's cool. No, it's when I was talking to Mikey, I didn't even know all this stuff you're offering, but it's like just all these different things. You got the attorney they used, he's telling me I'm going to get like some some like body tests. Then he hands me like his biome kid. He's like, yeah, we're going to have you do like a gut test. See where that's at. I'm like, man, I thought you guys were just like doing my taxes or something at first, like you starts going down the lanes, like you're getting an attorney, you're getting, you know, body test. You're getting access to all that. You're getting crypto advice, you're getting investment advice. So it's just like a whole stack of things. And I know that's not in, you know, every package depending on the package and things like that you get. But yeah. So as far as like investments, things like that, water yeah. What are some, how do you get these people started on investments? I'm sure you see what their situation is, but yeah.Speaker 3 (31:22):So yeah, we take what their situation is, what maybe what capital they have on hand or what they plan to have. Maybe they have a big pipeline or something like that on the back end of their waiting for, but there's a few different places that we have. We've, we've developed a really good relationship between me and Jerry on partnerships out there with a specific investment. So right now a really big one that that's just really hitting really hard as a self storage. So we'll actually anybody that comes into us with money will actually another guarantee that we have is a 10% guaranteed our, our year over year on your investment. And me and Jerry willing to back that with our money, because if we're going to put your money somewhere we're obviously going to trust it 110%. We wouldn't put our own money in it. If we wouldn't put your money in, and if we wouldn't put our own money in it. And so we really, really pride ourselves on that as well. So, so we will actually do that 10% guaranteed our, our year over year for any money that you invest with us. And we put into a solar projects, we put into self storage, we put into Touro, anything that you really want to be a part of, we can help you figure out a way to get into that industry. Yeah,Speaker 2 (32:25):That's so cool. Yeah. You guys are putting your money where your mouth is. I mean, you're, you're doing these investments. I know Mike, he has the Turo going. You guys are in real estate, you guys are doing all these things. So it's cool that we're not just hearing them from people that are like, oh no, this should a good idea. It's like actual investments. You're doing yourself. And depending on the package, you get the opportunity to be able to go in on the investments, which is awesome. And I mean, I know all you guys are super successful, got money. So that's, for me, that's where it is, is like go work with the people who have the money or your CPA. They're probably not going to be the richest guy in the room. Yeah.Speaker 3 (33:00):Well, and it, and it's, and it's really cool because, you know, Jerry's, our backgrounds are so different, right? Obviously Mike and Jerry are huge in the solar space, but you know, most of my investments are nowhere near solar. It's, interros, it's in real estate, it's in franchises, it's in all sorts of stuff. And Jerry's knowledge is in completely different aspect of it, right? So Jerry's knowledge really reaches out into solar. He started a very successful solar company. He's, he's done multiple other companies. And so his, his range is, is really something completely different. And then mine is on the other expert under the spectrum where, you know, I definitely have some, some experience and knowledge in the F in the franchise world, but, you know, I love the tech investments. There are high risks, but man, the rewards are just so much better.Speaker 3 (33:44):And so they're not for everybody, but but you know, I just recently did a big test investment that, you know, could pay off exponentially. Well, if it works, but you know what my point is is that all of us are in such different realms of the investment. That we're good at that we really just cover so many different aspects of it. And, and so it really just is a really good team to say, you know, what is it that you want to invest in? We'll figure out how to get you there. We, we know somebody, somebody knows somebody that we know, right. Everybody wants to be that guy. Mike was talking about that yesterday. Like everybody wants to be the guy that's like, oh, I know I got a guy. I know a guy, oh, you need this. I got a guy and we want to be that guy. I want to be that for everybody. And so that's kind of where, where we, where we've developed, why, who is in, ER, excuse me, sorry. That's that's why, who is in by syndicate is who's in, by syndicate is, is because of the knowledge and where that scope looks.Speaker 2 (34:32):Yeah. I love that. And it's cool. Cause you guys, like you said, are doing it mastermind style too. So you're not just, we're not just learning necessarily from you guys, but we're interacting with other people that are super, super successful. We got guys making hundreds, hundreds, thousands, you know, in the millions and all that in the group. So I liked that it's a network in there. We're all hearing about each other's investments and I'm just starting on it. So I can't wait to, you know, follow up on this on a year. See we're having that.Speaker 3 (34:56):I will have to do another podcast in a year and say, okay, show from, start to now, how do you really feel?Speaker 2 (35:01):Yeah, my before and after. Yeah. Broke picture and then picture with all my Teslas and stuff. But yeah, no. So it's cool just to be able to interact with you guys and have you know, that community too, and these community-based and I haven't done events. You guys, you said the package, how many events do you guys plan on doing? For kind of the high level?Speaker 3 (35:26):Yeah. So there's a few different ways that we've looked at it to do it. So I'm, we're, we're really open. We want people to feel as, as to feel like they can come as often as they need. So I think what we've decided is probably once a month we'll invite you guys down to Vegas or somewhere to just get some FaceTime and have those conversations. And then we're, we're, we are going to do two big trips every year with with some of those highest pride member packages. And either, you know, in you know, The Bahamas to buy cryptocurrency or it'll be a mixture between, between a good relief, you know, fun trip, but a knowledgeable trip. So we'll go out and I'll buy cryptocurrency with you guys. Or we'll, we'll bring in a heavy hitter in, in this specific finance field.Speaker 3 (36:11):Like we'll kind of do some of those things that that we've we've been talking about doing a lot of these trips. We haven't really done any of them yet. We're just kind of starting to get the ball rolling, but that's definitely the, you know, the phase two of where we're going with this is, is just blow this up and make this something that we can scale to a really big place. And then and make everybody a lot of money and help with the investment side, help with the tax side and mitigation side, everything. And then the trips will just be a bonus that we're like, okay. You know, every, everybody, every year is going to be looking for, to the pies and to get trips. Like, they'll just be those kinds of trips that everybody's like, man, the price in and keep trips coming up. That's going to be so great.Speaker 2 (36:43):Yeah. I love that. And know, I know, I know you guys can't I mean the cool thing about this, you're probably not going to be able to run it at this level for, depending on how many people get in, because I imagine you get, you know, hundreds of people on this, you can't be that level of attention. So for our listeners, if you are wanting to get, you know, this type of level of attention, they gain in wallets at this price, that's the other thing I know you guys will have to eventually increase prices and all that too. So you heard it here first, if you want to get in while they're still, you know, able to give this level of attention, have these guarantees and all that. I know you're probably always have the guarantees with what you're doing.Speaker 2 (37:23):Absolutely. But getting on this and I don't think you're going to find this level of attention, this level of financial literacy advice, all that stuff that's going on here. So that's our invitation for our listeners and I, Austin, I know you're a, you got guys going out on the doors and get you to hit doors and things like that. So it's cool as you're still involved, you know, in the solar side. So Austin has a ton of water. Yeah. Yeah. He has a ton of understanding of the solar space and he's out knocking, you know, putting his feet to the floor here after this. But for our listeners, those that do want to get in on pipe syndicate and maybe, you know, get on a call with you guys, hear more about it, where can they do that? And how can they connect with you?Speaker 3 (38:04):Yeah. So, so there's a few different ways. You know, we've actually got a lot of guys that just they already follow Mikey Lucas on Instagram. Cause Mikey, Lucas is the solar man to be. And so a lot of people are just DM-ing Mikey Lucas on Instagram at Mikey Lucas. But we also have a webpage that we developed and created just a 3, 1, 4 syndicate dot com. And that's a good place we, we can run through. You can kind of get a good look for, for how we're doing the website should be live next week. We went through and reiterated all the content and kind of did some of that stuff and other well guy built it out for us. Cool. And so next week or so it should be, it should be live, but there's a consultation link in there as well.Speaker 3 (38:49):And then and then you could always even just reach out to Taylor, reach out to somebody on the podcast and say, Hey, I want to get a phone number, call us. I mean, we're, we're just that open with it. Like we'll let anybody give out our phone number or email addresses because we want them to be able to have that that touch point that they want to have. So, you know, if somebody is like, Hey, I was listening to your podcast, I want to get Austin's phone number. Like give it to him and let them call me and we'll have a conversation about it. Cool. All right.Speaker 2 (39:14):We're here to hear Austin, watch a call them every day. But yeah. Especially if you're in the group, but thatSpeaker 3 (39:18):Does mean I'll answer every day, but you can absolutely call it.Speaker 2 (39:22):Yeah. So yeah, we'll link to all that in the show notes. So if you're interested, definitely go check that out. And at the very least go do a call with you, get with these guys. Cause that's, what's cool is even before I had the intention of getting in on this, just a call with my Dean, you guys helped me realize, Hey, at the very least talk to your CPA about this, or like get yourself,Speaker 3 (39:42):Come to a consultation and we'll tell you like, you know, take what our consultation is, come and have a consultation with us. After you talk to your CPA, come, come lock the loader to be like, Hey, this is what my CPA said. See if we really know what we're talking about, see if we can really beat what your CPA said, right. To have those, those calls first and then have our consultation. But there's no, there's no harm in having a consultation because you might learn something that you didn't know. Even if it's one thing. I mean, that's, that's still a takeaway. Yeah.Speaker 2 (40:06):Or like, like we're what happened yesterday. I heard Mikey talking to a guy who I think was the guy who, you know, oh, the 40 grand or whatever. So maybe you're getting ready to do your talk, your taxes. Maybe your CPA is telling you, you're going to owe this much. Might as well talk to them. You get these guys. And you know,Speaker 3 (40:21):If you, if you had something wrong with, you know, something in your house and you knew that it was going to be expensive to fix you, wouldn't you get more than one quote on something rightSpeaker 2 (40:30):Now, exceptSpeaker 3 (40:31):For solar. That's right. That's right. But for anything else, you shop around a little bit, but no, but, but it's the same thing. Like, you know, you, you it's like a dating experience. You're not going to love this first CPA that you ever find it. You're going to have to find a few talk to a few work with a couple, you know, it's dating, you're dating. And so w w we, we hope to win that last date. Right. But but yeah. Have those consultations and, and, and then bring them to us and see what they say and see, see where it is because we, you never know what you're going to find out.Speaker 2 (41:00):Love that. Well, Austin, thanks for coming on the show today. And then last question, before we let you go I don't know, one word of advice, or maybe like some common mistakes that you've seen a lot of I dunno, solar reps or companies make with their finances, any like final words of advice.Speaker 3 (41:17):I mean, there's just so much, it's so hard to pick down, which, you know, which is the best thing. I, I would probably say, you know, one of the number one things that that I see is so many people fight for W2. You know, they think W2's king and they're like it's prepaid, it's makes the filing so much easier. W candidates is not, W2 is not king. There's so little that you can do to help mitigate some of these taxes if you're W2 and yourself. So I would say if you are a W2, if it's something that you've thought about doing 10 and nine is the way to go. And then I would say, you know, the only way to do a 10 99, the one thing most guys don't do is they're just letting they're letting their companies pay their 10 99.Speaker 3 (42:03):We help. And one of the things I definitely recommend is having your own personal company with an LLC attached to a 10 99 or something like that to pay yourself through. Most guys don't know how to do that. Are they, are, they questioned that? And we definitely bring that to the table, but it's not impossible, but that's probably the number one thing that I would say is the biggest overlooked thing is they're not utilizing their own things. Cause they their own companies or things like that for the write offs and, and things like that. They're just letting them pay the 10 99 and they're paying whatever they say they have to pay at the end of the year. And so I would say that's probably the number one thing, advice. The second word of advice is always strive to pay the least amount of taxes. I feel like the government already gets enough money. Do they really need any more? Not from you. Right? They can have somebody else's money. They don't, they don't need my money. So the mindset change of of of not paying taxes is something that most people have to get used to because it's something that people talk about quite a bit. Right. It's everywhere. SoSpeaker 2 (42:59):That's great advice. And guys, I went, when I started in the industry for like my first three years, I didn't know any of this stuff. And I have, like, I was getting paid 10 in night. I didn't even have an LLC set up. None of that.Speaker 3 (43:10):Yeah. So that's probably one of the biggest things. That's probably the, one of the first things that we fix. Every time we come into somebody's books, every time that we sign a new client on our, one of our first questions is okay. Do you have an LLC? What state it is in it? Yeah.Speaker 2 (43:22):Yeah. That's first question. I gotSpeaker 3 (43:23):So and that's exactly. Yeah, it's the truth. So we definitely help utilize that. And so that's one of the biggest things that you can do, because there's just so much that you can write off that people don't know about. Yeah. Just, just by simply opening up an LLC and having the, having your company, whoever you're working for pay that, that's it. Step number one. I mean, it really makes that much of a difference. You still have to know what you're doing and know where to put things, but I mean, it really does make a big difference to do that.Speaker 2 (43:49):Yeah. That's fire. So guys make sure you're getting the right financial advice. Don't take advice from people that don't know what they're doing and look at their bank accounts. If they're broke, don't take advice from broke people, right? So that's what you're going to be doing. If you want to get in pipes in the kit, you're going to be getting advice from people that are making fat stacks from guys that are in the investments themselves guys like Austin. So Austin, thanks again for coming on the show. And I can't wait to see how many people connect with you, but thanks for all you guys are doing for the industry. You're really helping us keep a hold of that money, which isSpeaker 3 (44:20):Thanks for letting me come on. Yeah. If anybody has any questions or any concerns even about by syndicate or anything that you can think of, feel free to to reach out and, and don't be hesitant to, to ask your questions. Like we want to hear them. We want to know what they are. We want to help everybody. Yeah.Speaker 2 (44:34):Much appreciated Austin. Thanks again. And we will talk soon. Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. 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DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:44):The 1 thing that prevents most solar salespeople from hitting their goals and closing deals. That's what we're going to be jamming on today. That and much more coming up on today's podcast. My name's Taylor Armstrong. I'm here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in this great solar industry. Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving, good time with your family. Hope you took the day off. That would be a good day to go and knock. Some doors hit up some people, but I hope that you can take Thanksgiving and Christmas off at least from knocking doors, but a great Turkey day. Great time with friends and family. Hopefully you enjoyed it today. We're going to be talking about something a little bit different, and I love this topic because it's something that I have a lot to learn on. So I love hearing from experts on the topic and that is the topic of finances.Speaker 2 (01:43):Then I'm going to tie that into what that has to do with closing deals and hitting your goals. But it's actually been a big piece. That's helped me out tremendously to close more deals is thinking more about the financial side of things. And the reason we're talking about this a little bit more right now is because if you miss the big announcement we brought on our first ever sponsors of the show, and that is our friends over at Pi Syndicate. If you hadn't noticed, we brought Jerry, if you sell him the show and he started this financial mastermind basically to help people get their mind, right? When it comes to the money piece of the puzzle. So big thank you to them. And if you want to get, you know, your finances, right, definitely hit them up. Tell them you heard about them from the podcast and they're going to hook you up.Speaker 2 (02:37):They're going to take care of you. So go over to Pius in the get.com. We'll post their a website in the show notes of this, go check them out, let them know you appreciate them sponsoring the show and next up. So we're gonna actually hear from their CFO, his name's Austin. And he's going to share a little bit more about their vision and goal is with Pi Syndicate. But anyways, back to the topic at hand of the show today, and so something that prevents people from closing deals more than you think is they have no financial plan in place. And I've talked about this book a lot recently, a lot of podcasts, but closer survival guide by Grant Cardone. He lists this matter of fact is one of the top 10 reasons that closers fail is they don't have a financial plan in place. And we're going to get into what exactly is a financial plan, because I didn't even know what this was when I first read it.Speaker 2 (03:40):It's like, what is he talking about? Financial planning. What was that to do with closing deals? So I didn't expect it. Maybe you don't expect that either, but before we talked about what is a financial plan first, I just want to mention that you need to get your head right around money. If you're like, I don't know if anyone's like me, but I had an enormous scarcity mindset around money. And most you've heard my story. I was in college at Southern Utah university. I was donating plasma to pay my rent. And basically my summers, a pest control. Didn't go as well as I hoped. So I didn't even have money to pay my rent at the time as donating plasma. And I was that kid on campus that was going to every single club event, every single thing to try and get just some free food.Speaker 2 (04:36):If you've been on campuses, you know, they do those events all the time where they're handing out free pizza, where there might need to come check out the clubs. I wasted so many hours go to these events, listening to pointless meetings, just because I knew there was going to be a slice of pizza at the end. That's how desperate I was. I literally did not want us want to spend a dime out of my pocket. If I knew I'd go get free food somewhere. And that was just the tip of iceberg. I was the guy that our school had this discount card it's called disturbing student heard where every single restaurant in town, then a deal for college students was mostly like, buy one, get one free burgers. Or I don't know if some sort of like bonus you got with your meal.Speaker 2 (05:24):Every single day I went on in college. I refuse to go to any place that was not listed on this card. So I'm like, I'm not paying a dime over what I should. I'm going to get some type of deal. I'm going to get some type of discount or else I'm not going there. So that was me pretty sad. Right. And I didn't have money. So I mean, it was driven by that. That's not like, you know, that was kind of the factors when you're broke, you do pretty crazy stuff. And the craziest thing I probably did was we even went on a, we went on a trip with some buddies freshman year at college, we decided, Hey, we're going to go out to California. We're going to go to six flags. Knott's Berry farm. I dunno, a few different places. And we went there.Speaker 2 (06:13):I was so broke. I was literally finding leftover concessions on people's tables at six flags. I was going around if I saw a piece of pizza or some fries that looked like they hadn't been touched, I was snagging people's foods off tables, pretty nasty. Right? So I did some extreme stuff. I was broke and this caused me just like some crazy distress. And my head caused some crazy thoughts about money that I was never going to have money. I was always going to be short on money. I was always going to be strapped for cash. So just causes an enormous scarcity mindset. And they've seen it in a few of my friends. I didn't grow up. My parents weren't broke or anything. My dad's a dentist. So, you know, upper middle class, we always have money. We always, you know, never went hungry, nothing crazy like that, but I just never really had jobs.Speaker 2 (07:12):I was a music major. So I was always practicing my drums, my percussion. I didn't have time to go work. So if you're like me, if you had these, if you had these types of thoughts in your head, they're likely still carried over to this day. And that's part of what I struggle with now is I still find myself having these thoughts where I don't have money. I'm not going to be able to provide for my family. I'm going to be short on cash. Okay. And it's not an issue now, but they still creep up just because it was so ingrained in my head, back in my college days and back growing up that I didn't have money to, you know, buy what I wanted. Guess this is the first step before you create a financial plan, do you get your mindset right around money?Speaker 2 (08:05):It's a work in progress for me, but think how can you get your mindset right around cash. Someone that I look up to a lot that talks about this topic all the time is river Skinner. He was a guest on the podcast, but he has his whole abundance kind of movement. He calls it. He's always preaching about being more abundant. He's always going to gas stations and like cheering that he's paying four or five bucks a gallon for gas. Cause he's abundant. So think how can you be more abundant? How can you get rid of those scarcity mindset, feelings around money? Because we don't do it. It's going to be holding you back in your financial goals. It's going to make it tougher to close deals. It's going to make it tougher to have success in the solar industry. So be abundance, something that helped me is just actually having physical cash, handling it these days.Speaker 2 (09:05):Most people don't carry on physical cash. Most people don't even look at their dollar bills, right? It's all in Venmo. It's own PayPal. It's all in cash app, whatever, but they're not seeing the physical cash. So if you can't see it, how are you going to know you have the money, right? You go look at the bank account, but something that actually helped me tremendously go, don't go get a withdrawal of actual physical cash. And I kept in an envelope for a months. I shouldn't do this again would probably help now. But something I did for months, I would get, I had a hundred dollar bill, $50 bill, $200 bill, $10 bill. I would take them out and I would physically handle them every day. And I would just envision myself having extra cash. I would envision myself never being short on that money.Speaker 2 (10:00):I was handling in my hand and I was doing affirmations around it. So try that, go print out some physical data. Can you print it out, but go withdraw some physical cash, have it in an envelope and maybe get your mind, get your mind wrapped around that you have an abundance of cash. Is that step number one, make sure you get your mind right around money. And then step number two is get that financial plan in place. Ok, game Grant Cardone talks about this as one of the reasons why closers still, they don't have the plan in place. So if you have the book, it's step number seven, it's on page 66. He talks about this and go read the whole thing if you want. He just has a couple pages on it, but just to summarize it, he talks at the end, say most people correctly estimate their financial needs or never created a financial plan at all.Speaker 2 (11:04):Get a financial plan today and make sure it is going to do more than pay the bills, but also create financial freedom for you in your household, you will start closing more deals and you'll quit underestimating the amount of effort, energy, and enthusiasm. It takes to get a deal closed. The bottom line is this. If you underestimate what it takes to create real financial freedom, then it only makes sense that you will underestimate what it takes to close a deal. Mike drop right there. Right? And I can personally test to this. One of the recent best months of sales that I had recently is we were investing in this rental property. Is some of you that follow me over on Instagram. I talked about how we're getting a rental property for an Airbnb over in Utah. And that month I just had this excitement like, man, I want to go out and create this money so I can put it towards that property.Speaker 2 (12:03):In that month I had, I think it was 14 deals closed 13, 14, where the previous months I always had, I was closing, I don't know, 6, 7, 8, but I had that extra level of excitement that I was putting my money towards something that I was excited about towards an investment for my future can that's part of having a financial plan in place is your planning for how you're going to create extra income in your planning. Then miss Mintz, you're going to make with that extra income, you're planning your future with it. You're not just paying the bills. And you think of these companies that just cut costs, cut costs, cut costs, just strict budget that you'll also follow these people like Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman, who followed me into Cornell. And he bashed on them all the time because what do they talk about? They talk about just living by a super strict budget, cutting costs, cutting, chopping up your credit cards, right?Speaker 2 (13:01):And just, you know, live in his slim as you can. But I think it's super powerful, especially in sales, go out and close more deals to create your financial freedom, right? I want to live like a king and have extra money from my investments. And obviously, you know, there's a balance from it. You know, I'm going to go bolt insane amounts of money. You shouldn't be dropping thousands of dollars at the club every weekend, right? So within reason, but think how can you create that extra income to live, how you want to live and then have that extra money for your investments. So I think the first step in creating that financial plan is yes, figure out how much money you need to live. It. You do want to figure out what is your budget? What exactly you're going to do? You know, how much money do you need to live, right?Speaker 2 (13:57):And how much money do you need to fund future retirement plans, vacations children's education, all that, stuff like that. And then second Grant Cardone talks about this. Figure out how much money you actually need to bring in monthly in order to create solvency and get all that you want accomplished, which solvent seat is the ability of an entity to pay its debts with available cash. So your financial plan should include clearly state and monetary goals. Exactly how you're going to create surpluses of money, what to do with the surpluses and investments. So this is very important. Go and write down, have your financial plan written down. How much do you need to live? Hey, you should be doing that. If you haven't done that, go track, you know, figure out all your exact expenses, figuring out how much you need to live to put a week each month, but then figure out what is your surplus.Speaker 2 (14:55):So how much surplus do you want to have each month? What are you going to do with that? Write down your investments in this goes into why I think joining something like Pi Syndicates is a great idea because if you don't know, if you're like me, you don't know what 10 miss your money in it all. I'll be honest. I am not a financial group. I'm not good with investments. And that's why I never invested really in the past. That's why it still can meet, taken me until now to get my first rental properties, because I just thought, oh, I don't know where to look. I don't know. I don't know how to tell if this is a good deal or if it's going to cash flow. But if you can be around a group of people who know what they're doing, a mastermind style, like Pi Syndicate guys that have, you know, multi-multi millionaires that you know, have tons of different investments that are super successful.Speaker 2 (15:55):iThat's going to jumpstart the process. So that's why I decided to have them as the sponsor for the show is because so many people in this industry, they can make money, but what are they doing with it? And are they paying all the uncle, Sam, if that's the other thing, that's super powerful joining pipes. And they get, you're going to learn how to actually take that money. You would be given to uncle Sam and investing it and avoiding what you would probably paying taxes otherwise. So that's the two big steps of the day. And this is why a lot of people felt you don't have a financial plan. So today, wherever you are after your workout, after your ride out to area, wherever you're listening to this, sometime today, take out your notes app, take out a pad of paper, write down what is your financial plan?Speaker 2 (16:48):How much do you need to have the live every month? And then how much surplus are you going to have every month? What are you going to do with that? Write it out, get it in front of you, slap it on the mirror, put it on a vision board. If you're into that stuff, I think is super cool to have maybe print out a picture to go with it. And then that's how you're going to create this excitement. I guarantee you, if you do this, it's going to motivate you to push harder and deals than you were before. And something that I feel like I became a better closer when I had a kid actually just had my second kid. Now, when I'm in deals, I know, okay. I want to feed my kids. I want to know on for my kids' future. So it allows me to push harder to hang in deals longer than I would otherwise it's.Speaker 2 (17:40):So what's that motivation that you have? What stage you're in, how are we going to create that extra motivation to push hard in those deals? Yeah. You're not going to be pulling people's teeth, but you're going to stick in that deal and this is the way to do it. So that's the topic of today. Make sure you get your mind right around your buddy. And then step two, have that financial plan in place. It's going to change your game in solar. I promise you. So let me know what you think of this topic. Let me know if you like these financial topics. Next episode, we're going to have Austin on the show. He's going to dive in a little more. He's the expert on this stuff. So you're gonna hear from him. So don't miss out and get your finances, right? Close. Some deals deals this week and we will see you on the next episode. Peace.Speaker 3 (18:32):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's up Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong here with another episode as usual here to make your time as a solar professional, much more enjoyable. And of course help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals and dominate the solar industry. So let's jump into the episode before we get into this one, to think all of you that have gone on to leave a review or share the podcast. That's what keeps us going over here at Solarpreneur and just super grateful. It's coming up on a Thanksgiving actually in a few days as I'm recording this year and want to express my gratitude to all the listeners and all the people that have reached out to let me know that something's helps you or I made it easier to close a deal or get that next lead. That's really what we're all about here at the podcast and love hearing your feedback.Speaker 2 (01:40):So thank you. Thank you so much for those who haven't done that and wanted to give a shout out as well too. We got a recent review from a sports master 92. He says amazing. I listened for the first time last week, my team was in a slump and I made all of my reps start listening and we have had a big turnaround that quickly have in we'll keep recommending sports master 92. I love sports as well. You rock. Thanks for the good review. And so today's episode, we're going to talk about something that has been helping me quite a bit recently want to give my man a Jason newbie, a shout out something that I didn't remember, but we've been doing some trainings here in our team correlations. And I started implementing a couple of these techniques and it's been helping me immensely.Speaker 2 (02:35):Just get people to open up more, get people to listen. And those of you that knocked doors, really anyone, whether you're knocking doors or closing deals, that's what we need. We need people to open up to us. We need them to tell us what they're thinking, because really that's how you're going to gain the trust. That's how you're going to know how to overcome their objections. And really that's the goal of any fact-finding you can do as you're sitting in these. You just want people to spill the beans. You want them to tell you exactly why they haven't gone solar. Exactly what their concerns are, because guess what they tell you, those things the deal's done. They just told you exactly how to close them. Because if you can overcome those objections and answer those questions that they're having answer the reasons why they hadn't gone solar yet, boom, it's a done deal.Speaker 2 (03:23):So today we're going to talk about two techniques to ninja techniques that help your prospects open up in a way that they wouldn't otherwise. And these techniques, they come from a book called never split the difference by Chris Voss, great book, recommend a hundred percent go read it. I need to reread it. I listened to it on audible, but ton of takeaways you can get from that book. And for those that haven't heard of the book, Chris' boss, you as an FBI, negotiator would literally negotiate with you know, people doing crazy things murders, I don't know, just all sorts of different situations. And he takes what he learned and talks about how we can apply those same negotiation techniques in the business world and in cells. And so two of his techniques, Hey, the first one it's called mirroring mirroring. I can pronounce it.Speaker 2 (04:22):And then the second one is called labeling. As I'm going to tell you a little story, and then I'm going to talk about these techniques and give you some implementations, how you can start using them right away. Okay. And so I was out knocking. This was just last week. I'll be hitting some doors here and we'd done this training pretty recently. We did a little exercise, which y'all, I'll talk about it for those leading teams. It's a great exercise. You can put your team through to help with these techniques, but I'm talking to this lady and she is super closed off. She's a neighbor of the deal. I just closed a couple of days before, and I was trying to get some HOA signatures, which I've talked about this before, but one of the best ways to little hacks to pick up some quick leads, go get those HOA forms filled out here in California.Speaker 2 (05:18):I assume it's probably the same with most Safeways, but here in California, you have to go get neighborhoods signatures. Typically for these hos saying that they acknowledge, they know that their solar being installed here in California. It's nice because the laws make it so they can't deny the solar, but HOA is still typically require this thing. So I'm going, I'm getting the neighborhood signature. And of course, you know, I'm going to use that to my advantage, try and get some more appointments as I'm getting these neighborhoods signatures. And typically every time I get, I fill out these forms, typically I'd get a couple appointments out of it because it's a great regard. He got a name to drop. They know you're an installing their neighbor. And if you just kind of slip it in there, Hey, we checked out. You haven't checked out solar before I view, they'll give you an objection, whatever.Speaker 2 (06:10):So I go do this. I'm with the lady she's being super closed off. Okay. Of course I slipped that in there. I say, Hey, I noticed you don't have solar. If you guys ever looked into it. And instantly, usually they'll have a conversation with me, but this lady just instantly closes off. She's like, no, no, not interested. No Mike, whoa. I wasn't even trying to pitch it because that's the other advantage. Usually people don't look at you as a salesman if you're just coming by to get signatures. Right. But this lady right off the bat, she goes on the defense. She's saying no, not interested. No. And just didn't want to start a conversation about solar at all. Even though I wasn't coming across as salesy. So I start thinking about these two techniques, Hey, mirroring and labeling. And I'm like, all right, I'm going to put these to the test.Speaker 2 (07:00):So she goes through I finally get out of her. I go, no solar, not interested, not interested and force her to replay. Okay. Here's the first technique. I'll explain these in more depth later. But mirroring is basically you repeat the last two words that they said, or you replete some keywords. They said in the statement and force them to elaborate. Okay. So she goes, oh yeah, not interested. No, it doesn't make sense. And I go, doesn't make sense. Okay. And what's she going to do? She has to replay, says, yeah, looked into it. Doesn't work for us. It doesn't work for you. I do it again. And what I'm doing, I'm forcing her to open up to elaborate on these things. And I noticed just from doing this, it worked way better than me being like, oh, why didn't make, why didn't it make sense?Speaker 2 (08:02):Why didn't you check into it? Okay. Cause what happens is people feel like they're being interrogated sometimes when you just go after him with why? Why, why, why? And this is what every other sales person is doing. Right. They're saying why, why haven't you gone solar? Okay. So I'm trying it this way. I'm putting the Chris boss technique to the test. So it doesn't make sense. She goes, yeah, we just have a low bill. And I noticed she starts to open up way more. She starts actually giving me reasons. Okay. And then I put the other technique in the use. The other technique is called labeling. And this is where you basically summarize what you think they told you, but you put a sound like in front of it. So she said, yeah, we have a pretty low bill. Nick's expensive. So I label that.Speaker 2 (08:57):I said, oh, sounds like soar was pretty expensive when you looked into it. And she goes, yeah. Yeah. She starts telling me basically all the reasons why she didn't go solar. Okay. And I will say, I didn't end up booking this appointment. So it doesn't have a happy ending, but I did throw these techniques into place. And I noticed I got way further than I probably would have just do my typical stuff. Okay. Because typically I would just do though, why haven't you done it? Oh, well, solar different now. Here's why XYZ. But what I was doing, I was getting her to open up, open up. I was again having her, tell me all the reasons she hadn't done it and doing it in these ways with these techniques, it made it way less threatening because especially with someone closed off like this, the more you can seem like you're not trying to just be the typical sales guy trained to interrogate them.Speaker 2 (09:57):The more they're going to open up to it. So she opened up way more. Still couldn't get her to buy on an appointment. But she told me all the reasons she wasn't spending much of money. She was too busy. XYZ tried to overcome it. Couldn't but I got her to actually start talking. I got her to elaborate how much she was feeling. Okay. And I'm noticing that as I do this, people are talking way more, not only in, on the doors, but also in appointments as I'm sitting in appointments. Oh, Taylor. Yeah. You know what? Our bills are too low. Oh. Sounds like you guys looked into it before and financially didn't make sense. Yeah. We looked into it a long time ago. We looked into it like three years ago and it didn't save us any money. Save you any money. Yeah.Speaker 2 (10:51):Cause we were expecting to save a bunch and only saved us like five bucks a month. Okay. There may be. You find out that they're expecting to save, I don't know, 10 bucks a month. It's all about expectations. These are ways you can figure out what their expectations were. Hey, so you can use this with pretty much anyone, anything and anyone, any objections, but you can also use it in your daily social situations in Chris Voss talks about this, just using it in conversations. It's a way to get people to open up and just listen. Feel like they're being listened to more. Okay. So those are the two techniques and I'll read a little description of them. Okay. The first one was mirroring and that's again taking two to three key words and repeating them. Yeah. Solar is too expensive, too expensive. Yeah. We looked into it before and it costs like 40 grand, 40 grand.Speaker 2 (11:52):He just labeling or sorry. Mirroring is repeating back two to three keywords and using it to gather Intel. Hey, and then it expands what you know about them in their position. Hey, that's textbook definition right there. And then the second one again is called labeling. And that is where you basically summarize what they told you. Hey, by using, oh, seems like it costs a lot back then. Oh, sounds like you guys didn't have a good experience with what you're looking at. And those are the two. I think those are the two key phrases sounds like, or seems like, seems to be the one that Chris' boss uses more than anything. Hey, and it's important. Another thing I dug up as, as, as, as kind of researching, a lot of us tend to do phrases like, oh, what I'm hearing is, or I think, okay.Speaker 2 (12:54):And as you do a first person phrase like this, sometimes it can signal that you're the number one priority. And we don't want it to come across as, this is what we think. Okay. We want it to be about them. Cause what do people care about brain trees? Tracy says, w I F M right? What's in it for me. That's all people care about. It doesn't matter if they're saving money. It doesn't matter. What's in it for them. And what do they want? That's what these two techniques are going to dig, dig up is what do they really want? And if you can make people think, oh, this product has what I need, what I want. That's all they care about. Right? They don't care about savings, but they care about saving the planet. You're going to hit on that. And that's how these techniques can be effective.Speaker 2 (13:47):Okay. So make sure you use them again. That's mirroring and labeling, and this is just a crash course on it, but great exercise you can do with your teams. Maybe you're leading the team. Maybe you're managing or go bring this back to one of your trainings. If you're just, you know, maybe you're not managing, but go take it back to your teams. Go practice this a great exercise. We did that got me thinking way more about this is in our meetings. We had someone just go up, stand in front of the room. And he started off with like a statement. And then we just went down every single rep that was in that room. And we did either a mere statement or we did a label. So for example, I think the rep started out with a, yeah, it's been a really tough daily. I don't know, start out with just something random.Speaker 2 (14:39):And then the first rep in front, he had to say tough daily. And then the guy in front of the room, he said, yeah, I didn't get a good grade on my tests. XYZ. I don't know. He started expounding on that. And then the second one, and then you go down the line, then the next person he could do a mirror label. So you could do all sounds like it's been rough times lately. And then you're just constantly getting the person in front of the room to elaborate on what they said. Obviously keeping it in line with the topic. You're not going way off topic. Yeah. You're keeping it on track and you're trying to dig up relevant information. So think about that as you're knocking or as you're out there, closing deals, use these two techniques mirroring and labeling. Hey, it's been a game changer for me.Speaker 2 (15:28):So probably my two takeaways from the book and go read the Chris Voss book. Sorry. My mind just drew a blank. Yeah. Anyways, we'll post to it here in the show notes, go read it. Let me know if you have any takeaways or things you are using from the book. We'd love to hear it and would love to hear any other ways you're using to mirror and label your prospects in your deals are on the doors. So go out, apply this, send it to someone that has been struggling to connect with people, to book appointments out there in the neighborhoods and hope you have a great Thanksgiving. If you're listening to this before or on or after Thanksgiving, whenever it is make sure to be grateful, a great episode on gratitude. We had probably six months or so back and go look Earl Kapule. He is Mr. Gratitude. He talks a lot about how gratitude gratitude has been a game changer in a solar cells. So don't forget be grateful and all that you do keep your gratitude, gratitude journal, and let's go out and crush it this week. Go close some deals and I'll see you on the next episode. Peace.Speaker 3 (16:45):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's going on. Solarpreneurs. We are here live in Las Vegas. Guests probably won't be alive by the time you hear it, but we have, uh, Mr. Josh Peters on the show here on the podcast. Josh, thanks for coming on and with us today.Speaker 3 (00:55):Absolutely. Yeah, I'm super excited to be here with you.Speaker 2 (00:57):It's going to be awesome. And Josh, he is the director of experience here at your energy co if you're watching the video, he's all decked out in the gear. Yeah. You can seeSpeaker 3 (01:07):Every present.Speaker 2 (01:08):We're lucky cause he's about to roll out on the doors himself. So he fortunate enough that you would give us some time before he gets on the doors here on a Saturday. So, uh, Josh excited to have you on. And, um, you've obviously been super involved in recruiting over the years. I know you're just putting together, um, a whole experience now for these recruits coming in and it's super valuable for our listeners to just hear how to recruit the right way. And obviously you're doing a lot over social media, digital recruiting, which is super valuable, super important in today's. Um, just kind of landscape with things, especially during the COVID I bet, right?Speaker 3 (01:45):Yeah. I mean, you know, especially nowadays back in the day, you could just post that ad on Craigslist, but today you have social media and that's the biggest push for where people are. And so wherever the people are is where you go to recruit, honestly.Speaker 2 (01:56):Yeah. I know a huge in so many people, I see do it the wrong way as I'm sure we'll touch on. So before we get into all that, um, do you want to kind of, um, tell us about your like door to door background, how you got into solar and I guess how you kind of transitioned into all these recruiting absolutely. Down over the years. Cool.Speaker 3 (02:15):So yeah, I started about five years ago in the door, their industry, um, I got started in Kirby, so all you guys out there, um, if you don't know, Kirby's the vacuums, they've been around 107 years, so they're like the biggest sales org when it comes to door to door sales. Um, and the funny thing is, I didn't even know as a sales job, I just applied to a position and I was like, cool. It says 2000 a month, I'm going to work there. Um, and so when I got there and they were like, this is a sales position, uh, it was kind of a shocker for me cause I'd never done sales. Yeah. So I was just like, well, I'll give it a try. Um, and so when I got into Kirby, you know, obviously I dealt with the difficulties of not doing well, my like my first few weeks.Speaker 3 (02:54):Uh, but then when I caught on, um, I actually made my way to being the top salesman in the office. I got promoted to being team leader. Um, and then the next promotion I had after that was into a recruiting position. So, um, I did sales for quite a bit in Caribbean. Then I moved into a recruiting position where there's still sales involved. Um, but it's, it kind of taught me a lot about, uh, what a good process should look like for a sales company on how to, you know, create a pipeline, how to, you know, interview these people, how to hire them, train them and then get them to their first sale. Cause as director of experience, you know, one of the things that's the biggest part of my job is retention. And that's something that I've started to learn from, from my first recruiting job all the way up until here is, is the experience of making sure, you know, what keeps people into a business, what keeps people at the company.Speaker 3 (03:42):Yeah. Um, but yeah, so I, I did Kirby for about three years and the last two was, was basically just me hiring people, training them, um, and, and recruiting. Um, then after Kirby, I got into selling water systems. I did water systems on the doors for a while. Uh, the one like the full water filtration, water softeners, all that kind of stuff. I helped that guy build out his recruiting platform as well. Um, and then, uh, the timeline didn't work on me for that one. Cause he wanted to start recruiting like a year later. And I was like, well, I want to do it now. It just didn't work out. Um, but then, uh, after that, well, while I was at that job, I actually, um, we were on the sales call with the door to our experts, which just kind of funny. And that's where I first got introduced to the door, to our experts.Speaker 3 (04:30):And while we were on the sales call, um, I actually applied to go work for them. Um, and so that's how I got my job at door they're experts, uh, working in the recruiting department. Um, so I went to work with them. Uh, I started out just as kind of like a, like setting the position or setting the interviews for like the senior recruiters. Um, and then after about a month I got promoted into a senior recruiting position. Um, and it's then when I started to work with all the different industries, right. Cause I had only done Caribbean water systems before that, but then I started to work with best control companies, solar companies, roofing companies, garbage companies, you name it, right. We would recruit guys for all these different industries. Um, and while I was there, I started to work more, uh, more personally with solar companies.Speaker 3 (05:14):Um, and that's where I started to see kind of where the real opportunity is, you know, cause I've been in sales, like you were in pest control sales before, right. Um, and obviously, you know, there's money to be made in different industries. But the money I saw that was, was to be made in solar and the opportunity in solar is where my interest really started to peak. And so that's when, um, I started researching into, you know, different solar companies. I started looking into that opportunity. Um, and that's when about eight months ago I got connected with Jerry. Um, and he talked to me about, you know, starting this company here in Chico and building something that would be, uh, very easy to, to aggressively grow and expand as a company. Um, and kind of all the ideas he had for the company. So I started working with him about eight months ago. Um, and then I came to work for him. I quit the job there at DD experts and I came here about two, three months ago.Speaker 2 (06:07):Okay. Yeah. You've been through a lot man, while I've experienced a lot of different things. That's interesting. And it's cool. Um, I mean, we've, I've heard a few, few, few people on the podcast that, of transitioned over into kind of more recruiting roles like yourself. And so for you, was it, um, like did someone recognize, Hey, this guy is super good at recruiting, let's put them over and where recruiting role or was it you, you kinda just liked more, they recruiting type stuff. So you did it yourself or how did that work? How did you first transition into more? I recruiting stuff?Speaker 3 (06:37):So it was actually really cool. Um, because at Kirby, the way they structured it is they was, they would tell you all the different positions that you could attain, uh, through the company, uh, all the way up until earning your own office. Right? Because at Kirby it's a franchise, you can, you can have your own office. Right. Um, and when they talked to us about it in the training class, one of the positions was the recruiting position. Right. They call it a DPS, which I don't even remember what it stands for. I think it's something about like personnel something. Um, uh, but when they talked about that, it was what peaked my interest from the very start actually. Cause I, I really love working with people. Um, I love to have the opportunity to teach people stuff, but at the time, obviously I didn't have anything to teach them.Speaker 3 (07:16):Like, I mean, I wasn't good at sales yet. And so after I had gone through the sales process, after I, I knew what I was talking about, I had the product knowledge, the sales knowledge and the door knocking knowledge. Um, I got to the point where I was like, I didn't feel fulfilled just selling, you know? And so for me, the fulfilling part of things was when I got into recruiting, you know, helping other people to be successful. Right. And just like with any sales company, you know, you hire a lot of people and a lot of people fall off. Um, and so that was one of the things that kind of got me started on a journey of figuring out the best way to, to not only bring people into a company and to train them, but to keep them because I think, uh, everyone in this industry will agree that the biggest issue we have when it comes to recruiting is drop-off, you know, and, and that constant cycle of trying to get people into the company and the churning.Speaker 3 (08:05):So, um, but yeah, so that's, that's where I kind of started to find the passion for recruiting, um, for working with reps, uh, and, and the training side of things. Cause I mean, I loved the sales. I was good at it. Like once I figured it out, you know, I, I could go out and make some good money. Um, but for me, I always thought it's a lot cooler to see the fruits of your, of your labor and other people. Yeah. Cause like the fruits of my labor when I was selling was the money. Right. And that was cool. Um, but then it's a whole different level when you can take, you know, 10 people at a time and a training class, um, put them through like a product training, a sales training, then a door knocking the training and see them have success in their first week and see them get excited and see them make money. Uh, I really got addicted to that process.Speaker 2 (08:49):That's awesome. Yeah. And now I see so many people that just want to bring in more recruits. It's like putting band-aids on, you know, open bleeding women. They just want to bring in a hundred recruits, but yet they have no system set up to like nurture these recruits. And then they're surprised when all these, you know, all these guys just drop off after two weeks it's I've seen companies go out and hire these recruiting agencies, just get tons of leads coming in, have 50 people show up to a recruiting meeting. And then, but yeah, if they don't have a structure, a process in place, a way to nurture all these things away systems like you guys have set up here at your energy go, then I'm sure you've seen it do. There's a huge drop-off in people just quit. And after a weekend.Speaker 3 (09:29):Yeah. Very fortunate because the office I worked for in Kirby, um, the entire idea was retention because there's a lot of offices in Kirby where it is just churn and burn, like get a person in there. You can make a sale off sailor to off of them and then they'll leave. And that's like, um, that's like common. Right. But the, the office I worked for, the biggest thing that we tried to focus on was the retention, um, was the career growth, was like their path into a successful salesman. So, um, even though like, yeah, you're right. There are so many companies out there that they're just like, it's, they think it will take more work to retain like six good people than just to keep hiring over and over again, like 10, 15 people that are going to drop off. Right. And, and it might be a different type of work, but it's, it's way better to have a good, solid team of six people because those people are, what's going to attract and retain even more.Speaker 2 (10:22):Yeah, for sure. And yeah, so just getting that core people and building it out. And I know some people don't have like, you know, recruiting people over recruiting, but for me, as I've seen the companies I work with like hire people where nurture these recruits and build out systems, but I'll kind of like a map, a pathway of things they need to do. Um, you know, just starting the job. I think that helps a ton versus just, you know, saying, okay, let's start go, uh, dump guys off in an area in toughed out, have them have success like that. Um, but yeah. So for you Josh, like what are some big mistakes you've I know you worked with like DDD experts and you were seeing just companies all over the place, um, you know, helping them with their recruiting. So when you were going into these companies and helping them build out their processes and helping them recruit, what were some like big mistakes that you were seeing and things that they were doing wrong,Speaker 3 (11:12):Um, you actually hit the nail right on the head of what I wanted to talk about. And it's, and it's basically in one word it's it's attention. Right. Whereas like you said, you know, a lot of these companies will go out without the systems and processes built out yet. They're just, you know, cause when guys started a company, um, or they, they split off or whatever they're doing, um, what's the first thing on their mind. I need to make money. Right. Um, and I want to do it fast. And so sometimes what they'll do is they'll step over the simple things that could, that could keep, um, or could, that could start a good process and just get in, try, try to get right into the moneymaking. And so the biggest issue I've seen, especially in the door door spaces, uh, they think that they think that they're behind curve.Speaker 3 (11:53):It's just like people with like crypto, for example, like if you see something spike people, oh my gosh, I have to buy it now. Right. Um, so, so the biggest issue that people have when it comes to recruiting is, you know, if they start a company, they think that they need to have just like 50 people in a training class right then and there. Um, but they don't have a hiring manager. They don't have a training person. They don't have a onboarding process. They don't have like a training program put together for these reps once they get there. And so even if they do get those 50 people in the room, um, believe it or not, you know, reps aren't done, like you get 50 people in the room. They're smart enough to know like, if the processes are off, if these people know what they're doing, it's just like, um, having product knowledge and sales knowledge.Speaker 3 (12:36):Isn't good enough when it comes to, just to, to training reps to be successful. Right. Um, because as most people have learned in this industry, sometimes what you do, isn't a generalized, good thing for every single person to do. Right. Right. Like, especially if it's reps I've never sold before, um, like your you're pitch and what you do, your nuances on the door, like you can't just teach that. You can't just transfer it to them. Right. So putting together these processes and making sure that you have a simple, like, from, uh, apply. So like from applicant to onboarded and on the team, having those steps down. Right. Um, and just a quick outline of what that would look like. Right. Is, so you've got your ads. So whatever platform you use to run your ads, whether it be ZipRecruiter, indeed, Facebook, um, Craigslist, whatever you're using.Speaker 3 (13:27):Okay. Um, honing that process, uh, because one of the things that I saw when I was working with these companies, cause everyone's already doing their own recruiting. Right. And a lot of people use indeed. Um, a hard part about indeed is if you don't know the tricks behind it, Indeed's telling you to spend like 200, 300 bucks a day. Yeah. It's a lot of money. You figure out what you're doing. And then I tell you that, right. Because they make money off of you. Um, you don't have to spend that much money. You can optimize your ads way easier than that. Right. Um, and so that was one of the first things I would teach, um, these companies, because after they were done with us, they were going to continue recruiting. Right. Like after we had sent them people and they'd been in, um, in our little program, they were going to continue recruiting.Speaker 3 (14:11):So I taught them how to optimize their ads, what keywords to use, how to make it look best because when people are scrolling through indeed, um, they're looking at titles, right. Um, they're looking at titles. I think that was the 29 minutes. Okay. Restart that. Pods let's do it. We can edit it right back into a scene. Um, yeah, sure. Did you have, I think we were talking about, um, yeah, go ahead. Where, where you're like, I was just talking about like how people apply on indeed. Um, the first thing that they'll do is they'll scroll through and then those titles. Right. Okay. Um, so you want to have a good title and then the next thing that they notice is the pay. So, uh, whatever is the industry standard. Um, it depends on the type of person you're trying to recruit. So you have to understand, um, I know lots of these companies, they're like, I want to experience people experienced solar guys.Speaker 3 (15:13):Aren't on indeed. Yeah. Most of the time, they're not you on the why, because they have connections. Like if they're an experienced solar rep, they know about all the other companies, that's more of a head hunting type of thing. That's more of ongoing on, on social media. I'm trying to find these people, I'm talking to people in the industry. So if you're using indeed, it's mostly people that might have some sales experience in the past, um, or who would be a good candidate. Right. So you had to make it a more realistic looking pay. Uh, some of the biggest issues I saw with that is solar companies will get on indeed. And they'll put, you know, 200,000 to 400,000 a year. And these people to be true for these people, not even that, but they do not feel like they qualify for that. So why would you, they wouldn't even apply to the job because they're like, there's no way I could get a job that pays out high.Speaker 3 (15:57):Cause if they're going from $40,000 a year in their head, they're not worth $400,000 a year. Right. Um, so that was another thing. So the that's one of the first things that they'll see is they want to see the title and then some type of pay that makes sense in their head. Um, normally I would like to do just like, you know, 60 to 80,000, um, just because if they were making 40,000 a year for them, 60 would be an awesome jump, but it's not impossible. Right. And if they're in that 50 to 60, 70 range, then 60 to 80 is it's doable. Right. Then they will apply. So that's just, it's just one of those psychology things you can use when you're using like indeed, um, to help people apply. It probably depends on like the market. Do you like what you're either in that's true.Speaker 3 (16:40):Yeah. It depends on the market, but that's just in a general sense that that usually helps best when you're talking about indeed. Yeah. Okay. Um, but yeah, and then just the next thing would be, you know, you've got the ads down, that's the first step. Then once they apply, what, what are you doing? Uh, there's, there's different ways to do it. Um, and I'm going to say this from the start. I am not a fan of group interviews. A lot of people do them and I've ha I've heard people tell me, they're like, oh, they're the best thing they work. Um, I think they say that because they think it's a better use of their time. I disagree. Uh, I've never seen group interviews be as successful because here's the problem with group interviews, the type of people you're looking for, if they're in the same room as someone that looks like they're not even competent, right.Speaker 3 (17:25):It looks like they shouldn't even be able to get this type of job. Um, and they see that that person got the job. They won't come back and their trust level goes down. Does that make sense? And then like normal people are used to going to interviews one-on-one uh, or the higher level reps are used to one-on-one interviews. Yeah. So the funny thing is when you're doing group interviews, you're weeding out the type of people you want to just get the lower hanging fruit. Yeah. Right. Um, and that's, that's my opinion. That's what I've seen in the industry. That's what I've dealt with the last four years of, of recruiting that I've been doing. Um, people still do it and that's fine if it gets you, the, the numbers that you want. That's cool. But I recommend having a better process and, and the, the best process, I think, uh, when it comes to the way that you handle these applicants, um, is, is a two touch system, right?Speaker 3 (18:16):So like once someone's applied, um, you can either do it through texts or a phone call, but you, you texted them to set up a time to interview. Okay. Um, and then you do the interview. So it's a two touch process. Um, and with that, uh, after, after that interview that you do with them, um, another big problem that people have in the industry is just jumping the gun, right. Offering them the job, offer on the job right off the bat. They're like, oh, this conversation has been great. You have the job. Um, and, and the funny thing is, and, and this is a little tip I learned from Brandon Hall. It's a really, it's a funny way to think about it. But you know, like something that people do in the door to our industry is they try to sell the job to you. Right.Speaker 3 (18:57):With recruiting, it's different. You're not trying to sell the job. Like, uh, people normally are trying to sell themselves to the job. Right. And so the funny way he describes it, he's like, uh, if I was in an interview to be a firefighter, right. And the guy was telling me, and I was telling the guy, I was like, look, man, I'm going to be the worst firefighter. I'm not gonna be able to put out the fires. Like I suck. People are going to die. And the chief was telling me, dude, it's perfectly fine. You'll get paid. It'll be, it'll be cool. Like you can do an awesome job. Does that make sense? It makes zero sense that someone would say that, right. Or like 1% how they're doing. They're like, they get people that come in and they're like, oh, I've never worked commissioned before.Speaker 3 (19:38):I'm not going to, I'm not going to get it. Like, I'm going to suck. And these interviewers are like to, to be perfectly like, you're going to make money. You become a millionaire, like all those types of things. And it's just like, you would not do that. You would not do that in a regular interview. And so the, the thing is that we're trying to get away from, in, in the recruiting industry, right. Is we want people to understand that this is a job, right. And I know you guys are all 10 99. Right. But this is an opportunity for them that they still have to earn. And if people earn something, they treat it way better. Right. Um, if people would just get something, they, it's not something that they value. And so that's the mentality that you have to go into. It's just like sales, you have to have that mentality.Speaker 3 (20:21):Right. So when you're doing interviews, when you are a recruiter, the mentality that you need to have going in is that this person needs to earn this job. Yeah. Right. This person needs to earn the position because if they don't, they will be the person that in a week, they're not going to knock doors and they're going to leave. No doubt. Right. And so the value comes from, um, switching up your mentality, switching up the way that you do your interviews, uh, to do that. And the reason most guys don't do that is because they're scared that it's going to S like run people off. Like, they're scared that if they make the process more difficult, that they won't get as much as many numbers or as many people in there where it's not true. Like, yeah, you will weed out people, but it's, you don't want those types of people in your company. Anyways, because like I said, from the start, if you have a solid team of people, a solid, like five, six people that are your core people, um, that are, that are, you know, bought in that believe in the company. Um, and that they earned the position. Those guys will attract way, way more people and retain more people. And if you have a constant stream of new people coming in that feel like they didn't earn the position, um, and feel like they can just leave wheneverSpeaker 2 (21:28):A hundred percent. And I think it takes so much energy to drag these people. And it didn't even want to be there in the first place. You're constantly trying to babysit and make sure they're on the doors. And you're like, no, I promise it's going to work. If you just put in the dime when they didn't even want to be there in the first place. So it's like, yeah, I don't know. I think it's very similar to like selling, you know, if we're like begging people to a, please do this, please buy it for me. Like, no, one's going to do that. Right. It's like,Speaker 3 (21:52):It's the same concept. It's the exact same concept. Right. And the funny thing is, it's just like people have called me harsh before when dealing with reps. And they're like, I thought you're like a director of experience. Um, cause I think our last training class, a guy asked me, he's like, you know what, if I'm messing up or whatever, I was like, uh I'm I am a believer of 100% accountability. And I believe that if you want to be here, you will be here. If not, I'll tell you to leave. Right. Like, I'm not like, obviously you have to babysit new reps. Right. But babysit them when it comes to product knowledge and sales training, you don't babysit them when it comes to like the stupid complaints and things that they talk about. Um, cause you know, it's, it's funny like w for example, when people are on the phone with me doing an interview, right. Um, and if they say something along the lines of, well, what if I make zero sales? You know, most guys are good. What are they going to say? They're like, oh no, it'll be fine. We'll make sure you make money. You get sales, you know, the ISA I go. So you're telling me you're going to be the worst performer in the company.Speaker 3 (22:52):You're telling me you're not going to be good at your job. Is that what you're saying? Are you just asking a question? And then instantly they're just like, no, no, no. I was just wondering, like what happened? I was like, okay, cool. I just want to make sure. Cause if, if you're telling me you're not going to do well and that you aren't going to be a good performer for the company, I don't want you. Right. Like that's, that's not who we're looking for. And their mentality instantly changed because what guys are scared to talk about in interviews is commission, right? They're scared to talk about sales, um, because they don't know how to control that conversation. And that's the best way to flip the mentality. When it comes to controlling a conversation is you treat it like a dumb question because it is right.Speaker 3 (23:29):You wouldn't go up to a guy and talk about it. Like, what if I don't make the tacos? Good enough. You wouldn't do that. No. And so, um, realistically I think as an industry, we just need to start treating it more like a job, rather than just like, you are trying to bring people in and you're begging them to stay and you're begging them to come because you make money off of them. Right. And, and I know it's a hard thing to kind of switch your mentality around because, um, just like with sales, every single opportunity you're in, it's your time, it's your attention. Right. Um, but if you're a sucky salesman, you don't want to be in more houses. You want to be studying more and learning more. Yeah. Right. It's, it's, it's not because you're wasting opportunities at that point. And it's the same thing with the recruiting.Speaker 3 (24:14):You're wasting opportunities. If every single person that you bring into the company doesn't earn it. Um, they feel like, you know, they're just, they were begged to come onto the job. Um, and they have to be babysit for every single thing. And that's where, like I said, at the beginning, attention is one of the biggest things that is difficult for a company when it comes to recruiting because, um, they're spending time and attention on these reps that realistically aren't going to perform because it wasn't right from the start. Right. So they begged them to get into the, into the company. They told them that they're going to do good. And so because of that, the person who brought them in feels an obligation to make them good. Right. And I'm sure you've dealt with it and everyone's dealt with it, but how hard it is, how hard is it to take a rep that just absolutely has the worst mentality just is not good.Speaker 3 (25:06):And probably won't last a few days. What type of attention do you have to have to spend and put into this person a lot? Like you have to go with them on every single door. Um, you have to, like on the third day, go pick them up because they're like, ah, I don't know if I want to come back in, I'll come get you. Right. Everyone's dealt with it. And so if you focus your attention on, on the right part of the timeline, when it comes to recruiting, you'll see a huge change in your effort. Because if your attention is spent, um, this qualifying people from working for your company, because they're not the right fit. And then you'll see at this point when it's like time for them to, to work and time for them to be taught your attention and can, can be spent in the training. And then when they go out, there'll be much better prepared mentally. And just like, um, when it comes to the product knowledge as well that you won't have to dedicate as much time per recruit. Yeah.Speaker 2 (26:01):Okay. I love that. It's almost like another big mistake is just, you know, in general and sales people spending time with unqualified prospects, like how many new reps are spending two hours in a grandma Jean's house. He's 90 years old.Speaker 3 (26:14):Cause they're like, oh my goshSpeaker 2 (26:17):Know though. Yeah. It's like very similar in recruiting. How many recruiters are spending time with recruits? That's, you know, don't probably don't want to be there. Aren't good recruits. And I love that analogy, comparing it to other jobs that tacos the firefighters. Cause fee thing, that way it's yeah. It's like a whole different perspective that kind of really,Speaker 3 (26:35):And flip your mentality on it because, um, and like I said before, I understand these companies, the reason they want recruits is because they need to make money. Yeah. Right. But, but the cool thing is, um, with our industries, especially like solar, for example, um, if you don't have enough recruits or money, there's an easy way to fix that. You go knock doors and sell some. Yeah. Right. And so, and so, and a big reason why people start these companies. Cause, cause they want to start getting away from that, but they need to understand like, um, if you don't have enough time or money, like recruits won't solve that problem. I like get the money then the recruits, because then you can focus your attention on what action, what action needs to be done.Speaker 2 (27:16):Yeah. So money tips right there, make sure you were spending the time with qualified prospects. Make sure you're not letting your energy be sucked away by these people. That's you, aren't going to be good fits. And so speaking of not good fits, I know you guys bring in these groups all the time. How often are you bringing these ed? These recruiting groups every two weeks. Okay. So two weeks they're getting big groups or recruits in. Um, and it's really interesting where you guys are doing, just having almost like a bootcamp style, getting them in depth training. And then, um, last night I know they're doing like a scavenger hunt and uh, going out on the doors today. So, um, we'll hear maybe more about that in a second, but do you have any stories of, uh, I dunno, like bad recruits or, or like, um, interesting people give us something funny or crazy.Speaker 3 (28:05):The thing is guys, uh, um, no matter what you do, cause there's a vetting process. We have a pretty strict vetting process. I mean our first training class, we had 800 applicants and we brought 15 people on. Okay. So we, we, we cut it down to quite a lot because, um, like I said, if you focus your time on the right people, it goes well. Right. And you don't have to worry about like, yeah, we could have had probably 60 probably had 60 people from the applicant pool comp. Right. But we did the, we did an interview process. We did it the way that like, you know, gets rid of the people that you don't want to spend time on. Um, and, but then there are still people that will slip through the cracks. Right. And so there, there was, you know, there was someone that, you know, sounded great on the phone, did great for the training class.Speaker 3 (28:50):But when he showed up, we were just like, oh man, like this, this, this probably won't be a good fit. I mean, he, he showed up with a button up shirt, but it was on buttoned all the way up. His belly button didn't have any sleeves on. And he, I don't know if he was just like an actor or something, but he w he like tried to be the most dramatic person ever. Right. And, um, so we were like, okay, well, we'll, we'll see if it, if it works out, if we can give him a shot, um, but come the second day, we had to find him because we we're just like, you're not the right fit for the company. You're just, this is not the job for you. So, uh, and that's the other thing, guys, don't, don't be afraid, um, to, to fire or get rid of people because they will do more damage in your, in your, in your company.Speaker 3 (29:37):Um, if you let them stay, rather than if you just fire them right there. Because if you let someone that's not a good fit for the company, not going to fit for the culture, what that does for every other reps, uh, mindset is they're like, oh, well, they, they preach about their culture. They preach about their core values, but this guy doesn't have it. So realistically, what that means is they just want as many people as possible. They want us to make money for the company. Right. So getting rid of those people, um, will benefit you as a company, way more than trying to turn them into a good rep and make them a good fit for the car.Speaker 2 (30:11):Was this guy out knocking doors and is a button up.Speaker 3 (30:16):We gave him a polo to use, but he, he wasn't knocking doors. He was, he would, I had to shadow him. Right. Because, um, uh, we were told that like, you know, the police, they were trying to call the police on that for some reason, or that no, the worst part was, I think he might have been saying he was from NV energy. So like saying he was from the energy company and we're like, that's not what we teach at all. And so I had to shadow him and I think all he would do is he's not, he'd knock on the door, that'd be standing behind him. And the person would answer. He's like, Hey, my technicians right here. And he'll just walk off, just leave you. I'm just standing there like, hi, I'm the technician. Like, how are you? Like, what's your name? I guess I need to check your meterSpeaker 2 (31:00):Quality appointment right there. I know.Speaker 3 (31:02):Right. That's see. That's for you guys that buy leads. Those are your appointments, by the way, those are the ones they're just like, yeah, there are people who walk up to the door and say, Hey, there's an appointment coming.Speaker 2 (31:13):That's funny. That's awesome. Well, Josh, I know you're about to have some doors and everything here, so we don't want to take too much more of your time. But last thing I kind of wanted to ask you about is you guys are obviously doing this boot camp style. Like we talked about bringing in hordes or recruits and, um, just getting them trained up. So why did you guys decide to do it like this, bring them all in for a weekend and kind of go out and what's been that experience, like doing it like that versus just like, I don't know, maybe the more traditional things bring in people one by one. What what'd you guys do?Speaker 3 (31:44):The biggest reason why we did that, Taylor is because, um, one of our, our, our mission statement and our biggest goal that we have as a company is, you know, Jerry brought us all together, um, because he wants us to be an opportunity company. Uh, our, our mission statement is we want to create the most millionaires and any other company in the world, um, through the solar industry. Right. And so we decided as a company, we're like, yeah, we could get a traditional office and we could do training classes there. Um, but it does not have the same impact impact on mentality and mindset for these reps. Um, I can tell you right now, you know, um, pulling in, in a Mercedes, you know, a Mercedes sprinter van, that's, uh, an executive van bringing them in and they see this huge mansion and they walk in and they just see just they see success.Speaker 3 (32:29):Right. Um, it puts them in the mindset to actually understand what we're trying to accomplish with them. Um, I mean, we had, uh, like for our training class yesterday, I talked with a few people and I like, I wanted to get your opinion. I asked him, I was like being here. Does it help you open your mind a little bit more to the possibility of you becoming a millionaire? Um, because, uh, what we, what we have is we tell these, we tell these reps, we tell these guys that they are future millionaires. We make them say it. We make them think it, we make them write it down. Um, and every single one I talked to, they're like, yeah, this, this opens my mind so much. And most of them are Vegas locals. They're like, I've never even been to this side of the, of Vegas.Speaker 3 (33:07):I've never even been to this side of the state where it's like the houses and like the mansions in the cars. Um, and so the biggest reason why we chose to do it this way, rather than the traditional get an office and all that, because, um, we really want these guys to open their mentality, to open their understanding, having an open mind to what we want them to accomplish. Um, and it's worked amazing so far. I mean, every single person we have on the team, um, it's really awesome, but like we have them send videos and they talk to people and they do their own recruiting. And that's, uh, that's another thing that I'm really big on is internal recruiting. Right. Um, but every single one of them are sold on the idea that they are future millionaires, they're surrounded by millionaires, um, and that they will get to that point. Nice. And it's all because of, you know, how we, how we present it, how we explain it and, and, um, you know, just, just what we have available for them within the company. And so that's why we decided to do it this way. SoSpeaker 2 (34:08):That's a really cool cause. Yeah. It seems like it's almost more like you're giving them the personal development, the mindset. So we're just happens to be kind of the vehicle do that. And, and often, yeah, there's some guys that, um, I mean, you're bringing in guys that it's really cool. Like you said, having experienced this type of thing, but I think for them to see that versus just going into a traditional office office and traditional thing, I think that's really cool what it does to someone's mindset to see that even for me, I came in and like, Jerry has his bodyguard and I'd never been in a van like that. Like, dang, these guys are high rollers, so really cool experience eating. Um, and so Josh, last thing, um, I know we were talking a little bit before we started recording just about the social media recruiting. Lots of guys are trying to get into that, and I know you, that's another big mistake you see, is people doing that wrong? So just for like maybe ourselves or ups or people that are trying to get more recruits that maybe aren't necessarily going to go hire like a recruiting agency or do this high level stuff that we've been talking about, what advice can you give to just people in general that want to maybe use more social media for recruiting and just start bringing in more of their personal recruits and building their own teams?Speaker 3 (35:15):Yeah. Well, the first word of advice is, um, use it, you know, that's, that's the biggest one is, you know, social media is the next big push when it comes to, um, success within recruiting because it's where everyone is. Right. Like, you know, it's funny, but you know, people scoffed at sick talk, but now everyone's on it. Right. It's one of the biggest platforms. And so, um, one of the biggest I see when it comes to social media recruiting, and there's so much I could go into, but I'll just talk a little bit about, uh, your own following, right? So if you are a, if you are a rep, if you are an owner, if you are whatever, right, you should be using your social media as a platform to kind of, um, to highlight your success right. To post like your, your accomplishments, your achievements, um, and, and you can post failures too.Speaker 3 (36:01):I like to tell people be real, right? Like, I mean, I post when I have a bad day, sometimes I post when, when things might not be going the right way. Um, but obviously you always post like how you solved that problem, but use it as a way to kind of highlight your success, highlight like, you know, the life you're living and what you're doing. Um, and that right there is what's going to cause you know, people that start, uh, you know, looking at it differently in the end, they'll see what you're doing and they'll, and they'll, you know, go through your stories. Um, and it gets the, it gets the seed planted. Right. Um, and I think what a lot of guys, uh, run into and it's the same problem it's patients, right? Um, they're like, oh my gosh, I have 5,000 people on my Instagram.Speaker 3 (36:39):Why is everyone not working for me right now? Yeah. You know? And so the biggest tip of advice I have when it comes to, you know, like for Instagram, for example, it's, it's touch points, right? So touch points means like the conversation or the messages that you're sending to these people. Um, so the best market that you have, the warm market for recruiting on your social media are people that will swipe up and like send emojis, right. To your stories, like the hundred or the handclap. Right. Um, those people, when they see those successes, when they see those stories, they'll swipe up and say something or they'll interact. Right. And a lot of the times guys will, uh, as soon as they see that, they'll send a message. Hey man, you want to be successful. You want to make a lot of money. I saw that you, you know, your profile looks amazing.Speaker 3 (37:22):You'll be really great at this. Um, let's talk, oh my gosh, you can't tell me how you, I can't tell you how many messages I've gotten like that on my Instagram in the last five years. And they turn off the recruiting director. I'm like, they turned me off so quick. I'm just like, oh, that looks horrible. Right. So, so my recommendation is when you have a warm market, right. When you have these people respond to your, to your messages, um, just small touch points. Like the first thing can be like, Hey, thanks for it. Like, um, thanks for the emoji. Like, or just like a thumbs up back, or like, what you can do is if you follow them, send them emojis on their stories. Like just get them starting to realize that you know who they are, you know of them. Um, and that like, you see them as well.Speaker 3 (38:10):Right. So those little touch points. And then like, eventually you'll see, they'll start sending like little messages with the, with the messages, with the stories too, right? Like if you, if you post a story of you in Mexico or in the car, they'd be like, oh, that looks so cool. Right. And so letting them initiate it and then like letting that conversation kind of flow because social media is different than face-to-face right. It happens over a period of time and you have to let it happen naturally and organically. Um, and so like, those touch points are going to start to get bigger. Right. They'll start like saying, oh, that looks dope. And then you can be like, yeah, it was super fun. You know, we ha we invited all the people who won this or the people who earned this trip out to Mexico and, and, um, it was a great trip.Speaker 3 (38:52):Right. And so they'd be like, oh, okay, cool. That's awesome. Um, and then they might ask a question on the next one then. Right. They'd be like, what are you guys doing? So, so touch points when it comes to social media are probably one of your best ways to not look like a desperate recruiter, right. To not look like, you know, the multilevel marketing guy, like, um, or I love those, those memes you see of, of like the Hey boss girl, like boss, babe, what you do, right. Yeah. When it comes to makeup with me. Exactly. Um, so those touch points, I, I would recommend to everyone, um, to start doing that, paying more attention to the people on your social media. Um, and I honestly, you know, I, I think it kind of hit home for me the most when, when I started like following successful people within the industry, because when I first got into like Kirby, all I knew was Kirby.Speaker 3 (39:43):Yeah. Right. But then I started branching out. I started following people in pest control in solar and roofing. Um, now I'd followed these really successful guys with really busy lives and all these successful people. Um, it would be cool because I did the same exact thing back in the day I would send the emoji. I would send a little message. Um, and that's where I started to learn how it worked because they would do what I just mentioned is the touch points. They wouldn't try to sell the position like instantly. Right. They would just gradually like let the conversation, um, grow. Um, and then they'd be like, Hey, I've got this event I'm doing, or I've got a ticket to this game gonna come with me. And then that's, that's, that is the best way to do it. When it comes to, you know, hot hiring these people through your social media following, um, that initially might not, you know, be looking for a job or it might not be looking in that type of industry, but then they'd see the success.Speaker 3 (40:37):I mean, I got a message yesterday from someone, um, that I I've known for years and years and years, I haven't talked to him in like six years, but he sent me a message yesterday. He's like, Hey, I see all the, like the success that you're having. I see the things that you're building up. I've been following you for like five years now. And I've seen kind of the progression, like, what tips do you have? Like, what are you doing? Like, how did you build up the success for yourself? And so sometimes it's just like, they come out of nowhere and it's just based off of you being consistent with your social media and showing people what's going on.Speaker 2 (41:06):Yeah. Like that guy is probably been seeing it for years. Right. And then finally he reached out to you and that's, what's cool is cause like, yeah, I've gotten a couple of recruits even just the last few months just from like, yeah. Um, I mean, I wasn't that consistent on social media, but we're the last six months, whatever I've been trying to post a little bit more. And, uh, these people, I mean, obviously at first it's not like they're coming right into my lap, but just me posting. One of them had like an issue with his other company. They they're off. It's basically like, you know, ran out of reps and it was just closing down. So because I was the one posting and, um, we kind of talked at events, things like that. I was the one that he reached out to because I built that relationship.Speaker 2 (41:48):He saw us post events and things like that. So that's like, you're talking about that's, what's cool is you don't have to beg these guys. They're just organic recruits. They're seeing your posts and they're coming to you. It's almost like a, I don't know, referral and Excel. Right. Those are the easiest ones to get are the ones that you're just doing, what you're supposed to do right place, right time, just you showing up, being consistent. Um, having that relationship even, it's just the emoji really relationship clap. And when they get a sell things like that, guys remember that and they'll go, oh, Josh is cool. I'm going to hit him up. See what's going on. So yeah, it's been, even if you got quite a few recruits, just coming organically through that too.Speaker 3 (42:21):Yeah. And the coolest thing about that, um, that I was going to say is obviously that's what I do, right. Um, that's what all the executives do guess what guess what we do as well. We teach and train all of our reps to do it smart because, uh, you know, we might have a following combined of like, you know, 50, 60,000 people as the executives, but then you start adding recruits. Um, and it's just, it just multiplies, like if you get sent people in there that have a thousand followers, that's instantly 10,000 more people that can be accessed. Right. So one of the biggest things we hit on as a company is social media. We have a professional photographer and videographer that when, once they joined the company and we start creating content for them, we start teaching them how to post on their stories.Speaker 3 (43:04):We tell them as soon as they get in the house, they're like, yeah, man, take a story. Let them know, like show the people that, you know, follow you, where are you at? What you're doing. Um, create a post, talking about how you are a future millionaire and how you're going to accomplish that. And so we get them started from day one on how to utilize their social media to start kind of explaining the opportunity that they have. And so organic recruiting is my absolute favorite way to do it because it costs you zero money. And they're always the best recruits because they're friends of people who are bought into your culture, who are bought into your company and your dream. Right. Um, and that person convinces them of that. You have to do zero work for that. It is my absolute favorite thing to do.Speaker 3 (43:45):And so we, one thing we hit on big is just social media. So all of our ribs, they all follow our internal social media. They all follow our, um, like our company, social media, and every time that they're posting, you know, we're giving them this content of them, really cool pictures, you know, in Vegas, in front of the mansion, a really professional looking things to put on their story. We're teaching them to do that. And I think just with this training class, I've had four people tell me they already have someone that wants to come work for me already. And that's just from them posting the stories from the pictures that they're putting, talking about what they're doing.Speaker 2 (44:18):Yeah. Right. That's huge. And now I love that you guys have, I'm seeing that more and more are these successful companies like simple solar? Uh, I mean, all these guys, they have, you know, daddy, they'd get a video guy, content guys, and they're given access to the reps and having them share all the content and tag people in it. So I think, yeah, I think that's kind of the future. That's what these successful companies are doing and no doubt it's working for you guys. So, uh, Josh, no, it's been awesome here. And um, and just seeing, I've been here over the weekend with you guys, just seeing the experience and yeah, it's been a good time. And, uh, just speaking, hanging out with you guys, seeing the process, so anyone that's listening, um, I would suggest you guys, you know, consider doing more content with social media, um, have your reps involved in that process.Speaker 2 (45:07):And then, um, just keep in mind, all the things Josh was talking about, make sure you have a process for these, um, you know, indeed recruits all these, uh, you know, recruits you pay for to make sure you have a process dialed in, because if you don't, it's just like pouring water through a leaky bucket, right. You're just losing, you know, half the reps that come in when you could be keeping them in, retaining them saving. That's one of the most important things. So Josh, we appreciate you coming on the show. I know you're going to get out and hit some doors here and everything. Um, so before we let you go, where can people connect with you and hear more about what you're doing and do you want to drop your social media and all thatSpeaker 3 (45:41):For sure. Yeah. I, my Instagram is just my first and last name, Josh Peters, 1996. Um, and my Facebook is just my first and last name. Um, and you can find me on those, on those socials. Uh, and then just to kind of touch on what you said, if you have questions or need advice, I get free advice. Like I don't charge people for advice. So if you ever have any questions, reach out to me on there and I absolutely respond. And, um, because most of the time when I talked to people about recruiting, they just have a thousand questions, you know? Um, so if, if anyone has questions or want to reach out to me and talk and set up a time to call and, and figure out what a better process might look like, I absolutely can do that.Speaker 2 (46:17):I love that. Appreciate that and yet very giving a guy here. So definitely hit him up. Let Josh know you appreciated him coming on the podcast today. And then if you have any recruits that liked to, you know, knock with their shirts on button or whatever, then shoot them. Josh is the way I do it because he loves the recruits like that. Get them chained up, be their technician. So, uh, with that being said, thanks again for coming on the show, Josh and we will talk soon. Yes, sir. Thanks.Speaker 2 (46:43):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):Two big mistakes I made last week and some golden rules that were broken, that in much more, we're going to be talking about in jamming today on the Solarpreneur podcast. What's up, what's going on? My name is Taylor Armstrong. I'm here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals. And as always, hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry. Hope you're doing well. We're coming up on Thanksgiving, the holiday season, depending on when you're listening to this and always a great time to get people in a better mood. Um, if you can get them some solar panels on their roof, what a great gift, what a great thing to be thankful for and what a great Christmas present, right? So hopefully it gives you some extra motivation to push hard something we've been talking about in, um, some of these Knockstar trainings and other mastermind groups I'm in right now is a lot of people use holidays to relax, to not push as hard, but you being a Solarpreneur, you should push even harder.Speaker 2 (01:47):If you know, you're going to be taken off two weeks for Christmas or 10 days, whatever, push as hard as you can go do a blitz, get out there and then you can rest easy knowing you crushed it, leading up to the holidays, Thanksgiving and all that. So we're going to jump into the topic, sorry to get sidetracked on the holidays, get thinking about Santa Claus and all that and, um, birth of Jesus and just gets me grateful. But let's jump into the podcast. Before we go into the topic today, just wanted to give a reminder. We have a solar training platform called society. You can go download the app and I'm getting messages on social media about, um, you know, other people's training platforms about Knockstar we'll. We might do some podcasts on just, you know, course reviews. I know there's some great content out there.Speaker 2 (02:41):Some great courses that people have already put together for solar training and it's all good stuff. So whenever people ask me, Hey, what should I buy the D2DU the Knockstar, the Solar University, whatever. There's a lot of different ones. And you can ask me about those, but before you me to go download our soul society app, cause we have snippets of their trainings. You can go sample the different trainings because we are setting up partnerships with the people that already have courses out there. And also if you want to be, you know, if you want to be a member of society, if you want to get the exclusive content on there, we're doing it at a super reasonable price and you get discounts to everyone else's courses and a lot of cool tools and things like that on there. So anyways just is in my head because I've been getting a few messages about it.Speaker 2 (03:35):So if you want additional training first, go check out our society platform. And um, I say, go buy everyone's our training program, right? We're all doing different things. We're all adding unique value in the industry. And if you're listening to this, you should be trained on the things you've learned. Take what you learned from the podcast. Go teach it to other people. Go ask to give trainings at your correlations. Even just go on social media. I dunno, do a Facebook live, whatever. Go on Instagram. Talk about what you've learned. Tag me would love that. And guess what? If you do that, it's going to solidify the content more in your head. So anyways, go download society. Let's jump into the topic. So today we're going to be talking about two mistakes I recently made and two golden rules of selling that I broke. And I'm going to preface this by inviting you.Speaker 2 (04:33):If you haven't already read closer's survival guide by grant Cardone. I've talked about it many times in the podcast. And I know I've probably mentioned these same golden rules before, but I was reminded of how important there, because I broke them reasonably and it costs me time. It cost me money. It costs me, uh, deals. So I don't want the same thing to happen to you. You will learn from my mistakes. And that's what I'm trying to do is help you learn from my mistakes. You don't have to go out and make the same ones. So the first ones, and I have stories that happen with these. So you're going to hear the stories first, and then I'm going to read the little section, um, these golden rules they can come from, obviously grant Cardone's closer survival guide. So go read that. Um, especially the first section in there.Speaker 2 (05:25):I think there's a ton of great things that can be applied. So anyways, the first rule that I broke, here's what happened. I was in a deal on Saturday. This was two days ago at the time that I'm recording this podcast and this, uh, you know, this appointment I had set up, it seemed a really solid, um, they let me in their house, we're chatting at their dinner table as was setting up the appointment. Um, next day appointment told me to come back. It's 2:00 PM. So I went back, I'm actually in the morning I was doing some knocking in the area. I saw the guy in the garage and I said, Hey, Manny, I'm looking forward to going over the solar design numbers here at two. And he confirmed in the garage, said, yeah, we're looking forward to it. We'll see you soon. Always a great sign.Speaker 2 (06:15):If you can catch them out, you know, weed in their yard or in the garage, always a good idea to double confirm it or to, you know, say what's up as you're walking by. So I had a good feeling about it, but what happened was I went back, went through the presentation, went okay. Um, his wife came out and she wasn't quite as excited as she was, as I was setting up the appointment. That's the other reason why I felt like it was more solid. Cause I talked to both decision makers, both husband and wife. They said they're going to be there. And they were, I'm like, okay, great. We're talking in his garage about his drones. He races, drones. He has like 50 drones hung up all over his garage. So we're talking about that. We're just, uh, you know, shooting the breeze, built a good rapport, good relationship.Speaker 2 (07:05):But as we start going through everything, the mistake I made was this. We were sitting in their garage the whole time and guess what? There was only one chair in their garage. So the one big rule that I violated here, I was not sitting down with them. And that was not in their house. If you're in a garage, it's going to be a lot harder to lock people down. We go through it and they're still interested. But at the end they say to her, yeah, we need to, you know, go over this. We might be moving next year. We need to really think about something we want to do. We don't want to like some applications. We don't want to do anything. We'll get back to you on Monday. Um, try it a few times, three, four times to, you know, loop around and go back into it, get them to Elise, uh, get the application in and all that, but nothing. So I'm like, okay, couldn't lock it down. But again, the big mistake I made and this is the rule, I did not have him sit down and I'm just going to read what grant Cardone says about this. If you have his book, it is on page 74. He goes through 20 rules of closing. And matter of fact,Speaker 3 (08:28):Rule number one always be seated when negotiating and closing. So here's what he says. He says, this is a policy that is frequently violated and miss. Even by seasoned professionals, you will hardly ever close someone. If you're standing up the same goes, present the product service or idea on your feet, but always negotiate the terms from your seat. In addition to making sure you're seated when attempting agreement closure, you want to have the prospect seated as well. Even if your a prospect stands up, remain seated, suggesting that you are not done, you are not reacting and that you are not calm, that you are confident of agreement going from a seating position to standing up, suggest that something has changed and allows your prospect to exit in, in the negotiations. So there you have it, uncle G himself, he's saying that you always need to be seated. You always need to negotiate and close, seated and preferably at their kitchen table. That's a secondSpeaker 2 (09:32):Key to this is if at all possible get them on the kitchen table rather than just sitting at a couch or sitting, I don't know, on the outside patio. And that's that works too, but ideally get on their kitchen table. Cause who do we have at our kitchen table? We have guests. We have family members. We have the people that are closest to us. Who do we have on the couch? In the front room. We have people that are visiting that are stopping by to say hello. But the people that we grow, the closest to that we trust the most we're having at the dinner table. Right? So that's step two of this. If at all possible, get them sitting down at the dinner table and make sure you get everyone sitting. And I did make an attempt at, so I'm not going to say I forgot this completely as it definitely went through my mind, I need to get these people sitting down.Speaker 2 (10:30):But my issue was I only made one attempt and I didn't play so much importance on it. They said, Hey, we're, uh, w we'll just meet in the garage. And I said, okay, well, um, do you have, I kind of started, I hesitated. And I said, well, do you have some chairs we can sit at? And they brought out one and they, and they said, oh, you can sit here. Just put your stuff here. And that was it. I didn't fight him on it. I didn't make an attempt to, you know, get inside the house again. And that was my big mistake, cost me money. And who knows what? I've, what I've closed. The deal buys at the kitchen table. Maybe not, but what I've had, what I have had a much better shot at it, much better chance, a hundred percent. So make sure whatever you do.Speaker 2 (11:15):You're getting them to sit down. You're getting on those buttons in a seat and it's going to build that much more trust. It's going to make sure you can hang in the pocket more. Cause guess what happened? As things started getting tough, they were already on their feet. As they were hesitant to submit an application, the wife, she just starts walking towards the door, walking in. They can escape. If they're sitting down, you can keep them there and you can go through everything you need to. So that's the first big mistake I made. Make sure you get people seated at all times. And here's the second one. This one is, um, not just a single mistake I made, but I've made it multiple times over a lots of deals. And I see this, especially with people that are new to closing, I see this one made all the time in people that are just starting out closing.Speaker 2 (12:09):So here's this mistake. Um, two deals in particular. The first one I had closed, this was about, um, three months ago, actually. And we had some issues with some documents. I had to go back a few times and the deal just kind of turned out to be, to be a mess. He ended up canceling in the second instance, um, I went to this house. I closed them, got them all signed up. They were super excited about it. And what happened was I closed this through SUNNOVA, which those who are familiar with SUNNOVA or have used them as a lender. You know that if you have a home, that's in a trust and write this down, if you are using SUNNOVA, because I didn't know this for a long time, so no, it can be a pain, but what happened was the home was in a trust.Speaker 2 (13:08):And if you have closed with Sonoma, you know that if the home is in a trust, you have to get the homeowner to sign the contract, but then they also have to sign the contract as a trust. So basically the trust is the co-signer on the loan and both sets of documents have to be submitted one through the homeowner and then one through the trust. So I actually knew this in the deal, but my mistake was, I was actually, uh, I think we're headed to, I dunno, um, like to go eat somewhere, or I told my wife, I was going to be back at a certain time and I was running late. So what I did is I thought, okay, well, um, I don't see the second set of documents it in his email. We'd finished that in the contract. And I thought to myself, well, this could happen, but I'm just gonna worry about a later, I'm gonna get out.Speaker 2 (14:02):I'm hungry and I want to go eat dinner. We have stuff planned, how I'm gonna get out of there. So the mistake I made it for these two separate deals is I put off getting documents in that were needed. And especially when I knew that there needed, I put it off and I went and did my own thing, came back to bite me because what happened on the second deal is homeowner called me, his name is Francisco. Um, we, he was within a week of install, already had a date and everything. And we get an email from SUNNOVA saying they canceled his account. And that's, what's super annoying about Sonoma do, if you've used SUNNOVA, they're going to just start canceling your accounts. In my experience, they don't really send you like notices or reminders. They just like straight up, cancel your account. You have no idea why, and you have to call in and find out all this stuff.Speaker 2 (14:59):And it's people with, uh, you know, super broken English talking on the support lines. So if anyone from Sonoma is listening to this, give me a call. Let's get some stuff figured out because there's a lot of room for improvement on their end. But anyways, they cancel this account. And what happens is these are both older Mexican guys, and this is something to be aware of to older people or older people don't speak great English. They tend to not be great with technology. They tend to get sort of buyer's fatigue. The more things you need to have them complete, especially digital documents and stuff like that. And my experience, they start to go bananas over this stuff. So if they have to do multiple digital documents and it turns out to be a lot of effort for them, they'll just straight up cancel. It could be saving them a million bucks.Speaker 2 (15:52):But if they have to like put forth a bunch of effort and open their computer, figure out emails, they're going to cancel it. So what happened with this guy? He didn't cancel it, but he just, um, put it off, right? He was still super excited to get solar, but he put it off, put it off, put it off. I was trying to contact them. Couldn't get ahold of them. You know, three weeks go by of me contacting them, saying he was going to do it, but he didn't do it. And guess what happens at this point? It's already been, you know, almost two months, time has gone by because he hasn't been responding and, uh, permit took a little bit longer. Two months passed by. He opens up this document again and he forgot all the reasons that he went. So he forgot all the reasons that he was sold on solar in the first place.Speaker 2 (16:43):He forgot the benefits. He just opened the contract. He sees all these big numbers, staring them in the face. And since I wasn't there, guess what happens? He gets cold feet. He doesn't want to sign it. So he calls me up. He says, Hey, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. I explained to him, I'm like, Francisco, my home boy, you can't be canceling this word. We got the permit. We're going to be installing it here. And good news is silver lining. I'm meeting with him tomorrow. So I think we'll get Francisco back on board, but moral of the story is, and here's the second role. Whatever you can do today, don't put off until tomorrow. Okay. So grant Cardone, he calls this being reasonable. And if you have closer survival guide, it's on page 64, it's number six. It's one of the top 10 reasons closers Phil and the story grant kernel entails.Speaker 2 (17:41):Um, I'll read it straight from the book here. He says, my sister had a friend who wanted me wanted to buy my first book from, and she asked me if we would send the book out and wait for her, wait for the check. I said, sure, I can do that. Or I can call her, get the money, send the book out and close it. Now my sister said, grant, you can't need $30 at battle. It's so urgent has nothing to do with $30. It has more to do with creating the discipline, to originally attack finishing things and going on in the next thing, don't be reasonable on this point of urgency. At closing practice, finishing everything. You start as a discipline to start closing more deals. Now the urgent desire to close the deal, any deal, no matter how the amount is, what I live by one close deal becomes a second close deal, be urgent and don't be reasonable ever.Speaker 2 (18:30):Boom. So keep that in mind. And I think this is a huge lesson. If you leave loose ends, if you leave, leave things untidy, if you don't complete documents like is that I see this over and over from guys that just start closing deals, they'll get, um, you know, maybe they'll get most of the documents signed, but here in California, you need a utility bill to, um, be able to get it net metered. You need all their account information. Um, or they'll, you know, maybe forget to sign out of, you know, net-metering document or they'll just forget documents in you. What it's doing. It's putting, hold holds on your accounts. But number two, it's creating loose ends that are potentially gonna lead to cancels. Like happened to me. I already had one deal recently canceled. I added up all the deals that have canceled because of loose ends because of buyer's fatigue, just customers getting frustrated of incompleted, things that I, cause I guarantee you, it would be dozens and dozens of deals over the almost six years I've been doing this.Speaker 2 (19:39):So don't be like me. Don't create yourself loose ends just when you're inside the home, do everything you can to get the documents needed. Okay. And I did this pretty well actually because, um, another example is you're closing through Sonoma or pretty much any lender that I know of. If a home isn't a trust, you're going to need copies of their trust documents. And you're going to need, you know, specific pictures. The page that shows that their trust was notarized things to keep in mind. So if you know, you need a certain, I don't know, picture of a documents, or maybe it's a picture of their roof, just do it now. Don't procrastinate what you can do today and wait till tomorrow. So those are the two lessons and those were the two things I was reminded of. Hey, so I want you to learn from my mistakes.Speaker 2 (20:28):Number one was always be seated when closing and negotiating preferably at their kitchen table, right then number two was, don't be reasonable, Hey, do everything possible to just get documents in, to get things completed, to not leave loose, get it all done. Make sure you don't procrastinate. When I was preaching the gospel, the word of a Lord, we would always say, don't procrastinate the day of your repentance. And we tell people, and you're doing all these terrible things now, but don't procrastinate the day of your repentance. Get things fixed now and turn away from them. So it's the same thing. When you're out there closing solar deals do not procrastinate. These things, just do them now. So send this to someone that needs to hear it. Maybe you've got some new closers in your office, send this tip to them and remember, um, shoot me a message on social media. Tag me, go out and teach these things to your team. Go out and do. I don't know, Facebook live Instagram, whatever tag me in it. Let me know that you got something from this. So we will see you on the next podcast.Speaker 4 (21:38):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's up Solarpreneurs how are ya? My name is Taylor Armstrong, and we are here as usual to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry today. We're going to be jamming on some recruiting content. And the reason I want to talk about this is because recently I was at a, um, a little recruiting retreat, not retreat, but, um, our, uh, onboarding bootcamp with, um, my friend, Jerry Fussell, who's on the show at two episodes ago. So hopefully you listen to his podcast, ton of takeaways, and the guy grew over a hundred million dollar company, a solar company, and he's starting a new one. So some incredible takeaways from that podcast. But anyways, I was there at their, uh, bootcamp and we're jamming recording podcasts hanging out there, but I got to be just kind of a fly on the wall and see how they run their boot camps there.Speaker 2 (01:45):So I want to talk about a few things I observed. And then also next episode, we're going to have on Josh Peters, who is there, um, think director of experiences as title, but basically their recruiting experts. He came on the show was generous, generous enough to talk about what they do, um, you know, in their recruiting kind of their model. And then also just share the experiences he's had. He was an over, you worked over at door to door experts in, uh, in their recruiting department, recruited hundreds and hundreds of reps. So a ton of experience got to pick his brain as well. So I just want to give a couple of observations I noticed. And if you are in charge of your recruiting at all, um, you can get some takeaways from this, but also send this, um, it's nice to have someone that is over recruiting.Speaker 2 (02:40):So if you don't have anyone that's helping you organize your recruiting structure, your recruiting. I think that is a big secret. So if you're a company owner, or if you, you know, if you're just our rep at a company, maybe send this to your, you know, management, have your guys get someone that can help with organizing the recruits that can help with setting up a structure and that can help just getting everything squared away. So people have the best experience coming in. Cause the last thing you want to happen is guys coming in, they say, Hey, what am I doing? What does day one look like? Am I going to shadow someone? Uh, who am I going to shadow in them? What I see it's the majority of companies being quite friendly is it, they don't, they don't have these things set up. They don't know who's a new rep is going to go shadow.Speaker 2 (03:33):They don't know the exact steps that a new rep needs to take to be onboarded. And a lot of companies let's be honest. They don't even have someone at running or helping with this. So maybe you're a one man show trying to recruit. Maybe you're a rep at a company, whatever it is, consider hiring someone that you can get someone to yourself to help with your personal recruits feel, have someone, or just figure out a way to implement these things. But trust me, it's going to be a lot easier. You have someone that is dedicated to doing these things. So I'm going to jump into three ways to onboard new solar recruits. And then you don't have to have someone doing this, but anyone that is recruiting new reps, you're going to want to figure out a way, especially the first one I'm going to share with you.Speaker 2 (04:23):This one is absolutely essential and make sure you're doing this one, but the other two, just some observations that I had while I was at the, uh, their bootcamp this past weekend in Vegas. So here's number one. Okay. Crucial, crucial, crucial. Make sure every new recruit is recording and passing off their door, presentation or pitch, whatever you want to call it. I call it presentation because I'm in the, uh, knock start mastermind right now. And at 2:00 AM recurrent, the Benz's over in Spain says if we say pitch, so trying to get that out of my vocabulary, but presentation, right? To make sure every new recruit, every potential recruit. Make sure anyone you're bringing on is passing off their presentation. Okay. Everyone should have a script they're following. Right? Make sure they're recording it, passing it off. And what was really cool this past weekend in Vegas, not only did these recruits, these new recruits have to pass off their presentation, but they have to do it live in front of everybody.Speaker 2 (05:31):And Jerry Fussell was up there, he was listening. And a couple people, if it wasn't, if it didn't make sense, if it was lacking energy, if it would just way off, he made him go back, practiced outside and come back in and they had to passed off in front of everyone. So I thought this was a great idea. So I think it should be two things. Get, have them record it, do video audio, some way to record it, have them pass it off word for word that way, but they can, you know, they could just be reading the script probably if they're recording it. Right. So that's a good way to do it. But I think if you want to take it to a next level and what I really liked about what Jerry and the boys were doing is if you make them pass off live, it adds that pressure element to it, right?Speaker 2 (06:20):It's almost like performing in practice versus performing in a game. And obviously that's not, you know, a hundred percent how it's going to be on the doors either, but adds another layer of pressure. Right? And it's going to make them think that not much more, you're going to see if they actually have the presentation memorized in kin, you know, overcome a few objections. They're not going to be impossible for them, but consider that. So make sure people aren't passed off. Number one in recorded setting and number two, have them do a live role play in front of everyone. Okay. And then the second key, the second, um, observation, second way you can onboard new people in your company consider doing some type of bootcamp. This has seen, um, this is something I'm seeing a lot of companies do recently, guys that are having all the success.Speaker 2 (07:14):Jerry Fussell, they have all our guys flying in. They do this bootcamp and he doesn't have them all work in local in Vegas, but he flies him in and then some of them are staying. Some are going back to their markets, but they have groups of recruits come in a bootcamp style. And I know another company doing this is a true power. I've seen doing bootcamp style like this. They've been growing a ton recently had Alex Hogan whole on the podcast who is crushing it, doing some amazing things, growing a company done. I know they do boot camps. So success leaves clues, right? You're seeing these successful companies do these things. Maybe it's something you should implement. Okay. You don't necessarily have to do these things to be successful, but, um, it's something you should think about. Okay. So in Vegas they had all these recruits come in.Speaker 2 (08:06):They had, uh, you know, food ready and they, what was really cool about it is we were all staying at a big mansion there. So I thought it was cool. Cause everyone was learning the same speed. Everyone's getting motivated at the same level. They're all kind of in the same boat. They didn't feel like they were just a brand new guy coming in and just getting thrown into the wolves. They're all doing it as a team. So what I thought was really cool is just the level of excitement as everyone was going in. Um, I've never been in like, I dunno, Marines or Navy or anything like that. But it's how I imagined like Navy bootcamp going, like you're going in with a group of guys you're forming a brotherhood and sisterhood, whatever. And they're all kind of in the same boat, you all feel like you're connected, right.Speaker 2 (08:55):And you all want to see each other succeed. That's the feeling I got from this. So if you're at a company, if you're recruiting guys consider doing something like that, maybe it's just a day bootcamp, bring him in, have him play sports. Um, I don't know, do competitions up, have some fun, have a box of Pop-Tarts. That's what I, uh, I ate so many pop tarts to this house cause they had tons of pop tarts laying around and I have little snacks and stuff. Right. Make it fun. And then do the presentation and recording and uh, you know, make sure they get all the training. They can that bootcamp. Hey, and then the third thing, third observation, a third way. Third thing to consider as you're bringing on new recruits, this was a cool idea. I'd never seen it done actually before I got to their bootcamp, but they did a scavenger hunt and what was cool about it.Speaker 2 (09:51):And I didn't really think about this is before these new reps even go up to knock a door, he was having them go out and do a scavenger hunt. So in a way it's knocking doors, but you're not actually like, you know, you're not going to pitch in your, when you're not doing a presentation. Yeah. So on biggest, this was a prime place to do it. Cause he just took these, uh, band full of recruits, dumped them off on the strip and plenty of, uh, interesting things going on the strip, plenty of interesting people that do a scavenger hunt with, but uh, Jerry, he had them do things like take a picture with a baby, go do a trust, fall on someone random, uh, go get a picture with a cop, go do a dance in public. I don't know, just crazy stuff. And then record a video of it.Speaker 2 (10:40):Then he gave cash prizes to the ones that were the most interesting, the ones that were the craziest. And he had like three prizes with it. So I don't know, three winners, um, most interesting, craziest and longest. I can't remember what the third one was, but I thought that was a great idea. Send your guys out, uh, break the ice with them. And after they got back doing the scavenger hunt, everyone just came back like laughing, having a good time. They were out there essentially doing the same thing that we do on the doors. Right. And that's getting in uncomfortable situations in front of new people. That's what door knocking is soft. After that, he said, guys, you just went out and did basically what the job is. You didn't in a group, right? You did some wacky stuff. And people probably weren't really like mean to you, but that's what door knocking is.Speaker 2 (11:32):You're just going out in front of new people, doing something uncomfortable, but only now you're getting paid the big bucks for it. So maybe you're onboarding and bringing on groups of new recruits, go try out something like this. Maybe go to a scavenger hunt, get them to do something, to break the ice, get past their fears and show them that it's that hard. Sometimes we overthink door knocking so much prospecting really. That's all it is. And if you can learn to get past that fear, that's what it takes to be successful in the solar industry. So those are three just observations I had gave. Remember the first one though, I think is going to be your crucial and make sure any new person, even if you're just a one man band, you're a lone Wolf. And if you bring on anyone, it just makes sure they memorize a presentation, give them a script.Speaker 2 (12:24):And then if you want to take it to the next level, use a tool like Ciro talked about this on the podcast, but it is an app where you can record your presentations. It'll automatically transcribe it. It'll um, categorize it in the sections and objections. And it's great for training your reps in we'll help you take these things to the next level. So if you want access to that, go download our solciety app. You can join Solciety. You're going to get access to all these things, but consider using that tool like cereal for your company where reps can record themselves. So hope those things helped, whether you're, uh, you know, just recruiting reps yourself, or maybe you are the recruiting person at your company. Try that out. Let me know if it helps. We're definitely going to be experimented with them here in San Diego. And then remember on the next episode we're going to have Josh Peterson himself is going to drop some fire on what it takes to really build an empire and bring in quality recruits. So don't miss out on the next one, share this with anyone who needs to up level their recruiting game. And we will see you on the next episode.Speaker 3 (13:33):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Speaker 1 (00:00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:00:41):What's going on Solarpreneurs? We have another fantastic episode and we alive here in Las Vegas, Nevada here in, uh, a man of the hour, his mansion here, just hanging out. So we've got Mr. Jerry Fussell on the show, Jerry. Thanks for coming on with us today.Speaker 3 (00:00:57):Yeah. Thanks for driving up too. I appreciate it. It's how far from San Diego? It's like five hours. Five hours. Yeah. So thanks man, for coming up and hanging out. Glad to have you here at the house. And, uh, thanks for jumping on a podcast with me, man.Speaker 2 (00:01:09):Yeah. I love it. And know Jerry has been treating me to pop tarts and a sandwich. Isn't all, all the pizza I can handle here. So, Hey man,Speaker 3 (00:01:18):It's definitely a house that we house door knockers a lot because pizza and Pop-Tarts and sandwiches that'sSpeaker 2 (00:01:26):Okay. I had more, more food than the first door knocking the house I was in. That's true. All we had was eggs. Pretty much.Speaker 3 (00:01:32):We have a lot of those too. Okay.Speaker 2 (00:01:33):So they got it all, but I know it's been an awesome time here, so yeah, we'd been able to shoot some content and just kind of hang out here with Jerry and his guys. And, um, and the other big announcement we have before we kinda jump into things here is, um, Jerry, he, with his company Pi Syndicate, they are the first ever sponsors of the Solarpreneur podcasts. So, uh we're yeah, I'm happy about it. And we're going to let Jerry talk a little bit about that and then also is partnering on it, but, um, just like the summary of it, they are a, well, I guess you can say, well, it's just a summarized version. Do you want to tell our listeners what pipes in the syndicate is real quick?Speaker 3 (00:02:12):Yeah. Yeah. So Pi Syndicate is more of a supportive kind of mastermind. Um, we didn't start a truly make money. I already have some successful solar companies. My, one of my partners, Mikey, Lucas and Austin already have successful businesses. The reason why we started it is because we realized that about 85% of the guys in the industry that are top earners. So the guy's making, you know, over $150,000 a year, ended up leaving the industry and they have no money. They don't own any real estate. They don't have any money in savings. And about half of them owe money to the IRS. So when we talk about why we work, you know, it's a fun job going door to door, selling stuff. There's a ton of reasons why we all work, but when it comes down to it, if it didn't actually pay us any money, we would all stop.Speaker 3 (00:02:57):And that's eventually what happens is guys get burnt out because the money is not, not good enough to overcome the fact that they owe money on taxes or that they haven't really accumulated any wealth. And it's just, you know, just like you and I, we both probably hopped around to different houses. You know, door-knocking across the country, it's not indicative of saving money. It means that we go buy a BMW when we get enough money or we, we go out to fancy dinners or whatever, we're going to spend the money on. Or we buy our wife a $20,000 wedding ring when we propose because we're making money and guys, uh, leave the industry. Eventually majority of people end up not door knocking forever. Some of us love it. Some of us love it for five years and it's time to move on. And the sad thing for us is when they do move on, they put a lot of sweat and work into the job and they leave the industry with nothing to show for it.Speaker 3 (00:03:47):And these are guys making the top one, 2% of income earners in the entire country, and they're not having any money in savings and investments. And so that's, our mission is to change that we want to, within five years of working in the solar industry, have a plan for retirement in place where a guy can walk away from the door to door, industry, Copia, dentist, whatever he wants to do, and still have a substantial financial portfolio with investing and savings and emergency funds and all the things you need. Also a credit score, enough income to buy your first house. You know, all the things that companies don't really educate their, uh, door knockers on and their sales guys on is really the gap that we fill within the industry. We're kind of selective, but at the end of the day, we want to hang out with cool people that are knocking doors.Speaker 3 (00:04:32):It's just the coolest, single job to meet people that live differently, right. That wake up every day, excited to go to work. Cause if you don't, you quit within three months, probably. So if you're there a couple of years and you're a top earner, you're a guy want to hang out with and be around. And so that's what the mastermind is about is hanging out and being together. The reason I'm so excited to sponsor the podcast is because we feel like you're adding value. Whether it be a new guy that's 30 days in the industry, or maybe just thinking about going into solar, I've heard guys tell me that they've listened to your podcast to make a decision, even to accept a job in the solar industry, which is really cool. But then I would say your normal audience is one of two things, either kind of new to solar.Speaker 3 (00:05:16):And they're looking to see what podcasts are out there. And then the other one, which is strange is like the really seasoned guys like me that just want to hear good conversations with guys that are still in the field door knocking. Part of the reason why I respect you so much is because not only do you do a podcast, but you're still out door knocking virtually every day. So the content is fresh. It's, it's exactly what's going on to help you make money. And when you have guests on the conversations you have with them, um, definitely flow very well because you're doing the same job as them. So it's real life questions. It's real life answers about how to make more money, how to be more consistent in solar. And that's what we really preach is consistency and hard work. And that's the same thing.Speaker 3 (00:05:56):The podcast help brings people that listen to it. So we are super pumped to be a sponsor. And we look forward to being a sponsor for years to come and all the success in the world. We know you're going to hit 500 listeners, um, uh, 500,500,000 listeners. Uh, pretty soon as our goal has a sponsor. So we're going to be boosting some of the marketing and stuff to help you get there because literally everyone in solar right now, everyone in door to door needs to be listening to a mentor, tell them how to do their job better. And we feel like you're a great guy to do that for us.Speaker 2 (00:06:26):I love that. Appreciate that, Jerry. Absolutely man. And yeah, no, it goes without saying too, it's like you were saying so many guys just get out of this and reminds me of the NFL or something. We've all heard like guys in the NFL. I think I heard a stat that like, I don't know some crazy number of them are broke within a couple of years after they can't get out of the NFL. And I feel like door to door is very similar in that guy is making insane amounts of money knocking doors, but let's be honest. We're probably not all going to be doing this stower, you know, retirement age. No. So that's, what's so cool about what you're doing with Pi Syndicate is you're teaching guys how to really hang on to that money and turn that money into future investments in keep a hold of it. Because a lot of people that aren't, you know, super smart with itSpeaker 3 (00:07:08):And, you know, to be clear, um, I wasn't super smart with it either. I started out door to door when I was 19 selling, um, cable, internet door to door and it only paid $30 a sale or something like that. But you could go out and sell 10 of them a day. It's still really good money. And then I became a regional manager and started to make even better money. And, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars was flowing in and I was making all this money. And um, then 26 years old came around. I had my first child and, uh, talking with my wife, I decided to go out and get a real job. I had been in door-to-door for about six years was killing it, making hundreds of thousands dollars a year. I had literally had about a million dollar net worth. And I thought I was doing awesome.Speaker 3 (00:07:51):Right? And then I decided, well, I really want to do something. So I got a job at a children's home. I was working on a college degree and within a year I was completely broke. Um, just completely devastatingly broke, you know, eating ramen noodles again, I'm like, dude, I have a professional college level job. And now me and my wife, uh, are back to eating beans and rice. And we're like, is this what real life is supposed to be? But this is what everyone tells you to go. Do you know what I mean? But what happened is I was living a lifestyle based on being a door to door guy and not everyone stays at door to door guy forever. And so that transition for me was extremely difficult when I realized that I, I thought I want to do something out of it. I thought I wanted a real job, um, that everyone talks about.Speaker 3 (00:08:35):And I'm so glad that I found my way back. And so the first time I engaged with a publisher to write a book, I thought, for sure, my book's title was going to be millionaire by 25 and broke by 26. Um, to really explain why to manage your money better, how to take care of your money. Cause it was a hard life lesson, but it's almost identical to the majority of guys in the door to door industry. And we're not talking about the guy that makes it 30 days and quits. We're talking about guys that are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, selling solar pest control roofing. Um, they're not going to last forever. They always think that they want to go do something else. And at, at that point, I don't know of a single another occupation without like being a brain surgeon that you can go and make 300 K a year.Speaker 3 (00:09:20):Like it's just not going to happen. Maybe over 30 years of building it up, even being on wall street, building up, being with a trading company or something like that, you can get there, you know, over years of dedication and working hard with your clients, maybe insurance, you know, there's some things that you can build up this business and make hundreds of thousands dollars, but there's nothing I can think of that you can leave door to door, knowing nothing about anything besides sales and make 300 K year. So there's always going to be this turmoil in your life where you decide to get out of sales. And for me it was, you know, I didn't want to work after five o'clock. I wanted to go home at five, o'clock have dinner with my family. I thought that was the American dream, you know, to have, uh, a normal job.Speaker 3 (00:10:00):I'd get off, go home, eat dinner, have a dog, walk the dog. And uh, I learned very quickly over about a year eating beans that, uh, the American dream wasn't so fun. And I decided to go back to work. But I, at the same time realized there's guys that are not going to decide to go back to work. There's going to be guys that are super happy to make 50 to a hundred thousand dollars a year, but their lifestyle is going to have to change. And just like the NFL players, it was hard for me to adapt my lifestyle to the lower income. So when my wife wanted to go out for anniversary, we still spent $250 on dinner. You know, we still bought, you know, $200 shoes instead of $50 shoes. Like all the things that we had trained ourselves to budget for were all incorrect.Speaker 3 (00:10:43):And we had never had to live on a budget being 21 years old and making 200 grand a year. You don't really have to budget. You just spend your money on whatever you want. And then you're like, oh man, I ran out of money. I need to go knock more doors. And you just can't keep the money coming in. Um, it's not a very smart way longterm to live. So my goal is to get with people that are 18, 19 25, really, you could be 35 and this is the first time you're in door to door. And you're like, this is a lot of money. Those are the guys that we want to help. And they're the same audience that you're trying to help too. So I think there's a lot of alignment there just helping guys get to that next level. So we're excited to help them for that.Speaker 2 (00:11:19):I love that. And yeah, we've had a couple of finance guys and things like that. Come on. But yeah, this is kind of the first, um, you're the first people I've seen really put together kind of mastermind style and help people at this level, which is awesome. So that's why,Speaker 3 (00:11:34):You know, yeah. And the whole thing, the whole thing about Pi Syndicate is it's sharing a lot of the resources for my company, but, you know, we made last year was 151 million. And so the revenue is very large, but then that means I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on legal, on CPAs and advisors. You know, I spent $400,000 last year on mastermind groups. Um, you guys don't have the resource to do that. You're doing really good Taylor, you're killing it. You're in the top of the industry. You're still not going to go out and drop a hundred thousand dollar retainer on an attorney cause you don't need it. Right. It just doesn't make any sense. Your wife would be like, are we getting a divorce? Why do you need the a hundred thousand dollars retainer? Um, so it's just something that you don't think you need until you need it.Speaker 3 (00:12:15):Right? And so it's much better to have my legal team on standby to have our CPAs answer really hard questions to have my tax strategies that you normally only invest in. If you make, you know, $10 million in profit a year or more, uh, be available to you guys. And we do it in a mastermind setting so that we can share the knowledge, um, pretty openly, but with only guys that we want to hang out with, right? There's some guys in masterminds, I'm sure you've been to events and things. You're like, I'd rather not go hang out with a guy afterwards. So we definitely want to make it a group of guys where we stay together for a really long time. And then we want to see your businesses grow, you know? And, um, I would love to see your podcast. I was saying 500,000 listeners earlier.Speaker 3 (00:12:56):I'm not joking about that. I'd love to see your podcast expand to grow. You know, when people talk about the solar guys are listening on podcasts, that should be at my let you know, Jordan Bell Ford and Taylor Armstrong like that. I mean, that's really, when it comes to selling, how many viewers do you need to have listening? And because it's a lot of valuable things, I literally think anyone not listening to your podcast is probably selling the wrong thing. Like they're, they're probably selling cars. They're probably selling watches at a jewelry store, probably selling cell phones. And they're all listening to the wrong podcasts. They think that ed, my let's going to make him rich or grant Cardone and they're not, solar's going to make him rich and they need to be listening to the right box.Speaker 2 (00:13:33):Okay. There's no doubt about that. I mean, I always say we're the Navy seals of the sells industry. No one's selling like we are so we can learn how to sell solar. Then it's like, I mean, that's why we got so much money in this and yeah, yeah. I can translate to anything else to,Speaker 3 (00:13:46):For sure. Yeah. And we definitely have to get good. We got to hone our skills because, um, it's not about how much money even make per job. It's about how much money you make at the end of the year. And we know that this is the gold rush right now. Um, but the guys that made the most money during the gold rush, you know, you've heard the saying that they sold the shovels and they were the support guys. They built the businesses around it. And so yes, we need to be Navy seals. But the reason to hone our skills that much is because it's not going to pay this much forever five years down the road, let's say the average commission is, you know, a thousand dollars a job then instead of 2,500 or more now, um, that's going to be devastating for someone that hasn't hone their skills.Speaker 3 (00:14:26):If they're used to a 5%, 10% close rate and they think they're killing it because they live in California and they're making serious money per sale, uh, that's not going to be around forever. And so the reason why you have to hone your skills is yes, it's nice to make a million dollars a year. This year, selling solar by having a 40% close rate would be awesome. Right? But the real reason is because, um, in five years you're going to have to close at a 40% rate to make the same amount of money you're making today. So if you, this is the training time, view it as a quick start bonus viewed. As you know, the companies are encouraging you to get out there and sell. It's not going to be like this forever. The whole, the law of supply and demand means that the more people that want to sell solar, the less money the companies will pay to sell for us to sell solar.Speaker 3 (00:15:08):Now they're always going to have all commission jobs. So you're always going to be able to make serious money selling solar, you know, look at the other industries, the pest control, the roofing a thousand dollars per sale is still super competitive. And I really believe that's probably where we're going over the next five years. And so we've got to hone those skills because a lot of us that are selling four jobs a month, five jobs a month, a thousand dollars a sell is not going to cut it. We need to be selling, you know, sitting in three appointments a day and selling, you know, one of those a day. Then we start still making good money. Even with the money being turned down, we're still turning out 200,000 a year or more. Um, even when the industry changes, we also need to prep our skills because there's a few times where your skills mean more than just, um, what you can do with them.Speaker 3 (00:15:53):Navy seals end up retiring from the Navy seals. They go into contracting work and there's companies that will pay them millions of dollars to train other people how to do those skills. So when we talk about honing our skills, it's not just about what you can do with the skills, it's about how you can leverage that to help others. And when we, when we talk about even the big guys in sales grant, Cardone never made as much money as he's making until he made a decision to help other people make money. And, uh, same thing with a lot of the other trainers, right? They could go out. There's only so many hours during the day. So, um, they're only gonna make so much money guys like ed, my left that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, did it by having thousands of people underneath of him selling stuff.Speaker 3 (00:16:35):And that's really what we have to think is I have to get my skills to a level where I can leverage that to help others and in helping others solve the problem, they're going to give me a small amount of a percentage of the problem I solved. So if you help them make a thousand dollars, maybe they're willing to give you a hundred bucks, but while you can only run five appointments a day, guys that are on your teams, running stuff for you could be running hundreds of appointments a day. So it's just the economies to scale are where it's going to be at. So I encourage the guys, listen to this podcast and, um, and really being interested in solar to hone your skills, stop thinking about even your close rate today. Think about what it'll allow you to build in a year and two years and three years, because the economy is not always going to stay the same. So your skills have to up-level. Yeah,Speaker 2 (00:17:20):No, I agree. A hundred percent. And that's why I talk about on the podcast too. I, I encourage all the people listening. I'd go out and teach your teams to sell, develop that skill, to like present to others, to teach other people, you know, they've got all sorts of things. Like you can go to the Toastmasters, the speaking trainings, things like that. I think that's a huge skill to learn because yeah, we're not always going to be, like you said, making as much as we are in solar necessarily right now. So it's important for people that develop those other skills, which are money-making skills, presenting others, training other people, and then you have a whole different set of skill set you can do when maybe solar isn't as good. So, um, yeah, that's huge, Jerry. And, um, we're going to have your partner Austin in, he's going to also talk about pipes and they get to, so we'll leave, um, some, some stuff for him to talk about that too. Um, but yeah, with you, I wanted to hear, I know you talked about a little bit about your background, how you started in selling, but I wanted to hear, how did you transition, uh, specifically into solar sales? And can you talk about how you started your first company with that? And this is obviously super.Speaker 3 (00:18:22):Yeah, so it was a, it was a rough, um, transition. I had, um, gone home and I was selling ADT as a director level. So nice house, no debt. Um, I had everything we needed was making 200,000 a year, thought it was at the top of my game. Um, and then a solar company kept stealing my top reps. So I managed a three or four state region. Um, and they kept stealing reps and it was always my best ones, always the guys that were making 30 deals a month now, all of a sudden our solar reps. So I decided to go to this company because I'm pretty mad. So I'm just going to walk in, I'm a straight forward guy and say, Hey, stop selling my people. I train these people, you know, it's unfair. And the guy said, let me vent for a little while.Speaker 3 (00:19:06):Then he goes, well, don't you ask yourself why they are selling solar? Don't you want to know how much money you could make selling solar. And so I listened to the pitch and I was like, dang, it it's a good pitch. That's way more money than security. Right. And so I was like, okay, I need to take this seriously. So I go home and I talked to my wife and say, Hey, I think we have to make this transition. I had already noticed some of the writing on the wall. ADT had actually not brought on more customers than it canceled since the time that I've been there over the few years that I've been there. And so that was worrying, you know, if we couldn't outsell the cancels, that's a bad thing. And so how ADT dealt with it as they would acquire other companies and kind of fluff their numbers because they're publicly traded.Speaker 3 (00:19:47):So it never looked like they lost subscribers. Um, but it wasn't because of sales. We could not outsell the cancels. Yeah. And so that doesn't sound sustainable to me. So I had already had some fear that no matter how good we sold, it was just a matter of time, five years, 10 years, 20 years down the road that nobody's going to want to buy security door to door for $60 a month payment. Right. So I was just a little bit worried. So I went home and I talked to my wife and we decided to go ahead and me take an offer, you know, and, and go into that. I accepted the offer within the first 30 days. Um, I thought it was going to make all kinds of money and I made one sale. And some, my wife's like, you gotta tell me what's going on here.Speaker 3 (00:20:32):This is crazy. I would also driving three and a half hours to get to the field. So I was at the time because we were trying to save money. I was like, I'm going to do this as cheap as physically possible. I'm going to drive back and forth, you know, as much as I can. And if I have to, I'll just sleep in the car, get up, knock turf in the morning and, and go at it. I had a, a nice SUV. So I lay a whole air mattress. One of those that you see on Amazon where you pump them up, you know, they cover the seats. I was like, this is going to be cool. Yeah. Just hit the doors. It's parked right there. So I was grinding, right. I was not going like 12 hours a day. And uh, my only break for air conditioning was like, maybe go watch a movie or something like that.Speaker 3 (00:21:10):Well, I was like, if you watch a movie, why can't you just go get a hotel? I'm like, well, maybe it's 12 bucks. Like I don't want to stay in a $12 hotel. That's disgusting. And, uh, but it was a grind right. For a whole month and I made one deal and I thought, this is, this has gotta be over. I think our average commission back then was $1,500. So I traded somewhere around $20,000 a month. In that first month I went down to about 1500. And of course you don't get it until they install it. So they gave me like a little bit and they were like, oh, and you'll get the rest just whenever we don't know. And I'm like, oh, I'm in trouble. ADT was like, next day, you know, somebody would be out there installing it. So I misunderstood that coming into solar.Speaker 3 (00:21:48):Where was, where were you selling that? Kansas city. Okay. Yeah, not a great market. It was only about six years ago. Okay. So, and, um, they had a huge rebate in Kansas city and the rebate had gone away the month I started. So we went from having, I think the state level was up to a $2, a watt rebate then had gone down to a dollar watt and then it kind of went away. Well, $2 watt rebate is huge. So our average sell price was like $3 a watt. And, um, between the rebate and the ITC at the time was 30%. We literally were giving away solar for free. So when I accepted the job, I thought I was going to go door to door and just give it away for free. And then like the week I started, they're like, Hey, the rebate's gone away.Speaker 3 (00:22:28):You really guys, it's not free anymore. You need like 25 to $30,000 on every deal. And I'm like, what? I thought we gave stuff away for free. Well, what's going on with this. And so it kind of changed the game really quickly on me. Uh, I adjusted though. So then, um, once I figured out how to sell, I realized that it was a lot about understanding the benefits, understanding the tax taxes, really understanding how much money they would save because I was so new. It allowed me to adjust faster than the guys that have been doing it two years with this huge rebate and everything. And so the next, uh, three months I had made about a hundred sales, I think 102 sales in the next three months. So it really kicked in and I did really, really well. What's strange is you have these self limiting beliefs though.Speaker 3 (00:23:15):I always believed in ADT that I had to sell 30 deals a month and I really peaked out around the same thing. So it's almost like this mindset that I was a 30 deal a month, a rep I carried over into solar as well. And it's just recently that I realized that mindset's completely wrong listening to some of your podcasts with guys. I think you said recently you had someone on that sold 68 deals in a month. So more than double, more than double what I was selling. So I looked back saying, man, I wonder if I totally just carried over a self-belief from selling security that had nothing to do with solar, but I consistently would put up 30 deals a month. The cool thing about solar is there's commercial too. So my last month I killed it. Um, commission wise, I probably would've made somewhere around 280 5k in 30 days.Speaker 3 (00:24:00):So it was incredible. I went home, talked to my wife, we're super excited. We're like, man, this is it. We're making, we love this company. The company's like, Hey, by the way, we can actually afford to pay you that much. And we're nine months behind on install. And I'm like, oh wow, that's crazy. Some of you listening have probably heard words similar to that before, um, from a solar company. So I decided really quickly to go out on my own. Cause I was like, how much worse can it be if they can't pay me? And it takes nine months to install, I'm sure I can do better than that. So, um, the trouble was, I had to walk away from all of that commission and then, um, didn't have a lot of money in the bank. And so cause you know how far behind commissions are.Speaker 3 (00:24:41):So really I walked away from even more than that. And um, but I had no debt on my house and everything. So we had to sell our house. We had to cash out, 401k, invest, everything we had into starting a solar company. And when you tell your wife that it's time to sell the dream house, to go door to door again and sell more solar, it was a hard conversation. I'm so thankful that she supported me through that though and made that leap. Um, it took about three more years of making really minimal amount of money. I think I pulled maybe $30,000 a year out of my company. Okay. The first six months I, uh, you couldn't hire an EPC like you can now they just really didn't exist. Right? And so I had to hire a, uh, NAVSUP trainer to come in and train me to install.Speaker 3 (00:25:25):So the next six months I installed all my own jobs, uh, realized really, really quickly that I was bad at paperwork. So I had to hire administrative shin assistance and people do net metering. And then I realized I didn't like talking on the phone. So I had to hire, uh, an admin person to answer the phone. Then I had to hire, um, um, a phone sales person to answer all the incoming calls. And I'm like, man, this is crazy. Now I have like 14 people that work for me. I gotta, I gotta start making a lot more sales. So, uh, it was kind of the, you know, they say the, the mother of invention is necessity and that was it. I had to learn how to sell a lot more just to support the company, but selling 30 jobs a month, you know, a lot of solar companies don't even do that much.Speaker 3 (00:26:06):So me myself could go out and support my whole company, but then I just kept growing it. You know, when I brought on other sales guys and, but I stay very conservative. So a lot of owners, you know, brag about their, their fancy watches or the drive fancy cars right away. I always knew this was a long-term play for me. And if I was going to expand faster than my competitors, I had to do it, um, through really being wise with my resources. And so I reinvested almost all the money for three years. We lived on about $30,000 a year. Now I had retired from the military. So I lived in California, man. No, no. I lived in Missouri. Yeah. And started the company headquarters. I also had my military retirement. So the medical and I had some pinching coming. So I had more money that, but out of the company, I only pulled the very minimum that my CPA told me.Speaker 3 (00:26:52):I had to pay myself to be legitimate where I wouldn't have probably pay myself anything. And that allowed me to reinvest in marketing and tools and a better management. And you know, it's kind of crazy there for a while that everyone at my company was making more money than me. But at the same time, I knew that long-term, I was gonna make a lot more money than everyone else. So, you know, that's the old saying that you've all heard, but do things that others aren't willing to do. So that later on you can do a lot. And so that's what was able to happen in my life is that there's three years of really investment allowed us to build out a fully integrated solar company. And we were able to get into things that other companies weren't, you know, we go as far as doing the customer's taxes for up to five years after they buy solar, we do internal financing.Speaker 3 (00:27:35):Um, 2020, we did $50 million in internal solar, solar loans, ourselves without paying finance fees. So you just can't do that without a significant amount of resources, but you only have a significant amount of resources when you don't spend resources. And so it was, um, one of those things that we just chose to stay in Missouri, live frugally, know all of our installers. We have a very different, uh, formula to install. They all live out of Missouri and making 2020 $5 an hour in Missouri is incredible. You know, that they can live really well by their home buy nice cars. They live really well. And so they're willing to travel out of Missouri, take the solar panels and go to Minnesota or go to Florida or go to Texas or go to they'll drive all the way here to Vegas to, to install solar panels. Now we try to rack up several jobs in the same week and our teams are really well-trained.Speaker 3 (00:28:25):So a team of three guys can install a job in one day and so they can stack up, um, you know, two teams can travel out here to Vegas knockout, you know, quite a few jobs in 10 jobs in a week and then travel back, you know? And so it's just a different way to look at business. So we try to solve problems, not necessarily spending more money on it, but how do we actually solve the problem? You know, and the most people would say, well, let's just hire a big EPC in Vegas or California or Florida, because that's easier. Cause that also costs a lot of money. And so we make a lot more money in a lot more profit margin because of that. We're also what I would call a white glove service with doing the customer's taxes. So make sure your benefits to the client.Speaker 3 (00:29:07):We are probably one of the more expensive solar companies in the country, um, which is a hard thing, right? Like it's, it's means that some sales reps don't want to work for us because they want to sell for a more competitively priced company. What we do is a process called value stacking, where we believe that once your value stack exceeds the price, that it doesn't matter what the price is, the client will buy it. So we just try to deliver such a tremendous amount of value that we're still able to sell at a higher price. And then we have a very good margin and then we reinvest that margin. And so last year we were able to break $101 million in revenue. I'm extremely profitable. And uh, we owe no money. We have no debt. We have three years of operating capital on hand at all times now.Speaker 3 (00:29:51):So we're the only, debt-free um, three years worth of capital company. I know of specifically in solar, it's nearly unheard of, um, through COVID we had, um, 24 dealerships that were sub-dealers basically under our brand and we were able to support all of them and their reps through COVID. We're able to support all of our staff, even though we shut down operations for install, all the installers cup paid, all the office workers got paid. Wow. And so it's something we're pretty proud of, but it's also means that while other companies buy Ferrari's, I'm still going to be here in 10 years so they can enjoy their Ferrari's and I'll enjoy my, my safety net, uh, money in the bank. It also allows me to have money to help other companies. So I'm an investor in over 50 companies at this point and, um, own equity in those.Speaker 3 (00:30:36):And so, um, those create passive income streams for me, which help, but it's also just a way that I can help other companies because they need the money. And they, unfortunately, most of them weren't good at saving money. They were the guys buying the Bentleys or Ferrari's. And so they come to me and, uh, ended up needing to, to borrow some funds. And I'm happy to do it as long as it's going to help the company and help them longterm. And obviously it helps me if I can own a chunk of their company as well. For sure.Speaker 2 (00:31:01):And now that's one thing I've noticed about you. Jerry is you're very giving gay. I mean, I'm not part of your company or anything, but I come in here, Jerry treats me like family and he's like, dude, all I'll get you a hotel. First thing he says, when I come into their house here, it's like, Hey, I'll get you a hotel room. We don't have like the best beds and stuff here. I'm like down, like, dude, I'll sleep on my couch, no longerSpeaker 3 (00:31:22):Talking about it. And this is a house for doorknockers I ever real bad, but everyone else has twin size bunk beds. And there's a bunch of, bunch of them upstairs, but we were thinking, Hey man, this guy just drove five hours and now he's going to sleep in a bunk bed. We all kind of had this moment where we're like, we probably should have thought this thing through. So we were like, do you want to hotel? Are you cool? And he's like, no, I'm cool. And then right after he said, he's cool. I see one of our guys carrying in a queen size, like Peloton matches. I'm like, thank goodness that somebody went out and bought a bed for this guy. So, um, but yeah. So thanks for saying that, man. I, I believe in this, this theory about investing where, um, if you're investing in the right people, um, there's no bad investment.Speaker 3 (00:32:04):And so even though it may not make monetary sense today or tomorrow, I invest my time, energy and resources and money into people that I want long-term relationships with. Because even though you don't work for me and you may never work with me, or we may never do anything specifically together, maybe you, um, send me a referral and you're like, Hey, am I coming? He doesn't cover Maine because it's the polar opposite side of the country from San Diego. Could you, do you want this referral in Maine? And absolutely I would. And I'll figure out a way to get in and installed a main, even though my install crews, if they're listening right now, we're like, what's Jerry talking about, I don't want to go to Maine. We would figure it out and make money on it. So I just believe in being very giving.Speaker 3 (00:32:44):And I think people will reciprocate that now I'm not stupid about it. I don't give to everybody. I, I give of my time. Um, most sparingly my time is the resource that I can't get back money. I can make more of time. I can't. And so I invest my time into things like the mastermind into my company and to the people I mentioned or indefinitely into things like this podcast, which I think is going to bear fruit for both your podcast and my companies. So by being a sponsor. And so I look forward to, uh, developing our relationship and um, giving him next week, he's going to email me and be like, Hey man, I really need a new Tesla. I was just wondering if he could spot me 120 K cause it's a plan.Speaker 2 (00:33:23):Yeah. I'm not, that'd be the sponsor. Find me a TeslaSpeaker 3 (00:33:28):It's company is going to be like, why is the side of your Tesla say Pi Syndicate on it? That's really weird.Speaker 2 (00:33:35):Yeah. But no, I, I definitely agree with that cause um, I worked with, you know, several different companies at this point too. And um, we were having conversations before this out. You know, some people are more giving stuff than others. And uh, so I think it pays dividends as long as you're smart about it. Like you're saying is just be that guy. That's not like the cheap guy. That's like, oh, this guy is going to nickel and dime me. But if you're investing into relationships, especially, you know, on business level, um, I think it pays dividends. Like I just, matter of fact, last week I did my, a church mission in Columbia down there and that's one of the things and you know, these south American countries, a lot of them are super poor. And so I get hit up all the time about people, ask them for money and stuff like that. So yeah, you gotta get ready, selects selective. But I just sent, you know, 500 bucks last week for a family's funeral that I knew down there and yeah, like, they're like, oh, um, we'll pay you back. We promise, I know 99% chance. They're not going to be, they're not going to pay me back because you know, yeah.Speaker 3 (00:34:31):I've decided, I've decided that, um, I do sometimes give loans, but if, if it's, if you like that, and I think that you're right, you know, there's a good chance. They won't be able to pay you back. I'm very upfront with it and say, it's a gift. And then say, if you're ever at a time in your life where you can give something to somebody else, go ahead and do that because they're going to feel guilty if it's dead, right. They're good people. I'm sure they are. And eventually that's going to wear on them and it's going to impact their life negatively because they're not going to pay you back. Chances are, um, cause they may not have the resources and stuff like that to do that. And so, so think about doing stuff like that as gifts I give my time, lot, I gift things, not connected to any type of repayment.Speaker 3 (00:35:12):Um, and gifting seems to reward me a lot better than loans. So now in businesses, if you want, um, a hundred thousand dollar loan, I'll do that too, but that's a lot, normally stuff like that as somebody in need it, you know, give it as a gift and um, you'll see dividends of that. It also helps you feel a lot better right away. Like it felt good giving them a loan if you had made the decision to just give it to them as a gift, which is basically, it sounds like what you did. But if you had said that in your head, I'm going to give it as a gift and tell them I'm giving it as a gift. It would have had a little bit more positive impact even in your inside yourself. Um, you know, the gratitude that you felt, being able to help someone.Speaker 3 (00:35:48):And so it's a cool way to, to manage your money like that. That the thing that I, uh, one of the things I talk about when I talk about gifting though, is my time. And so I don't know if you've ever heard a term called time vampires, but I, I definitely believe in the concept that there's some people that just siphon away your time. And so while I'm very free to help people and to mentor them and stuff like that, be selective on who you help. Just like you said, you get hit quite a bit for money, the same thing with time. And you're an influential person. You have a lot of value to add to other people's lives, but you have to start being selective. And one of the rules that I've set for myself is that I only interact daily on a day to day basis with 10 people.Speaker 3 (00:36:29):So if I ever get to a point where I'm talking to someone every single day, I either need to figure out if there's somebody I'm mentoring or if they're somebody that needs to be communicating with one of my 10 people. Um, and I have a wife and four kids. So that means I only have five people outside of that to communicate with on a day-to-day basis. So my, my intimate little work circles about five and it makes for some hard decision-making. I talked to the general manager of solar solutions. Um, she's in training for all intensive purposes. She's the CEO. And, uh, I've talked to her one hour in the last week and she's running a multimillion dollar company for me. And I trust that she's doing a great job. Um, but I don't have time. Day-to-day, she's not by any means a time vampire she's listening, but, um, I don't have time.Speaker 3 (00:37:17):So, but making those decisions, even when they're hard decisions like not to talk to your GM every single day, um, mean that it makes it much easier to make a decision about talking to a friend from high school that just wants to chat about video games or fantasy football. Yeah, I cut. I cut them out pretty quickly because if I don't have time for, you know, my GM, I really don't have time for them either. And so setting up some type of structure in your life to make decisions based on time and who you're going to invest time in is very, very important to go a lot further in life if you invest your time correctly.Speaker 2 (00:37:50):Yeah. I agree. That's a good point. So yeah, for all our listeners, I think it's a good thing to do. If another thing I've talked about is just, you know, a time audit, just really tracking what you actually did with your hours, how you spent your time. It's a lot of times we think we're being super productive, smart with our time, and then we actually check it. We just spent two hours talking about fantasy football to someone or, you know, playing a game on the phone, whatever, things like that.Speaker 3 (00:38:15):Yeah. With strangers now that I, uh, last year I had done the math on, you know, how much money I was making per hour that I worked. And the number was much, much larger than what I had previously thought about it being. And, um, in the last few years, it's led me to really, really feel guilty about wasting my time. So like, I, I love video games. I love world of Warcraft back in the day and things like that. There's zero chance that I could open up a computer, get on world of Warcraft tonight and play for four hours without having this tremendous amount of guilt. You know, just because my time is, I know what my time's worth right now. And if someone would ask me, Hey, would you give me $25,000 to play world of Warcraft? I would say, no, I'm not going to give you 25 grand to play a video game. But that's exactly what we do in investing our time and activities that don't actually generate income or generate a better relationship with those around us is it's time that we're really, really stealing from ourselves. Yeah.Speaker 2 (00:39:12):A hundred percent. So now that's a good, a good point with that. And so going back a little bit at Jerry, um, something I wanted to ask you about, we were talking before we started recording here is just like you're saying, um, so many people just sell their prices low. Um, you said you're like one of the higher price companies that sell solar. And I think that's awesome. I started out with the company that was kind of similar to that. They tried to bundle in like some solar cleaning in some like a, I dunno, yearly checkup type things dated. It kind of found some loopholes around it. And I think it made a few customers mad cause they put in the fine print that they would only do that if the customer like contacted them. And It was kind of a, maybe not.Speaker 3 (00:39:54):Yeah. The whole thing about being the most expensive company is you also have to do the best job. And so you can get away with that. What's crazy is it's easier if you're a good salesperson to sell being the most expensive than it is being the cheapest. The only person that thinks it's easier to sell being the cheapest are bad salespeople. That's what it comes down to. You're probably not listening to this podcast. If you think the only way to sell is by lowering the price. That's probably not your target audience. People are trying to learn. They're trying to get better. We grade sales reps, um, AB and C sales reps, um, see sales reps are sell by being cheap. And that's how we remember it. If the only way that they can sell is by being the cheapest in the room and they're not selling based on anything else.Speaker 3 (00:40:39):Then they're a C sells rep. There is definitely room in the solar industry for C sales reps. So if you sell based on price, don't feel bad about it. Just either educate yourself to get better or find a company that really is the cheapest. And that's where you need to, to be out, to make money. Um, be sales reps are those that, um, really are good at one or two things. They either technical experts or they are expert closers. And it's one of two things they're either the best closer in the whole world. I would refer to like, um, Mike O'Donnell or, uh, Taylor McCartney, you know, incredible closers, but I know more about solar than either one of them. So the other, the other B sales rep is, um, someone that, um, is very, very technical. I would look at, um, you know, um, quite a few people in the marketplace that I would look at Jake Hess would be the one that comes to mind, very, very technical, closer, you know, through, um, his academy.Speaker 3 (00:41:34):He trains people how to be very technical. And then the AA sales rep is those that combine both. So yes, Taylor and Mike can definitely answer those technical questions or they know how to pivot really well. And so they're a sales reps because at the end of the day, phenomenal closers and they know everything they need to know about solar to get the sell closed. Now Taylor's kind of bizarre because he does know it just a little bit, but he's that good of a sales rep that he's still in a sales role. And I was talking about something one day. He's like, I don't even know what you're talking about. It's like, okay, I guess I'm more of a technical sales rep instead of as good of a closer isSpeaker 2 (00:42:11):PESI oh, you asked him one time. Like, I don't even know what an inverter is.Speaker 3 (00:42:15):That's what he told me. That's what we were talking about us. I went different numbers, to be honest, I don't know what you're talking about. He's like, but I sold the last 14 doors I knocked on and I was like, wow, that's a that's okay. There's definitely some benefit. I noticed that they and Jake has been hanging out and I'm like, well, uh, hopefully those guys learn a lot from each other because of your powerhouse. Um, but yeah, and so the sales reps are like that. We specifically hire the sales reps because they have to be good closers and they have to know a lot about the technical side. Cause we have to justify our higher price. And um, explain why we're higher. One of the things is we give her a warranties instead of just fake claims. We also give free maintenance, but we give a 25 year true labor warranty.Speaker 3 (00:42:56):Um, anything that goes wrong. A lot of guys in the solar industry don't realize, but they're selling, what's called a workmanship warranty. And under a workmanship warranty, you would assume that if say a panel stops working, that the company would come out and fix it for free without charging the customer a fee, the truth is a workmanship warranty covers bad workmanship. So if they installed it incorrectly, which caused the panel to stop working a good company would come out and fix it. But a good company would do that for free. Even without a warranty in writing, they would say, yeah, you're right. That's our fault. Let us fix that. So it's pretty much just acknowledging that, Hey, we're a good company, which is, which is nice of them to say there's a 20 five-year workmanship warranty, but, uh, under the warranty and most of the terms of that panel stops working.Speaker 3 (00:43:39):It's the manufacturer's fault. You would have to pay that solar company labor to come out and replace that solar panel. And there's almost zero sales reps that understand that concept. And I guarantee you no homeowner understands that concept. So when they get into these 25 year loans, when you talk about company evaluations and how to evaluate the value of a solar company, those that give away a workmanship warranty are basically locking in that customer on a service plan for the next 25 years, that increases the company evaluation because they know they're going to make X amount of money servicing that system over the next 25 years at a company like mine. It actually decreases our company value because we know that the relationship with that client will just cause, um, cost over the next 25 years. So, um, was very few companies like ours that are giving free labor away, true free labor for the whole time, but we definitely do.Speaker 3 (00:44:32):And so we align ourselves up with even our battery manufacturers are full 25 year warranties. So everything we do as a 25 year warranty or more included with labor too. So even the solar panels and the batteries, if we were to go out of business, uh, they'll hire an electrician to come out and service it. So it's just a different pitch, but a good sales rep always feels more comfortable being the guy saying, I'm the best buy for me, then I'm the cheapest, you know, let's, it's a good deal. Let's do this, you know? So you'll kind of weed, weed out those people that aren't quite as.Speaker 2 (00:45:03):Yeah, I know. Yeah. It's interesting. If you go to these like marketing conferences and stuff, and then the online marketing and they say, there's no competitive advantage to being like, you know, unless I made all of the pack pricing, you're either like the cheapest or you're in the most expensive and you add more value, but there's no like advantage at all as being kind of like middle soSpeaker 3 (00:45:23):No, and you kind of disregard all the middle companies too. Um, and so I, I definitely think one of our strategies is we know we're going to be the most expensive. So we get that out of the way right away. We tell them we are, we actually tell them to shop around. And if they choose to go with a cheaper company, we'll even pay $50 per quote, that they give us from the other companies that they've shopped around with. So we encourage them to give us, go shop around with four quotes and then we'll come back and be the final one in the door, propose our price a hundred percent of the time. They're expecting us to undercut the cheapest bid. Um, cause they think it's a gimmick, right? You're giving me these quotes, you're going to undercut their price and then try to close me a hundred percent of the time.Speaker 3 (00:46:01):We make sure we're more expensive. In fact, if we're not the most expensive person, we raise our price by a thousand dollars and make sure because it's easier to sell in the most expensive. Now, not everyone buys though. And so just like a car lot, you you're the most expensive your Lamborghini dealership or whatever. That's how we treat it. But at the end of the day, if you say it's too expensive and you're getting ready to walk out, we say, hold on, wait a minute. Let's see if we can throw something else in. So we try to do value, add. So we may replace their air conditioner or we may help replace the roof or whatever it is. But very rarely will we do just a straightforward discount. We're never going to be like, okay, you're right. Let us let us price it out for $10,000 cheaper. There's probably not going to be us, but we'll win.Speaker 2 (00:46:42):Yeah. I think that's awesome. Because especially in California, there's no excuse for people to be selling like rock bottom prices. I mean, San Diego, you can sell a system, you know, $6 a watt, super expensive, and you're still saving them. You're still cutting their bill by 30%. Yeah. So it's like these companies that try to sell rock bottom line, what are you guys doing? We're still saving the customers.Speaker 3 (00:47:03):I think we all need to be on the same team, right? Like, um, I think there's places out there for the cheapest guys. The problem is, um, those guys need to go move to Missouri or Kansas or somewhere with 10 cent per watt, kilowatt hours of they want to sell cheap California. You're not competing against each other. You're competing against a utility company. So $6 a watt is completely fair price to charge. If you're versing the utility company, what that allows you to do as a company is make more profit. There is absolutely nothing wrong with profit. If you're helping the client, because that means you can take that profit and go make more clients. You can spend more money on marketing. You can spend more money on paying your people. You can spend more money on office space. You can do everything you can to grow.Speaker 3 (00:47:47):And at the end of the day, we all want to have more solar customers. We all believe the solar is good for the environment. And so at the end of the day, our mission is to sell as many people as we can. And people get twisted. People that are new to business think selling cheaper will help them sell more. It absolutely will. Not their resources you gain from selling a fairly priced product. That's beating out your competitor, which is the utility company is the correct price. And so I would never charge somebody. One of my ethical roles is I never charge more than what they're paying on the utility company. So solar solutions is a little different. They have to be able to pay the system off within 10 years through savings. And they have to be able to have a payment that's cheaper than their utility bill from day one, or we won't quote them.Speaker 3 (00:48:30):The system will tell them that they w we don't advise them to go solar in California. That wouldn't happen very often though. It's so good of a deal for everybody. Even as $6 a watt, you should be doing that, just make sure you're not going out and buying Ferrari's. You need to be reinvesting that money in yourself. And for you specifically in your podcast and your recruiting budget to help others come on board, because you're not going to be able to sell a prices like that forever. And we know that. So you use those resources to expand, to grow, to really make a dent in the industry. And it's so cool. I, I learned something from you earlier. We were talking to our guys about how saturated Las Vegas is. I don't think anyone would argue that San Diego's, if not the most saturated market, one of the most saturated markets in the United States, very cool market.Speaker 3 (00:49:17):And you still go out and door knock every day, and you still run into people that need solar and once solar. So it's incredible. We, we need to stop thinking of the scarcity mindset, where we're competing against other solar companies. We're still not even in San Diego. We're not. Um, and the truth is you mentioned it too, but those companies may knock the door once and you're going to knock the door five or more times. And so, um, I'm okay with competition as long as I'm better than them. And it sounds like you're, you're beating them so that that's healthy competition. Um, and so I think that that's a really cool thing to think about. We all need to keep our prices higher because in San Diego, if you can sell $6 a watt in the most competitive thing in the whole United States, that everybody should be pricing their structure out right below the utility company, let's do better than the utility company. But that means I operate in mainly the Midwest states. That means we don't sell as high in Kansas. We don't sell high in Texas. We don't sell as high at all in Tennessee. So it, it just all depends on where you're at, what their pricing is because the utility is the competitor, not, not the other solar companies. Yeah.Speaker 2 (00:50:21):I think that's a good rule to go by though, cause you don't want to charge them way more than they're paying forSpeaker 3 (00:50:26):Electricity. Heard some interesting guys pitch it. And if they knocked on my door, their ride, I probably would've bought it cause they're good enough to pitch, pitch it as an investment. Um, my individual role with investing is I want my money back within 10 years. I want it to completely be liquid. And, and that's really comes into about a 7% compounded interest rate or above. And so, um, I wouldn't personally make an investment that, that wasn't going to happen. I put all my money into investments like that. So why would solar be anything different if I'm going to put it on my house? I still want that kind of ROI. And so, um, I think I just ethically on a personal side, uh, that's translated to the ethics of my company to say, look, we're not going to sell it unless, unless they meet the standard for Jerry thinking, it's a good thing.Speaker 3 (00:51:13):Right? And that's my standard. There's, there's been some guys though that I talked to that view it as a financial investment in states that have very low prices and I don't think they're wrong. And there's also a lot of speculation about the price of utilities, really jumping up over the next three years. A good friend of mine, Mike [inaudible] talks about it. He's extremely convincing, right? Like he's the guy that I've listened to enough where I'm like, you know what, even if they are spending $20 more a month, Mike's probably right. It's, it's going to be okay. It's just not a company thing that we do. So that's our litmus test is we try to price it right below. Um, but definitelySpeaker 2 (00:51:48):Don't price it a dollar 85 watt. I think we can all agree that if you're the guy out there selling at a dollar 85, a watt, you need to listen to the podcast more often and learn how to sell more because there's no reason to do that. And at the end of the day, what I tell customers that are getting an incredible deal as I run the numbers and I say, Hey, your sales reps making $500 on this deal. Uh, who is it? Oh, it a power I've never heard of power. That's interesting. It must be a power app. Um, the sold out for a $500 commission. And I say, think about this, it's a 25 year agreement. Uh, you, you need customer service for the next 25 years. If something goes wrong, right. They're like, yeah, nice. Well, how much do you think the $21 a year is going to buy you in time for that guy to pick up the phone and answer your questions?Speaker 2 (00:52:33):The truth is, think of his commission, like prepaying to have an advocate for you for the next 25 years. And in my opinion, $500 is not enough money for a 25 year relationship. So we need to pay our reps well enough that they're do very good customer service or the company needs to make enough profit that they take that role on themselves. That the rep isn't the one responsible for customer service and taking care of. Cause if we sell somebody a $25,000 system, it is definitely our responsibility to take care of them for the next 25 years. Like that's, that's just the way it is. That's our job. Yeah. So yeah, I just got a call actually like a couple hours ago from Gaia sold four years ago. Call me just barely ins. Yeah. Luckily I made more than 500 bucks, but yeah, that's a good point though. Like I'm only making 500 bucks and it's a guy that's taken up all this time. That's time suck then. Uh, yeah. It's um, like you want to be making, you know, your time worth some money for sure. Yeah. Um, and yeah, the other thing that's, uh, I forget, I forget the question. I was going to ask you where I was going with.Speaker 3 (00:53:41):Well, we were talking a little bit, uh, before we started and you were, you were basically saying, um, you know, why did I step away from solar solutions? And, um, you know, I thought that was a really interesting question that I wanted to say for the podcast. Yeah. So the reason why is because I, I believe that the solar industry is at its peak right now. I think it's incredible. It's the new gold rush. Everyone we know in sales should be going into solar right now. It is the biggest opportunity. If you're not telling your friends and family members and neighbors, neighbors, that they should be selling solar, and they're working at a library or they're working at Starbucks, you're doing them a disservice. You should be so convicted that it's time to get into solar, that I needed to transition what I'm doing to align with that.Speaker 3 (00:54:26):So if I believe everybody should get into solar, that I need to build a company that isn't one of the most difficult sales processes that requires a rep like you with all your knowledge, to go out and sell for $6 a watt, I would need to do something more moderate. So energy co is meant to recruit anybody. You know, we're here at a recruiting class. I'm glad that you're able to say Hey to them while you were here. And there's some kids are now in this class that are 18 years old. There's not a lot of solar companies. I'd be excited about hiring a 18 year old. Right. And I had to go back to a training model that allowed me to recruit literally anybody off the street. Like I worked in a Starbucks that teacher, the person that's struggling. Cause they got a degree in psychology and they haven't worked since they graduated.Speaker 3 (00:55:12):They're like, what just happened? I paid all this money for a degree and I don't have a job. I wanted to go back to the days, like when we worked at security or pest control that literally anybody could do it. Right? Like you just had to knock doors. Solar gets more complicated than that sometimes. And so our whole concept here at energy co is a division of labor. So we split it into the, the setter, the educator and the closer they work together as a team, you know, there's a whole bunch of people that can set cause anybody can set just like in pest control security. He just got to say, even if they're terrible and they're like, Hey, do you want solar? Eventually somebody's going to say yes. Whereas the educator's a little bit harder. You've got to explain the one-on-ones and how solar works.Speaker 3 (00:55:51):But there are a whole bunch of second grade teachers out there that would absolutely love to make money per job. Um, in 30 minutes of work, right? And then our closers are definitely the rarest people. It takes a very specific skillset. And so we
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY APP NOW! Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's going on Solarpreneurs, Taylor Armstrong back with another episode, hope you're doing well. We are entering the fall season. It is getting dark earlier and earlier, but if you listen to this podcast, you don't care about any of that because you're going to keep closing deals no matter what that's, what this podcast is all about. And if you're here for the first time, as always, we're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and then hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry. But today we're going to be talking about a crucial step in the presentation that if you don't get right, it's going to kill your closing percentages. So what is this step? You'll find out here in a second, but before that a couple quick announcements, we have a new sponsor on the show, and I'm really excited to announce our first sponsor.Speaker 2 (01:41):You're going to hear about it on the next episode. So don't forget, make sure you're tuning in every week, Tuesday and Friday. And hopefully this is the first listen of your week. Well, I guess maybe not of your week, because we'd come out on Tuesday, but hopefully when they drop on Tuesday and Friday, hopefully it's the first podcast you go to. And as always, if you have suggestions or have topics or people you want on the show, we welcome that with open arms, always look in the future, more solar pros on here, more Solarpreneurs, people that are doing unique things in the industry that are breaking records, or that just have a good story to share because that's where, what we're about on the show. And so before we get into the topic, just wanted to give a shout out to my boy at young Abner, he gave us a five star review the other week.Speaker 2 (02:38):He says, great can podcast Taylor shirt, all the tips and tricks to succeed in this industry. My solar game has drastically improved from listening to the podcast on my way to area. Thanks Taylor, 10 out of 10 to recommend young Abner. You rock appreciate the five-star review. And guys, if you would wouldn't mind, please share the podcast, leave us the review. That's how we keep the show going. And that's honestly what brings me in the motivation. A lot of times it's hearing your comments and reviews. So that being said, let's get into the topic. The reason I'm talking about this is because, um, there's a few changes I've made a spoiler. The step we're going to be talking about is just the beginning of the presentation and that is some people call it different things, but could be called the fact-finding could be called. Pre-framing the deal, whatever you call it, we're going to talk about the crucial steps that you need to take.Speaker 2 (03:40):Before you jump into explaining solar, before you start going through your numbers, before you start going through your facts on solar, you need the master, the, you know, the first thing you do in the home, which is pre-phase free framing, which is fact-finding, which is just setting the stage for what is about to happen. So I'm going to talk about a few things that I have mixed up a little bit. Um, give you a few tips, things that I'm currently implementing, and then you can feel free to take what you want. Okay. In a few of these things, I get from my friends over at knock star. As many of you know, I am in there, knock star United program, great way, um, you know, to network with other people is to get in a mastermind or a group. And that's what we're doing with our app that we recently recently launched the Solciety app.Speaker 2 (04:38):You get to not only network with other top sword professionals and myself, but you also get direct feedback from us on your presentations. So this is something that we can actually help you with. So let's jump into it. So this fact finding a first thing you do, when you get in the house, I'm going to walk you through this steps. And we're only going to talk about this today. So we're going to get into what you should do. First thing you do when you get in the home. Okay? So before you start talking, it makes sure you go into the house with your pad of paper and pen crucial, crucial thing. And it goes without saying maybe a lot of you are already doing this. I know I've talked about in the podcast, but I think it is optional, absolutely essential that you carry just a, uh, what do they call it?Speaker 2 (05:35):A yellow, yellow pad, um, yellow pad of paper. Make sure you have your pen at all times. And if you haven't read grant Cardone's, closer's survival guide, he talks about this concept of buyers. Believe what they see, not what they hear. So why should you carry around a pad of paper? Because they're going to believe what you write down. Okay. If you write down that Trump was the best president of all time, and they're going to believe that, okay, maybe not, but there can take a lot more validity to things that they see in front of them versus just you saying stuff. And it's going to help you stay organized too, and write down what the homeowner is saying. Okay. So make sure you have that pad of paper. And what do you do next to when you get in the home? The next step is just relax the homeowner.Speaker 2 (06:31):All right. So what do I mean by that? You need to just be a human being. And remember when I heard whispers, um, learning the steps of closing our, uh, VP of sales, that was this thing that you just said, guys, just be a human in there. Don't be a robot. We shouldn't have to have to teach you how to do this. Just be a human. How would you talk to your friend? How would you talk to someone that you're getting to know? That's how you're going to talk to you. Your potential buyer is you're going to help them relax, because if they're not relaxed, it's going to be tough for them to trust you. And something that I like doing, um, is just keeping pictures of stuff you did in your life, on your phone. And so show him in my case, I got my two year old kid.Speaker 2 (07:20):So that's one of the first things I do when I get in the home. So I'll show them a picture of my kid. If they have kids, I'll say, Hey, do you have any advice on like how to deal with these kids? They're always bouncing off the walls. Do you have any parenting tips? People love giving you advice. So just a little trick that you can do. Keep some pictures. If you don't have a kid, maybe you have a dog. Maybe your friend has a dog. Maybe you're an owner or an uncle. Hey, keep just some sort of picture on there. And it's a great way to get them talking. If you have a picture of your golden dude or whatever, say, Hey guys have been dog owners for a long time. Um, what's your advice? I don't know. I don't have a dog. So probably a better questions with that.Speaker 2 (08:04):But point is keep some good pictures that can break the ice with them and then just be a human a and ask them about their family. Um, I always train my reps form if you don't know that acronym, it's, uh, family, occupation, relationships. And then, um, there was forget the, um, material materialistic. Okay. I'm butchering it. I didn't come prepared with what the am was or motivations. That's what it is. Motivations. What are their motivations in life? So that's a good acronym if you didn't know. And then after you have just built some sort of relationship built the rapport with them, the next step is you need to set the agenda. So what I mean by set that agenda and you tell them exactly what's going to happen and you can talk as long as they'll let you pretty much, right? Unless you're, you know, in the hurry to get to the next one, obviously you're not going to spend, I guess, within reason don't spend hours and you'd be making money, get to other people.Speaker 2 (09:07):But the story with this last week, the deal I closed, um, this lady, she wouldn't even let me in her house. She was very hesitant. She said, Hey, I don't do sells. I don't let sales people in my house. I said, ma'am I don't, um, I'm actually not the sales guy. I'm just the one that submits the applications from the neighborhood. I don't even know if like we can do this. So you pull back. That's a good way to get them relaxed. Do your takeaway, do your pull back and say so. Yeah, I just have a couple of things to, they just took like a picture of how your roof would look with a solar on there. So it's quick, we just go in the home and I've just checked that out. But yeah, I have to be super quick myself. And then I flipped the script on her.Speaker 2 (09:50):So those types of people, you do, stuff like that. Then what happened after that, with this lady is I was in her home for probably 30 minutes. We talked about nothing related to solar at all. We talked about you're my kid talked about her kids and 30 minutes later, she says, okay, well, anyways, I guess you should tell me about solar. Go ahead. She forgot all about the part where she needed sales people, where she didn't want people coming in the house, selling her stuff. So this is why it's so important. You need to build the rapport. You need to get them to relax, get them to chill out, do your takeaways and let them know that you're a human being. You're not someone coming just to sell them, you know, snake, oil, whatever. And so after you've done that, make sure you set the agenda.Speaker 2 (10:40):Hey, and this is where I've taken a few things from the guys over at rockstar and Taylor McCarthy. If you fell him, he has a great way. If you buy there, uh, they have some slicks. He has a process of how to, um, go through all this. So I've adapted a couple of things from him. Then a couple of things that I was doing before I learned their process. So I think it kinda meshed as well, but if you want to go get two and McCarthy's exact way to do it, they have a couple of slicks in some videos where he also goes through his process. And so a couple things I took from them is setting the agenda. Hey, I was already doing this, um, for the most part, but it goes without saying, make sure you tell the homeowner exactly what's going to happen.Speaker 2 (11:30):Homeowners hate surprises. If they don't know exactly the steps, they don't know. Um, you know, generally how long it's going to take what you're going to go over in their head. It's going to be strikes against you that you need to be pre-framed they know exactly what's going to happen in this presentation. So you say, Hey, Mr. Homeowner, um, so here's what I'll do. And guess what you get to the solar stuff. So I do have to be a little bit quick, hopefully that's okay with you, but today all I'm going to do pretty cut and dry here. I'm just going to show you a picture of what it would look like on the roof. Go over some numbers so you can see a comparison. And then if it makes sense, I'm the application guy. So I'm the son. I'm the one that submits the applications for the neighborhood.Speaker 2 (12:17):That makes sense. We'll submit an application, see if they even can approve your home. But if it doesn't, then we're not going to do anything. Does that sound fair to you? Okay. So that's, pre-framing the deal. They know what's going to happen. And then once you've gone through a couple of other questions at the end of all that I say, yeah. So I'm just going to go through a few general things. So you guys know exactly how the program works be pretty quick. And then after that, you're just going to draw a line down the middle of the, of the sheet of paper. Do you be an apples to apples comparison so you can see exactly what it looks like and then we'll go from there. Sound good. Great. So that's what I say to set up the deal to pre-frame it, it, lots of other great one-liners that people are seeing.Speaker 2 (13:06):So write down one liners a year, you know, maybe it's your manager, maybe it's other people on your team. This is why it's so important. I think to be part of some type of team, or at least some type of, you know, program mastermind is because you can take what other people are saying, and I'm constantly learning from the community and myself. So make sure you're keeping a notes app on your phone or a notes section on your phone of just phrases you like and things that you can implement in your presentation. Okay. And so after you've set that agenda, you walk them through a set of questions. So my line is, Hey, so before we even get to the solar piece, um, I just go through a couple of questions with you just to be sure we can benefit the home. Is that okay?Speaker 2 (13:58):Great. And then my questions I ask them are number one, have you ever checked out any type of solar for the home? Have you ever looked into any solar type options? And I hear some people say, have you ever gotten a solar quote before? The reason I don't love this question is because you're putting in the homeowner said that they should have looked at quotes. Hey, we want to be the people that are different. We don't want to think that we're just coming by with another solar quote, what we're doing. We're giving them an experience. We're introducing them to a solar program that they have not looked into before. If they get in their head, that this is just another solar quote being dropped off, it's something that they already may have looked into. Then it's game over. What are they going to do? They're going to go get more quotes.Speaker 2 (14:51):So that's why I think it's important. You phrase it this way. Have you ever looked into any solar type programs in you want them, um, thinking that this is different. You want to get it in their head? That what you're doing, what you're presenting to them is different than anything they looked at before. And as you're doing this, you're interviewing them. You're writing down all the answers to their questions. It's that's question. Number one. Have you ever looked into solar before? Okay. And then there's a couple of things that, you know, depending on the home, you may have to go through. If you already got their utility bill, you need to make sure you're asking them obviously their questions. Do you plan on using more electricity? Do you think this is accurate for how much electricity you've been using? Have their bill in hand. Right?Speaker 2 (15:42):Make sure you go through that with them, make sure you tell them that you want to design their system for what they're going to use in the future. Not necessarily for what they use in the past and something I've learned here from guys on our team is just make it an us versus them scenario. You want to put yourself, put your program against other, you know, against other things they may have looked at. They have heard things about solar, which in here in California, everyone's heard about solar. So you want to say things like, yeah. So I'm gonna start homeowner. You probably heard in the past where people still have to pay extra bills to the utility company or it wasn't covering all the energy they're using. So what we're doing with this program, that's different is we design it for what you're going to use in the future.Speaker 2 (16:32):Because most people, they tend to use more energy. That being said, do you guys anticipate in the next year, do you anticipate using more energy than you did last year? You coupon on getting your pool, put in. You plan on getting the hot tub DuPont on buying a Tesla. Do you plan on a mine and some Bitcoin here in the house? It, whatever it is, make sure you're designing it for the future. And it's a great way to kind of tackle that objection they had in their head. That it's going to be the same thing that they looked at before. So make sure you're going through that. And then here's the part that I took from my friend Taylor McCarthy that I love. And I didn't think of it this way. And my old question that used to be what questions or concerns would you guys have about solar?Speaker 2 (17:22):And then they would say the typical, oh, um, how much is going to save me? What happens if something breaks up there, yada, yada, yada, that's all good. And I will be writing those down. But what I learned from Taylor McCarthy, Dave, that I thought was genius is take it on the offense. So you tell them the questions that they should have first and you tackle them. And why do you do this? It makes you look like the expert you look prepared. And we all know if you're, you know, knocking doors or overcoming objections, what's the best way to overcome an objection. It's to beat them to it. It's to bring up the concern before they can. Cause if you do that, you're taking the wind out of their sales. They have nothing, nothing to hit you with. So when I heard this from McCarthy, I thought it was genius.Speaker 2 (18:12):I think it's great. So give them the main concern that people would have. Then you can still ask them if they have questions after that. But I've found since I've started doing this, probably I don't know, 80 to 90% of the time, they don't have questions aside from these, um, questions that I bring up. So Taylor McCarthy, he calls it the five main questions. And if you don't know these, I would write them down. This is the one big thing that I've changed in my presentation. And so the questions are what happens to my roof. Number two, what happens if we move bottom line? What is the cost to me who maintains the system? And when do we start saving money? And if you think about it, these are basically all the concerns that people have with slower. You just brought them up before they could.Speaker 2 (19:04):Hey, and so you bring it up and you answer it before they can even ask them, Hey, before you're even talking about solar, you answer these questions. Okay? So as far as the question, number one was what happens to my roof. So the answer to that, Mr. Homeowner is, um, the roof, the solar up there, it would actually keep the roof cooler. So it prolongs the life of the roof. And then the other nice thing is if they pick your home on the program, then they're actually going to warranty the roof where the panels are, or they're going to guarantee the roof where the panels are. Okay? Assuming you should. Most companies have some type of basic penetration guarantee, but tell them that the roof is protected, where the panels are. Can. The second question was what happens if we move to another big concern?Speaker 2 (19:59):And if they move, you answer this one, if you move a transfers over the same way the utility company would, and the new homeowner is able to be more economical with their future expenses. Great answer. Question. Number three was bottom line. What's the cost to me. Okay. McCarthy's answer is your cost is diverting or redirecting what you would have paid to the utility company. And now have the ability to start paying yourself. Question number four was who maintains it as far as the maintenance goes, we're on the hook for the next 25 years to service and maintain the system and something I've added into that is another takeaway type thing, which is why they are a little bit strict with who actually gets approved on the program. In the past, anyone that owned their solar would have to do all the maintenance with it. It was a big added cost.Speaker 2 (20:55):Cool thing about this program is if your home is approved and everything goes well, then we actually kept her for next 25 years. And then the last question was when do we start saving money? As far as savings go, the idea is now that you're producing power onsite, rather than you throwing your money away, it would now be stored in a piggy bank where you have an end game. It's a rate questions and answers from a tumor. Curt that again. And this is something that I did change, love what he's doing with that. So I would suggest, definitely adding that into your, um, presentation into your intro there. Okay. And then the last thing that I do after we've gone through these, what do you, um, so first question again was, uh, had you ever looked into any solar type options for the home, a and then you're going through the five main questions.Speaker 2 (21:54):And then I also typically ask them, what's your goal with solar? A lot of people will say, oh, we want to save money. And this is where you dig in a little bit, deep, deeper. This is the mistake I used to make as well. Everyone says we want to save money, but what does that mean? They expecting to cut their bill down 90% expecting be zero. So figure out what their expectation is and a good line I use for this. I say, okay, well, um, so if we cut your bill down, let's say 30% and give you way more interview. Would that be a win for you? And I'm talking in California's market. So I know people outside of California, maybe that's not possible. Maybe we're even increasing their bill, but adjusted to whatever market you're in. Maybe it's a, if we kept your bill the same as it is right now, but kept it at a set rate and gave you a little bit more energy.Speaker 2 (22:46):Would that be a win for you? Most people it's going to be a, no-brainer say yes to that. And then you've already got a pre-commitment. And then the last question I'll throw in there is do you guys plan on moving, but you already, you know, brought up the answer to that question. So there you have it. So those are the questions I typically go through as you are doing your fact-finding and then to put a bow on all this, after I've gone through all these things, all the steps I try to pre-frame it one more time. Say great. So, um, now, like I said, I'm going to go through just a couple of general things about solar with you guys, make sure you know exactly how it works. And then, like I said, if, if everything does make sense and looks good for the home, we would submit a quick application, fill out a few forms, get the ball rolling, to see if we can actually approve the home.Speaker 2 (23:41):And then another thing you can bring up at that point is credit. So you let them know that there will be a soft credit check. So you can ask them about their credits too, if you haven't already, a lot of times you'll do that before you even get into the house for the appointment. And so these are what I'm doing in my fact finding hope it helps. And I'm sure I will continue, continue to add more things to it, make tiny adjustments, but make sure you have a set process in your head. Something that makes sense. So that's the steps that you go through asking those questions. Hey, you can use a lot of those lines that I brought up. Let me know if you guys have any other, um, one-liners anything else that's working really well as you set the stage for your appointments, hope that helps and send it to someone that is struggling with their closing because chances are, if you are not doing an awesome job, if you're not drilled this like crazy, then this could be a big reason why you're not closing the deals that you need to.Speaker 2 (24:43):So you set the stage like this. If you get them to make that pre-commitment, then the rest of the appointment should be a breeze just going through, you know, the facts and the figures and button them up with it. So share this with someone, you know, that needs help in their presentation. And don't forget, next episode, we're going to announce the first ever sponsor for the podcast. I'm so excited. You're not going to believe who it is. Okay. So tune into the next episode. And we actually have, um, you know, the man behind the company, that's sponsoring the show, he's coming on the podcast. So you're going to hear from him as well, a couple people on his team. So you're not going to want to miss it. And we will see you on the next show. Hope you enjoyed it and close lots of deals this week. Peace.Speaker 3 (25:35):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
DOWNLOAD SOLCIETY NOW! Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 1 (00:55):Let's jump into it. My name's Taylor Armstrong. I'm here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much more enjoyable time in the solar industry. Hope you're doing well here. We just passed Halloween and I will say, uh, those that don't know, I have a kid he's two years old now. And if you haven't experienced Halloween with a two year old, it's pretty funny, definitely would recommend it. We took him out. Uh, he was just as Harry Potter, had the glasses, the scar, the, uh, the wand out and, uh, people loved them. We loaded up on the candy. So would definitely recommend that if you, you know, have a kid to go trick or treating with, it's much more, uh, you know, much better reception knocking on doors when people are expecting you to get candy. And that's, what's cool about that holiday.Speaker 1 (01:50):If you didn't go trick or treating, that's how you really need to think of knocking doors, selling solar panels. Because if you have that same attitude that people want you at their door, that they're going to open up for you, except you with welcome arms, then it's much more likely to happen. Then if you don't think that if you think it's the power manifestation, right? So that's something I observed while we were out there trick or treating on Halloween anyways, not to get sidetracked, but just had a quick thought about that. So today's episode is a big one because we're announcing our new app that just launched in the app store. You can go download it right now has some amazing features that we're going to be rolling out. We're going to be talking about. And I am just super excited cause we've been working on it for months now.Speaker 1 (02:40):And it's been close to launching probably like five times now, but finally, it's available. Finally go download it. And it's a fully functioning. So that's the first ask, go download it and then share this, go share it with someone. Hey, we want people download this app. We a ton of time into it. And we're still making adjustments as we're going to add more things, it's going to get better and better as time goes on and we get feedback from our users, but we would appreciate it. If you go to the app store right now, download it. And then we're going to walk you through a couple of sections here, just super stoked about it. So let's jump into it. So if you download the Solciety app at first of all, I want to give a preface for those that haven't been listening as consistent Solciety is our training platform.Speaker 1 (03:33):And previously it was only for paid members. Um, we had that, it was, um, 97 bucks a month. Um, if you listen to the end of most episodes, we had just sort of, the ending was talking about how we had the paid program, the paid mentorship, and previously you could only get access to the app if you're a part of that, but we wanted to make, you know, some adjustments, um, add some features. So primarily this is why we actually just decided to develop our own app because we were using a white labeled version called one huddle where we had our, uh, course our videos on you put quizzes in there, but that's about all you could do. And you know, little fixes here and there, like, you know what, we're paying a lot for this monthly. Let's just make our own app. So that's all we did.Speaker 1 (04:29):And it's cool. Cause there's different sections now. That's pretty exciting. So again, go download it. And this is replacing our old app. So this is, we don't have anything on one huddle huddle anymore. Now we have just our own app. Okay. And so, um, there is a paid version still. So those that were previously paying for their Solciety was subscription. You are going to get grandfathered in the 97 bucks a month. And guess what the other big piece is, if you haven't tried out the Solciety paid subscription, we're launching it at 97 bucks a month to everybody. Okay. And it is going to go up probably in about a month. So go jump on. We just wanted to get as many people in as possible. Okay? But that being said, you do not have to pay to get access to the app.Speaker 1 (05:23):Hey, so go download up for free. And obviously there's going to be sections. You can't access unless you are a paid member, but a lot of sections that you can. So we're going to go through, what's free. What's not weighing checkout and go download it. So once you are inside, you'll see the homepage and we're going to be rotating videos in there. Just some feature content we have the first video right now is actually an app tutorial. So I'm not going to get super specific because you can go on there and see a video. That's going to explain it a lot than I could on the podcast here, but go see that. So it's on the home page and then you'll see some logos down at the bottom. We have the podcasts, so you can go access every single episode, all in one place, straight from the app.Speaker 1 (06:13):So that's the fourth tab over, Hey, and then what's really cool about this. Even if you're not a paid member of Solciety. What I think is probably one of the coolest features on here, we have lined out different partnerships with software companies, with coaches, with trainers, with mentors in the solar industry where you can actually go check out what they have to offer. And we've worked out exclusive discounts for people that go download the app and go check this out. Hey. So if you've thought about getting extra training, even if it's not through Solciety, even if you don't want to be a paid member of Solciety, go download this because you're going to get great content. Number one, world-class trainers on there for free. And then you're going to get number two, you're going to get a marketplace where you can see the courses that we vetted ourselves.Speaker 1 (07:08):I've been through. Most of them, myself, vetted them, know that there's some of the top guys in the industry and you're going to get exclusive discounts to lead gen providers, to people teaching online Legion, to people, teaching, closing people, teaching prospecting, just all aspects of solar sales, all in one place. Hey, and that's going to be on the tools section. So if you're on the app, it's on the bottom, right? You can go to the very right corner and you can click on the pro shop. And you're going to see all these different coaches. And again, they're being added, um, every, probably every week or two, you're going to see new updates to this. Hey, but this is what we're launching with. You're going to see coaching on their new courses and training programs, software and tools to fuel your growth and access to top vetted service providers.Speaker 1 (08:03):So whatever, you know, whatever tool, whatever coach, whatever software you could think of in the solar industry, go check it out on our marketplace first because we've worked out some exclusive deals, some cool things that you're not going to be able to get access to anywhere else. Just to give you an example, um, rep card, they're one of our, um, partners on the platform and they've agreed to, um, anyone that, you know, gets a rep carb subscription from our marketplace. We'll get a free top card. I think I've mentioned that in the show before, but they just coming out with these new little, top cards, super sweet piece of technology. You can be in a home in an appointment top your customer's phone and your rep card, your digital business card. It's going to go straight into their phones, straight into their contacts. If you don't know, if you don't know what rep card is, go listen to the podcast we did with them.Speaker 1 (09:01):That was, um, probably like six months ago, but, uh, you know, great software right there. So again, go check this out. We have all these vetted service providers and some of the top stuff you can find that you will need as you go to go throughout your day-to-day tasks as a solar professional. Hey, so that is, um, the free sections of, um, Solciety of the app. And for those that are interested, Hey, you can get your subscription on here. Again, we're starting at 97 bucks. And the reason I'm saying this has to go up because we partnered with, um, Siro. And again, this was another featured software partner we had. Um, about a month ago, they are a super cool recording software where you can record your door presentation. You can record your closing presentation, get feedback from it, from your managers and you know, people within your company.Speaker 1 (10:03):But what we're working out with them, that's going to be available to our paid members is you're going to be able to work with myself and a lot of other top coaches in solar, where we're going to give you direct feedback on your presentations. That's right. And that is for 97 bucks where you're getting direct access to us and direct feedback in your presentations. Um, so that's, I think the coolest feature of the paid of the paid subscription to Solciety. Okay. And it's not, it costs us money. Okay. We're not getting this for free from Siro. Um, so yeah, it's costing us money for every user that comes on. So that's why I know it's not sustainable to do this for the 97 bucks for everyone that comes on, but those that want to take advantage of it, go get on. Like I said, it's probably gonna be about 30 days before we need to up it.Speaker 1 (11:00):So if you want to get on that tier and get it at the discount, go jump on, subscribe to it. Okay. We'd love to have you part of the community. And the other cool thing that you're getting is you're getting access to our video chat app. It's called volley. And you're going to be able to get direct communication with the community, with myself, feedback on any struggles you're going through and really just connect with other people in the Solciety community. So that's my two favorite pieces of it. But on a side note, besides that you're also getting full access to the discovery section, which includes way more contents from our, all of our coaches in there and then specific like courses. So instead of it just being videos that you'll get as part of the free Solciety app, you'll get specific, you know, modules in there, for example, videos on closing videos, on your presentation, videos, on up all, things like that.Speaker 1 (12:00):You're going to get access to that and be able to get, um, some specific advice depending on what you're struggling with. And so that's all available for our paid members that want to go get on that and have access to some of the top brains in the solar industry. I don't know if I'm the top brain in the solar industry, but I'm going to be connecting you with the best of the best. And that's our goal here at Solciety and here at Solarpreneur is we want you connecting to the best in the industry. Hey, I know I'm pretty good at some things, but that's, that's one of the reasons why I started the podcast just because there's a lot of things I'm not good at. And I want to connect with all those people that are better than me at the follow-up that are better than me at the closing that are better than me at whatever it is that I'm struggling with.Speaker 1 (12:48):So that's what you need to do is focus on your strengths and then try to learn from those that are better than you at your weaknesses. Hey, so that's just a little demo. We want to give you of Solciety, go download the app. Let me know what you think would love your feedback on it. And again, just share the podcast. Anyone, you know, that could benefit from some extra dose of solar knowledge or some extra, I dunno, training content. Please share it with them would mean the world with me, it world, to me, if you would tag us all, we're on Instagram. Taylor J Armstrong is a, my username over on Instagram or just, you know, sin, shoot it in a text message to someone at your company or someone in your circle of friends that can benefit from the podcast. That's our ask. Hope you go and download Solciety today.Speaker 1 (13:42):Can't wait to hear your feedback and I can't wait for everyone to go check it out for free. Go hop on it. So we'll see you on the next one. Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
Visit Solciety.co now! Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 1 (00:01):What's going on Solarpreneurs. I am stoked for this episode today because we have someone that, um, has been doing something pretty unreal. We've got a guy that's I got a text a few weeks ago, heard about chance here, that's with us today and you're going to hear all about them. But he said to my knowledge and industry record close 68 freaking deals in a month. Let's go appreciate it, bro. So we're going to hear, um, what was working for him and yeah, just kind of his whole story and what he's been doing to achieve that level of success. Cause I've never heard anything like it before, so a chance welcome to the show. Thanks for comingSpeaker 2 (00:40):On. Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks for having me.Speaker 1 (00:42):Yeah. So I'm stoked to hear just kind of what led up to this. And I I'll be honest. I didn't believe it. At first when I heard I got a text from my buddy Marshall and um, he told me about this guy and I'm like, no, no way, Marshall. I got a guy that I work with that close. I think, uh, yeah, he's closed like 43 in a month. I was just telling you chance. I, I thought that was the record. Like no ways anyone closing more than, than 43, that Marshall texts me. He's like, no chance got 68. I did. I was like, all right, I got to get this show on the guy on the show.Speaker 2 (01:15):Yeah. So a little background about me. Um, again, my name is chance [inaudible] but so ever since like I grew up, I've always had like an entrepreneurial mind, of course. But yeah, when I was 13, I, I mean, I've been doing e-commerce and everything. Solar I've been in the industry for about 15 months. Um, but yeah, literally I came out here, I saw an ad. Um, I actually filed Zane and that's the CEO of better earth. So that's who I work for. But I saw an ad with Zane and I was like, all right, I'm going to apply. So I think that they had like 800 applicants. It was all housing. Um, all expenses paid for, for your first three months. And I dropped out of school about a year and a half in. I never really wanted a piece of paper that millions of people get every single year, but I've flew out here.Speaker 2 (02:02):Uh, I got the job flew out here and I dropped everything to my parents, whether you guys like it or not, I'm going to California. So I'm originally from Wisconsin. But when I was about 13 years old, I had like $150,000. So she was my room. I used to buy and resell tickets, shoes, whatever it may be. You name it? I did it. So any type of get rich quick, and I realize, of course you just got to keep putting the work in. You said drop ship, like crazy. But when I was 17 or 16 years old, I created a company called smile, big clothing. So you guys can all check that out if you want. But yeah. Um, I was going through a little different time with my parents and they actually like got a divorce and everything was hard on me just cause my brothers I'm the youngest of, I have three older brothers, but, um, yeah, so I was going through it a little different time and I've made smile, be clothing, just cause I knew a lot of people are going through bigger struggles than myself.Speaker 2 (02:54):And that's why I dropped out of school. I used to sit in a dorm room, wake up at four 30, work on websites, inventory, skip all my classes, just to go package a bunch of merch. And it was, it was ridiculous. Yeah. So I dropped everything came out to California and when I came out to California, I didn't have a car or anything like that. I put all my money into the inventory. You still order way more than I could afford just to push my paradigm and make sure that I have to, I have one thing, one option. So, soSpeaker 1 (03:21):That's awesome. Always been hustling.Speaker 2 (03:23):Absolutely. So after that I came out to California, didn't have a car used to Uber, to turf used everything, my bank account to do it and you're out there. There's no other excuse to it. Um, you're either going to sit on the sidewalk, you're going to go bang doors and get after some people. So I did that. And my first month I think I had like 16 deals in my first month in solar. Um, and yeah, we were pushing a lot of paradigms in the company. I've kind of set like that company record right away. And ever since that, like I'm always just been holding myself accountable to my goals of course. And I don't really compare myself to others. I really just keep improving. And that's the most important part and staying consistent and making sure that you're outworking every single person. Yeah.Speaker 1 (04:03):A hundred percent. And yeah, I think that's probably, we'll talk more about this, but that's probably a huge key to success is most guys they'd hit, you know, 30, 40 in a month and be like, like I was thinking, oh, this is probably a record. I don't need to do more than this. Right. Go take a LondonSpeaker 2 (04:17):Person.Speaker 1 (04:18):Yeah. So I think that's probably a lot of your success. You're was like, oh no, I'm going to beat Mike previous record. So big. And you're probably not even looking at this score, but you're just comparing it to what you hit in the other months, right? Yeah,Speaker 2 (04:28):Absolutely. Yeah. I always have a big whiteboard in my room and that's literally all I compare myself to and it's just my last day or my last month or whatever may be. But staying in the present, taking every single day, one by one every day is a sprint always just control what you can of course can control and yeah, you definitely see a lot of results and a lot of improvement as well. Yeah.Speaker 1 (04:49):So we'll get more into the solar stuff, but yeah, I wanted to ask you chance, like with your previous businesses, was that always pretty successful when you started out selling shoes and everything? Tell me about that. Was that always a big success or was that kinda up and down? How did that go?Speaker 2 (05:02):You know, it was up and down just because I was in middle school and high school and of course, like I was playing sports. My dad used to be a coach and had a lot of practices after I used to get my phone taken away and all my classes. Cause I was always messaging people back on eBay. So that was always like a struggle and staying up super late and trying to balance work like schoolwork or whatever it may be. But yeah, the shoe is, was like actually a pretty big success, especially just being young. And honestly like, even if I broke even, I didn't like, I, I did pretty well for myself being young, but yeah. I mean, honestly just like the knowledge I learned and seeing how like businesses operate and seeing like how to actually sell definitely benefits in a lot of other ways are than just business. It develops yourself as a person too.Speaker 1 (05:45):Yeah. And so I love hearing about people's background because I mean, it's like we were talking about a lot of people in solar. It's kind of the paradigm that reps get is they're lazy. They close a few deals were paid at like we're talking about before we did the show and you literally close a couple of deals a month and be making more than most average Americans make. And so like, do you think, I don't know your upbringing, your previous as previous businesses, things like that. Do you think that contributed to just kind of like the hustle mindset you have now? Or do you think that was more developed or were you born in this way or how do you, how do you develop that stuff? MaybeSpeaker 2 (06:19):That's a good question. Um, honestly I've kind of just been born that way, but yeah, I've realized, so when I first came out here, it was called the 90 day blitz and I was like, dang, like, we're going to have to go like 13, 14, 15 hours a day or whatever it is, you wake up at six, you come back at until it's, I mean, pitch black. I used to literally knock my own neighborhood until it was literally pitch black. But yeah, I think that was huge for me. And I realized that I've kind of been blitzing for the last seven years. So yeah, I kind of just like trained myself to that and I didn't realize like, of course this is like more like physical or you're walking around, but I used to be on my computer for 12, 13 hours in college and high school or whatever it may be. So it definitely kind of like trained me just to kind of, of course bring it to the doors. Yeah.Speaker 1 (07:04):Yeah. I love that. And so yeah, at better, if, um, do you guys have like a, I dunno, a set schedule for your reps? Are you, you're talking about blitzes, do you guys do mostly Brit blitzes that better? Or how does the schedule work that you guys get your reps success over there?Speaker 2 (07:19):Yeah. Good question. So honestly like you you're on your own hours. Like no one really can like tell you exactly what to do. So we don't really have like a schedule, um, a lot of like team leaders or whatever may be, might make of course, like a blitz, like a two week blitz, three week blitz for like, of course their team and have like a cool goal or whatever may be like a competition. But a lot of it is just kinda like all self jammed, like work-based performance, like of course there's you get what you put out of it? Yeah.Speaker 1 (07:44):Okay. Yeah. Cause I'm noticing that a lot. Um, a lot of companies I've been with, they just have the typical, like, all right, guys, we're going to try to go out and work from, I dunno, three to seven today. It's kind of like the hours, but then what I've also seen with that is sometimes I get like mediocre results. Cause you're not doing like go hustle blitz. Everyone's just kind of trained. Okay. Let's try to get her, you know, one to two deals in the week, a hundred percent. If we work 20 hours on the doors or something, then we can probably get like one or two deals. Yeah. But especially recently effort from wat I guess, coming on the podcast is that they're really trying to do more. This blitz. You can get people to hit, you know, high numbers. So I think it's really cool is because if you do that, then a lot of times what I've seen on teams as reps limit themselves, like, okay, I'm going to work my 15 hours, whatever I'm the doors get like, I don't know, maybe four or five deals this month, which is great money.Speaker 1 (08:37):But what I think is really cool from guests, I'm hearing, okay, let's do like a three week blitz and then guys are hitting like, I don't know, maybe 15 deals. Whoa. That's crazy. I didn't know. That was possible. Yeah. So it's kind of less also breaking the mindset too, from what I've seen during the blitz and really like working more hours and they thought they could work and getting them out of the shell because yeah. I mean, I've kind of been in that, unfortunately I think it's time for me to do a blitz, but I've kind of been in the same thing, work three, four hours a day or at least knocked doors for four hours a day. I'm in San Diego. So I'm just working kind of local areas too. Yep. And so it's yeah, it's an easy trap to fall into is I'm just going to work like, you know, kind of, not the minimum, but minimum to get a couple of deals in a week and then not push myself further. So would you say that's a big thing for you guys to just um, or in anything you guys do to help reps just, I don't know, increase their potential and break past the limits, things like that. Yeah.Speaker 2 (09:29):100%. One thing that I do for like any type of my reps, like, um, so when I first started my team just cause I've only been in the industry for about say 15 months. So I brought four guys out, uh, probably my third month in and yeah, they were up at six o'clock I'd bang on their doors. Make sure that they're up, whether you're going to be reading meditating, of course, doing whatever that's going to get your mind. Right. Nine o'clock we'd have a morning meeting right after the morning meeting you're at the doors and you're not coming back until it's pitch black. There's no other way around it. Or is it going to be locked if you come back, you're not coming in. So sit in your car, do follow up whatever it is. But definitely like that was really, really beneficial. So I came in, his name was Andrew Zimmern, Betty.Speaker 2 (10:05):I came in, I lived with [inaudible] and that was big for me just to have like my routine of course down. And after that, like, yeah, like you're not going to waste your time. There's nothing worse than going to hit 200, 300 whatever. How many doors in a 10 hour period and just get nothing. So yeah, definitely just making sure like your health, like holding yourself accountable and everyone else, like being a leader, you got to lead from the front. If you're not doing results, why would I would really reps ever get results? So always pushing, like it's addictive. It's very, very addictive to push everyone else's paradigm, see like the results that you can bring to them and see, of course like when you do 60 ideals, anyone that does tens thinking, oh my gosh, like I got to get going. So it's the same thing with my team. And last, last month we did like 200 something like 200 deals as a, as a team, which is pretty coolSpeaker 1 (10:54):And credible. And yet you're what, you're 21, right chance 21 crazy say I'm here 28. And then like, man, these young hustlers coming out, it's funny, I'm on a team right now where at like my previous company as with a lot of us were like married guys and yeah. All right guys, let's close our deals, get back to their kids, whatever. But now I'm seeing these guys coming in like your age 21 and they're just like straight hustle.Speaker 2 (11:18):Right? Not as many distractions. Right. You don't have a full-time job at home with the kidsSpeaker 1 (11:22):Or whatever it may be. Yeah. Obviously you don't got, you know, wife, kid to give back to you, anything like that. Right. So I wish, I wish I would've been more like that when I was your age too though, is because like, even though I'm married now, I'm still probably working about the same as when I was like single and all that. Yeah. But if I get a go, if I could go back, I would have done like more blitz style when I had more time and I have like wife, whatever, to go back to your kids. Um, so for all like you young people listening, you young folks, not like me, 28, married and all that. I think that's a huge key push as hard as you right now, because trust me when you're married, when you have a kid and stuff, I mean, you're still gonna push, but it's not the same.Speaker 1 (11:58):Like you're not going to be able to push as hard. You still, still going to your bullets and stuff like that. But uh, I mean I'm already sleeping on them. Not like literally, but I'm already like in the doghouse sometimes with my wife, like I hate you putting too many hours this week, stuff like that. Right. So I think that's a big thing. Um, but yeah. So for you chance, like people you're training, um, do you ever get any pushback or is it like people you bring in, are you immediately saying, all right guys, we're blitzing like crazy or do you get pushback from guys? Like, cause I know obviously you're a straight killer out there working all these hours and like hitting massive things and all that. But what about for guys that aren't like you that come in, maybe they've never worked this hard in their lives. Um, anything else that you guys do to kind of like condition them to really hit big things and break those limits? Is it just kind of doing bootcamp style, like you said, or anything else that you guys?Speaker 2 (12:46):Yeah, I think like the biggest part is like setting the expectations straight right away. So, um, if they're getting pushed back or like, I don't see like them actually doing it, then I'm just not going to bring them out. So like I have a bunch of people that want to come out, but yeah, just making sure we're scaling, like of course, like a, a good pace and making sure where I can put a lot of time into these guys, but no there's really no pushback or anything like that, just because I tell them exactly how it's going to be. I tell them they have to get up at six and they're not gonna be able to come back. So they know that they're gonna be working 80 to 110 hour weeks. And that's literally the truth that month in August. Like literally I didn't have time to eat. So just being super busy and making sure that they are, and again, like that's my job. Like if they put the work in, I want to make sure that they like see a ton of results last month. Um, one of my top guys, Ryan testing her, he had like 28 deals. So it's definitely just shifting paradigms and yeah, everyone works really, really hard and yeah, we're just a big family. Yeah.Speaker 1 (13:40):That's awesome. And so let's get into a little bit like this huge month you had tell me, yeah. You talked about, you barely have time to eat in, obviously in the, you know, super busy, like 68 deals. I don't know how you do anything besides close deals. Um, literally, but yeah. Do you want to tell it, like, what was your schedule this month and did you kind of map it out? Yeah, yeah. Tell us about that. Oh, this came to be, yeah.Speaker 2 (14:02):So I mean, of course my goal is actually 70 for that month and I literally saw myself accountable. So I took a whiteboard and I literally broke down every single day and I just kept chasing myself if I'm behind, I gotta like catch up of course. But my schedule was of course I get up super early and since I do have guys, like, I seriously would not go to bed until like 12, um, going over like pitches wins. And of course, like voice memos, like you'reSpeaker 1 (14:25):Still managing a team while you're trying toSpeaker 2 (14:27):Live. Yeah. I live with 15 guys, so I brought in a whole entire squad. Um, we're actually in Orinda, California, but yeah, literally I was managing everyone and I went to Arizona. I was brand new market for me, which was definitely different. Um, but kinda crushed it there. I had 11 deals in four days there and then I ended up having to go to LA, um, which is a newer market for me as well. And I think I had like 14 deals in like five there. So yeah, just like adapting to whatever, like is put in front of you. And I did travel a lot, but it was pretty sick.Speaker 1 (14:58):Wow. That's awesome. So like 6:00 AM and then like you're talking about before is kind of like 6:00 AM then meaning at nine and then just like knocking her in Dale's still dark, dark,Speaker 2 (15:08):Basically a hundred percent. Yeah. And then I think like the most beneficial, like the, something that was really, really beneficial for me is a lot of times when people like get an appointment sad or like your time is so valuable, as I said before, but like, don't sit people out. Of course aren't worth your time. So I don't like force it anyone, like if I get, say I go get eight or nine calls in a day, like I'm probably saying only three or four of them. So I like that was super beneficial or don't like set appointments way out, same day or next day at all times. And yeah, your time is super, super valuable. Like I don't think I've ever sent an email with a proposal in my whole entire life. It's either you're going to sit with me or are you just not going to go solar with me?Speaker 1 (15:46):That's awesome. Yeah. No, I think that's a big thing. Especially new reps. I see they get kind of this, I dunno, we're rushed. They're having success when they get a lead and maybe, maybe they'll let them in the house and they're like chatting and stuff. But I know for me as a new rep, I would like get in the house with some old lady or whatever that wasn't even qualified for roofs, like wrecked. She has like zero credits, um, you know, on social security and all this stuff. And I like sweet. I just booked a solid appointment. She's letting me in. She's like telling me your whole life story. And then two hours later she's like, oh, by the way, a non-interest in solar have zero credit. I'm like all this stuff.Speaker 2 (16:21):Yeah. Just getting kind of all that stuff out of the way to start. And that, that is definitely like the most important part. A lot of people want to like set appointments that they just force it and they kind of waste an hour and a half, like an hour and a half on the doors. That's that's real are leads. So super, super important just to balance your time. And again, like, know that your time is that valuable in this industry? It's crazy. Like I always like to look at it as like an Easter egg hunt, right? Like literally you're just looking for golden eggs. So gain like the hardest people, like the hardest people look you out are the easiest to close. So yeah. And then of course like simple is better. So I don't really like talk about the product as much. Like I attach myself to the deal and from there, like it's really, really simple.Speaker 2 (17:01):You got dumbed down the deal, I'm big into analogies and just really putting into perspective on, I only can help your situation. This is something you've already been paying for. Like, all you do is you just pay a lower bill and that's kind of where it comes down to. And after that, like once it clicks or you get like that one objection or they like spilled the beans on why they didn't do it in the past and why it didn't make sense in the past. That's where you just actually tee that thing up and hit a home run.Speaker 1 (17:25):Yeah. I love that. And now I think those are super key to, um, just helping people dumb it down as in as simple as possible. I think the most successful guys I've seen in the industry are breaking it down. So basically like a third grader could understand it so simple. Like how could you not do it? Absolutely. Oh yeah. Tell me, do you have any, uh, specific analogies you use that you feel like you help a ton as you're sitting in homes? Yeah, justSpeaker 2 (17:49):Like a lot of the times, like even it's on a door most of the time like that, I really like dumb it down to them. But one thing that I always like to say is like, so of course, like they're already renting their power and now they get to own it for nothing on their pocket. But then I just like put it into perspective on like things that they actually own. Like you probably own this house. Right. And they go, yup. Probably on your car. Yup. I'll commute on your power. Pretty contradicting. You get to own your power for less than you already renting it for, for nothing out of your pocket. You literally could have $0, your name to do this. My mom always says when it sounds too good to be true, it usually is right. What's the catch there. Isn't one. And that's why I moved all the way from Antarctic, Wisconsin for this. Do you get your bill online or in the mail?Speaker 1 (18:30):The assumption love it. And that's awesome. Um, ask you. Yeah. And so like for guys, uh, another thing I was going to ask you a chance, um, especially for newer reps, like I've seen just recognize someone that's super qual qualified versus someone that could be possibly a waste of time. And when you close these 60 deals, I'm sure you had to be like, you know, super, super good with your time. So how did you recognize, like maybe someone's going to be waste of time or like filter all these people they're going to be felt credits or they weren't good leads. How do you filter out the holes and just spend your time with as many good prospectsSpeaker 2 (19:04):That's possible? Yeah. Good question. Honestly, I usually like kind of qualify them on the door. Um, I asked them questions after like get the bill and everything, like start talking about like them talk about myself for a little bit. And then after that, like if I see like something that may be a concern, like a roof or whatever it may be, I kind of get it out of the way, but what I usually do, and I dunno if this is like the best strategy I, it works for me eyes. I always just double book appointments. So ones that are like iffy or like, um, maybe they won't sit cause it was like a one-legged or whatever. It may be. Alice have two appointments. So I get to pick two, one doesn't show the other one's going to show. So that was something that I always like, felt like was really, really beneficial, but all our part two is just mapping out your schedule. So before I go out to Tara for out to of course, knock, I always have like my schedule plan. So like there on my time, I'm not on theirs. So making sure that I'm not putting an appointment right in the middle of the day, all my appointments would be at like 4 30, 6, 7 30 and nine. So that's where I always would do I have four appointments, I got to fill them. And that's what of course leaves you open for some same days. But yeah, that, that definitely works for me, um, at almost always. So yeah.Speaker 1 (20:10):Yeah. I like that. Yeah. I don't feel this in the grant cartoon much, but it talks about like new problems. It's good to have new problems. Right. Like double booking appointments. That's a problem. Right. But it's like, like, especially in solar, how many appointments fall through or stuff happens. Right. So I think, especially if you're trying to do volume like that, you gotta have like some deployments just stacked all day. Absolutely laying them up. And so for our doubters out there chance tells like how many of these were self Jan's? Um, like, I don't know. It's almost like a little bit of the stats forSpeaker 2 (20:40):Yeah. They were like almost all self gen. So, I mean like in Arizona, like that 11, um, was also of gen I one the days in California at six same days and our dad five same days and those are all door knocks. Um, and so Cal I had those 14, those were self gen, but yeah, like almost all of them, herself, Jen, of course I have to help some of my teammates like out, um, if they ever need like help on a deal, but a lot of times, like I'm always rescheduled in my appointments for it. So it's kind of like a sacrifice, but of course, like their production is more important to me than mine. So yeah, for sure.Speaker 1 (21:12):Yeah. That's a good mindset to have. And then how many, uh, at a little 60 for Lozar Blanco, bro, he probably had like 40 of those cancers come to St. John'sSpeaker 2 (21:21):When you think you can look at my commission summary. Um, now I've probably had like transparently. I probably had like six to eight, cancel, maybe nine. Um, and I mean, sometimes you just can't control it. Two of them were after the sites for it came out, the roof didn't qualify and they didn't want to do a reroof, but that's just the honest, transparent truth, but people can think whatever they want, I guess. Right. Yeah. You can shadow me on the door thenSpeaker 1 (21:43):That's seriously. We all go out the mouth. It's more video footage. Yeah. But no, that's still incredible. I mean 10% was at 10% or something maybe. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate that. Super incredible. Um, so yeah, but no, I like how you're still rep focused. Like most guys they're hitting huge numbers. I see like, all right guys, I'm not going to take any deals. I'm not like focused on anything and they just have to go all in. But the fact that you did this all while still like leading a team and training guys and still going to other people's deals and that makes it, uh, you know, even more incredible. It was crazy. Yeah. Um, what did your guys think when you hit this really? Like, just like, like blown away orSpeaker 2 (22:24):Not really? Um, or they saw,Speaker 1 (22:26):You said you hit been hitting some big numbers.Speaker 2 (22:28):Yeah. I was hitting like a lot of big numbers before and like I was really like rep focused then like a lot of times when you have new reps and they don't know exactly like what's a really good appointment or wherever it may be like there I'm sitting with people that would know show or I'm driving an hour just to go to an appointment that doesn't sit or whatever it may be. And I would still do like 40 some or whatever it may be. But yeah, a lot of my guys weren't really surprised. Like I set that goal in our morning meeting and I kind of like spoke it into existence. I like just telling someone or the team what I'm going to do. And then I already put it out to the world, so I have to do it otherwise I make a fool out of myself. SoSpeaker 1 (23:03):Yeah. That's awesome. And yeah. So like leading up to that, you had a few months, you were saying before we started this a few months at like 40, right. And yeah. And then you just like anything that led to you wanting to like hit 70 or just like, I'm just want to have a massive month and just go all out. I think the,Speaker 2 (23:18):I guess part is I didn't have like a brand new like waiver recruits. So a lot of these guys have been out here for like two months beforehand or two and a half months I would say. So like they were kind of on their own doing all like solo production where then I really got to like blitz on my own. Okay. So that was nice. And of course, like I had some people, like they I'd knock with a couple of people just for fun. Um, just cause they always like to knock with me and I always like to get some deals from, so yeah, again, like very unselfish. Like I love, literally change other people's lives. That's the most important part to me. And like, that's my why. And so the more people I can bring out, the more differences in life, second change, like that's a big, big win.Speaker 2 (23:56):It's not even about the dollar science, not about the deals, not about the numbers, nothing like that. It's about really just like of course, like switching their paradigm and changing their lives and their family's lives. And that's why my why's like to have a billion dollars to make a bit like a billion differences. So it kind of goes back to like smile, be clothing for every order we get, we donate a t-shirt to a child in the hospital. So yeah. So I've always just been a big giver. My mom's always taught me that and we used to sacrifice our Christmases for other people's Christmases. So it really is just like, that's the coolest part about this industry is like, we only can help someone out, literally every single house that you see. It makes sense for them unless they sit in the dark with like a flashlight. Right. They're going to have a high enough electric bill. Yeah,Speaker 1 (24:33):Yeah, yeah, no, I think it's yeah. All the successful people. I know they have sort of that same mindset and Hey, you probably read some of those books, you know, like the Zig Ziglar, Zig Ziglar and you know, greatest salesman in the world. It's not their book. And that's something that key points of it is like the more you can care about other people, the more you're going to get back, the more deals you're going to get back in your life. Absolutely. So big key. I think Fran, when Jane have success, don't like, look at it. How many people can you serve this this month? How many people can you help? How many lives can you change? And uh, I think that's, there's a big thing speaking to in existence. Do you like your saying? Absolutely. Um, and so yeah, another question I just thought of too, like you mentioned, you're double booking appointments, things like that. So let's say you have you show up to one, they sit then the other one. What do you do with the other one? I just show them what time.Speaker 2 (25:20):Yeah. It's true. My texts really quick and say like, Hey, my meeting's going a little bit longer than already. Like of course it plans to say, I didn't have an appointment after the seven o'clock work or seven o'clock probably will work for you. Right. And then after like a lot of times, or I can just reschedule it for like the next morning, like 8:00 AM or at late night, again, like nine o'clock, eight o'clock. So I always like to set up appointments early, early morning or late at night. So I always want to keep that window where I can go hit some doors. Yeah. Okay. Pipelines always got before.Speaker 1 (25:46):Yeah. That's awesome. And so yeah, for, uh, same days, how, yeah. Um, to go into a little bit of like your clothes, how long would you say your typical clothes works? And what's kind of like your closing process, if you don't mind sharing?Speaker 2 (25:59):Um, honestly I would say my typical clothes is like 30 to 35 minutes. Okay. So I get to the numbers, um, probably in like five minutes and after the numbers, I'm probably getting to the forms in 20 minutes tops. So keeping it really simple, like we were already talking about, but yeah, when you keep it simple, like once you're like a lot of people like to overexplain the deal and you're just shooting yourself in the foot and you're over analytical then of course like you keep telling him all this like nonsense then of course they're going to say, yeah, I might need to do some more research instead. You're just paying a lower bill. Hopefully don't have a problem with building equity in your property, owning your power instead of renting it. And that will be good. So yeah. That's like how long my closing takes, but yeah, I've talked about like a couple of main points right away.Speaker 2 (26:40):Um, probably like for five minutes, just like information, um, just to give me like a better feel. What's your biggest concern? What's your biggest goal? Have you ever looked in going solar? And a lot of people, what they do is like they, oh, my biggest concern is I don't want to lease my power. I don't want to pay anything out of pocket. Like, yeah. I wouldn't want to either. And I keep going and I want to use all of that as ammo. Like once I get to like the numbers, after that, I can just tee up whatever, like of course there, my biggest concern was, and that's how I go right into my clothes. Really like harping on the things that they're concerned about. And then from there keeping it simple. It's just like, this is an absolute, no brainer. Nice.Speaker 1 (27:13):So, so you don't go, like, I don't know. What about for people that are like have checked out solar are more analytical, things like that. Do you change your presentation much? Or is it pretty much the same with what those guys do? I go chance we've gotten like four quotes now. Like just show me the numbers, whatever.Speaker 2 (27:29):Yeah. So I'll never go right to the numbers no matter what. Um, I always just tell them like, we'll get to your number. So like, if they say like they have three or four quotes or whatever, it may be right away. What I'll always say is like, okay, like I'm going to keep away from the whole entire, like sales spiel. But I do want to go over like, like a couple of things. We'll take two minutes, we'll get right to your numbers. Absolute like that. They're actually open-minded. But a lot of times, even when people get quotes, they don't even know what like net energy metering is or whatever, how everything works. And then they ask that and literally just like kills like your momentum and the deal. Yeah. So that's something where I get everything on the way they have to have full understanding before I show them their numbers. After of course the numbers are going to make sense. I'll tell them why we're different. And then from there I'm going to reach the close.Speaker 1 (28:08):Nice. Nice. So it sounds like even before you even get an appointment, it sounds like they already kind of pretty good, pretty good idea of like how the process works, how the solar works and like, like with your analogies, things like that. Cause you don't, you don't get into a ton of like descriptive stuff in the presentation. A lot of that stuff they know before.Speaker 2 (28:25):Yeah. Um, they know like a lot of things, like, I don't really like get into like equipment as much. Of course I'll tell them like how many like modules I have and I'll tell them like the brand of the inverter, but from there, just like, honestly I could put a stuffed animal on your roof. And since he ever preferred like a production or performance guarantee, like either he doesn't matter, like the system's going to produce. So that's where like I kind of stay away from that kind of stuff. But yeah, I kind of get right to the numbers right away. And then it's just going for the clothes. But honestly their clothes, every, almost every single time I sit down with.Speaker 1 (28:56):Yeah. The big part is just your mindset. I can tell you, like I can tell just from the way you're talking, like every deal you sit in, it's like, you're, you're telling yourself they're close. As soon as a slam dunkSpeaker 2 (29:06):Every, every time. Like if you have any doubt or like any doubt in your mind that you're going to a deal and they're not going to close, like yeah, you just spoke that into existence. Every single time I go to a door or every single time I go to like a meeting. Yeah. Like my number one, like my mindset slurry, just like you're closed. Yeah. Like yesterday, like for instance, both of my people were like, yeah, we're just looking around. Um, we're not gonna sign any papers. And after him, I was just like, you know, tell me that in about 45 minutes, buddy. Exactly.Speaker 1 (29:34):Yeah. It's a Champion's mindset and every high producer has exact same mindset that you have, um, take taking their McCarthy. Um, yeah. He came on the show and he's seen a lot of the same stuff that you said, it's like this one's going to close a hundred percent, a hundred percent. This one's closed. He'd snapped him as he's walking up to the doorstep. Absolutely. Just based on stuff. So it's like, he's speaking in existence. You have that. And then yeah. Another thing that, uh, I can grant Cardone talks about too, you're just looking at, um, stuff that they've already bought. It's like they were bought this nice car. They already bought a house like white, white shouldn't they buy their electricity. Why shouldn't they own their lectures direct. Yeah. They're not going to do it. Yeah.Speaker 2 (30:08):Yeah. Literally rather like you're already paying for it, you know, literally just makes no sense not to do it. Yeah. So,Speaker 1 (30:16):And so if you're, that's another key for our solar printers listening, if you're not like a hundred percent sold on your product and a hundred percent sold that you're helping people out a ton and just like, don't have that complete confidence, just figure out a way to get that. Cause that's going to be the difference maker. Like probably for you. I'm going to guess that like when you first started, you closed, you said you closed 16 deals, right? Yeah. You probably know new, barely anything. It's the lawyer at that point, right.Speaker 2 (30:40):At you, 70% of the company better earth. And that was more about sorta to me stale. So yeah, literally you don't have to get like super descriptive and it makes sense. So that's all it matters.Speaker 1 (30:52):Yeah. Yeah. So that's the mindset you got to have for our listeners. Figure out a way to develop that and that's going to help you have this success theater trying to hit for sure. And so at chance, tell us, um, like for people that are having a high cancellation, I know that's another thing we deal with. Sometimes that a lot of reps, especially in California, it's been hit so hard. There's like so many comparisons, anything you do that helps to have like have so many of these push through and actually go to install. Yeah.Speaker 2 (31:18):I mean, there's always like a couple of things it's always different. Like for every like situation, but one thing maybe like take a picture of the homeowner Senate right after, just to like, of course, like when they go to your text messages, like they see them smiling. But another thing too is like, stay at the house, like build value with them. Like they can't like think you're actually selling something. So if I put a girl Pearl on my body, every single time that I do in FC, after I leave it, literally we're friends. So it's not like, oh, thank you for helping with the solar. It's just like, thanks brother. You're the man. You know? Like that's just kind of how it is. And it's just like, I always like put it into perspective, like talk to people like they're your best friend? Like your parents' best friend.Speaker 2 (31:52):Yeah. So doing that, it's just like, your tonality is not sales. Like my tonality and the FC is just like this. I sit back, relax, whatever it may be. But yeah, I think the biggest part is of course like do follow up, but don't do too much. And with it, take a picture with them at the very end. So they always have that. And then in our thing I was to do is just of course, like we still got to make sure the site is going to qualify too. So if the site doesn't qualify, like literally you're Sol you know, then you're stuck with PGNE. But as long as you don't have a problem with paying a lower bill, bill and equity, and of course using more electricity instead of chucking it down the gutter every month, like, man, this makes sense. Right. Nice. Yeah, absolutely. And then from there, yeah. Then I'll maybe bring up a testimonial, provide them with a reference if they really need it, but you always have like that feel. But a lot of times, like the people that I have, like QL a lot of times are people like no one else really like will QL. So it's clearly new to them. Qualified lead. Yeah.Speaker 1 (32:45):Yeah. Okay. No, that's helpful. And so you're saying you're taking a picture with them and then texting it to the homeowner right after and just seeing like congrats, something like that.Speaker 2 (32:53):Yeah, absolutely. You can't wait to start saving your wallet in the planet. Nice. Let's get to it, you know, and then with it, other than that too, sounded like a $5 Venmo. Here's a taste of your solar savings, whatever it may be. Yeah.Speaker 1 (33:03):That's cool. That's big. And yeah, a lot of people, uh, you know, do the videos. I mean video picture, that's a big thing. That's been a game changer too is because you can get like a video or a picture. Um, I mean, especially if they're explaining back to you, like why solar is a good thing. Yup. Like sums in hell with me. Hey, let's grab a quick video. Just tell me like, if you like the experience, whatever, it's be like 30 seconds. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Like, sure. And then they're having to sell me again on why they even wanted to go like solar in the first place. Yep, absolutely. So, yeah, that's huge. And then like, um, another big thing you're seeing are same day appointments. So I get a lot of questions asked about that from people I go, how do you, I think that's kind of a newer thing. I didn't like when I first started in the floor, no one that I knew of was doing same day appointments. Yeah.Speaker 2 (33:47):That was the same thing with better earth. My first starting to, we were definitely a lot smaller and I remember people were posting like same-day Q or something like that. And when I first started, but um, same days and everything, like, it's not too difficult. Like of course, like make sure like both decision makers are there, even if they're not like a one-liner and everything, like, they're not hard, but with it, like, I always just like say, Hey, I'm going to send this over to our engineers. We'll be back in 30 minutes. You're free. Right. Yep. Okay, cool. And I just go right back. Um, every single time I don't really like same, like knock it and go right in. I do that sometimes, but a lot of times, like, I want to be like, Hey, I'm actually going to take about 30 to 45 minutes to drop your custom plan.Speaker 2 (34:22):So it doesn't look like I just like put these panels on their roof. Where the heck did you just get your numbers? It like makes it look like I put a lot more time into their plan. So that's why I do that. Um, I realized like, and then of course, like I'll send them like give them like the website. They can look at like this little training course, just so they have a better feel for it. And then I come back and like, they're somewhat knowledgeable about it. Or they looked at our reviews or testimonials or whatever it may be. Okay. But I don't get business cards or anything like that.Speaker 1 (34:47):Yeah. That's I think a big camp scene dues, just like there's something Missy did you're Hey, you're going to be, you'll be here 30 minutes. Right. Someone will take me. Cause like, especially reps that I see newer reps, I'm training and stuff like that. I go, what am I getting? Not getting same days. They're going. They never free. But the way they're asking me is like, Hey, are you guys going to be here? Like here? But like notice the difference. You're just like, you're, you'll be here 30 minutes. Right. We'll be right back with it. Absolutely. That most people are going to be here if that's the only option in their mind. Right. Cause you didn't saySpeaker 2 (35:16):Right. And then also like of course, like put it like bill and scarcely behind it. Like we're only picking out two more homes than the zip code. So like, this is a big opportunity. Like again, I don't want to waste your time. I don't want to waste my time. But like hopefully you guys are on the right rate schedule. If you're not. Or if it's like this doesn't make sense. I'll just shoot you a text and say, Hey, this is not going to work for you. But I'm actually meeting with the Benson's like four homes down. You probably even know them. They always walk the German shepherd at seven. But with that, I'm actually going to be back at seven or eight, which one works best. And just like a multiple choice answer. Like they have to pick one of them. It's not your, or you forget seven. Now they can make any excuse. You know, like now I have to go to my kid's game or whatever it may be. Yeah.Speaker 1 (35:54):Yeah. That's awesome. And then you get the takeaway in there too. Only picking two more homes in the zip code on the street, um, are big, so chance, some awesome stuff. You've been, uh, Sharon Yan. I can see why you're having success. It's just like all these little things, nothing like crazy think people think they're going to hear some crazy lanes you're using her. Um, some of the same, but really I think it just comes down to you're working more hours than I think probably anyone has in a month. And so it was like, I don't know. Do you, do you have an idea of how many doors you knocked or how many total hours you put in that month? If you had to guess?Speaker 2 (36:28):I mean like doors are knocked like a lot hours, a ridiculous amount. Like seriously. Like I didn't do anything fun, you know? Like I just worked and like, I love doing that. And I wanted, like I told myself, I want 70, I fall short by two, but yeah, it was a ridiculous month, but honestly I'd say doors wise, I don't really have to hit like a crazy amount of doors. It sounds like kind of dumb, whatever it may be. But yeah, I really don't have to hit that main doors. Like with Ryan, like testing her, we went and knocked and I think we knocked for probably 45 minutes and we had four same days and like, um, but yeah, like when you, when you said that too, it's just like, yeah, everything's super simple. The biggest part about anything is just attaching yourself to the deal.Speaker 2 (37:09):Like if it was the company there, there's a reason why reps have four and one has 40 or one has 10. Someone has 60, whatever it may be. It literally just comes down to your conviction and how much you believe in the product and how much you believe in yourself. Once those two things add up and they're in line, there is no reason you can't like double or triple your production that you're doing right now. And so that's the biggest part. And that's the thing that I knew I could control. It was like how hard I'm going to work. And every single day, like there's not one person like out there that will outwork me. And I work when others don't I knock when others don't and that's why you get those results. But yeah, it's super simple, but yeah, just dumbing down the deal, keeping it, like you literally could tell, like tell us like a third grade and they would do it. You know? So honestly that is something like I found myself likeSpeaker 1 (37:56):Pretty good at it. Yeah. No, no doubt about that. And I mean, in your you're working like zero days off in the month, right? Third 30 days, same schedule 6:00 AM till dark every day for that month. So usually every daySpeaker 2 (38:09):And that's, that's the truth. I mean, sometimes like of course, like around the holidays or maybe there's a day. Um, but like when it comes to a blitz, like my first 90 days I did not take one day off. Yeah.Speaker 1 (38:20):Yeah. And so like with your guys' blitzes, um, cause I mean that's crapped on hours that guys are working, so I'm sure, you know, guys, when you do your blitzes, you're working straight hard, but yet for you, do you have anything like to re kind of rejuvenate yourself or you get yourself back in the flow? Cause um, I mean, I don't think you're gonna work that day. That schedule, I would see like 365 for sure. In a year, but like what do you do on your off days? Let's say your months, you're not trying to hit 70 anything you do to kind of like refresh yourself and yeah. Get yourself back back to new, to do another blitz or anything. Yeah. That'sSpeaker 2 (38:54):Um, on my off days and everything, like, I'm still like doing a lot of personal development, like helping everyone else, but maybe I'll go hit the links. Maybe I'll go get a round of golf. And um, I really don't golf much anymore. I used to work at a country club back home. So I used to golf every day when I was like in high school. But, or like in the summer days, like I used to play a little bit of golf, just free golf, but yeah, maybe like going out to dinner with some of the guys, um, like top producers hanging out with some friends like here and with that, like honestly, like it doesn't really feel like a job just because my house is like a college house. It seems like, well, we just all have like that same mindset where it's not like drinking and stuff. Like no one drinks in her house. Like of course, like we'll have one night out or whatever it may be in a month. Yeah. But yeah, it's just like everyone just surround yourself with people that have the same mindset and like gets fun.Speaker 1 (39:43):15 dudes you got now it's yeah. It's aSpeaker 2 (39:45):Pretty big house, but it definitely got a little more crammed with, so we're actually splitting back up. So like two Airbnb's. Okay.Speaker 1 (39:51):That's awesome. Well, good stuff, man. Will a chance. Yeah, you're crushing it. Dude ends. We appreciate your having on the podcast before you kind of start wrapping up here. Do you want to tell guys where anything can kind of connect with you more or find you on social media and all that good stuff? Yeah.Speaker 2 (40:04):Yeah. My Instagram is chance Pran. So C H a N C E P R O N. And that's kinda like my main thing. So yeah. Find me on Instagram or you can file smile, be clothing on Instagram, wherever it works for me. But yeah. Anyone on this podcast appreciate you guys listening. And from there, like if you guys ever have any questions or interested in having like mentorship, wherever may be like, you guys can always reach me there. Yeah.Speaker 1 (40:27):Yeah. He'll probably be on the doors when you hit him up. Probably. Huh? Maybe it'll take a couple minutes. It's funny. That's incredible, dude. And um, yeah. For your clothing, do you guys, uh, do you want to tell us a little bit about your clothing stuff? Is that a like, well door knockers, like this clothing or you got any ed door knocking gear or anything like that yet?Speaker 2 (40:44):Yeah. I mean like smile big, like your solar savings. Get it like for like, of course, like a family, um, on install day. I mean literally and your smile is contagious, so yeah, like, honestly it's it's playful brand. It gets pretty sick. Like it's all comfy clothes, all the best like materials I used, I went to Las Vegas to make sure I got all the best materials. It's all American made. But yeah, I honestly, I think like our clothing is literally good for anyone, any age, any gender, whatever it may be.Speaker 1 (41:12):And it's your customers or anything like that? She saw the sun smiling or something. Yeah.Speaker 2 (41:17):Or shirt on smile big. But yeah, a lot of that stuff, like I had designed all of it and definitely being able to put a lot more capital into it and we got a lot of big things coming, so hopefully everyone will follow along. Yeah.Speaker 1 (41:27):Oh cool man. So just before we wrap up here, what's next for you, man? You, you trying to hit past that goal or surpass your goal or any big thingsSpeaker 2 (41:34):We've got coming. So I took like the new position with better earth. So now I'm like the VP of sales. And um, honestly, like right now I'm going to be kind of going back and forth to Arizona. So Cal Norco with my team and of course like training a lot more people in the company. Definitely like my number one goal is to have every single person on my team, in the company to one beat the record, but to everyone needs to get into double digits. So that's kind of what I'm going to be focusing on. Yeah. Like I'll probably end up like having a lot of deals, but I'm going to do a lot of stuff where I'm not going with them trying to like, of course, like shift paradigms and make sure that they're going to be financially free as well. I mean, that's literally the most important part for me. So yeah, after that. Yeah. Maybe one, one of those months, I'll try to break it, but from there, I'm going to make sure that I can keep focusing on my guys. Yeah.Speaker 1 (42:17):That's awesome. So, yeah, I don't, I think that record or stand for a little bit for our listeners, I guess, let us know if you hear of anyone that's creeping up close and then we'll tell chance, say, man, you gotta, you gotta up there.Speaker 2 (42:28):If someone is someone broke it though, then, then yes, next month, the month that I'm going to go get it. Okay. Yeah.Speaker 1 (42:33):We'll be in touch, but I cool. It's a chance. Appreciate you coming on the show. And then last question. Do you have any, like, I dunno, final words or anything like for a newer rep that you, uh, would want to leave with them before we end here? Yeah.Speaker 2 (42:47):At work every single person, like do the personal development, listen to yourself on like voice memos. Like sometimes like you're always gonna be saying like a word that you don't even notice. It's just like your unconscious competence. So that's one thing. Another thing that I always just like to say to you is just like, stay level-headed like, again, control what you can like control you. Can't control who's behind that door, but you can control your mindset. So every like the doors are just a game. So honestly, my number one thing was keep the door open as long as possible that any other rep couldn't. So that's one thing for me that was really, really beneficial. But the other part too is just having that conviction. You gotta be able to find like that passion behind the product and you have to believe in yourself and literally attach yourself to the deal. If you see like your FCS or like your closings going about like an hour, hour and 15 hour and 30. Yeah. Shorten that up. Literally shorten it up. I promise you, you will see a lot more results. Yeah.Speaker 1 (43:37):Love that whole cool chance. So yeah, Solarpreneurs make sure you're keeping it super simple and make sure you're outworking anyone. Cause that's really what it takes to succeed at the level of that. I'm sure you want to hit in the industry. It's what Coby Bryan was dealing. So Michael Jordan, all the greats they're putting in the hours and they're combining an app with their SQL and then that's how we're going to have success. So thanks again, chance for coming on. We'll keep in touch and make sure you hit them up. Let them know. You're grateful for him coming on the show today and we will talk with everyone soon. Appreciate it, man. ThanksSpeaker 2 (44:07):So much, Taylor. Appreciate you bro.Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. 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We'll see you on the inside.
Visit Solciety.co now!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:41):What's up Solarpreneurs. Today, we're going to be talking about how to plan your week like a boss, how to plan your week, like a Solarpreneur, how the top solar dog has do it. So we're going to jump in and up. But before we get into the topic, I want to invite you to tune in to next Tuesday's episode, because we have a very special announcement. We've been working on a top secret project. I know you guys are gonna love it. So make sure you tune in to next Tuesday's podcast. So let's jump into the topic today. It's going to be a quicker one, but the reason I am thinking so much about planning lately is because as some of you know, I'm in the Knockstar training, which talked about it before highly recommend, then Pepsi came in, Rick, Curphey those guys over there, they do some great training.Speaker 2 (01:33):So go follow them on Instagram if you're not already, but I am in there a coaching group right now, we have calls every week. And this last call, we had the opportunity to listen to someone that's if you've been endured or for any amount of time, you know, this guy he's like the guy, one of the godfathers of door to door sells his name's. Jeff Mendez walked to get him on the podcast here, but he talked about, um, just some keys that he's had to six his success. But one of the biggest takeaways that I got from that call that he and a lot of other top guys are doing is they are planning like insane amounts. They plan their days, very specific. They know what they're doing every 15 minutes. And again, another thing, um, I went to this conference about a month ago and a lot of the top guys there, a lot of the, you know, business leaders, entrepreneurs, um, they were talking about the same thing that if you don't have clarity in, if you're not planning, if you don't know exactly what you should do every 15 minutes, then you're probably not clear enough on your goals on the directions you want to be taking.Speaker 2 (02:45):And I'm not to that level yet. And maybe you're not either, I don't know. I'm not to the level of clarity where I know what I should be doing every 15 minutes, but hopefully I'm going to get there. And that's the goal. But as I was listening to Jeff Mendez, talk about all this stuff. I realized that man, I plan every once in a while, you know, once probably once, twice a month, I'll go and do some planning, but it's not a consistent thing. And as they listened to him, talk about all this, just like, man, I'm letting my days just basically tell me what to do. I'm reacting to events, every phone call that comes in every customer that hits me up. I'm just reacting. So what if I flip the script on that? What if I made it? So the day reacts to what I tell it to do?Speaker 2 (03:32):And this is what Jeff was talking about, how we need to get to that level, where we tell our days, what did you wear? We are the ones being proactive, not reactive. And so I decided to try it out this last Sunday, Mike, all right, Jeff Mendez talked about it. I'm going to get a little deeper in that planning session. Watch some YouTube videos studied some books I had about the topic. And I want to share with you guys a few things I had forgotten about that were really effective for me as I plan my week. And matter of fact, happy to report that as I did this time session, I, that next Monday, I got probably three times as much done as I had the other Mondays. So pretty cool. So if you haven't been planning that I want to invite you to start in the most important thing with this is to do it consistently for me.Speaker 2 (04:29):It's yeah. I just noticed a huge difference. Um, as it's consistent versus not consistent, like I've been doing once a month, isn't really gonna cut it. These things need to be weekly and then daily, right? You need every weekly and daily planning sessions. So I'm talking about weekly today. And then on a future episode, we'll talk about some daily planning tips, but your weekly planning session, couple of things with it here. Um, there's a great video. My guys over at art of Manliness. It's another cool podcast. You don't have to be a man to listen to it, but anyone can go take some cool, um, tips from this it's by Brett McKay, he does just kind of like men's lifestyle, tips, tricks, and secrets, but he put out a YouTube video on this and highly recommend it. In fact, I'm going to link it here on the episode.Speaker 2 (05:22):So go check out the show notes on wherever you're listening to this, but he breaks it down. So I want to give you a few highlights that I took from him. And then you can go watch the video. If you want to get more in depth, another tool and resource with this, I would definitely suggest you go read the book. Seven habits of highly effective people. It's one of the classics of self-development, uh, by my man, Stephen Covey, go read it. But he breaks this down in his book. And if you want to take him to an extreme level, he goes like in depth, I'm not doing it the level he does, but that's how you can really plan out your entire like life direction, where you want to go. Stocks talks about things like that. So I would suggest going first, go check out this video on weekly plan, but then go read seven habits of highly effective people if you haven't already.Speaker 2 (06:15):So here's the weekly planning session, couple things there. Um, first things first, you need to set aside the time to do it. And so whatever you're using, I use Google calendar. Just put a recurring event. That's going to happen every single Sunday I do them on Sundays. So I would suggest Sundays, but you could do it any day. So set a time and make it recurring in your calendar and then make sure you stick to that and then, um, pick your calendar tool. So I like to go digital. Some people use the paper stuff, but, uh, digital is cool. You can have all your obviously customers showing up on there. So if you're not having some sort of calendar sync with your, you know, solar appointments and all that highly suggest that as that's the first two steps. And then the another, another huge thing with this is make sure you're performing what people call a mind dump.Speaker 2 (07:11):So this is where you just take all the things that are on your mind. Just put them on a piece of paper, slap them down, anything that you need to do. So for me, it was like, I didn't get my oil changed. I need to fix one of the lights on my car. That's out. I need to, uh, go. Yeah, well, a lot of stuff on there, but all the things you need to do, just perform a mind, dump all the tasks you need to do. Um, so this podcast, it was on there. Every single thing in the think I've put it down and then this is another place I would suggest doing it, like on your phone or something, maybe in a notes app, because if you're like me, you're going to be probably have add like most salespeople have, okay. That's that's the, uh, curse and the blessing of being a salesman.Speaker 2 (08:00):A lot of us have very short attention spans. If you don't then, then great. I mean, you're one of the lucky ones, but put it in a place you can always access because chances are, you're going to forget to add things to the list. And you're going to think of something now, or, oh, I need to do this too. And then what that does it frees up your mental capacity, your mental space. So you can focus on what you really need to, and this is crucial because then throughout, as you go throughout your week, you're not just, again, reacting to things, you have it all written down and you know, what needs to be done. And then after that, just for you review your goals, review your life plan again, if you want to get more in depth, this is where, um, obviously before even doing all this stuff, if you can have like a life direction, then even more so effective review those goals though, and then review the previous week and then the planner I've been using for this, um, hour, once again, linked to it, but it's called the best self planner.Speaker 2 (09:04):You can go get it@bestself.ceo. I use the one called self journal, a lot of other great ones. And I don't think it's as important. You know, which planner you use. A lot of them are great ones. I've used brilliant cartoons, 10 exponent or in the past. Um, I've used Brendon Burchard is high performance planner. Think you use that one for a little bit. Um, this one I like, I just got off Amazon actually from, um, suggestion from Taylor Turnbull, one of the, uh, regional managers over it, Vivint Solar, I guess Sunrun. Now he actually suggested this one to me. So I picked it up like it a lot. So we can go get this a best self.ceo. It's the self journal, but what's really cool is they have weekly review sections in there where you can review everything, how it went for the week. And then you can track habits.Speaker 2 (09:55):You can set daily targets. So I think it's cool because you can set, you know, your numbers for the week weekend and set yourself goals in there. Put how many contexts you want to make, how many appointments you want to sit down with for the week, how many closes? And like we've talked about on the podcast before, this is how you really make cells. Not so much, I guess, in game, but as science is, you start tracking those numbers. So it set some goals around that, but get some type of planner that you can use. So I'll link to that one. If you guys want to go check it out, that's the best self planner. Hey and so review the previous week makes it easy. If you have a template set some weekly goals, and this is going to be a lot easier when after you've done the mind dump, right?Speaker 2 (10:40):You know, which tasks you want to take from, um, pretty easy usually to recognize what are the most important things, what things are not so important, you can go and put, I don't know, EBC, if you want focus on the most important ones first and the things that are going to actually move the needle. And then, like I mentioned set some cells goals that were solar sales people. So you can set, recruit recruiting goals in sets. Um, how many homeowners you want to talk to every day and maybe you want to talk to 15 homeowners a day, set that goal and then track it to every day. That will be a difference maker for you. And then after you figure it out, all the things you need to accomplish for the week, the non-negotiables put those in the calendar block out the time, as soon as you can.Speaker 2 (11:26):And that's where you can just throw them in your Google Calendar, right? If you know, you need to get your oil change, figuring out what's the day that you can do that. What's the morning you have free and then go ahead and put it in the calendar. And, um, yeah, Stephen Covey, he talks about the concept of big rocks. So if you haven't heard that, um, analogy he talks about, it's just putting in the big rocks, the most important things first, and then you imagine them in a jar, you pour the pebbles around them. You're going to fit room for everything, right? Where if you put in the pebbles first, you're not going to fit the big rocks in there. Okay. So that's really the essentials of this main thing is just get a planner and make it consistent. Hey, it doesn't have to be some complicated, long thing with it.Speaker 2 (12:16):Just be consistent, whatever you do set aside time. Every single week. I remember when I did my, uh, church mission, we had their two year mission in Columbia. I was on their plan and in Spanish had no idea what people were saying, but they made us do this. Every single week. We had to set plans for who we're going to visit, how many people were going to baptize. And then every single week we had to do this two hour long thing where you apply on your entire week. And then you did this thing. We were in companions there. Um, so I was with, you know, Mexicans, uh, you know, Peruvians, all different, all different walks of life down there. They pair off with one of them. And then you have to like say what you liked about that person this week, and then bringing up the stuff that was bugging you, pretty intense sessions.Speaker 2 (13:07):Okay. So, um, if you're married, maybe do that to maybe get your spouse down and, uh, get them to do some planning with you. Hey, but I promise this will pay dividends. If you're not doing that already, I noticed a huge difference. So I'd love to hear what other systems you guys have. What other planners have worked, go and shoot me a message or post it in the Solarpreneur or Facebook group, if you're a part of that. And that's pretty much it guys. So just a crash course on the weekly planning. They'll let me know if you like this kind of stuff and we can go more in depth on the weekly and the daily plans and then get digging some deeper stuff with it. Let me know what you think though. And don't forget next to today. We're going to be dropping the big announcements. So tune in next Tuesday, tell your friends, tell your mom, tell your grandma, listen to the podcast. Next Tuesday. You will not want to miss out. So with that being said, thanks for listening. Appreciate you guys. Love you guys. And we will see you on the next episode.Speaker 3 (14:10):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
Visit Solciety.co now!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):Today's episode. You're going to hear about the mistake that cost me over 30 grand in commissions and how you might be losing money without even realizing it, all that and much more in today's episode of the Solarpreneur. Let's jump into it. My name's Taylor Armstrong. I'm here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much more enjoyable time in the solar industry. It's a great day today. It's raining outside here in San Diego, California. Hopefully wherever you're at, don't let the rain scare you away. We get some of this winter weather. I'll admit I am a sucker for not for not wanting to, you know, work in the inclement weather. That's why I live in San Diego because let's be honest. San Diego has pretty much the best weather in the 60 to 70 degree range, basically all year round.Speaker 2 (01:36):So if you're sick of knocking in that brutal heat or those winter storms, then come on over, we got a job for you, but in all seriousness, sometimes it is an advantage to knock in those inclement weather conditions. I've got friends that are out in Colorado, friends in Arizona, knocking, knocking in snow, snow storms. And the advantage you have with it is people are usually going to be more sympathetic and let you inside the house. And I was talking with one of my friends in Colorado saying that when they're knocking in the winter, it's so cold outside that people just let them right in half the time. So that's your advantage if it is raining or if it is hurricane weather or whatever, then people are probably going to let you inside either that or tell you you're crazy and not listen to you at all.Speaker 2 (02:26):Right? But with that being said, let's jump into the episode. So before we get into that, I wanted to just remind everyone that I was on the solar objections live stream. If you didn't have a chance to go check that out, go head on over to the solar objection, Facebook group, and obviously join the Solarpreneur Facebook group. We actually posted a copy of it in there, but make sure you're part of both of those Facebook groups. Cause we got some cool stuff going on. You don't want to miss out on them and you can see every play of yours, truly dropping some heat for y'all. So go check it out. Let me know what you think. Let me know if you liked the content we had in there and maybe we'll start doing more stuff like that. So that's once again Solarpreneur Facebook group in the solar objection group with my friend, Solar Joe over there.Speaker 2 (03:20):So today's episode, hopefully that got you a little intrigued. I did lose out on about 30 grand in commissions. And I want to tell you guys some mistakes I made with that, how I could have probably prevented it. Nothing's hunted a hundred percent preventable and just some steps that you should be taking yourself to ensure that you are getting paid, what you're worth. Okay. And so I'm going to preface that with a little story. When I first started out in pest control, as many of you know, started out my first summer in Dallas, Texas, this was back in 2012. So while back I'm one of the old guys here, back then, we, it was all paper hay. We carried around our clipboards. Um, I assume the pest control guys have like digital stuff. Now, digital contracts, um, been awhile since I've been in the pest control game, but that's how it was back then we literally carrying around paper contracts, just stacks of them in our clipboards.Speaker 2 (04:21):And then we had just this chunks of chalk. There was no sales rabbit. There was no canvas. There's no knocking app like that. We're carrying around chunks of chalk. Every time someone rejected us or was a follow-up follow-up we'd put an X on the sidewalk. If it was someone that said no, not interested. And then we put just a straight line down the middle, um, of the sidewalk, if it was someone who said to come back and then I'd put the time next to it that go, husband's not here, come back after five, I put 5:00 PM next to it. So you got a lot of people looking at you. Like you're crazy walking around with a piece of chalk, just drawing all over the place, but that's besides the point. Um, anyways, what happened back then though is we had one of the reps in our office.Speaker 2 (05:10):His name was Corey. He was our top rep. And he was getting, I don't know, like usually four to six deals a day in pest, which is pretty decent. I know there's guys bowling numbers like that out of the park today in pest control. But back then is pretty phenomenal what this guy was doing. And he had already, I think two kids, he was one of the more mature kids on the team, mature guys on the team. He's probably like, you know, I don't know, 28, the age I am right now. So I don't want to call him an old guy because that would make me old, the old guy right now. But Corey, he was having a ton of success. He was closing a lot of deals. Number one thing that stood out to me is he always was insane. The organize with these deals, every single contract he signed, he kept a copy of the paperwork and he put it in these folders.Speaker 2 (06:05):He had stacks and stacks of these copies of the contracts. And once he put that copy of it in a folder, he would, um, make a spreadsheet. I think it was a spreadsheet or I dunno, some sort of binder. And he kept record of the name of the customer, their contact info, exactly how much you sold them for and exactly how much you supposed to make on this deal. So one time I saw him doing this and I said, Corey, why are you keeping track of all this stuff? What's the deal. I mean, you sign up a deal and you get paid. Why are you keeping track of this? That's for the office people and what you told me. He said, Taylor, you'll learn in this industry. People make mistakes, no matter how many deals you think you closed, no matter how organized you think the office, people are, mistakes are going to be made and you're not going to get paid on things.Speaker 2 (06:54):If you don't keep track. And if you don't keep records yourself, it's that kind of brush to the side. I'm like, eh, I've always gotten paid. You do your work and you get paid for it. Whatever. And I only closed, you know, hundred pest accounts, whatever. So what do I know? Right. But I didn't listen to them and what happens? I didn't get paid as much as I thought I did, but I had no proof of anything. Hey, when they went to pay me, they said, Hey, you had deals, cancel this. And this happened, I had no records. So I'm just like, okay, well I'll take whatever. And they probably were right. But I learned an important lesson. That's going to transition into how I lost 30 grand in commissions. And that is that you need to be keeping records of your accounts. You need to be keeping track of who you signed up.Speaker 2 (07:45):You need to keep track of their progress. You need to keep track of they're still active because if you don't, you're going to get short cut. You're not going to get paid. And inevitably, you're not going to get paid at some point, what you thought you were owed. You're going to have people mess up on a commission. Maybe you're supposed to get paid 20 grand. You won't get paid two grand. Hopefully not that drastic, but things are going to be inaccurate. At some point. I don't care how organized your company. It is at this time I was with, uh, Aaptiv, which bigger company, but they're, you know, probably the biggest door to door pest control company at the time. So I thought there's no way they can mess things up, but come to find out, lots of people had things that weren't right with them selfish and happy.Speaker 2 (08:32):The big companies. I don't care if you're with a big company, if you're a well established dealer or whatever, you should be keeping track of your accounts. Okay. And so here's what happened to me. Here's how I lost about 30 grand in commissions. So I signed up two accounts. One was a, um, they're both around 15 kilowatt systems. Okay. And so out here in California, for me that equal about 30 grand in commissions. So pretty huge systems, the Wells as we call it, and one was a referral from the other. So there's several problems with this. And like I mentioned the beginning, even if I would have done the deals perfectly, I don't know if, I mean, who knows if they necessarily would have gone through, there's a couple of issues, but I'm going to talk about the things that I could have prevented. And if I would have been organized, then I probably would have at least one out of these two accounts installed.Speaker 2 (09:36):Okay. So the first one, his name was Hutch, signed him up. Everything was good. He was super excited to go solar. He said he checked it out once before, but the company couldn't help them. For whatever reason. They said they didn't like his roof type. I don't know, but it was fine. Um, we got them approved, but the issue was we had switched to a new installer. Um, we're a dealer here in San Diego, future home power. I'm working with, we switched to a different installer. Obviously we have multiple installers we can choose from. But our primary installer, we had switched to a local one that had really great reviews, uh, great warranties, 25 years on everything across the board, including like the roof, the workmanship flavor, all that stuff, something, man, that's pretty awesome. And they got good reputation. They're a local company. So we all start slinging deals through this.Speaker 2 (10:30):But the problem was all of us thought that they're going to be smooth as butter, just deals fighting through installs happening. What I didn't know behind the scenes is that there were a lot of issues going on that they didn't know how to handle all this new business. We were giving them, I close these accounts probably like the first week we started using these guys. And so all of a sudden they're getting dozens and dozens of deals sent to them. And guess what? They didn't know how to handle the volume. I didn't know this at the time. I just thought, okay, if I sign them up, it's just going to be about like the same as all our other installs. They'll go quick. They'll do their thing. They get installed and no problem at all. But what happened was pretty much the opposite. It didn't go quick.Speaker 2 (11:16):There were mistakes made and come to find out about two months after I signed up Hutch, the first customer they had gone and they didn't even have the correct site survey pictures. I found this out two months after, after they did their original site survey. And after I signed all the documents, so Hutch was a chill guy, but the other mistake I made the other, the second account that I closed, that was part of this whole thing. It was actually hutches girlfriend. And he had referred her and she liked me when great. She was a little more skeptical. She was a single mom. So she was pretty hesitant to sign up, but apply it a little bit of pressure. Um, soft, closed her and boom. She was good to go. But then what happened with her is they went and they missed again. They miss pictures on the site survey.Speaker 2 (12:18):So the first mistake made is I call her back. She was already, you know, a little bit on the fence. So I called her back and I'm like, Hey, um, so the missed some pictures. We're going to need to come back and go through this. This was probably two and a half weeks after I had closed her. Which at this point, anyone that closes a deal, you should, it should be a done deal. You shouldn't have cancels unless it's maybe in the first couple of days, because everyone has the three-day or cancellation. But after that, you should not be having cancels. So I'm thinking for both of these smooth selling, they're not going to cancel. It's going to be good to go, but she hears me say this and just cause the fact she's already on the fence. She's like, you know what, Taylor, um, yeah, if I'm going to have to do this, I just, like I told you from the beginning, I still feel like I should just take it a little slower, get some more quotes.Speaker 2 (13:13):So why don't we just put it on pause? So that's why I say it wasn't a hundred percent because of this, but the fact that I had to call her back, I had to try to schedule a site survey again. She cancels and this was kind of the first domino that falls. And then of course Hutch, the one that I closed originally that was a lot more saw, a lot more excited about it. We go through the similar stuff and I don't know this for sure, but I assume that he probably talked to his girlfriend and um, you know, maybe she was in his chirping in his ear a little bit, but similar thing happens only with Hutch. It was two months after the fact, right. Two months after the fact, we had to try to redo a site survey and similar thing happens. He says, Taylor, yeah.Speaker 2 (13:59):You know what? Um, I just feel like nothing's really happened. And it's been taken a long time and site survey that was already done. Seems like there's mistakes being made. So yeah. Why don't we just go ahead and put this on hold. I want to go ahead and get some more quotes due to deals lost cause this stuff. So here's what I could have done better. If I would have been number one, checking in with the installer, making sure they were doing their stuff, making sure we had all the right pictures two months wouldn't have gone by, um, because two months the site server, that should be like the first thing that happens. Right. And after two months, we're back to square one. We have to redo a site survey. Ridiculous. Okay. And obviously a lot of this, you know, the installer had to figure out some stuff and we've helped them improve their processes.Speaker 2 (14:53):So I know I'm probably going to get messages from people saying, why, why are you using this installer? Okay, well, they look good at the time. And most installers I've dealt with know how to figure that stuff out, but people make mistakes. So what I should have been doing is I should have been keeping track of the progress. What I've since done is I've created a spreadsheet of all my accounts that I've closed. And I've got my assistant doing check-ins every week, just following up on the progress, getting an update on this. So do you think that would have happened if I would've been having her do that from the beginning? Checking on my accounts. Probably not. You don't necessarily have to have an assistant do this, but for me it saves me time. It's something I've talked about before getting a virtual assistant. That's my first suggestion I would make.Speaker 2 (15:45):No matter how organized you think your company is, maybe you don't need to do weekly check-ins on your accounts, but just create some sort of system. Okay. I use a app called Trello is a good one. Maybe you can put your accounts in there or just a good old spreadsheet. Google sheets, put your accounts in there. Just keep track of them. Okay. Even if you haven't had any mistakes in the past, keep track of them because who knows maybe one day he switched companies for whatever reason, at the very least, you want to be keeping track of all your customers. Hey, because think of how many referrals you could be getting, think of how much follow you could be doing. That's important data that you just want to keep track of in general. So that's the first tip. But then the second thing is in the story that goes with, this is actually last week we had a rep in our company.Speaker 2 (16:40):Um, I closed an account for him about yeah. A couple months back got installed. Things were good. I got paid on the account, but the rep didn't okay. The rep in our company didn't and he was the one that said it wasn't our company. We do splits, you know, he said the deal, I closed it. So we split it. So this deal for whatever reason, the people in the office didn't keep track. I don't know what happened. I got paid the full amount. He got paid nothing. And this rep, he actually wasn't even keeping track. So it went by probably about a week and a half before I even like dug into the numbers. I was like, oh, well I got paid a lot more than I thought I was supposed to on this. And then come to find out he didn't get anything. A N S I dunno, hopefully you're the kind of rep that would, you know, report this.Speaker 2 (17:30):Obviously, if you're getting overpaid, you know, report it, you want to make sure your guys are getting paid. Okay. So definitely don't just take the money and run with it. Obviously. That's a thought that probably crosses everyone. My know they paid me extra. Um, yeah. I don't know what happened, but I wanted to make sure this ref got fade. So I told her office people and they had no idea that it was this rep's account. So luckily we got them paid. We got to figure it out. But imagine if I hadn't reported that he probably forgot about it altogether. He wasn't getting paid on an account. This was like three grand that he got paid. That if you know, I hadn't reported it, he might've forgotten about it. And yeah. Who knows what happened? So lesson learned, and this has probably happened to me. Okay.Speaker 2 (18:20):Cause there's been lots of times where I haven't been organized and keeping track of this stuff, but that's the lesson here is just keep track of your accounts. Keep track how much you're supposed to get paid. Because again, people will make mistakes. Things will happen. And if you're not going to keep track of it, who will, okay. So you need to be keeping track to the dollar, the commissions you're owed, and then make sure you get paid. What you're worth. That's the lesson today. Don't be like me. Don't lose the 30 grand in commissions. Number one, make sure you're keeping track on the progress of your accounts. Okay. If I would have been doing this, this deal probably would have been installed. I mean, our installed time usually takes like a month, a month and a half here in San Diego. So the fact that took two months any cancel up that cause the issues we were having, I would have got that one installed at the very least, because I mean, any other deal would have been like a month and a half and you're not canceling after it's installed.Speaker 2 (19:18):Right? So keep track of your progress and then keep track of how much he need to get paid. If you want a spreadsheet I've been using to keep track of that stuff, hit me up and send you a copy of it. But don't be like me. Don't lose 30 grand in commissions and send this to someone that needs to be more organized. And we're going to be having more trainings about this, on how you can implement an assistant if you need to or ways to be more organized, but it's costing you money. I'm telling you. So get organized. Don't forget. And we will see you guys on the next episode.Speaker 3 (19:54):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. 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Visit Solciety.co now!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:41):What's happening. Solarpreneurs. We're back with another episode in this time we have the Brazilian master himself, my man Christian coming on the show. So we got Christian Maru and I thanks for coming on the show with us today, Christian.Speaker 3 (00:56):Oh man. Thanks for having me. I'm I'm super excited actually. It's my very first time speaking in public like this and, uh, I'm super stoked to be, to be here on the show.Speaker 2 (01:08):Yeah, well it's well-deserved because, um, if you haven't seen, if you haven't followed Christian yet, he's been just one of the most consistent like solar sales reps. I've seen, he's consistently hitting big numbers. Um, and we're going to talk about all that today. So he is the number one rep at affluent, right? Is it fluent? Yup. Okay, cool. Making sure I got the name right. And yeah, been doing awesome. And you're soon to start up an office there in Houston. You're telling me here in what 3, 3, 4 months, something like that. You're going to go down there. Yes.Speaker 3 (01:42):Yes. I started, I started with flowing on May 7th and I, after a month and a half, they say, Hey, I feel like you got a lot of potential. There wants to, to expand the company. And they showed me a few places and I chose Houston to be the place to go. Right.Speaker 2 (02:02):Well, my cousins down in Houston, so maybe I'll, uh, he just bought a house down there. So I'd love to get him sold. He's point, he's pulling this, you know, he's moving, he might move in a couple of years, crap. SoSpeaker 3 (02:15):I know how to handle that.Speaker 2 (02:20):I'm his cousin. So I can't like tell him to cut the crap as much, but if I send you to his door, I know you'll get him taken care of.Speaker 3 (02:27):Yeah. I can smell the blood man. I can smell blood from far away.Speaker 2 (02:32):I better watch out. Cause now all my Houston podcast listeners that I heard that are going to be like hitting me up. So put, put a target on his back, but no, that's a awesome man. And so yeah, I mean, again, you've been having a ton of results being super consistent and we're going to get into all that. But do you want to tell us a little bit of your background, Christian? I'm like, I don't know what, how you got started in knocking doors and um, just how you got in the store and everything.Speaker 3 (03:01):Sure. My brother. Um, so on September 1st it tells an 18. That's when I got that's exactly when I got here in this country. So actually tomorrow, I guess it's going to be three years. Hasn't even been three years and just like a lot of international people. And I can relate to a lot of people from my country and from different places and different backgrounds when they get here, they, they get the cleaning jobs. So that's what I was doing. I was cleaning cars, uh, in a dealership. And then we started cleaning offices and Jean, Jean places at night and stuff like that. And it just, you know, I wasn't super happy cause I was working during the day and I was working at night and working multiple jobs and, and I was like, I've done sales in Brazil. Let's put the way I felt like I was successful. My company was doing well. I was running my company for seven years in the security industry. And that's how I started knocking doors. Actually I was knocking doors in Brazil for my, for my own company. Uh,Speaker 2 (04:11):Yeah, like singularity system, like style.Speaker 3 (04:15):Yeah, something like that. And also like pepper spray, like everything that you can have to defend yourself in a situation of risk, just because in my country, actually we're not allowed to have guns and firearms or anything like that. So happen to says you better know some martial arts jujitsu, you know, you better, you better be ready because we just not allowed to have anything. So I realized that here in the U S people could have some stuff. So it just decided to, uh, to do that in Brazil. So instead of knocking doors to talk to homeowners, I was knocking on doors of the police departments. So I'll go to every single city drive to us, small town or anything like that and say, Hey, how do you guys like your equipment? How do you guys like the boots? The Cavilers, the helmets, everything, you know, the gun holsters, like all sort of equipment that law enforcement have. That's what I was doing. I was just the main distributor say. Okay. Okay. And then he was just knocking on doors, visiting police departments. And to be Frank, you gotta be ballsy to talk to this guy.Speaker 2 (05:32):Yeah, that's crazy. That's yeah. It's funny. I'm uh, I'm taking a Brazilian jujitsu class. Uh, right now I just took my third class the other day. I'm beat up, man. Probably can't see on the camera, but I'm, uh, got bruises all over the place. So guys,Speaker 3 (05:50):I can, I can see, I can see the bruises. I did it for a little bit, but I'm more of a couple era. I don't know if haven't heard of martial arts and it's pretty, pretty cool as well. So yeah, that's kind of how I started in dental. I had this cleaning jobs kind of hated. And then I got into sales. I started with T-Mobile and then I, uh, I got a manager position and I was like, okay, that's a little better. What? I realized that I was working in a store and there was no more room for growth because other than that, I was just, I don't know, maybe I should open my own store, but if I do want to do that, that's like 500,000. Uh, and I was like, yeah, I felt like there was no more room for growth and I would have to wait for people. So what I started to do, I started to approach people outside the stores say, Hey, who do you guys use for the phone? And I started like approaching people. And I got a notice saying, Hey, you can do that. You can do that. You got to wait for people to get inside the store. Uh, and that's when I realized that, you know what? I don't want to do diet because even though I was so out of 124 people, I was number one in sales for months and months and months in a row.Speaker 3 (07:18):And by doing that, it's still even being number one. I felt like I couldn't grow anymore anymore. Uh, I, I will have to be just passive and waiting for people. And I was like, no, I want to do something where I can run my own paycheck. So I recruited myself, nobody actually recruited him, recruiting me. I started, I got into the door to door tribe, Facebook group and say, Hey guys, I want to do sales, hit me up.Speaker 2 (07:47):Like, man, I wish I would've seen that post. It probably got, probably got 500 messages.Speaker 3 (07:54):Oh my, oh my. So I sat down with every single pass, controlling the book and I talked to Santiago and Sentire said, Hey, if you just want to learn the job past control is a good way to start. And then if your career, maybe you should look into solar. So I did, I talked to flow in and I talked to a pest control company, decided the past was for me because a lot of my friends that were doing past. So I did pass for a first summer, three months in the summer, broke my arm and yeah, I was arm wrestling. And actually I was I'm wrestling my manager for over 20 bucksSpeaker 2 (08:37):InSpeaker 3 (08:37):An arm wrestling. Yeah. I can send the video so you can post on your page later.Speaker 2 (08:42):Yeah. We'll have to put that. It's like a company in the podcast. That's crazy.Speaker 3 (08:47):Yeah. So I was having, I was having a really good summer, uh, number one, rookie for the company. Um, three months in the summer had like 400 counts. Uh, I was on a pace to just 600, but because it was, I broke my arm with three months and I went back. I had a recovery and then summer was over. So all of the guys, they just came back home and I talked to the owners and say, Hey, I have a goal to do 600 accounts. My very first summer, would you guys let me come back? And then everybody was gone and I flew back to Texas and I, I started working again doing passive control by myself. That was pretty much it. Oh yeah. All of the boys that were home, it was just the owners and myself. So I did go back sold for a little bit. And then the company say, Hey, you know what, you're the only one here. I don't feel like too good choice to have just you here. And then they just sent me home. Wow.Speaker 2 (09:55):Holy cow. Some extreme dries. That's awesome.Speaker 3 (09:59):Yeah. It's just because I had a goal. So something that I want to share, if you'll let me with the, with the people, with the audience, it's just that instead of goals, to be Frank, I had more of a commitment. So I, every time when you, when you see the results that you can get, I would say it's always good to reevaluate your goals because if I didn't reevaluate myself and didn't compare, I was just trying to compare myself to my very best version of myself. I feel like a lot of times we just compare ourselves to other people and that, that can be tricky, you know, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That can be tricky. So if I, if I take to my original goal, I want it, man. I want it to do 150 pest control accounts. And I sold a hundred my first month. Like, uh, yeah. I was in the country before, like a year, a year, a little over a year. So my English was still, I still have a lot to learn, but where my English was super, super broken, but I just, you know what, sales it's, what's going to pay the most money. So I got, I got a better, I better figure it out.Speaker 2 (11:18):Yeah. That's incredible. So I got to ask, why did you, uh, what brought you out to like the U S in the first place? Why'd you come here? Is that for school or were you just thinking you're going to work or when did you come out?Speaker 3 (11:31):Awesome. That's a great question. So BYU has always been a dream for like all of the LDS families out there in Brazil. Like people just see like, oh my gosh. Like the us in general is just to like live in the dream, you know? And then my wife, she was doing manufacturing engineering in Brazil and she, Hey, what if we go to the U S and I could just go to BYU? And I was like, okay, I support you. And we got here together. And that was initially was for school, you know? And yeah, she was still going to school and work.Speaker 2 (12:08):Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. No, I love hearing the drive ins. I dunno. Would you say like being in Brazil? I think, I don't know. You tell me I never been to Brazil, but I've been to Columbia. Maybe there's some similar stuff. That's where I did my church mission and it's like, I don't know. I'm sure it's similar in Columbia. People had nothing. Um, I imagine Brazil, there's probably a lot of poor parts and stuff like that. So I'm sure you gotta like, you know, scrap for everything and just like, you know, fighting call your way to success and everything. Um, probably more than out here in the U S we have, we have a ton out here compared to, I know a lot of countries down there. So do you think that contributes like your drive? Obviously you have like a ton of drive jelly, keep going where most other people to be bought in is industry. They're not, especially in solar, they're going to hit five, six deals in the month and be satisfied with that because they're making awesome money with that. So what is it? Yeah. What do you think, um, where do you get that drive from? If, if you have any, anything to say about that?Speaker 3 (13:09):Yeah. Um, every time when I think about drive, uh, I remember once I was talking to river rivers keener for like a while, I was just sharing like some personal stuff. And I remember it was just right when he made a post saying if you don't work hard, you're not grateful for the opportunity. That's how I always felt. It's not, I was one of the things that I learned from reading the book, grit from Angela Duckworth, gray, gray, gray book. It's just literally showing me the persistency and the grit and all of that. And when you're grateful for everything that happens. And especially when it come from a different background, I feel like sometimes here in the us, I see people actually complaining, like for not having space in the fridge. And, you know, like I came from a place where like, I will complain to not have stuff from the fridge, you know? Yeah. Sometimes we have the easiest sometimes I just feel like why fear is just so easier and never things just so, so, so cheaper that we take stuff for granted, you know, like we complain for the price of gas now, like three, $4, but in my country, 17, you know?Speaker 2 (14:35):Yeah. That's great. Yeah. That's awesome. And you reminded me, I don't know. Do you know a Leo salesman? He's like, yeah. Have you talked with him fellow Brazilian? He was on the podcast too, actually one of the earlier episodes of the show, but, uh, yeah, it's pretty crazy. He told me too how his dad first came here and same thing. I think he started out in cleaning and started his business and all that. And, um, went through like several bankruptcies, but it's just, uh, I think it's awesome hearing stories like that, of you guys that come from different countries and, um, you're just doing whatever it takes to have success. And, um, yeah, it shows an hours you're working. I asked, uh, I sent river a message because at first I was following you for a little bit, seeing you close all these deals and I'm like, wow, what is this guy doing?Speaker 2 (15:23):Is he on like sells steroids or something close in deal after deal? What is he doing? Um, and so I messaged river. I'm like, man, this guy works with you. What is he doing? And river's just like dared. He just works insane hours. He just goes out there all day, every day. And he's good at sales, but he's just putting in a ton hours. So, I mean, really, I think, do you want to give us idea how many hours are you typically working a week and give us some of your results. You've been getting to be number one rep there.Speaker 3 (15:54):Perfect. Perfect. I feel like, I don't know, uh, coming from passcode trope, I feel like sometimes the solar guys there, I don't want to say people are lazy, but it would just, we just don't work as hard as the farm guys or fast control guys. Exactly. I was eating up a friend say, Hey, what time you guys have meeting? And what time did you go to area? And my friend told me that, uh, his past patrol company, they have been at 9:00 AM and 10 30. They go to area and they work in art, in knife. I've been doing solar for almost almost 10 months now, and I'm never done to add myself. Uh, I work a lot, uh, some things that I might do differently. It's just that once I go to the doors, I just don't stop. And I really mean it. For example, my wife doesn't talk to me when I'm on the doors.Speaker 3 (16:53):And she knows that I just abide by some personal rules and some personal standards that I, I just don't do social media unless I'm posting the deals and talking about that. Like the only reason why I post and I shared that is just for personal accountability. Like it's not for visibility. It's not for the credits. Like I don't, I don't care. I have, I actually have 500 followers. Like I don't care about like how many people I have. Yeah. But you're like, the people I follow, it's just, they bring value. Like I don't follow any celebrity, like any famous people, brands and stuff. I don't have time for that. I just don't. So when I get to work, man, I have a P bottle in my carSpeaker 3 (17:46):And I just, yeah. Like I, or I, I, okay. I can't, I can say like, just being the trees and bushes and stuff, I've done it like so many times I just have a people auto. And then that said, like, I have go to gas stations, zero times I meal prep. I'm following a diet. I started a program a few months ago. I'm sticking to I, if I'm drinking anything, I take it with me. Like I just have everything to be ready for the doors in. And then I just don't stop and say, oh, I talked to 30Speaker 2 (18:21):Homeowners, 30 homers. Nice.Speaker 3 (18:24):That's my go-to. You don't have to be talented. You don't have to be super skilled if you just pull yourself from, in front of 30 people every day. I just feel like there's no way to get the results. And the only way to talk to that many people is just being efficient with the doors, you know, just cherry picking. One of the things that I do, I use my segway a lot. I love it. I wouldn't, I just, man, I don't even, yeah. I don't know. Have you ever used a segway Taylor?Speaker 2 (19:00):Yeah. Yeah. He's it. I, I forgot about it for a little bit, but then say you and river breaking them out. I'm like, man, I ain't gonna pull that thing back out because I forgot how like, you know, quicker and it makes it like more fun on the tours too, to get rejected. Just hop on the segway.Speaker 3 (19:16):Yes. Yes. Especially even if a super hard know what I do every single time. When I hop on my segway, I feel like it's a mental break. Like I don't even feel the no. Cause my brain at that moment is just trying to concentrate on getting on the segway, get it to the next house. See if their shutters are open, see the oils things as they arise, see people's homes, see like how many cars in drive and stuff like that. So it was just a lot of things that comes out automatically to the mind just cause you're used to the job. And that's my goal too. I, I remember being on an adventure with Sam Taggart and he said, and I was asking like, what should I do when I get a super-hard note? And he asked me back, what do you do? And I told him, I just fly to the next door. Like I don't let that get inside my head. I don't wait like half a second. Like whenever they're a jerk, you know? Or like super rude to me. I just two seconds later, I'm on the next door. Right.Speaker 2 (20:17):That's awesome. That's the way to do it. And like all these things, but like people expect, I don't know a lot for a long time. I thought people that were closing tons of deals had some like secret formula, my secret word track they're doing, but you heard it from Christian himself. He's not doing anything. He's just doing like simple things, super consistent. And it's like, I love how you just think of it. Not in like hours work, but no, it's just, I got to talk to 30 people. I got to get in front of 30 people because if I do, that's how I'm going to have success, so I'm going to get it right. And so for our listeners, Christian, um, how long would you say it typically takes you to get in front of 30 or 30 homeowners every day. Okay.Speaker 3 (20:59):That's a great question. So my rule of thumb is just to be driving to an area at three. And in a lot of days, I'm on the doors at three and I work until dark plus one, something that we have part of the culture, just like whenever it gets dark, you just knock one more door and really not more than one door to be just because, yeah, just because of personal standards, but as a company, like, will you just knock until dark plus one? And then yeah, whenever it gets dark, you just be careful the way approach the door. It's just being friendly. You show your badge, you know, you just, yeah. Just the way you carry yourself. Everybody knows the rules and stuff like that. ButSpeaker 2 (21:44):Yeah, that was good. Yeah. And so I did, so you're in a Dallas, right? Cause they're not going to Dallas area. That's where I started. That's where I, uh, uh, I guess got my start in pest control is, and in Dallas actually in, uh, it was pretty brutal. I didn't, I didn't throw it on as many pest accounts as you. I was pretty terrible pest, but um, I remember I got a gun pulled one time in Texas. Those, those Texans are no joke, man. You get guns pulled on you and stuff out there.Speaker 3 (22:15):Yeah. I had first month growing dollars. Same, same, same, same way brother.Speaker 2 (22:23):Yeah. And you got it. You guys got to get like permits and every city to knock out their deer. Right. And they're pretty strict about that.Speaker 3 (22:30):The city and knock sometimes. And again, it's more of a, your attitude. If you feel like you belong the place and you feel like you're all in the area, I feel like everybody's going to be receptive.Speaker 2 (22:43):Yeah. That's awesome. Well, no. So, um, another thing I see you doing a lot of Christian is, um, just getting a lot, a ton of same day appointments. It seemed like almost every deal I see you're posting up on Instagram. It's like same day, same kilowatt, same day 11 kilowatt, just big systems. And they're like majority, same days that looks like. So what do you do? Um, like tell me about that. Do you shoot for same days and what are you doing to get so many same day appointments? Cause that's actually a question I get asked a lot too from our listeners. Okay.Speaker 3 (23:16):Okay. Um, so yeah, average size. It's usually anywhere from nine to 11, that's kind of the average over there. So what we're doing, what I'm doing to get the same days, I don't even allow myself to work differently than that. Like if I'm not same day in you, I don't, I don't actually set the appointment. So it's much more of the way I perceive, uh, going to the events. And again, I think I kind of shared that with you, just listening to podcasts, like your show and many others and listening to people that have been on the job for so long. I just had to learn how to respect and love myself. When I started, I would just feel pity, you know, like, oh I, and that right now, I just feel like everybody's got a Ted story, you know, like who gives a crap? We all got [inaudible] uh, I'm the foreigner I have, I don't know where English and I don't know if I can do solar. So like, man, when I started, my goal was to close 40 deals in the year and then I've closed 60 over the last four months.Speaker 3 (24:37):Yeah. So I just, I just started to believe in myself a little bit more. For example, just the way just the self-talk every time, uh, before I even opened my eyes, that's first thing I do. I try to get myself into peak state. So I repeat a little, like a little mantra that I have for myself. Like I, I, I'm just going to share with you guys. I say today is a good day to make it a great day. Today is a good day to make it a great day. And then on the third time I put more emphasis and I jumped out of the bed and I just get ready. Today's a good day to have to make it a great day. You know? And that gets me to a different state. You know, Tony Robbins called calls it like pig state. And then I have some more stuff. So self-talk is kind of a big thing. I know Taylor McCarthy and a lot of the big players, they talk about that. So after I say that, I also share something else. I say, I'm a great salesman. I sell every day sales come easy to me because I work the hours focused. I'm enough. I weigh my mornings. I weigh my days. I'm winning my life.Speaker 2 (26:03):Boom. I love that. That's awesome. And I know you and river are big on those. I see river doing a lot of stuff like that too. Yeah, it works. I mean, and that NLP stuff. Neuro-linguistic programming. Um, yeah. It's white toner. Have you been to a Tony Robbins eventSpeaker 3 (26:20):Actually. So for August, that's the, I love, I love that you asked that. So for August, uh, fluent, they had a competition. So the number one, like the number, the top performer would get tickets for Tony Robbins. Yeah. So in a month for four now in November, next month I'm flying my wife and I were both flying. Like the company got us tickets hotels, and we're going to Tony Robbins for five days.Speaker 2 (26:48):Wow. That's awesome.Speaker 3 (26:50):It's always, it's been a dream man. Like I I've seen this guy in, like I'm not your guru and a lot of stuff since I was in Brazil, I was like, dude, he's the man. And now I'm going to get to see the legend myself. Yeah.Speaker 2 (27:04):He's the goat for sure. And yeah, you'll have, I've seen them seep speak a few times, but yeah, it's just all the stuff you're saying. Like his event you'll see it as event. And I know you've seen like his documentary and all that, but it's just like screaming and shout and the whole time jumping up and down. So like for managers that are listening to this podcast, make sure you're happy. You're teaching your reps, this stuff. And, uh, Christian just gave you some sweet, um, you know, and contagions manifestations, whatever you want to call them. Souls are good things to repeat. So are you, are you kind of telling yourself those things, like as you get up or as you get out on the doors or just like all the time Christian?Speaker 3 (27:42):Yeah, I repeat that one. Like today is a good day to make it a great day. And then I say three times and I was repeating myself. I'm a great salesman. I sell every day. So when it started, I would say I sell every week because that was my goal. And then I realized that like, why am I selling only every week? Because if I sell every week, I might be sending like four or five, six deals. And like, that's not for me. Like I can do more than that. And it got to a point. I was like, if I'm deciding to sell, just think about the guy. I don't know. Maybe someone listening to this show they've been selling two or three, four or five a month. And then my question is why would you cut yourself short and not sell for the other 25 days of the month? Yeah.Speaker 3 (28:32):I just, I, I kind of like punch myself in the face and I kind of had a serious conversation with myself and that's when everything started to change and I started to same days. So getting back to same days, I want to answer that question. Now I want to share my thought process and how I do it a lot behind the scenes. Like it's not the magical words that that's not, you know, it's just the game. They're like, why did I decide to sell one or two a week? And now I'm telling you, man, if someone, I fun talking to you on the, let's say on a Tuesday and they say, yeah, like, I'm going to be easy. Can you come back on Friday? I'm like, no, sir, I actually can't. So I'm going to show you the calendar. And I actually show my calendar. As you can see, like everybody's been looking into solar, like if you don't want to do this, that's okay. The government, they have a lot of tax incentives. That's okay. Like yes or no, whatever answer works fine with me. My job is to find people that is ready to take the money and take advantage of the program. I've never seen anyone in my life say no to save money. What time is it good tomorrow at four or a six? Boom.Speaker 2 (29:54):There you go. So you're saying that you, you said you don't do next day appointments all like a hundred percent, same days, or do you, do you ever do like next day appointmentsSpeaker 3 (30:06):That I've, I've driven back to houses and then all super solid guy in like four days later and then they no show, like if you just the numbers, like, just think, just trying to get to know your numbers. I think it's important. I know my numbers, like if I don't know my numbers, there's no way for me to increase my closing ratio and stuff like that. So there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes. Like getting to know your numbers, like, oh, how many deals you're closing a month? Cause some people say, oh, I closed. Yeah, you can have a good day. But that doesn't mean really good. Like everybody can have a good day. Everybody can have a good week, but you actually know a guy like for Dick consistency, like four or five months in a row or 10 months in a row, like a year or people being a top performer for years. Those are the guys that, that respect, like, I don't know, maybe selling three or four deals in a day. Yeah. That's good. But if you don't sell a deal next month, that's not good, man. That's not, you know?Speaker 2 (31:10):Yeah. I agree. And that's yeah. That's unfortunately like, like you said, a lot of people in solar, that's the curse of these big commissions. People see the checks coming in and then they don't work after. So that's why I tell a lot of our guys just don't even like, look at how much you're going to make. Like just go out and sell more. Right. It's gotten hit big numbers and do it consistently because that's, what's, that's what's missing. Is guys just hitting their hours and hitting their numbers consistently. Would you agree?Speaker 3 (31:37):Yeah. Yeah. And before I beginning to fall, just go and spend the money on stupid stuff anyway. Yeah. Yeah. It seems I started, you can ask flow in, like I never even touched a paycheck. Never like never, I never touch it because I finally feel like I just, I just invest the money. I like, I know Adam lab, some guys say invest 20% and yada, yada. But if auto manage your money, you can invest a hundred percent of it and just leave legislate broke. Yeah. But that's, that's just, I'm just trying to set myself up for the future instead of like the short-term goals. That's why like I go for same days. I really mean it. I talked to someone if I don't feel like they're a solid lead Taylor, I read her not have the lead then getting like a lead that I know that's not going to sh a no-show waste of time creating the proposal, wait for the proposal to get ready, driving back to the house. And then they know show me right. When I talk to that homeowner, I always, before setting the appointment, I say, Hey, when I come back, I'm going to show you two things. I'm going to show how many panels you're going to need on the roof. You know, where the panels go. And I'm going to show exactly the financial breakdown, how much money you're going to be saving. Uh, if everything makes sense. Is there any reason why you wouldn't move forward with this?Speaker 3 (33:16):I, the reason why I always asked that question. Cause if I take, give me any sort of resistancy, like I don't even set the appointment. That's not for me. Cause when I was doing solar in California, because it was a harder market, I felt like I really had to be a good salesman. You know, it was like, go for the appointment. It's like, cause I know in California you save people money. So if they latch you in, sometimes it's like a terrible lead. Like, dude, I don't want to go solar, but okay. You can come back and then you close the bill, you know?Speaker 2 (33:55):ISpeaker 3 (33:55):Mean this week I had people I've had that happen so many times in California, people like, oh it's solar. I know everything about solar. I will never go solar, but yeah, come back, show me the numbers. And then like, and they signed dogs andSpeaker 2 (34:13):That's awesome. And yeah, it's like, yeah, I forgot what I was going to say. But yeah, just being consistent set in the same days. And um, I think that's a big problem though. Is guys get this rush of excitement? I don't know about you, but when I was starting out, especially in IC in newer reps is they get this almost like rush of excitement when they can say, oh, I set a lead. I set an appointment for tomorrow, went in their head. They know is that this point is like a hundred percent not going to show crop appointments, but they just fill out the form whatever to say. They got an appointment. So I've talked with teams that don't even like recognize appointments booked anymore. We used to recognize and give like a ton of recognition for how many appointments were booked on a day.Speaker 2 (34:57):But now we sort of swapped it up and our teams, we don't even like posts when we book appointments for the most part it's because I don't know. I think, I think guys put too much focus on just that little rush of excitement when you say, oh, I've set an appointment. Or really like, as you know, when solar means nothing until you get it to install. Right. So at the end of the day, installs are king and um, you know, obviously you got to help people with the steps beforehand. But yeah, I agree with that a hundred percent. Um, I think people set way too many crappy appointments and get happy about it. SoSpeaker 3 (35:33):I've done it myself. Like I've done it myself, just trying to trick myself and maybe look really good for the company. Look good for the guys that you work with. But at the end of the day, like only closed deals and installs. That's the only metric that's gonna matter. Like the amount of people you you're getting from and the people you sign up. Oh yeah, I've done it like so many times. It's just that it really depends this tenders. You're holding yourself to, you know, as whenever I decided to like do same days and, and treat my time as the most valuable thing in the world, I felt like everything has changed. Just like, it's not just saying like, I love myself. It's just like, Hey, I don't know if we're going to have solar. I liked listening to the Michael Donner. When he says on his podcast, he was thinking it was, it was going to be the end of the solar. Remember that? I, I, I, I feel like I try to leave like that, like everyday, like, oh, maybe it's the inner solar. I bet I better take it of energy, the opportunity. This is the mother gold rush.Speaker 2 (36:47):Sure. I know the guys who are Trina like that, they're having the success. And so something that I really think is cool that you do Christian is I feel like another big thing you're super consistent on just your teens. I see you post on like, you know, pictures of books or reading workouts you're doing like you were talking about earlier the meal plan. And for me, I think I know myself, um, when I am being super consistent, I'm not as near as consistent as you. So I have a ton of respect for that. But the times where I'm working assistant or is where I'm falling, like both set schedules, those are routines. I'm doing my workouts reading, um, getting my healthy eating in. So for you, how, how big of a big of a factor would you say that is? Like your routines every day in the stuff you do before you go out on the doors, do you want to share a couple of those things that you're doing that maybe help you out just like get in the right mindset to hit the doors consistently every day?Speaker 3 (37:40):Yes. Yes. Taylor, I'm not, uh, you know, uh, I'm closed system when it comes to closing deals. But for example, I'm not the guy that's working out like crazy doing CrossFit. I'm not in the best shape I've lost. I've dropped 25 pounds so far.Speaker 2 (37:58):Yeah. You're not going to CrossFit with river. Isn't that thing.Speaker 3 (38:03):And yeah, he took me, he took me to CrossFit a few times, but it's just too hard for me.Speaker 2 (38:08):That's no joke.Speaker 3 (38:10):Yeah. But something that helped me, for example, the same consistency with some, some people have with the gym I have with the diet and with the meal prep. So I'm trying to get one thing at a time in order in my life. Cause I feel like the way you do one thing is the way you do everything, but there's no way to change everything at once. It's just tapped by stop. So I started with the diet and I, I'm pretty sure that pretty soon I'm going to be the guy just super consistent with working out. Because for the last 10 months I've been taking the cold showers and it's not like I hate it. I hate it. I came from Brazil like there. Yeah. It's like, it's a one country, you know, it's like, yeah. But I, I saw like Dora, Dora guys doing the cold showers, people doing for years.Speaker 3 (39:01):Like, you know what, I'm going to give it a try and then realize that now, like it's not that hard for me anymore. So even when I don't do a whole lot of things, I just, Hey, I've done hard things myself in the past. So even the days when I wake up late, which I do, I don't win the morning every day. I'm not the guy went in the morning everyday. I want to share that with you. But what happens is when it's game time, it's no joke. It's game time. Even when I was doing pest control, uh, it's not, uh, now if you are a little bit of a shame of Shea, uh, saying that, but our meetings was at 10 hours, the guy waking up literally and 9 58, and now I'm serious. My alarm was set for 9, 8 58. I was broke and I was going to brush my teeth for 30 seconds and fly.Speaker 3 (40:01):And for so many times I had to like pee one-on-one and eat it. Yeah. Eat like Marjorie or, or, yeah, just like do crazy stuff, you know, be slammed and punch. And they're like, yeah, that happened. Like, yeah, I was late like a lot of times, but still I was able to be number one by the end of the summer. So it's not only about waking up early or it's not only about winning the morning or really it's just implementing what you do. I don't read 20 books a month. I don't read, I read one book a month sometimes, but whatever I read, I try to implement as well. Yeah.Speaker 2 (40:51):I love that. And that's something my think is really cool too, is you're sharing the wins and the losses. I mean, you don't have to do it all a hundred percent to be number one, Christians. Oh yeah. Some guys think that, oh, I didn't. I missed my morning routine. Well, this day is shot. I'm going to get out on the doors late. Uh, this day's going good. But I think the guys that are having success, they're missing things here and there, but they're still being as consistent as possible. Like if they miss their workout or if they miss out on their cold shower or whatever, they're cutting their losses and they're still gonna make that day as accessible as possible. That's another lesson that I feel like I still need to learn sometimes. I don't know if you get out on late on the doors, don't like consider your whole day shot.Speaker 2 (41:34):Just go out and push as hard as you can for the hours you did get out instead of letting it effect your whole day, which I think is awesome. And you posted the other day, Christian. Um, I think it was on a Saturday. You posted, um, that you got out and knocked the whole day, but you didn't get like, I don't know if it was in a single appointment or a single close. And I thought that was cool, dude. Cause I'm used to seeing you post sale after sale, and then you kept that real scene. You didn't get anything on that. Saturday was that last Saturday you posted that.Speaker 3 (42:02):Yeah. So again, I work three weeks, super hard in a take, I don't know, like a few days off. So, uh, I realized the Saturdays are first solar in my opinion. Cause they can get people home. And because my goal is to same day, I was like, I'm going to be at the door. So what happen is over the last 16 weeks, five weeks I was out. Okay. Cause pretty much once a month, I'm out for training for traveling vacation, whatever it is. So what happened out of the 16 Saturdays? I worked at last of those. So last Saturday was the 11th Saturday. There was always selling and now was, I was trying super, super hard. I did get on the doors like nine, 10:00 AM and I D I didn't stop. Like I, I stopped to eat for three minutes, my meal prep at the guest.Speaker 3 (42:58):I dunno for some of my posts. I was there to just eating at a gas station and I was like, I can't, I'm on a winning streak. You know, like just the momentum that everybody talks about. So I wanted to carry that. Cause now it's a tradition. It's like sailing on. It's not even a question anymore for sure. And yeah, so I was like, I got to find the deal. And then I did, uh, for example, when, uh, when I went to Houston for the first time, it was like a month ago actually my, my first Houston installed is going to happen tomorrow. Nice. Yeah. I realized that I was having consistency consistently, but I never had a two spot in, I, and I've seen a lot of guys just selling three, four deals in a day. I was like, oh crap. How did these guys do that?Speaker 3 (43:53):You know? And I was like, you know what, I'm doing it. And wa and I did it. And then the following day, I sold two as well. Nice. And then the following day, I sold two again. And then, and then I realized that whatever is your standard, try to raise the bar. So what I mean by that, for the listeners that I sell in four or five, six, dude, just like, there's no way you're not selling 10 a month. Like why you're not selling double digits because once you do, you just do it and then it was just do it again and there, just do it again. And then was just going to do it every month because you've done it because you've done it. So, yeah, I like, I've done like 10 and then I get 10 and then 10 and then 12 and then 15 and then 16. And now like, now I want to close 20. I want to close.Speaker 2 (44:53):Yeah. That's true. And yeah, I think that's another miss people like set their standards so low and then they hit it, get complacent. Um, but yeah, I actually just got out of pot and podcasts earlier today with the Alex Hogan hall. And she was talking about that too. Just how competitions help her reps like get to a new level. And then it's like, okay, you saw yourself do 15 in a month during this competition. Like, why can't you do, why can't you do that every month now? So I think that's a key thing for managers, leaders and stuff like that. Get your guys to hit higher levels. And then they see it's possible. It's like they, once they see the four minute mile has been done, then you can't say it's impossible anymore. Like Christian just went out and did it. Right. Just went out and did it. These guys can do it. It's possible. I mean, Christian, you didn't even know, you didn't even know English from selling pest control for crying out loud. Like anyone should be able to hear,Speaker 3 (45:49):I know you don't like roaches. I don't like cockroaches as well. Okay. We got up, we got something in common. Let's get you started. Okay. The trucks are right there. You know, the Johnsons, boom. Yeah. The trucks is going to finish and then you're next on my list. I'll do super cheap. Boom.Speaker 2 (46:05):That's why I left Brazil. There are too many roaches and spiders. That's awesome stuff, Christian. Um, and then like with goals. So can you talk about real quick before we kinda wrap up here with your numbers? What, what type of metrics is there some metrics like, you know, you need to hit to hit your goals every month, like X amount of appointments. Um, is it pretty much just 30 homeowners you're focused on focusing on and then, you know, the rest will fall into place with that or any other metrics you focus on for the month?Speaker 3 (46:39):Yup. Yup, definitely. Um, so when it comes to the numbers, uh, it's important to know your numbers. For example, I'm just going to look, I have my numbers on the notes, on my phone that way. Uh, I always track, I have, uh, I've shared my calendar on social media anywhere to anyone that wants to see my calendar and how it looks like how I have my appointments, how we book it and how I know exactly the outcome. I, what I did. I color coded what I mean by that. For example, every time when I have a showing in blue, I noticed an appointment when they shows a purple. I know it's an appointment that I pitched that didn't close when it shows green. I know the people that I showed. So I have, uh, I have a visual just right in front of me. So it's, it's kind of easy.Speaker 3 (47:29):I just opened my calendar and I know, I know that I'm doing well, and I know that I'm not doing well, and I know what I have to work on. And I know what I have improved because it's visual. I just call her a code in my calendar and knowing that I it's always there. It's always available for example, um, why don't we just go, hold on. I just, I just switched phones. I got a new phone, but it was so busy working. Like I, I had owned the bot for a month, a new phone and the brand new iPad. Like he came out, I got it. And I didn't even open. I was just busy working.Speaker 2 (48:07):I know I got to close more deals than that at bed.Speaker 3 (48:12):I just moved to Utah for like two days or something. It was like, you know what, I'm just going to take the iPad and the iPhone. So I started up, but I remember, I remember, so when it comes to July, I had 41 appointments out of this 41. I have, I don't know, 18 or shows. I had like 14 that I pitched that didn't close. And I had 15 that, a page that did close and I had three, the fail credit. So I realized that August, if I ha if I wanted to have my best month, which I did, I had to do bigger numbers because it's a numbers game. So what I did, I increased my numbers. So for August, I had 62 appointments and out of the 62, 23, no show me, which is 30%. And then out of the people that showed up, I pitched 18 that didn't close and a page 16 that they'd closed. So right now I'm sitting at a 50% closing for the people that I sit down. Wait. Yeah.Speaker 2 (49:14):That's incredible. Yeah. And yeah, that's, that's no secret to, I think a lot of guys forget is like top guys, like you, any top guy that I get on this podcast, that's closing a lot of deals. They all know their numbers like that instantly. So for our Solarpreneurs listeners, um, if you, if you can't like, you know, tell back your numbers right now and go through your ratios, like Christian just did, then you're missing something there. Cause I think that's a huge thing. If you can't know your numbers, you don't know like the back of your hand, how are you going to improve them? That's what Christian has been doing. That's how he's been all day increases numbers. He's just like, oh, I need to sit with more people than it being cheap as ratios the same or improve them. I know my best months and sales.Speaker 2 (49:57):Um, yeah, I've, I've been a mad man about tracking numbers too. So that's that's um, yeah. Huge thing. If people aren't doing that. So a Christian, I know it's getting late. You're in Utah, we're doing a late night podcast right now. So Christians appreciate you for coming on. Um, we went back and forth so glad to finally get you on the show, even though it's, you know, 10 o'clock at night for you. Awesome. But, uh, Christian. So before we kind of wrap up here, where can people find you on social media and connect with you and all that?Speaker 3 (50:29):Yeah. So when I got here in the U S I actually, I didn't have social media for about like two, almost three years now. I still use Facebook, Krisha, moron, and the ground. I that's why I have like 500 people. Just pretty much all door to door people. Yeah. I started needs to grow and like, not like maybe a year ago, stuff like that. I just want to share it. Won't last thing that the numbers, they, they didn't look like this. When I started, like, I will have to sit down with five, six people to close one. So I had to work way, way harder now because it closed at 50% every day, I just got to get inside two houses and that's it, whatever your number is. If you're closing one out of four, just do the reverse engineering. Because a lot of times people, they just do like how much money they can make, but they don't break down with the reverse engineer to see how many people they have to talk to how many hours they have to put in order to get those appointments.Speaker 3 (51:35):Well, how many of these appointments are going to show how many of these appointments are going to cancel? What's your cancellation rate? Like it's important to know that stuff and just backtrack and do the reverse engineer. So cause when it started, I was like, yeah, I want to do 40 deals. And I was like, no, I don't want to do 40 anymore. And then I wanted to do 60 deals. And then I realized that I could do 16 for months. And now, now I want to close way more than that. You know, it's just, yeah, that's pretty much what I, what I wanted to share with the guys that like, it was, it was hard. It was hard, but now I'm just grateful. So we had to push for meetings, Christian Maroney, and I'm available. Like I don't care for work for a different company hours if people, Hey, I'm going to Houston, you are invited to just stay in my place. You can just work with me. I don't care, whatever t-shirt, you're working with. I don't care whatever company, if I can provide any value, if I can. Like, if I, I dunno if I can stand for the industry, if I can support any solar fallow, because I feel like sometimes people they're not happy with their current companies or sometimes people aren't happy, but they still can learn from people, you know? Yeah. Yeah.Speaker 2 (52:49):That's huge. So yeah, no, I think abundance mindset. Um, definitely appreciate that. And um, yeah, like I always tell the story, but a lot of people starting out when I started in solar, didn't have that mindset. They're like, no, if you're from a different company, I'm not going to talk to you. I'm not like sharing anything, company secrets. So I think it's awesome that guys like you now are, you know, just coming from that abundance mindset and willing to share, what's working for you and you know, specific things you're doing and saying on the doors. So a last kind of follow up question that Christian, before we let you go here, um, you, you mentioned that you, you know, increase your closing ratio and improve those numbers a lot. I just been going anything specific that you did to like increase those ratios. Do you think it was just more, experience-based just more time you needed or were you like drill on role playing like crazy? What helped you increase those ratios in your closes and all thatSpeaker 3 (53:42):Fantastic question, Taylor. I love it. I love it. So I learned at a young age, I don't know, probably most of the listeners they know Zig Ziglar. They know Napoleon hill. They know gene rum for me. Like if you're listening to, if you listen to Zig Ziglar and Jim, like, I just compensate with numbers. What I lack in skill, that's it numbers, what are lacking skill? What I mean by that? I just had to get myself in front of a lot of people until I could learn. So what made the change is that along the process, I realized that I just needed to simplify. I was making solar too complicated. I was explaining in a way that people go like, dude, I'm not sure in my car. Did he says a confused mind? We always say no, just make it simple, like stupid, simple in a sense that now every single one of my presentations, I'm pretty pretty a hundred percent confident that if I do my presentation to a third grade, they're going to understand like a hundred percent.Speaker 2 (54:55):Hmm. That's awesome. Yeah. Love that. So Christian, thanks for all the tips you shared. So for Solarpreneurs, keep it simple out there. And guys, it's not rocket science. Christian came from Brazil, barely know in English and he's killing it in this injury. He's one of the top reps in the industry. So do those simple things, be consistent, get out on the doors at the same time, be consistent in your closes, tracked your numbers like a madman. And I think that's pretty much all there is to it. So, uh, so Christian, thanks again for coming on the show and before yep. Before we let you go, I guess we pretty much went through anything, but any, uh, any final tips you want to share with our Solarpreneurs before we say goodbye,Speaker 3 (55:37):My brother, uh, I think, I think that said something that I do know that I also do. I want to share one thing like with the international people, sometimes some guys it's like, oh, like it's hard, no doors, doors for you as well. You know, just believe in yourself. And you have, I've seen so many people just getting to the industry and crushing it. I'll say that's something that I wanted to share as well just believe in yourself, this, this is for you and know your demographics. I know exactly what type of people that I closed at a higher percentage. It better send that you ratio rate. So that's, that's kinda my, the people that I go to. So when I, same days just based on their body language, they, they react. They, they talk to me the way they carried themselves. I can save from closing that deal or no. So if I don't feel like I'm closing, I don't even set the appointment. So just kind of know the people that you close easier. Cause the Indiana, the day, you don't want to be the best salesman in the world. Just go talk to, just look for the low hanging fruit.Speaker 3 (56:48):Just look for the low hanging fruits and that's it.Speaker 2 (56:51):Yeah. I love that. So w what, what are the demographics for you, Christian? What, which ones do you go after?Speaker 3 (56:59):Um, now, now it's getting to a point that I can close. Pretty much everything. It wasn't like as now. I don't, I don't have a demographics, but yeah, in Texas, there's a lot of like, uh, black people. I feel like that's a really good demographic for me. I can connect with this people really, really well, and I haven't closed. So in my country we speak Portuguese, but I learned here in dos. I, I don't close a whole lot of deals in Spanish to be Frank with you. Nah, but I like it's, it's good people. So, but that's not my go-to. I feel like, yeah, I'll say black people, but I, I like, I like styling everyone.Speaker 2 (57:42):Yeah. Let's go. Well, Christian, thanks again, my man. Sorry. I think I've said we're going to wrap up like 10 times and then you keep, you keep, you keep dropping a cold on us. So I'm like, dang, I need to ask him about this. And he follow up withSpeaker 3 (57:56):Very, very first time speaking in public. So I just can't. I just can't hold myself.Speaker 2 (58:00):Yeah, no, you did awesome, man. So I appreciate you guys go give Krishna fall. Let them know you appreciated that episode. And thanks again. We'll be connecting and talk soon, Christian. Thanks for coming on the show.Speaker 4 (58:13):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. 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Visit Solciety.co now!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's going on Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong here with another episode. And as usual, we're here to make you a sell more solar, close, more deals and get more referrals and more leads. So I kind of butchered that in show, but I'm just getting back from a little hunting trip more about that later. So apologize if I'm a little out of it here, got back late last night, trying to get back into the grain of things here and excited to get back into it. Get closing some deals before we jump into the episode today. And of course, I'll tell you more about my, uh, hunting trip for my hunters out there. If you don't care about hunting, then you can skip pass maybe the first minute or two after this. But before we jump into that, I want to invite you to a special live stream I'm doing with my friend, Solar Joe.Speaker 2 (01:36):He was on the podcast, I think about a month ago. So he's a master of objections. He has what I would say. The number one Facebook group for solar pros, um, Solarpreneur, Facebook group. Isn't quite there yet, but, um, someday his group is called solar objections and he does some awesome live streams in there, which he graciously invited me to take part in one. So that's happening tomorrow. Um, at the time, you know, you hear this episode will be tomorrow. Um, but when I say tomorrow, I mean Wednesday, October 20th, 2021, of course. So if you listened to this episode after the fact, I apologize, you're late to the party. So listen to the episode, right? When they come out and come on, turn your notifications on and get this content. You can be fresh on the announcements, but if you want to join that, it's going to be at 4:00 PM Pacific standard time.Speaker 2 (02:34):And I would love to see you on there. Hit me with some questions. I'm going to try to brush up on my objections a little bit. So hopefully I don't look like a complete idiot up there. I know I'm probably not the world's greatest at overcoming objections, but I think I can drop some knowledge in there. Hopefully help some people out. So go join in. If you want to check that out and of course join the Facebook group if you haven't already. So without further ado, jump into the topic for today. Okay. And what I want to talk about is why we need to keep solar super simple and a couple different meanings with simple. When I say simple, Hey, actually my hunting trip that I just got back from kind of ties into this. And I got thinking about it. I got asked an interesting question.Speaker 2 (03:24):Um, couple of days back, I, I always love, you know, interacting with my Solarpreneurs, with my homeys, with, uh, all our listeners here. So definitely feel free to shoot me a message. I try to respond to all of them on a Facebook and Instagram, but I got a question, um, from my friend Carston, he asked if you were to go back and start from the beginning, which skill would you put your focus in to get back to where you are now, the fastest? What would you say are the most important skills that one can develop when just starting out to maximize or maximize their effectiveness? So I thought that was an interesting question. And I want to talk about that a little bit more on the podcast. And the short answer is I would focus on keeping things as simple as possible. Hey, in simple, in the fact that people complicate their presentations too much people combo complicate the process.Speaker 2 (04:24):People come complicate just solar in general, in many different aspects. So I want to talk about some ways that we, as Solarpreneurs, solar professionals, we can simplify things and just focus on the things that matter the most. And so here's how this hunting trip kind of ties into this. This is my second, uh, hunting trail. I took I'm from Utah. So I went back down to Southern Utah, met up with a buddy, went on this little hunting trip, just, you know, the general rifle hunt, um, bought my first gun actually, um, last year. So I'm not a big time hunter. This is my second time ever. And I needed to have my buddy coming with me because I don't know what I'm doing out there. So I meet up with him and my first hunting trip, I was able to get a deer probably in like, I dunno, second morning, where out there didn't spend much time.Speaker 2 (05:20):Um, just sort of drove around and found a deer on the side of the road, shot it and was done. But this trip was a lot different. What happened was we went out it's a Thursday morning. We went out, drive around, drive around, didn't see anything, Thursday night drive around, drive around hike, hike, drive, drive, rinse, and repeat finally saw one dough. But of course, you know, you got to shoot the buck. So we didn't even see any bucks, just one dough. All right, man, what's going on? So next day, morning, drive around, drive around nothing. Absolutely nothing afternoon of Friday, um, slash evening drive around, drive around. Finally we start seeing herds of dos. So a lot more deer we see, but no box. So at this point we're just pretty frustrated because not only have we driven around, we're going to side by side at truck.Speaker 2 (06:21):Um, we're driving a lot, going all over these mountain trails, but we also hiked probably seven or eight miles up to this point. And it's like, you know, up mountains and Hills and stuff like that. So it's not easy hiking. So I'm thinking, man, why is this taking so long to, you know, see a buck? Like I usually at least see something by then. And this is me. I mean, I'm impatient. I'm not a patient guy. Like I said, this my second time hunting ever. So those that are actual hunters, they're probably hearing this and thinking, this is stupid. Cause I know guys will go out and scout and you know, search for deer for months and you know, pass on box and stuff like that. But me being a beginner hunter, not really know what I'm doing. I'm getting frustrated. I'm like, man, I thought you just go out there, see tons of bucks and you can get yourself a monster, one be done with it.Speaker 2 (07:17):But no, that's not how it was. And then the other thing is there's lots of hunters up here. So we're seeing tons of people. You might as well call it Disneyland up there in the mountains. There's a ton of people just walking around. I felt like there's crowds of hunters. So got pretty frustrating. And then finally, Saturday morning, well, we didn't see anything again on Saturday morning, but at this point I'm about ready to just call it quits, give up, okay. This is day three. I'm like, man, okay. I'm not getting the data this year. And we decided, okay, let's go out one more time. I took my car up to the base of the mountain. We didn't camp that night just because we're getting sick of camping in the freezing cold. We went back into, uh, Cedar city where Stan, um, and find the Friday afternoon slash evening though.Speaker 2 (08:11):We finally see a couple of bucks and it's a little, two point, nothing big. If you follow me on Instagram, you saw me post it, but get it, shoot it from the side of the road. And I'm stoked to finally, I get my buck, taking it to the butcher, get some meat out of it. Uh, Mike, about freaking time. So how does this tie in with solar? Well, it's not that much different. Yeah. I was not patient out there. We're going to different areas. We're knocking on doors. So to speak. We're trying to get our opportunities, but we're not getting anything we're searching around. We're a trick or treating for dear, I guess you could say, but there's no sign of anything. So sometimes that's how it is in solar. How many times are we going to neighborhoods? Maybe we're used to getting a deal closed the first day.Speaker 2 (09:05):Maybe we were, we were used to booking lots of appointments after, you know, an hour, whatever, but sometimes that's not how it's going to be. This is how it was on my hunting trip. The first time I went out, got a deer pretty much right off the bat. This time it took driving around for tons of miles that took hiking, probably like close to 10 miles when it's all said and done, and it took a ton of work to get the same result. So that's how it is in solar. Some weeks are going to be that way some weeks it's going to take twice the amount of effort to get a deal as other weeks. So that's why you need to keep things simple. You need to keep things consistent and you need to not give up. You need to take your mind off of the results and focus in the input.Speaker 2 (09:57):What are you inputting to get the results? If you focus, if you take yourself out of the results and focus more on the output you're putting in the time you're putting in, that's what you can control, right? You can't necessarily control how many people are going to sign up that week, but what can you control? You can control the doors. You knock, you can control to some degree. The people you talk to, you can control the hours you put in. Okay? There's things you can do to control your attitude. So focus on those things you can control and that's how you're going to get way more consistent results. Okay? So this is part of what I told Carson. Um, when he was messaging me, what would you focus on? And that's what I would focus on. I would focus on those things. You can control and track it like a mad man, the most successful people I know in this industry, that's what they're doing.Speaker 2 (10:49):They're keeping everything super simplified. They're tracking their numbers and whether they close 10 deals that week or whether they close one deal, they're working basically the same day they're putting in that same output as they, as the week that they closed 10 deals, whether it's one deal or 10 deal, 10 deals. So it's easy to forget. I did this couple of weeks ago. Matter of fact, where I closed a couple of deals early in the week, and it's a trap we can all fall into pretty easily. If you don't watch yourself because I got two deals closed early in the week, I started getting lazy like, okay, well, you know what? I'm not going to go knock. Um, you know, I'm just going to follow up and I'm going to see if I can get some, uh, installs, hopping a little bit quicker, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna not start knocking until a little bit later today.Speaker 2 (11:45):And what could have turned into many more deals that week? I only closed the two because I, I took down my effort. I took down my production and I got lazy because I closed the two deals. And then guess what happened after that? Both those deals ended up canceling. So now instead of having the two deals close on the week, I was at zero that's kicking myself. I'm like, man, why didn't I keep my production the same? I could have had two deals that stuck two more deals that stuck, but I got lazy and didn't do it. So at that'd be a lesson to you, focus on keeping things simple, keep, keep things, um, focused on what you can control and then track it like crazy. I've talked about this before, but keep spreadsheets of, um, you know, the hours you're putting in the doors, you're knocking the appointments.Speaker 2 (12:41):You're sitting down with homeowners, the closing opportunities. You're getting have those key metrics, make sure you're tracking them like a madman, cause that's how you're going to make improvement. And then there's an app you should all be using. If you're on the doors or however you're tracking stuff. I just have an app that my friend Earl told me about. It's called counter. You can go download it app store and you can customize it to the things you want to track. So for me, I'm checking my close deals on the week. I'm checking my appointments kept track of my appointments booked. I'm tracking my conversations on the doors. Okay? How many qualified prospects my talking to? So I would suggest tracking those things, go download that app. And on next episode, we're going to hear from one of my friends that is having some insane results, not just right now, but the past pretty much, I would say six weeks or sorry, six months minimum.Speaker 2 (13:37):I've been seeing this guy close, super consistent deals. And I think he's hit 15 deals on the month for going on. I think like six, seven months now consistently. So these are things that he actually talks about in the podcast. We did his name's Christian Maroney. So you're not going to want to miss out. That's going to be next episode. And he's going to talk about a lot of these topics. We're going to dive deeper into it. And you're going to see the things he's doing to be super consistent and get results and be the top rep at his company. So tune into that episode, I hope this helped you send it to someone that wants to simplify more. And we'll talk more about how you can simplify other things, but for now just simplify the process, focus on the things you can control. And it's not that complicated.Speaker 2 (14:24):Sometimes we make it difficult. Oh, why, why aren't they closing deals? Go back to the beginning, focus on those things that matter. And that's how you're going to get massive results. Hope that helped. And you we'll see you on the next episode with Christian Maroney, send this to someone who needs it. And don't forget to tune into the live stream tomorrow. You can make it in the solar objections, Facebook group peace.Speaker: (15:26):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.
Visit Solciety.co now!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:41):Hey, Hey, Hey, what's going on Solarpreneur? Taylor Armstrong back with another episode and as usual here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better experience in the solar industry. So before we jump into today's topic, have two little announcements and one's kind of an ask. So number one, we are launching our new Solciety app. It's going to be coming out. Um, it should already be on the Google play store for those weirdos that are still using Androids. You can probably actually go get it already if you want to check it out. And for the normal people, the iPhone users, um, you're going to have to wait a little bit, I guess that's the downside with apple. They're a little more strict when it comes to, uh, you know, approving apps. So anyways, we're going to be dropping an episode soon about what's going on with that, but just wanted to give you a teaser.Speaker 2 (01:41):If you're wanting to get first exclusive access to that, be checking the app store, go to the Solciety.co And you can get first access first dibs on what we're going on, what we got going on with the soul side of the app, but it's gonna feature, you know, top training, exclusive discounts and a whole lot of other things. So definitely go get on that. When you have the chance, then number two, I'm thinking about actually to start charging a price on the podcast. No worry it's not money, but what I mean by that, I've been listening to a lot of, uh, Andy Frisella, his podcast it's called real AF, highly recommended. Um, he talks about right now, you know, mostly just issues that are going on in the U S for all of our, uh, listeners here in the USA. Um, but he starts out almost every one of his podcasts.Speaker 2 (02:37):If you listen to it with an ask and that ask, is it instead of paying them money to listen to it, you go share it with a friend you post on social media. You, uh, I don't know, help promote it somehow. And that's his price for the podcast and he, this guy's, he's got, I think like number one, business podcasts in the world, and I'd go check. But one of the most popular podcasts doesn't advertise on it at all, which he's probably the only top podcast like that, that I listened to, that doesn't have ads on it. He could be making seven figures, easy a year, popping ads on that thing, but that's his. Is it? You just go out and share it with someone. You talk about it. So I'm like, maybe I should start making that ask on my podcast. So we're trying to grow the Solarpreneur movement.Speaker 2 (03:28):So I want to make the same as to you. If you got value from this episode or any of our previous episodes, please go send it to someone, help us spread the word. We're doing all this for free. And to be blunt, I know I could be selling probably an extra deal a week with the time I spend on the podcast, but I choose to spread some value and help my peeps close more deals, because that's what it's about. And it's helped with me. The more I share what I learned. I know I, I get a lot of value from that too, and connecting with other people. So it's not like I don't want to be doing this, but anyways, that's my ask. If you got value from this podcast, please go share it with someone. And as always, you can leave a review to you if you feel so inclined.Speaker 2 (04:15):So with that being said, let's jump into today's topic. And this topic comes from just last week's experience, just like a lot of episodes do. So what happened last week? I was having a rougher week up until Friday. So how many of you have had a tough week? You're just grinding it out. You're knocking lots of doors. You're calling lots of leads, referrals, whatnot, and you're not getting anything. And I don't know about you, but if Friday comes around and I haven't closed the deal, I start feeling a little sick inside. I'm like, man, I need to get at least a few deals closed this week. I've gotten nothing. So that's why if you can get the deal closed early in the week. For me, it takes a lot of pressure off knowing that I have a deal closed thing going on the weekends, um, with some wins, if you will, but last week I didn't have any wins.Speaker 2 (05:08):Didn't have any closes. So I was getting a little stressed with it. I'm like, man, what's going on here? What do I need to do to get my few closes at least on the week? And so here's what I did. I looked, I looked for the low-hanging fruit. Hey, what do I mean by that? I looked for deals that I thought would be a lay down. And I've talked about this a little bit in the podcast. If you want to go back and listen to the podcasts around when we have Laney Dray, Mr. Door-to-Door millionaire on the show, we go into a few topics that have to do with this, but specifically in solar, what I mean is you go find people that potentially have not been talked to hardly the at all, if ever, Hey, and so I'm going to talk about how you do, and especially here in San Diego or in saturated markets, I think that's one of the keys to having success in these saturated markets is you got to look under the rocks for the deals you got to look and all the hiding places for these homeowners.Speaker 2 (06:14):Because if you're just going to cookie cutter neighborhoods, knocking all the typical stuff, yeah, you can have success. But for me, I like to have success and be able to get more quality leads and not necessarily be sifting through, you know, a hundred people that have been talked to 20 times, which sometimes is the case, especially here in San Diego. Okay. Now you might not have this issue as much. If you're in newer markets, maybe your issue there, just getting people to believe that solar works. But if you're in California, pretty much anywhere in California, you gotta be good at finding these people that have not heard as much about solar gain. The other benefit to this too. If you can find those people that haven't, um, you know, been hit up a million times about solar, that haven't really checked it out, then it's a lot easier to price the deals.Speaker 2 (07:11):What's your worth. Okay. None of this, what drives me nuts is when a homeowner has 10 quotes already and I go, okay, price me at, uh, two, five a watt. I'll buy it from you, whatever, some ridiculous number. And they're just trying to drive the pricing to the bottom. Now we seen still close those people. You just got to build value, but I love it when I can just build value and not have to sit in, pull teeth and fight on price. Okay. Makes it easier when you find these people that are quote unquote. Laydowns right. So let's talk about how do you find these people? Okay. Some of this again is going to sound familiar, but I'm going to refresh your memory. And for those, maybe you haven't heard this before. Okay. But number one thing is go off the beaten path. And I brought up Lenny grey.Speaker 2 (08:02):If you haven't read his book yet, it's called more door to door millionaire. Um, he also has his door to door millionaire, original book, two books he wrote, and he has a section on this. The entire book is super valuable. So I definitely recommend you go check it out and buy it if you haven't already. But on page one 14, if you have the book he talks about, he calls the strategy off the beaten path. And just to kind of summarize it, he talks about how he was knocking with, um, one of his rookie sales reps and where they were just hitting up this cookie cutter neighborhood. And every single person was like, Hey, you're the third guy. That's come by this week. And they were just getting hammered out. They're not having success. So after, I don't know, an hour or something, he goes onto the main highway where always the cars are speed and buying everything.Speaker 2 (08:57):And there's houses also along the main highway. But these are the houses that the longer driveways that, um, maybe they add some, I don't know, farm animals out front Barnes, whatever. They'll have bigger properties, things like that. So he says, Hey man, let's go try these houses. So they go to these houses on the main highway, instead of just talking to the cookie cutter neighborhood ones. And he says, within 15 minutes, they are sorry. You said the first house they sold that one. Then 15 minutes later, they sold the other one. And this was like, you know, just around the corner from this cookie cutter neighborhood, they'd had been knocking. It's the point of this is, and the point that he makes is that sometimes you need to go the strategy of call the over quantity. Hey, and he calls this like the low-hanging fruit.Speaker 2 (09:49):Hey, these people, they're not going to be talked to as much. You can, you know what I'm talking about. If you go to any neighborhood where they have super long Dre ways, if there are more smaller towns, if they're super spread apart, all homes like these they're way more likely to have been hit up a million times versus your cookie cutter neighborhoods. So that's the first strategy, make sure when you're out knocking. And I know some people are with, you know, the bigger companies, maybe you're with the Sunrun's, the legacies, maybe you're assigned areas and you're not supposed to be knocking different places, but even if you're assigned an area, make sure you look for those houses that are spread apart. Try to look for houses where maybe they're tough to access. Um, maybe they're they have gates in front of them. I don't know.Speaker 2 (10:42):Just anything you can note, any clue you can pick up on that. Maybe it would have been tough for any other newbie sales rep or sales rep that hasn't been listening to the Solarpreneur podcast to get access to. So make sure you do that. So that's number one. Look for those houses that are off the beaten path. Okay. And tip number two, make sure you are conscious of new move-ins is another big strategy that I've implemented. Okay. And I didn't even finish my story at the beginning, but I was having a rough week when I started out, like I said, didn't have anything and Friday that's exactly what I did. I went to a place where I didn't think many people would have knocked yet and sure enough books, like one out of every three people I talked to in this neighborhood. Okay. It was a condo slash townhome neighborhood.Speaker 2 (11:35):That's another thing that's I would classify in the, off the beaten path. And depending on your area, depending on what state you're knocking in, maybe like shared roof spaces or condos, town homes, maybe they're not allowed to get solar. I don't know. You'd have to look at what the regulations, all that in your state, but here in California, you can basically put solar on anything, even if it has a shared roof space. So keep that in mind, these like places that maybe even look like apartment complex, sometimes these places are townhomes or condos. So be wary of that and make sure you're paying attention. And that's another, I would say classification that's off the beaten path. Okay. And then the second point, um, was, um, sorry to finish my story. I ended up closing two last week on Friday and Saturday, knock on those town homes, but lay down sells low-hanging fruit.Speaker 2 (12:36):And then the second point that I was getting into before I started rambling, there was make sure you're conscious of the new move-ins. And I've talked about this multiple times as well on the show here, but make sure you're going on to Zillow, make your spreadsheet of your new move-ins. If you're assigned an area, go look up all the new people that moved in. This is the way you can target those people. You can bring up specifics in your door approach and Hey, we're just letting all the new move-ins know what's going on in the neighborhood. You guys, you probably didn't hear yet. You guys just moved in, right? Because what's super cool is you can see literally when people moved into their house right on Zillow. Okay. And I know there's a lot of other apps. Um, I'll have to put some in the show notes, but there's apps.Speaker 2 (13:23):You can get that realtors use where you can see like way more data than this. You can see, like if it's in a trust, the homes, um, like who is on the title of the home, things like that. No, there's a couple paid apps out there. Make sure you're doing that. And the best reps I know in the industry, um, are you using the strategy third going, of course, they're going to go like train reps and cookie cutter neighborhoods. They're going to knock and cookie cutter neighborhoods themselves, but they're mixing it up. Okay. Some days they're going to just the new move ins and goals. And if you're doing this strategy, make sure you're knocking around the new move ins too. You don't want to be driving for miles. And then only knock one door. I would suggest knocking all the way around, um, you know, the two neighbors on the side and then the three neighbors across the street minimum.Speaker 2 (14:17):And hopefully you have a name to drop where you can bring up the fact that you're, um, letting the people are in and say, Hey, do you know, the people just moved in next door? It's a good opener for their neighbors. Hey, but anyways, so the top guys are using all these strategies. They're going to the off the beaten path. They're doing the cookie cutter neighborhoods and then they're doing the new move-ins. Okay. And then the last point with all this is target the homes that already have solar too. Guess what? Especially here in San Diego, in California, there's a lot of homes. I've had solar for a long time. A lot of these people are getting huge, true bills where their solar is not covering everything they're using for their energy. So be conscious of that, make sure you're knocking these homes, especially if you know, maybe they have a pool or maybe if it just seems like, okay, this house is huge.Speaker 2 (15:14):They should have more than 10 panels up there. Especially those homes knock them. Cause you're going to get lots of people that either number one, they're being super conservative still. Cause they don't want to have those huge true-up bills or number two, they're paying huge, true bills. The utility that's not being covered. And these people, they already have solar. You don't have to sell them on the idea of solar. You just have to sell them on adding more panels, which is usually a super laid down low-hanging fruit sale. So that's the three tips guys, make sure you're knocking off the beaten path, including condos and town homes, depending on which state you're in and the laws and regulations around that number to make sure you're knocking the new move-ins. And even if your assigned areas, make sure you're looking those up and being aware of who maybe just moved in then number three, make sure you're also knocking the true-up systems that people that already have solar and another thing out here in California, a lot of all the new homes have to be built with solar.Speaker 2 (16:22):So for us Californians, that's another strategy that's our team has implemented go to those homes that are being built with solar because none of these homes that are being built with the systems already are sized to what the homeowners are using. So if you can find that out, you can go and look at this data. You can see how long people have been in the home and you can target maybe the people that just moved in, but also keep in mind target the people who've been there for a year because the new movements that's typically the one objection they have is that, oh Taylor, yeah, we don't want to do it. We want to see what we're using in the home. So in that case, make sure you're keeping these people in your follow-up list. And then also targeting people that have been in their homes, you know, six months to a year because they do have some data on what their electric usage history is.Speaker 2 (17:12):So that's what helped me this last week. That's how you turn a bad week into a good one as well. Make sure you're mixing it up, go off to that low-hanging fruit, but more importantly, just make sure to grains. Cause even if you're going after the low-hanging fruit, that's not an excuse to work less. And I'll be honest. Sometimes I've gotten a couple of deals from that and I've, and I've, uh, not worked as many hours as I should have. So make sure if you're using these strategies, use them with responsibility. Okay. Work just as hard as if you're grinding out in a cookie cutter neighborhood and you're only booking one out of every 10 appointments. Cause if you keep that same mindset, that's how you're going to have a lot more success is doing a combination of these strategies. So I hope that helps go share it with someone that could use the tips that's having a slower week, get out there and close some deals.Speaker 2 (18:05):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Visit Solciety.co now ! Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's going on Solarpreneurs. I am super excited for this episode. We have a live episode in the studio. I always love doing it with live guests because I think I get more out of it and more connection with the guests. And I'm super excited because we have our second lady, second girl rep coming on the show. I don't know. I don't know if you guys like get like female girls, lady, whatever. Um, but anyway, it's okay. So we've got Alex Hogan hall on the show here, live in the studio, Alex. Thanks for coming out today and coming on the show. Yeah, of course.Speaker 3 (01:15):Taylor, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to beSpeaker 2 (01:17):Here. Yeah, it'll be super fun. And she's, uh, hopefully moving our assume, but you're right now you're commuting from Utah working with the team, right? Yes, sir.Speaker 3 (01:25):Yep. Back and forth,Speaker 2 (01:26):California. You're getting sick of that. Uh, that plane ride yet. Are you guys like riding in the plane?Speaker 3 (01:31):Oh my gosh. I feel like everyone at Delta probably has to know me by now. It's the same flight.Speaker 2 (01:38):Uh, is it like you see like the same pilots and like flight attendants and stuff? Or does that change your name?Speaker 3 (01:43):I see the same, like Utah based crew. I feel like every time.Speaker 2 (01:47):Nice. Well, that's cool. And, um, so for those that don't know, Alex, she right now is the, uh, you might have to help me a little bit, but your CMO right at,Speaker 3 (01:57):Yep. I'm a chief marketing officer and chairman of the board for true power.Speaker 2 (02:02):Okay. True power in Alex. She has a ton of experience. We're just talking a little bit before the show and she gave me their own whole, you know, kind of run down of everything. She's done all the experiences she's had and, um, she's done a ton awesome stuff. So, um, Alex, do you want to give us kind of like the rundown for those who don't know you kind of how you got into the industry, how you got into door to door and, um, I guess how you got into the position that you're at now too. Yeah,Speaker 3 (02:25):Sure. Cool. So, um, so I got started in the industry back in 2015. I had just finished up college with a degree in Marine biology and I was just loved the environment of super, you know, pro hippie fixing, fixing climate change. So couldn't find a job in Marine bio. So I applied to this position to knock doors and sell solar. So I was like, look, I can do this for a petition signing or something. It's going to be easy to get paid. Um, so I tried it out. I was one of the first, uh, direct training classes over at Trinity solar out in New Jersey. Um, back in, I think of 2015. And at the time we really didn't have much training in place support systems. It was still very new to the business. Um, so I was one of the first female sales reps. They brought on board.Speaker 3 (03:11):I had to like make my own polos with the logo on it and stuff, um, at the time. So yeah, just start now and I, uh, didn't have any sales background or anything didn't think I'd ever get into sales, but I, you know, did pretty well. I am a super hard worker, so I just went straight into, um, you know, knocking every day, making sure I was working the hours and I did pretty well. I was doing about five or six a month and was able to pay off all of my student loans within the first year I was able to, uh, get my first, uh, apartment with some friends. I was able to get my first car. So pretty much everything I wanted at 22 and I was getting all that stuff covered. Yeah. And so I enjoyed what I was doing. Um, but I was starting to think about getting back into Marine biology.Speaker 3 (03:56):This was about nine months to a year later and the director of sales and I kind of sat down before I was looking to leave and they offered me a role to come in and kind of just use a little bit of experience I had out in the field understanding kind of what the field was going through to start building out their support systems. So that's covering anything with onboarding. What does our recruiting process look like? What do our competitions look like? What's our training, our marketing materials, kind of you name it. And that was kind of the stuff that I got into and the way that I did it was mostly like, you know, figuring out what problems existed in the org that I could come in and solve. And, uh, and just kind of figuring out where my hard work could get put in a place. And when you don't really have a skillset built out for something like that, a lot of what you're going to be able to do, that's unique is provide value through your hard work. So I worked my butt off or to really late hours, um, kind of whatever I needed to do to start getting that off the ground. And within, I'd say two years, I was managing a team and then took a director position at Trinity over, uh, all of sales admin, and then also recruiting.Speaker 2 (04:59):Let's go, was there a lot of like, was there a lot of girls at the time or you really, really like the only one coming into the office?Speaker 3 (05:05):So we, our office staff is a little bit heavier on the female side, lots in our different support departments. Um, but I was our first and only female director, youngest director. So yeah, not, not as, quite as much at the leadership level on the sales side, for sure. Okay. Yeah. And so that's kinda where I grew into my director level self, I guess. And then, um, I transitioned into working with legacy, uh, built out the setter closer model over there. Again, I'm very heavy on like building out the systems, kind of the backend stuff, making everything work. Um, and then, uh, after working at legacy for awhile, transitioned over into vivant solar and took on a role managing the sales marketing department there under Jason Del stra. And, uh, that was probably my most fun part of the career before branched out into consulting. I loved, you know, we had this big $5 million budget.Speaker 3 (05:55):I had a huge team. We were very heavy on the culture and that's kind of where I realized how unique and valuable it was to be excellent at building out culture. So, um, when, you know, kind of doubled down on that as the way that I could provide, you know, unique value in the industry. And so when I left Viven and got into consulting with door to door experts, that was kinda my thing. So I worked really heavily on both new hire experience, repor tension, increasing your per rep average for your team, just kind of that type of stuff that kept people around, um, long-term and could make companies unique. Um, culture is really interesting with that where, you know, I'm going back to school now and something we're learning about is how does a business provide a competitive advantage or sustain their competitive advantage.Speaker 3 (06:38):And if you think about it in door to door, our audience for marketing, isn't so much like, uh, the solar customer, as much as it is this as it is the sales rep. So that's kinda my biggest audience is how can I provide the best possible experience for my sales reps? And so a sustained competitive advantage also, you know, usually comes from something that's really socially complex. And so if you can build a really unique and interesting culture that keeps people around, it's something that's very hard for other companies to imitate. So that's going to be kind of the way that you can, uh, set your company apart from the rest.Speaker 2 (07:09):No doubt. And yeah, I saw Alex first speak actually back at door-to-door con was that last year and last year. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, got a ton of like nuggets from just her talking to door to door con. Um, and you talked to a lot of things you just mentioned, like the culture of the competitions, um, how to increase the per rep average. I remember, um, need to go back and review my notes, but it was super good, super valuable stuff you talked about. Um, and yeah, in my opinion, I think that's why we need more like girl reps in door to door is because I don't know, you've probably seen this by now, but pretty much every successful, you know, door to door rep, at least the guys we all got add, we're all super disorganized. We're all, you know, take an Adderall, all this stuff.Speaker 2 (07:53):That's like the, you know, door to door, culture and everything though. Um, in every like most, every girl I see come in and they, you know, they're on top of it. They want organize things. They just get people in line and yeah. Then matter of fact, that's how it is. Our company ran out. I told you just off, um, before we started the interview here, we got someone that used to be at Trinity solar to your name's Jeanette. And, uh, yeah, she helped us like just dial in like being so much better than, than what we were doing before though. Yeah. Um, for those that are looking for, you know, more organization, I would consider looking at, you know, bringing in some more girls in your organization because yeah. I think that's kind of the super powers that a lot of, probably not all girls, but I would say in general, um, they're definitely more organized. Is that fair to say Alex?Speaker 3 (08:39):Yeah, I would say so. I mean, that's definitely been like a blessing for me at first I was like kind of done being the only girl in my org. It was tougher for me to find mentorship, you know, connect with the male leaders that I was with. It was just, you know, there's just that barrier there. Um, so it was for us to build that relationship. So for awhile it was kind of sad, but then after I realized, you know, just like you mentioned, Taylor, like so much of my natural skill set or the things that I knew I could double down on to become unique. Like a lot of that was very different than the skill set that my male peers brought to the table. A lot of them were growing up and having success, like getting into director roles through being really great at sales. And so, um, I was fortunate enough to have kind of that mix of doing well enough with sales to really understand what reps are going through. So then when I could come in and build out those systems and provide that structure, it w it was a very specific to them and help that out a lot.Speaker 2 (09:30):Yeah. That's awesome. So how long were you like in the sales before you got into more like the like management's type stuff organization?Speaker 3 (09:37):Yeah, so I, I knocked for about a year, um, and then took a lot of referrals after that, that lasted for awhile. And then once I moved out of New Jersey into Utah referral game, kind of dried up there, um, wasn't working out there quite as much, but yeah, I still, you know, to this day, I'll go out and talk with our sales reps here and there and make sure I'm spending as much time as in the field as I can. I think it's super important to know firsthand what they're going through in order to make sure that, you know, everything we're building is the best it possibly can be to support them and, um, keep them here longterm, as everybody wants to find a home in their career. I think oftentimes we think in door to door, how, like, you know, reps don't stay that long. It's kind of fleeting. It's okay if you lose a lot of people, but I think it's, um, it's a challenge, but to think about it the opposite way where, you know, if I can figure out if I can crack the code on how people can stay longterm, I'm actually gonna have an org that connects at a way deeper level has success at a way deeper level. So that's what I'mSpeaker 2 (10:32):A hundred percent. Yeah. I respect that a ton like leaders that still want to go out and knock with their teams as all these top companies. I see all the leaders. A matter of fact, I just saw a post about a, I think it was Sunrun CEO or something shows up. I don't know if he saw that, but she shows up to a meeting and then they thought they're going to have a meet and greet after. And she's like, no, we're going to the doors who might knock them with like, wow, she's awesome. So like, I think people really expect respect that. And I've talked with reps from other organizations that don't do that, where their leaders are just coming in and doing trainings and then heading out and they're talking about all these things. I go and knock harder, go close more doors and things like that. But I think it's hard to, um, I don't know, maybe take that information sometimes if the reps don't see, oh, they're willing to do it themselves. And, um, they're going to come out and like, show me how it's done even though, I mean, I mean, I'm sure you're not to the level you were before when you're knocking consistently every day. Yeah.Speaker 3 (11:26):This is just here and there, but I mean, you're so right. Like even, you know, in the times where I've been even recruiting at the manager level, a DM will sometimes say, okay, like I am down to come over and I'll do this, that, and the other thing, but I don't really want to knock anymore. And I just think it's so silly to think that you can be as effective and be the best person for your people if you don't really know what they're going through and you're not willing to do that with them. Yeah.Speaker 2 (11:50):That's for sure. Yeah. So when you, um, like kind of transitioned more into the management stuff, more into building out the systems, things like that, was that, were they asking you to do that? Or were you kind of like, I dunno, is that, was that you more wanting to get into that type of role? Or how did that transition go?Speaker 3 (12:07):Yeah, I, I didn't really know what to expect when I first took the role. I was kind of, even in the mentality of, you know, I'll, I'll come on, I'll do this and I'll keep looking for a job that I want in the meantime. Um, but coming in, I, I didn't realize how valuable this question was at the time I was like 23, but I remember going, um, department to department the first couple of weeks of my job, because my boss was traveling to all the offices. So I'm just sitting around corporate. I'm like, okay, what am I going to do? And I went to all the departments and I said, Hey, I'm Alex, I'm working with the direct sales team. I just wanted to know, like, how do you interact with them? What problems do you run into? Like, how can I make things easier for you guys?Speaker 3 (12:42):And kind of like build that, um, kind of system up and everybody had their own opinions and things. And so not only did it build a ton of relationship equity for me, like people kind of talked about playing politics and corporate, I don't think it has to be politics, but you do need to build relationships. So I built up a ton of that equity by, um, going out, doing things for other departments, kind of seeing how I could kind of grease the wheel there between their relationship with sales. And, uh, and because of that, I noticed a ton of holes that needed to be filled, created systems and kind of, um, different problem solving solutions that I could put into place there. And then I managed it because I put it into place. So as I grew and built more systems under me and things that I was managing, I was able to convince my boss to let me bring on additional people. And that's how I got into management was purely just working my butt off and then figuring out, okay, what problems exist that no, one's either thinking about solving or wants to solve and figure out the solution to that, and then kind of build out my influence from there.Speaker 2 (13:39):Uh that's awesome. So it sounds like you're more like super proactive, like, Hey, what problems can I help with? What things can be improved? It wasn't like them doing yoga, doing this, go do this, like went out there and kind of recognize that yourself and like suggest to them, things like that.Speaker 3 (13:54):Totally. And I think that like, it applies, I think, no matter what position you're in, like anyone that's trying to get into leadership, if you can be proactive about figuring out, you know, what needs to get done, that's not getting done. What are the holes that you can fill with different solutions? Um, that is the way to kind of stand out and be unique. Yeah.Speaker 2 (14:10):Well that's, yeah, that's a good point. Good point. And so I'm with team, I know this is what you're doing at a door to door experts for awhile while was helping people kind of help build out these systems and more on the organizational thing, the rep retention. Right. Um, what was like some big mistakes that you would see as you went into a company? I'm sure you've dealt with some pretty disorganized companies and maybe some that were a mess and everything. Do you have any, uh, I don't know, cool stories of companies that were a disaster and you helped them turn things around or anything like that,Speaker 3 (14:40):Dude, that's such a good question. Um, yeah, I, I'm just thinking through all these examples, I would say one of the biggest things I noticed was if you're a smaller business or you're like a manager looking to do this for your team, you know, you're not doing it huge scale of in status yet, or anything like that. A lot of people, you don't even realize you're doing it, but you're like trying to imitate a big culture. You're trying to imitate these big players that you admire. So it's not coming from a place of like genuine, authentic, like you're trying to do what's in your reps, best interest. You're like building out systems or creating competitions or doing all these things because you think you need to, and because you think that's, what's going to work. And so it's like, it's this weird, like disconnect, like emotionally in between like you and the sales rep.Speaker 3 (15:28):So instead a big part of it was getting in touch with that. Company's like identity, like what are the things that they really care about? Who are the people that they're trying to bring on board? Like who really aligns with their core values and then figuring out how do I build out systems, build out training, uh, build it into my recruiting process, whatever a way that I'm providing what is best for the best interests of the sales rep. And that will also align with your best interest as a business or a, you know, manager simply because you're bringing on the right people. So, you know, you're bringing on the right person, if your best interests and theirs align perfectly because you're bringing somebody into your culture that shares your values.Speaker 2 (16:05):Okay. So it sounds like step one is kind of recognizing what are the core values before anything and then going out and finding people that fit into that. And that's more, would you say that's what we, what you were helping companies with as you started working with them?Speaker 3 (16:20):Yeah, I would say so because a mistake I made in the beginning was I would, you know, I just, I, I feel like I've got these systems now that could be successful anywhere. So we'd start on the system front and we'd put the stuff into place. And, um, their retention didn't go up. Like the metrics kind of, we were trying to measure, we're not really changing. And so if I looked at it, it was like this, yeah. It was just this like false imitation of what we really needed to be providing. So we started a step back and said like, okay, who are the people that we're truly trying to bring on board? Right. Like, and one thing I, um, I was telling you about this earlier, but a little Simon Senate training I saw that I think is super valuable is, uh, he, he was interviewing a leader in Navy seals and he was talking about, um, how they choose who they want to bring into their org.Speaker 3 (17:01):And he kind of drew this little graph. So one of the axis was, uh, high performance, so low to high performance. And then the other axis was, uh, culture, or, you know, how good of a human is this person kind of thing. So every company wants someone that falls under that one corner where it's high performance, you know, high, high value to the culture. Nobody wants someone that's in the low and low corner, but then, um, oftentimes people will choose the high performer. That's a bad fit for your culture over the, a low performer. That is a great fit for your culture. And I think that's a huge thing we do here in door to door because we care so much about that production, but this guy kind of defined that person as a toxic team member. So it's someone that comes on board. Um, they might be breaking your rules.Speaker 3 (17:45):They might be kind of going against your core values. And then as a manager or a leader, you're looking at this person and you're like, dang, I really want the production. So you keep them on board. You make concessions with yourself, you kind of give up some of that identity that you care so much about with your, with your team and what you guys stand for. And then you think that, that person's either, you know, providing a neutral or a benefit to the team where oftentimes if you put a top performer, that's a bad fit for the culture in place, and you prioritize them over your good guys on the team that are maybe mediocre, you know, you work with that person versus developing them. Then you're actually going to detract from the overall kind of culture and performance of everyone.Speaker 2 (18:19):That's interesting. So how do you know cause like, um, um, I'm sure you've seen, sometimes it's tough to recognize you do one, two interviews and you don't necessarily know how this person's going to work out with the team. So how do you, like, what do you do? Say you bring on someone they're crushing it, but yeah. They're not fitting into their culture. I don't know. Maybe they're like doing shady stuff or, and I'm sure you've seen all types of things going on that, like, what do you do with these reps? Do you like, Hey, strike one, strike two year out or do you like sit down and talk with them or do you like, I don't know if you see they're not a good fit in your culture, do you try to like mold them first? Or what do you do in these cases?Speaker 3 (18:55):Yeah, I would, I would say always like, step one, you should be a high enough level person too. If you have a high performer, that's not a good fit for your culture, you should be able to control that situation enough to try to mold them into what you need. Okay. So oftentimes, you know, someone's, um, uh, being, you know, really aggressive or territorial or just kind of this personality that doesn't fit with the group. If you first try to level with them and be like, Hey, like I want to provide a space for you to, you know, move into leadership here, make the most money. You can, whatever that person's goals are, I'd kind of aligned with them there and be like, I need you to do me a favor though, because you are such a high level influencer on the team because of your production level and like how well you can go out and perform that if you don't come to meetings and you do all of these things that are like against the basic rules that I'm trying to hold everybody to.Speaker 3 (19:42):And those expectations, it sucks for me as a leader because I have a tough time. Like all these people look up to, you have all this influence over them. So I need to try to hold you to those same standards if it's not, you know, just for you coming to the team, cause you don't care that much about going to the trainings every day. Maybe you don't need them as much, but the rest of the team does. And so you would be doing me a massive, massive favor if you could, you know, follow X, Y, and Z. So whatever those basic expectations are, I try to kind of set it that way. And oftentimes if you level with that person and they're like, yeah, um, I'm just doing something nice for the team like that usually connects and will resonate with people. Um, if they are still not going to be a good fit for the group, I have, you know, um, consulted people and we've said, okay, let's put this person kind of out on an island.Speaker 3 (20:25):So, you know, don't come to the meetings. We're not gonna put you on the leader board, but you're welcome to come here and sell lights out and kind of do your thing and work with me. But I can't just put you in with the rest of the team because you're kind of a bad influence on them. Um, or worst case scenario too. Like I've also, um, personally lost people that I thought were high, high performer, toxic team member. Um, and I've also had, uh, one of my roofing clients actually in Colorado, they lost their top top person that they were petrified to lose because they finally put some expectations in place like this. And he left and they were petrified that the whole team was going to leave. And now they're like five X the size that they were like this little training room where they had these influences that kept them from holding their expectations. Um, when I was there, like that was tough for them. So now that person's gone, they're able to hold everyone to a higher standard, the team actually gels a lot better. And so they've only gotten better since then.Speaker 2 (21:16):Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's like cutting the fat off, but yeah. And then I think it's that scarcity mindset people get, they don't want to let go of the golden goose, the things it's feeding them. So they're afraid to, I don't know, do sometimes what's necessary. Like a lot of times they, they probably know they need to do it right, but they're just like scared to like, I don't want to cut a guy that's closing 10 deals a month, whatever it, 10 20 dealsSpeaker 3 (21:37):For sure. And if that person leaving allows you to help everybody else in the office get one or two more deals a month and that kind of covers your 10 or 20 that you're losing. So I look at it.Speaker 2 (21:48):Yeah. I like that. I agree for sure. And so another thing I know you've helped a lot of companies with, and you're probably one of your strengths do is just the rep retention. Um, so does that, would you say that's pretty hand-in-hand with what we're talking about? Like retaining reps, just figuring out the culture first, any other ideas you have on that? Because as you know, solar, I mean, at my first company I was with, it's like, you know, trying to pour, uh, uh, like water in a colander, you know, you're trying to fill up a colander and the water is just flowing out of there and you're constantly just filling it up, filling it up every single week. I go, at one point we were recruiting, I don't know, maybe like five or six reps a week. And then we're lucky if one of them like stayed double next week. Cause we're just like bringing in these guys from, you know, restaurant, is it ZipRecruiter, indeed all these things. So yeah. In your opinion, Alex, what's like the biggest, um, I dunno, mistaken retention. I know probably a lot of that stuff we just talked about, but anything else you would say that's helps a lot that you've seen in companies you work with in retention? Yeah.Speaker 3 (22:50):Yeah. So I would say, um, first off is I think a big mistake we make in the industry is, you know, we put a lot of weight on recruiting, but then mentally people start to kind of check out of the recruiting process once that person gets hired. So as soon as that person shows up to bootcamp, you're like, cool, my job is done. This person's here. And that's what we reward people on. We say, oh, he brought in this number of recruits, but what we really care about is that person staying retained. So I'm a metric and solar that I got from a previous company, just with a ton of data, was, um, if a rep can get five sales within their first 60 days, they're 80% more likely to stay with that company six months or longer, which is a huge step for us in our industry.Speaker 3 (23:29):Right. So, um, I, you know, knowing that, I mean there's a million things you can think of to put into place. You know, how I answer the question? How can I get more of my sales reps to hit five sales in 60 days? There's a lot you can build into place there. But I think a big thing too, that should be thought of through the recruiting process and kind of, as it bleeds into that onboarding and the first couple of weeks is just kind of the journey that your, your recruit is going to have to go through in order to actually stay retained and like fully integrate this new job into their life. So for example, let's say you've got, um, someone that's working like a nine to five job. They're a young parent, young mom or dad, and they've got like a two or three-year-old at home that they put to bed at like 7, 7 30 every night.Speaker 3 (24:11):And that's like their little family time. It totally fits into their current routine. And now you're trying to recruit this person from that lifestyle into door to door. Well, if you're asking that person, you know, you, if you're feeling resistance during the recruiting process, you might immediately go to, let me throw more money at this person. And let me give them a manager title, like whatever, some of these perks that we can give versus thinking through that hesitation is more so based on the changes to their lifestyle, that they haven't thought through a solution to yet. So like this person, this example may come into your org and if they plan to like, they've always needed to be home at seven 30 for bedtime, and now you're telling them they need to knock until eight or later, every single night, that's going to be a disconnect for you guys.Speaker 3 (24:52):So you could nip that stuff in the bud, even during the recruiting process, by getting to know that person at a deeper level, know what their life is, like, know what they care about. And then, um, you know, that could be setting up a schedule where a couple of nights a week you want them out late and a couple of nights a week, you're cool with them going home because they get their doors in or they start earlier, like whatever it's gotta be. But if you can kind of figure those things out early on and mold some of the process with them, it breaks that barrier down between where they are and them being, you know, fully self-sustaining in this role, making money and working with the longterm. So I think if you can think through solving that, that is going to change the way you recruit your processes, your onboarding, your incentives, like everything else kind of falls in line. Yeah.Speaker 2 (25:34):Yeah. Okay. I love that. Yeah. That's a good point now. And I'm doing a little bit with that right now. I mean, the company I'm with now, it's like we have all these young guys that just came like young hustlers coming from, uh, Vivian alarms and stuff like that. They're all lined up for the summer. And then, um, yeah, I told you before we started recording here that I was running a team of just like 10, 15 reps. Most of us were like married guys, just, uh, I don't know, kind of doing our thing had kids, stuff like that, but now our teams, like we ha we got 30 guys that they're not married, they're off like, uh, just doing like the single guy stuff. And we're trying to kind of like, um, you know, fit into that culture and everything. And then, uh, you know, you get like girls coming on the teams too. So like there's all these different, like people that can come into the organization and from all types of scenarios, different schedules that they're used to. So, um, I dunno, do you have any like tips on say you got something like that where it's a bunch of young people and you've got some married guys, then you got some girls. I don't know. Is that how your team is right now currently or, yeah,Speaker 3 (26:36):Yeah. We've got a really good mix over at Tru. We've got, um, I'd say probably 30% of our like active reps are women, which is cool. Um, yeah, we, we have a younger Salesforce, but we've got plenty of married people with young kids and everything. Um, I mean, I think a big, a big piece of that is like, we've got all these little subcultures within our teams that I've noticed people that have similar schedules. They're kind of like breaking off and doing some of their own thing. Um, you could even incentivize the groups that start to naturally form like that to like, do little head-to-head matches. Like you can do some office level incentives with them on that type of stuff. Okay. Um, and then, I mean, just touching on bringing people into solar from summer programs, I've got like a whole thing that I've been, uh, brewing up with a couple with, you know, Brandon and Parker, a couple of old experts, but, um, we've been talking about a lot how, how different it is going from a summer program over into solar.Speaker 3 (27:32):And I think for anyone like recruiting from summer programs right now, this is a hurdle that you guys might not be thinking of people in pest control or alarms or something they're coming from this very regimented schedule. They know what they're doing. Like every hour of the day for the summer, they've got really robust training systems because they're trying to, you know, in a summer program, you need to get people, videos, get that stuff figured out, and then they need to be on the doors producing as soon as the summer starts. So they've got this whole system in place. And oftentimes, you know, a lot of us got into solar maybe because you were doing other sales and you loved the freedom and things that come with the schedule we can create. And solar, well, if you're a manager that values freedom with your time and you're kind of unstructured and you don't care if people are showing up to the meetings twice a week and stuff like that, and you recruit a group of alarm guys, like what are the chances that, that person's going to be successful in this unstructured culture where it's like, no, man, you can do whatever you want.Speaker 3 (28:25):Like kind of thing. You know? So, um, so oftentimes we see that as a perk that we got into this industry for, if you're bringing on summer teams, I would say, match what they are familiar with until they know what they're doing. And then you can let off the gas a little bit, like put something into place that feels remotely similar to what they've been going through with their training and their schedule and their structure. And it may not match what you're asking the rest of the team to do, but it's going to help those people come on board and get past the learning curve.Speaker 2 (28:54):Okay. That's interesting. So almost like having them do, even though we say you're only meeting twice a week or something, so you bring in a group of summer guys. So you're saying maybe like meet with them every day and just have them do their same schedule for a while until they start seeing success. Things like that.Speaker 3 (29:09):Totally. Because for us, we might be like, oh yeah, it's cool. We only do meetings twice a week. Like this like less structured lifestyle is what we enjoy. But for someone coming from a really regimented routine and door to door that could give them anxiety and it could keep them from like their routines on how they've learned and their work ethic and their numbers are all based on them being in a regular regimented schedule. So if you mess that up, they may not have the personal, like wherewithal to just do that themselves because they know that's what they need. Like they might not even know that. So I would say, put those guys in, yeah, like a quick 30 minute meeting every day to kind of touch base for the first couple of weeks. And once you guys, once you see them kind of get into their own like groove with solar, you can always let up and pull them into the, the, um, structure that you're holding with the rest of the group. But I think that would help with retention, like big time for summer people.Speaker 2 (29:56):Yeah. No, for sure. I agree with that. Cause you actually, that's, I'm totally, I'm working with Jason newbie and that's basically what we're doing right now because he comes from alarms, a bunch of the guys that he has on the team are from vivid alarms. So right now, yeah, he has a meeting every day. Like it used to be 10:00 AM you moved it to 12, but it's like every single day we're having a meeting, we're getting out there and yeah. I mean, the guys are producing, so it's, whatever's doing work and working and they were producing a lot more than our team that was working twice. There was a meeting twice a week. I'm like, okay, well something must be working.Speaker 3 (30:26):Oh yeah. We, uh, we just finished up our first competition as a company. And it was like a one V one and our top manager that won the whole thing came from pest control. Yeah. He's got his schedule down. He works harder than everyone else because he knows like the another trap we get into with solar is the commissions are so high right now that like, it's so tough to push people, to actually make them produce what numbers you want to see on the board. If they've got any type of limiting mindset with money or they don't need that much. And they don't think about that type of stuff. So we, um, part of our practice when we're bringing people on board is we'll even frame it during the interview process is like kind of this, this problem. We want this person to help us solve, which is like, look, you can make very, very good money coming in and solar to the point where sometimes it can be tough to make people hit the numbers that we expect out of them every month, because you might sell one or two deals and like cover all your bills for the month.Speaker 3 (31:16):So you want to relax, but how does a person that does two sales a month affect the rest of their team that wants to do way more than that could be stretching their personal limits, way higher than we've seen people in our industry do 30 plus a month, you know, like that happens all the time. So if you hire a bunch of people and you don't kind of frame it that way first, um, you can get people kind of caught in this like, oh yeah, I'm good doing one or two sales and you've got kind of this mediocre performance. So yeah,Speaker 2 (31:42):No, that's true. I mean, that's, the act is do two deals and solar. I mean, especially in California, that's still like decent money.Speaker 3 (31:49):Yeah. You might be doing better than anyone in your family has ever done. And you're only selling two accounts. So like if you're pulling someone in, that's not from our industry and they're doing two accounts a month, they think they're winning. You think that they're, uh, you know, time suck on the rest of your team. So you got to kind of figure out how to like reconcile that early on to make sure that person knows what you expect out of them. And can, you know, if they've got some limiting mindset there, you're working with them on that, that's kind of another step to helping people stay longer term is kind of getting them in the frame of mind. Like, no, I, I may be doing way better than the rest of my family, but doing two deals a month. Like I could, now that I know this skill, I can be doing 6, 10, 15, whatever. So, um, getting people kind of in that number mindset versus the money, one is big too. Yeah,Speaker 2 (32:33):I would agree. And yeah, I think it's good to bring to that point to bring people from the other industries. Because like, for me, I, I saw it on myself. I was like getting lazier and lazier for awhile just because we're guys that were just pretty much in pure soul where we weren't bringing any whales that had been in like Pesan show alarms. And so we're good with our three, four hours knocking a day and, you know, just closing her maybe two or three deals a week tops and yeah, it was good money and everything. But then once I recently, once we have did this, like merger as Tony about with Jason newbie's team, got to these alarm guys, a lot of them were working on alarm schedule, like 6, 7, 8 hours of knocking. And then, and then they're closing 30 plus deals a week. A few of them I'm like, whoa, like this is possible.Speaker 2 (33:18):And solar guys can do this much. So I think it's a, I think it's a good idea to be bringing in people that are fresh that don't know that, that don't kind of like have that lazy solar mindset. Cause in my opinion, like, um, I've seen guys that are coming from different industries or guys there may be new. Um, a lot of times they're having more success than recruiting from like other solar companies, because a lot of these other like no offense to a lot of these companies, but they have a lot of lazy reps that are used to closing, you know, one or one or two deals maybe tops a week. So, uh, yeah, I think I liked that a lot.Speaker 3 (33:54):That was kind of like, you know, I was fortunate enough to work at some of the bigger companies and pull some lessons from there. So whether I'm working with a smaller company and mid whatever, like a big, a big thing has been the pattern with the top performing companies is they expect high performance all the way through their leadership stack. A lot of times you'll, you know, you could recruit someone into a smaller dealer, um, and they've done well in the past. You want to put them at this really high level. You're either bringing them in as like a DM, maybe a regional, maybe a director. And they're like, cool. I want to come in. And this is what I'm going to do. But by the way, I'm not going to knock doors. And if they go that route, like again, I saw some of the craziest performance of my life in solar, just being at Viven and those guys all the way up through the director level, like they could be managing hundreds of reps under them and they're still expecting to hit some of the highest levels of production in the industry and leading from the front.Speaker 3 (34:46):They're like a lot of times we will get into management and you start to get sucked into the reporting and the hiring and firing and territory management and all that other stuff. And you, and you forget how high priority you should be, um, putting, actually knocking and showing up for your team, but by far and away say the biggest pattern is like you see managers, um, able to bring teams on and have them perform at a much higher level of they are leading the charge.Speaker 2 (35:11):Yeah, I agree for sure. And say, I speak in a culture. Um, I know that was, you probably, uh, learned a ton as you were, um, helping them like Vivid Solar things. And I know that's part of, we talked about a door to door con too. Um, but you also mentioned like, I think you were saying smaller companies shouldn't necessarily try to do all the things that the big dogs are doing, like the vivid soldiers of the, of the world and that and all that. So what do you see? I don't know, say you're a small company. How should the culture be different? Like in a big company, how much of what they're seeing Vivint solar and all these companies that are having a ton of success? What th what should they try and take from that? And I don't know, maybe what are some things that didn't work that you saw that companies were trying to take from these big cultures that were super successful?Speaker 3 (35:56):Oh my gosh. That's such a good question. Um, I think a big one was the way that you're spending your money to build your culture. So I think the two metrics that matter in culture are increasing your repor tension. How long are people staying? How well are they doing? And then the per rep average. So if my reps are producing two sales a month on average, can I get that to a three or four or higher? Okay. And, uh, and so I see companies, you know, especially sometimes I do my like competition training and people get all jacked up about getting into doing a competition and, um, the way you could spend $10,000 on a competition and have it be the best thing that's ever happened to your business, or you could do it and it could be a total flop. You might not get any extra sales.Speaker 3 (36:38):Yeah. So I think it's, um, figuring out how to spend your money, not just to like check off all the boxes of like, I've got the fancy things, I've got a competition where someone can like win a razor and all that kind of stuff like this high level stuff. Um, you can spend a lot less money, but gain some of the lessons from that, like, you know, motivating reps through a competition, for example, um, the way Vivian is going to handle a competition with, um, they're, you know, really flashy launch videos, really big flashy prizes, all of that stuff, you know, podcasts and video casts on like all of the people that won last year, bringing them on trash, talking like this whole thing. Um, there's a bootstrap version of that that I think can happen, um, for companies at a lower level, but like a lot of what goes into making an amazing competition can just be you hyping it up ahead of time as a manager, you knowing what the rules are and the prizes, and like letting your reps know that, um, a month in advance, maybe sometimes more letting them kind of prepare, you know, if I've got a four or five week competition coming up, um, I would launch it to my sales reps in enough time where they can move, um, obligations that they might have if someone's got, you know, I'll, I'll roll out my schedule at the beginning of the year.Speaker 3 (37:49):Most companies should do that so that their reps can kind of plan out for sure. Yeah. So if I know, like I know the main competitions I want to do, and then maybe I'll have like one or two months where it's a little bit light and offices can do their competitions. If I do that, that allows, uh, your sales reps to not have to sacrifice family time for work time. They can plan their family time around the times and the seasons where you're going to do like high level competitions. So literally just scheduling your competition's a little bit different, like that could double the production you get from one versus spending a crap ton of money on the prizes.Speaker 2 (38:23):Mm genius. I love that. Yeah. Cause most, yeah, you probably see that a lot, but like guys tomorrow we're doing a competition tournament tomorrow starts tomorrow, getSpeaker 3 (38:35):Ready. Yeah. And then like reps will go like a week without knowing their numbers in it. And they're like, Hey, what's the score? And you're like, crap. I keep forgetting to do that. And like, finally you do it. And you just like text the numbers into the group chat. Like it's not even on a graphic or anything. So, um, so yeah, like just hyping it ahead of time, setting up the rules, allowing everyone to clear their schedule, um, tracking and hyping up the numbers and what's happening during a competition, like in, as life-time, as you can to give them those updates. All of that generates that kind of competitive nature that you're looking to get out of your sales reps, that in and of itself is going to help them kind of break past their previous limits and perform way better during competitions. Um, but that was one thing I noticed at, at Vivian.Speaker 3 (39:17):I think this is a cool principle across the board. We did not make significantly more money because of the competitions we put into place, pretty big budgets for it. We would see a really big volume pop. Um, and then you'd see kind of this dip afterwards as everyone kind of relaxes. And you want to make sure that rise always kind of supersedes the dip that comes after, but even if it does, like the one thing we saw was no matter what happened at the end of the competition, the per rep average is kind of what went up. So we would see sales reps that previously had maybe had their best week of being four or five sales. Now they're doing 10 plus sales in a week and they didn't even realize that was possible for themselves. So reps are all setting this new personal record with themselves or a new personal record that they now have, you know, manager, the office just did 30 that month. Now they know it's possible. So you're kind of raising the limit in competitions to show everyone what they're capable of, which hopefully then you can kind of sustain that afterwards. And that's like, I think that's the target with competition. So how can I, what, what practices, or what way can I structure this competition in a way that's going to allow my sales reps to raise the personal limit they have on the number of sales they think they can do.Speaker 2 (40:26):Yeah. I love that. That's a massive, um, yeah, but no, it's just reminds me of, uh, my first company I was with, um, it seemed like every single competition we had, I had like some trips scheduled with my family or whatever. They would like schedule months in advance and they rolled it out like the next week or whatever. I'm like, all right, well, I'm not going to try that hard because I already know I have this like, scheduledSpeaker 3 (40:49):Exactly. That's so if you could like prevent that stuff and it changes everything.Speaker 2 (40:54):I don't know. So that's not, I think that's a huge takeaway. Um, so sweet. And so Alex, um, I know we don't have all day here, but the last thing I kind of wanted to ask, pick your brain about is just with recruiting. Um, you guys said you're, uh, you have a team of 110 reps or so right now at true power. Yep. Okay. And so you did a merger. How many reps did you have, like when you first started with that merger, has it stayed the same or have you built the team a lot since you like started the company or merged?Speaker 3 (41:23):Yeah, I mean, and I know you're kind of going through this too, uh, merging multiple cultures and systems and everything together, um, has probably been one of the most fun challenges I've had in the industry so far. Um, we're fortunate enough to have a lot of people putting their egos aside to combine leadership. You know, we've got an awesome team. Um, we started out, uh, probably trying to think how many sales reps we had. We probably had a hundred total, but active, I'd say it was probably close to like 60 or 70, um, reps that we had. And we've had some big new hire classes, but, you know, even coming from this is the area of door to drive, decided to become an expert in, um, still retention is tough. So we've kind of gone back and forth. You know, we've had big classes, we've lost some people we've changed our practices a lot. So, um, yeah, we've been able to, we've been able to grow quite a bit, but by far and away, the biggest thing that's made a difference, I think is establishing some better systems to get like our mid-level reps, um, understanding, expectations, getting support to become better and like figure out how they can kind of level up. We rolled out a mentor program, which I think is big. Um, so that is essentially, it's something Brandon I've used in the past with companiesSpeaker 2 (42:39):Legacy does too, right?Speaker 3 (42:41):Yes. Yeah. Similar. So essentially what we wanted to do was along with that statistic of let's get people to five or more sales within 60 days. Um, if you are just alone manager or you're a small company, you might have only one person that can get all of your new hires past that learning curve. Like it's just that one manager. Yeah. So, um, if that's what you're doing, you're kind of limited to only being able to bring on enough people where that person can actually truly give the amount of attention that they need to, to all of their new hires at one time to get them past the curve. So, um, rolling out something like the mentor program, essentially the mentor role as this new, uh, position in leadership where you're not quite a manager yet, but it's kind of the first step towards it.Speaker 3 (43:21):So, um, you can, as long as you're, you know, we've got some performance requirements, but as long as you're a good, uh, kind of conduit of our culture, you understand our processes well enough. Um, this person is now going to be mentor to a new hire coming in as a mentee. And their goal is to get that mentee to five sales in 60 days. Okay. Um, so we, we do like an incentive. If anyone gets to seven sales, we'll do a rookie trip for them. So they want to get their mentees to seven sales. And then we also incentivize our mentors for that. So, um, if we have mentees hitting that, they get to go on this trip as mentors get more and more of their reps through to those higher levels, we've kind of gameified it. So we've got like, you know, scoreboards and calls with just our mentors where we can kind of work a hundred percent on focusing on that new rep experience. So that's been like, you know, we, we knew that was, uh, needed to be a focus coming in. We had some big classes, we lost a bunch of people. So now we've really like doubled down on that for the fall. Yeah.Speaker 2 (44:17):That's awesome. And yeah, you mentioned you guys do like a bootcamp, right? So you're bringing in like a big, like, I guess a new class of people, almost like a university class or something. Right. I'd get them all trained a little bit. And how are you, uh, for you guys, what's your like, system on recruiting? How you guys recruiting now in yourSpeaker 3 (44:35):Good question? So, um, it's kind of twofold. Uh, Brandon Hall, my husband is our CEO and he's made his career around becoming an expert in recruiting. So, um, he's both working on personal recruiting culture within the business, but a big thing too, is how can you, how can you succeed at bringing in web applicants and, um, help them have the same experience you would if they were personal recruits? So we all know if we bring in a personal recruit, that person is way more likely to stay than a web applicant. A lot of that's just because of the ties they have in the business, the community, they feel like they have, like, they feel like they know someone that can support them, whether the person that recruited them as good at selling or not, it's just a person they can talk to if they need it.Speaker 3 (45:14):Right. Um, so just having some of those elements, so that's kind of why that's some of the reason we put the mentor program into place was like, you can bring on a ton of web applicants. Anyone can figure out how to crack the code on indeed and get enough resumes coming through. It's really a numbers game there. Um, but you know, there's plenty of tactics we do in our interviews to make sure people have their mindset shaped into. Um, I, I know what to expect. This is a very legitimate company. I don't want to let them down. A lot of times we'll go into, uh, people in our industry will go into interviews and you sound like you are recruiting for an MLM. It's just like, you're going to do so great, bro. Like, you're going to kill it. Like I know you're going to make over six figures this year.Speaker 3 (45:50):Like I can't wait to be there for it, blah, blah, blah. So you do that. And then someone's coming on board, like dang, like that guy would have hired probably anyone with a pulse. So let's see how this first day goes. So if you have someone with that mentality coming in versus holy crap, I'm so lucky to have this opportunity. I do not want to let this company down, like I'm going to come in here and kill it. Just that mentality going into bootcamp is totally different. So we definitely shape our interviews around people having that mentality, kind of coming out of it and into our bootcamp. And then we just make sure that we are providing the experience that they would get as if they were a personal recruit. So that's where they get their mentor. They meet that person before they come on board.Speaker 3 (46:28):Um, so, you know, first time they walk into a corelation room, they already know, at least that one person is going to come over and chat with them and sit with them and stuff. So it's just all those little things to help someone feel like they're, um, integrating into your team's culture quicker. If you have someone that's kind of out on an island because you don't have the time to help them as a manager, no one else can come in and shadow them. Like I think that, you know, that can be a big, uh, the first week is so important for new hires. If you are giving them like polos that are two sizes too big and having a stain on it, cause you take it from a rep that left and like, you don't have a badge prepared for them. And then you're like, Hey Frank, can you, uh, can you have this new guy shadow you? And he's like, no, dude, sorry. Like I was going to go do this, this and this. Isn't going to do it. And you're like, crap. Uh, well what about you? Can you shadow this guy? And everyone's like, no, man, sorry, I can't do it. Like now you're stuck with this reps that like, dude, like, how am I going to get trained here? So, uh, so it's just having those little things organized ahead of time. Can make such a big difference for your new hires.Speaker 2 (47:24):It's funny. That's what happensSpeaker 3 (47:26):All the time. Like, you know, when you, I mean, I, if you've ever had like a new hire come into your bootcamp, like wearing like a three-piece suit or anything, but I'd totally have that. And you're like, dude, that's my bad that I did not. I should have told you that you don't wear that to your first day, but it's moments like that where someone walks in and they're like, I'm in the wrong place. I don't know what I'm doing here. And it's like that mind, like that little mental story, they start to tell themselves if you can keep that from happening, keep them on the positive. Even with those little, little things, it makes such a big difference.Speaker 2 (47:53):Uh, no. Yeah. There's, it's funny. I've been with previous companies do where they bring in these indeed recruits and they're like, they had an interview and everything and they show up to the meet and they're like, oh wait, this is door knocking. We have to knock doors. That's like a, yeah, they don't take that in the interview. I go, no, I guess I'll come Che.Speaker 3 (48:11):Yeah. And it's such an art to talking about door knocking in interviews. Um, because you know, some companies like the mentality of, they'll just be like, yo, this is door to door. Are you cool with that? And then they'll scare away anyone that isn't okay with it. And then anyone that is like, perfect. I've weeded out the week kind of thing. Yeah. I think that mentality, you're losing a ton of people that could be open to it. Just because door to door kind of carries a negative connotation if you don't understand our industry. Um, but if you are talking through parts of the job where like, you know, we're super picky with who we bring on board and we care a lot about making sure this person's aligned with our culture and our business and what we're trying to accomplish here. And you know, you, and most of the rest of the team, you guys are going to spend a lot of your time outdoors.Speaker 3 (48:54):Uh, you're going to be out in neighborhoods because we need to make sure people are qualified for solar. So that means you need to see what their roof looks like, see what their house looks like, make sure they've got the right meter. There's all of these in-person elements to it. So you're going to be outside dealing with homeowners, kinda like that on a daily basis. So, you know, that being said, um, do you have any problems with like extreme weather or whatever you good being outside in the rain? And then P you basically just said, it's door to door. You're gonna be out in neighborhoods. You're talking to homeowners, you're in person, blah, blah, blah. You're qualifying them. Right. But you didn't say the phrase door to door to start the pitch. So then people are like, no, no, I'm totally cool with that. Like, oh, I love the heat.Speaker 3 (49:30):I love the cold. Like, whatever. They'll say these things to convince you, like, no, no, please hire me. Like, I'm still the, I wanna, I want to work with you. So they're convincing you to hire them in that instance. And then later on, like, as you, you can keep talking, you know, day in the life and get into how it store to door and talk about your culture. Now it's a little bit less of a blow, right? Like if you just come out and be like, Hey, this is a door to door position. Are you cool with that? You're going to weed out. A lot of people that would have said no in that instance, but could have said yes, if you framed it a little bit differently,Speaker 2 (49:58):It's almost like in California, how you can't really start at the door saying, I'm saying I'm selling solar doors that had like sneak your way around at first, get them to buy into that. They want to save money on energy and all that. And then the, how we do that as solar. Exactly. Similar thing. Well, that's awesome, Alex. No, some great ideas you've given us today. And for our, for our listeners kind of last question I wanted to ask you before we wrap up here, um, all, a lot of small companies, they don't have this role of someone like you. It's like super great at organizing. That's helping all put all these systems together and things like that. We didn't get one until pretty recently, actually in our company it's helped a ton. So how do you suggest people that's traditional door to door? Just like, I don't know, like manager, the sales reps a lot of times and then company owner. So what would you suggest to people that are, maybe they're struggling with all this management stuff and setting up the systems and they're hearing all these things right now and I go, dang, how do they bring someone on to implement all this, all these ideas Alex has given us all this, a fire she's spent and how do we implement these things? So what would you say to those companies that's want to like have help with getting someone that's more organized like that?Speaker 3 (51:09):Yeah. Good question. Um, I guess there's a couple ways you could do it depending on your circumstance. I'd say, um, you could bring in someone that either has experience on the doors and is just not doing well in your company. Similar, you know, I had the opportunity to, I was about to leave. I was able to take this opportunity instead. Um, you could pull someone in, you could even hire, I mean, a lot of this could be an hourly type of role, but like I would say the first, first position, which would totally pay for itself is bringing someone in to work on like new hire experience, help the recruiting process, flow into the onboarding, help that person get to their first sale. So, um, you could hire someone for that role and have that really be your focus. And then you will again have that person pay for themselves many times over.Speaker 3 (51:54):So then that new cashflow can kind of help you build out that little department if you want. Um, or I would kind of split it up amongst your management. So even if he didn't have anybody focusing on this system, um, and you just had, you know, a manager that was really focused on the interviewing process and the training, like boot camp type of training, and then you assigned yourself one or two mentors within your org that were going to help out with this new hire experience. I think that is really the most important. So you could, um, you know, I'd say first step, if you don't have any other leaders is identify people in your org that you would want to pull into a mentorship type of position. You don't need to give up any override or anything. This is just, they can be incentivized based on just getting a little portion of those first few sales, um, and kind of gamifying that. So I'd bring in your mentors and then I would start to implement some of the little systems, like a lot of this isn't super time-consuming, you're probably already doing interviews. You might just need to change the way you're interviewing. You are probably already doing a bootcamp and already trying to get them out to shadow. You just could tweak the way that you're running that system a little bit. So you're spending the same amount of time. You're just doing everything a little bit better. Yeah.Speaker 2 (52:58):Yeah. It's huge. So yeah, for all our listeners definitely consider bringing on someone like that. Um, if you're like a lot of company owners, um, if you're like myself, a lot of us are super disorganized and we need someone like Alex, I wish we could just clone Alex like 50 times and send her to every company, but you can't so listen to this podcast and then get someone to help you with that, I think is a huge key to growing and, uh, retention like Alex was talking about. So Alex, before we say goodbye here, where can people connect with you? And, um, I dunno, say what's up and thank you for coming on the show a
Visit Solciety.co now! Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's up Solarpreneurs? Taylor Armstrong back with another episode here to make your life as a solar professional, more profitable, easier to do and more enjoyable. So if I can do even a fraction of that, you're welcome. Just kidding, but really that's what we're aiming to do. And hopefully we make it a lot easier for you to close more deals, get more referrals and have success in this awesome industry. But today I want to basically tell a little story, something that happened to me recently, that I think a lot of you, the listeners can learn some lessons from a big mistake I made. So I'm going to go through that story. But first, before I get to that, just wanted to give a shout out to, um, my boys over at, uh, knock star university. If you haven't checked out a knock star, it is a six week program I'm going through right now and they do.Speaker 2 (01:40):It's really cool. They have a competition for six weeks. They put you in a seating round, then they do weekly trainings. So if you're looking for some extra training for you or your team, um, great resources guys have over there, I'm going through it. And also just wanted to throw out a little teaser. We're also working on something super exciting that has to do is training. Uh, can't spill the details yet, but is going to be releasing very soon here. And I'm super stoked when it does to go over more details, but you can't say anything I want to, um, anyway, just a couple of quick shout outs for those that are looking for more trainings, go check out and rockstar. Um, so the story I have what's going on is, um, this is basically just to illustrate to you guys, what can go wrong with an account?Speaker 2 (02:36):The title is episode is called how I made negative $563 on a solar install. And I'm in San Diego. So especially people are familiar with the California market. You're probably thinking like, what, how do you make negative dollars on a account? Like people out here are making a thousand, 2000 at ridiculous amounts. I mean, guys are making 20, 30 grand on single accounts, even I've heard. Hey, so how can someone go to make making ridiculous money to making negative on an account? I couldn't believe it when happen to me. And I don't think I'm the first person that it's happened to. So I want to go through the mistakes I made with this particular account and hopefully help you guys avoid the same mistakes. So here's what happened in this. First of all, this was back about seven months ago, I get an online lead a which if you're not running on lane leads, why not?Speaker 2 (03:40):You should be running online leads. You should be knocking, should be getting leads from all sources. Okay. That's for another episode though, I was running an online leads that I get a lead. It's a solid lead. I go, um, set it up for next day appointment. I go, we're sitting outside. I find out it's actually a home that's hasn't been moved into yet. The dude had been renting it out and he was gonna move in with his family in the next few months is what he told me at the time. Okay. Um, unfortunately it didn't work out exactly how this guy was saying. Um, but I ended up closing the deal, um, closed it's a little bit higher. So I thought I was going to make an awesome commission on it, but here's the kicker with this account. This guy, before he moved in, he was doing a ton of remodeling on the house and he wanted to get a new roof along with this solar.Speaker 2 (04:37):And at the time I had just started working for, um, the dealer that I'm with now. I wasn't super familiar with their processes and S uh, their roofers. I didn't know exactly how you did a deal with a roof over there. This is the first deal I had. First, our roof solar combine had done with the new dealer. So I call, um, our office and I kind asked him how to do this. And I'm in the heat of the moment, which you guys should all try to close deals as quick, you know, quick as possible, not want to leave them hanging. Don't want to leave loose threads. So I'm like, all right, I'm just going to get this closed. Um, but tell me about what to price it out so we can be good to throw a roof in there because here we can, just, even if we don't have to necessarily add a roofing to the financing, you just price it high enough.Speaker 2 (05:27):We can pay for a roof with the commission is what we do a lot of times just price it high, make so much that you pay for a roof with it. So I price it pretty high. I think I'm okay. I'll be good. Pay for a roof with this. And I can figure out the details later. Right? And we were working with a roofer. His name was Juan, and he got us really good prices on roofs. So especially knowing about this guy, I'm like, okay, yeah, Juan's going to hook us up with an awesome deal. I'm going to have plenty in the commission to pay for all this. We'll be good to go. So fast forward, um, several months down the road, one does the roof and then the installer goes to install up there and they put up the system, they actually do the install.Speaker 2 (06:19):Okay. But the first problem that we encounter with as account is I get a call from the customer actually, after they had already installed the solar, they didn't do a full installation, which I'll get to in a second, they did a personal install and I get a call from the customer and the customer says, Hey, Taylor, um, I see that you didn't put gutters on with my roof. Um, you guys need to come finish up the gutters. And I'm like, okay. Yeah, I'll look into that. So I call Juan or roofer and he says, oh, I don't do gutters. The gutters that they had up there, they're rotting. They're just causing all sorts of problem when I was trying to do their new roof. So I had to take them off. So yeah, they're in the dumpster now we can't use those gutters and I don't do gutters.Speaker 2 (07:05):That's a separate thing. So I'm like, okay. So I actually don't know. Maybe some, maybe some of you listeners can tell me is that normally included with risks. I actually don't even know, but I took one's word with that. I'm like, okay. So I call the customer in, say, a Mr. His name was, uh, Z. His name was, uh, he was like middle Eastern. So he had a tricky name. So I just call him Z. I'm like, Casey, they actually didn't do your gutters because that's not included. That's going to be separate. Do you want to pay for it? And at that point, when the customer heard me even say that he was going to have to pay for something, this guy flipped the lid. He's like, are you kidding me? That is included with a roofing project. That is part of the project. I am not there on some expletives in there.Speaker 2 (07:57):So I am not paying for a roof. I'm not paying extra to put gutters in with my project, just super free. It's not listening to me, wouldn't have anything to do with it. And the good news is that he had solar on his roof. But, um, what ended up happening is we did a partial install on his home and with his other projects he was doing, he was adding like a wall around his property. And I don't know the full details on this, but the wall that he was building somehow interfered with us, being able to put, um, just the box for the inverter down by his electric panel. So we couldn't finish the installation because we are waiting for his other contractors to finish this wall. So the good news is he already had solar up there. So in my head, I'm thinking, okay, well, he can't cancel or anything.Speaker 2 (08:54):He has solar up there. So he can't cancel the project or say he doesn't want it anymore. Even though that's actually what he's threatening to do, saying I'm going to cancel. If you guys don't finish this. So it was calm from out that, but then the issue we ran into is we couldn't complete this installation. He needed to finish the other wall. Um, so what happened is he started using this as leverage. Basically he knew that he needed to finish the wall. So his, his side now was all, I'm not going to finish the wall until you guys come get my gutters from, come fix my gutters. So we were just locked in, essentially, it's still meat. I mean, we had leverage against him cause the solar is up there, but his leverage was, I'm not putting this wall in until you guys around. I'm not repairing this wall, whatever needed to be done until you guys come in, put the gutters up.Speaker 2 (09:49):So it turned into that, just a big nightmare. And the other issue is we had already actually paid one to do the roof. So Juan is paid. He's happy, he's taken care of. But in the meantime, our, you know, dealer is fronted all this money to pay one. And rather than just being locked into the stalemate, um, our office made the decision to just go ahead and pay for these gutters. So we hire another contractor. We pay the gutters, they come up and do it. That's that. And then I didn't really think anything of it until I see in my bank account. I see finally, after six, seven months find the I'm getting paid on this account about freaking time. It's been so long, been months and months and months, which we all hate waiting for. Installs. We all hate, we need to get paid on. Installs sucks. Have to wait, but find the AC it come in commission for Z. And then I look at it and this time it says 300, I think it says 300 something. I'm like, oh my gosh, 300 bucks. That's it.Speaker 2 (11:10):So you're probably asking, wait, didn't you say you got paid a negative amount on this account. So yeah, it gets worse. What happened was I got paid 301st, but then I, as time goes on, about two weeks after I got paid this 300 bucks, we get another message from the customer saying, Hey, you guys forgot to do you didn't do the back part of my gutters. You only did the front. You need to come back and do it. And our team schedules this. And by the way, I didn't really, at this point, I didn't really know what was going on behind the scenes. So, um, lock of communication and I'll get to the mistakes after this, but definitely like communication and our team just goes ahead and schedules the back gutters to be done. Not really thinking much of it. And we get this customer taken care of, but guess what?Speaker 2 (12:08):We get a bill from the contractor. We paid, I think 1500 for the gutters. Okay. Which again, I thought, you know, all this was included. Um, I thought all this was paid. I'm like, okay, 300 bucks. This is ridiculous. But then it gets worse. We end up, oh, extra money on the account. And yeah, that's why I say negative 500, whatever. It was 563 is because what happened was after we paid this contract and do the back cutters. Yeah. I am being now charge back money plus some, and this isn't even all that we owed on it. I mean, luckily our office is kind enough to front some of the money, but there's faults on both sides. Okay. So more or less moral of the story, there were a ton of mistakes made and I'm going to break down a few of them. And if you have a story like this, I'd love to hear it.Speaker 2 (13:11):Shoot me a message on Facebook, Instagram, whatever. Shoot me a message. Let me know if you've had anything like this happen to you before, but first of all, number one, know how much your roof is going to cost you. All right. Like I mentioned, at the beginning, I had no idea that the roof was going to be, um, well, as much as it was, this one was more than I was thinking we were using Juan or roofer. Okay. And here's the second mistake made is make sure you're working with quality contractors. Hey, because one, he was a great guy, but what we find out later, we actually found out one wasn't even licensed. Okay. That's why we're getting such good prices on his roofs. This guy wasn't even licensed and maybe you're fine working without a licensed roofer. Okay. Probably not in most of most cases, but if you are, um, or whatever the case may be, make sure that customer is in some type of an agreement with the roofer.Speaker 2 (14:19):Kay. And you, whatever you do, whether it's you working independently or your company or your office, make sure you're setting these things in place. What's the agreement. What's the standard of quality that you need to work? What can they do? Can they, what can't they do? Cause in our case one, he just ripped off these gutters, threw them in the dumpster. But if we would have had that set in place, what can you work on? What can't you work on? If we would've had that agreement set in place between him and the customer, then it wouldn't cause an issue. Cause guess what? That would have been once issue. He would have been dealing with the angry customer saying, you didn't do my gutters, but what did we do? We just paid it directly out of our profits. And so we had to deal with all these issues.Speaker 2 (15:03):Cause the whole time, I mean, basically the customer hired us to do the work. We just outsourced it. Right. So set some type of agreement in place. What is your roof we're going to do? What are the expectations? You can't just rip off the gutters and then get blamed for it. Right. Have that in place having in place what's going to happen. Okay. And the fourth mistake that was made and make sure your communication is super clear. Again, I mentioned that, um, we had a lot of things being paid for all of the things being scheduled that weren't clear. And a lot of it's my fault because after six, seven months of the same account for me, it got to the point where I'm just like, whatever, just do whatever. I'm not going to look at it. If it gets installed. Great. Um, out here where I'm at, I mean, I'm used to a month, one to two month installs.Speaker 2 (15:57):So after that it starts getting pretty, uh, pretty what's the word? Redundant. Yeah. Pretty redundant stuff to sit and look at these accounts that aren't going through. So make sure you have communication and don't be like me be patient with it and always look at what's going on. Okay. Cause I didn't really look at the updates that were happening with this deal. Cause I just got so tired of it, but it's important to go back and see what happened with it. See what updates were left by your team. We use a sauna personally, just like a, yeah. You know, projects management. I mean you use it for a lot of things, but in the sauna our team members would basically go on leave comments. Hey, we talked to this contract or this happened, this went down and I didn't really look much at what was paid, what happened.Speaker 2 (16:50):So you need to be looking at your team, can communication, whatever you're using, make sure you're in the loop and make sure your team isn't scheduling stuff without your permission. And I, I think I did give him permission, but again, I was just sick and tired of it. So look at what's happening. And then you as the independent contractor, which most of you should be, I highly recommend you being an independent contractor. We're Solarpreneurs. Right. We're building our own businesses. So we're taking control of all this. Okay. But if it's not, you have your having an assistant or have someone that's keeping track of all this stuff because you can't just authorize everything and not know what's been paid, what hasn't been paid. Okay. And messaged me. Um, I know some people have made like spreadsheets to keep track of adders on deals and extra costs because the last thing you want to happen is, and go negative on a deal like this.Speaker 2 (17:47):Okay. And then the last thing is just figure out a resolution with everything. I talked about how we are in a stalemate with this customer. Um, things didn't really come to a resolution, but figure out a solution on both sides. Kay. I was sick of talking to the customer too. I didn't want to hear from them, but yeah, you need to be willing to have those tough conversations with your customers, admit when you've made mistakes and then come to a resolution. Okay. So those are just a couple of things I've learned and still working on being better with complicated accounts, you got to pull out all the guns, you got to be ready for the long fight. Okay. Cause there's some complicated accounts out here, whether they need main panel upgrades, whether they need roof work. I know lots of people, um, especially out here an hour adding in AC units, they're adding and maybe even paying jobs.Speaker 2 (18:49):Um, for, I talked to guys that companies doing all sorts of things at an installation. So point is keep track of all this stuff. Okay. Depending on how your office is set up, it's very likely that you gotta keep track of this. And even if your company is organized, even if you have project managers or managers that are on top of everything, I would suggest still just being in the loop. Okay. Cause that's another thing I know for me, I've been hit with adders and things that our back offices have, uh, has done that aren't weren't right. Either where if I would have been keeping track and things like that when it happened. Okay. So just wanted to share this story. Let me know if something like that's happened to you would love to hear it love to learn from other people's mistakes, but don't get hit with a negative commission. It is the worst feeling in the world in the world and it's definitely a momentum killer. So let me know what you thought of this. Let me know if you liked hearing from the mistake and with that, learn from it. Let's move forward and let's crush it this month. Peace Solarpreneurs.Speaker 3 (20:00):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Visit www.solciety.co now! Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's up Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong. Back with another episode here in the studio, hope you're doing well. And as always, we're doing these podcasts to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry. Hopefully we can achieve that for you. So today we're going to get into an episode. I just got back from an event it's called, uh, driven. Um, if you're following me on social media, maybe saw me post about it by great Amanda. So I'm going to recap a few things from that event. Thought there was a lot of speakers that can apply directly to you. Uh, you know, the solar industry and some good takeaways. I got to someone to give you a little recap on a few takeaways. I got that I, I think will benefit everyone listening to this podcast today.Speaker 2 (01:35):Um, before we get into that, we are, uh, approaching how we in here. It is October at the time of this recording. And just remember with October, you are out there and trick or treating for free money. If you're knocking doors and whatever you're doing, really, if you are sending out online ads, if you're getting leads, remember it's just trick or treating, you know, you're just trick or treating out there. So that's the little tip of this month. Make sure you come across with that trick treating mindset, any door you knock thing. All right, I'm going to get my candy today. I'm going to get my dough today. And that's the mindset you got to have. We've had some incredible guests on just got done actually with a podcast. Um, you're going to hear about as soon don't want to spill the beans on it quite yet, but uh, this dude I think set the industry record for most deals closed in a month.Speaker 2 (02:29):He's he coming up on bat here in a couple of weeks as podcasts will drop. So stay tuned for that, but um, just great takeaways I've gotten and it's to have the extreme confidence that you're going to close. Any deal that you walk up to you with, you're going to book any appointment that you S um, you know, any door you knock, you're going to book an appointment with them. Really that's the big key here is people have that extreme confidence. Hey, Andy, I always think of this job like a sport, cause really it's not that much different. The great people in sports have extreme confidence that they're the best that they're achieving. The greatest things that they're the goats. And guess what the great people in the solar industry, they have that exact same mindset. They think they're the best and that's why they're having an extreme success.Speaker 2 (03:18):So to remember that just fresh on my mind as I get out of this podcast interview. So let's jump into this event, takeaway that I had and the main takeaways I'm going to given you are from Andy Frisella okay. If you haven't listened to my podcast on 75 hard, that was few months ago. Go check that out. And I would invite all of our listeners to go try 75 hard. If you haven't, it's going to get your brain on a different level, as far as thinking and breaking past limitations. So Andy Frisella, if you don't know him, just give a little background. He started a supplement company called first forum. That's formed with P H O R M and now he speaks on just kind of like politics. He's not like a politician like speak or whatever, but he just, um, believe deeply that our country's heading in the wrong directions.Speaker 2 (04:08):So that's what his podcast is focused on. Now it's called real AEF. So another highly recommended podcast, but he just has that hustle mindset. And he's, you know, tons of people listens. I think he has like the top business podcast. It's been the top business podcasts for years and he has just a mindset that I think can apply to our industry, um, and sells directly. He's been at for a long time. So he's one of the speakers I liked. This event is called driven. It's put on by Albert [inaudible] and for the event, review is a great event. The speakers world was probably one of the best speakers lineup I have ever seen at an event. Um, Albert, I will say, I'm not a huge fan of, uh, Albert Sophie's listening to this, then I apologize, but, um, didn't love his speaking, but he did bring a lot of Latino audience to the event.Speaker 2 (05:02):He's a Mexican and, and that was a big focus of his talk is that he had success being a Mexican and I'm like, dude, anyone can have success. It doesn't matter what race you are. I know there's limitations. But, um, anyways, that overall was a great event. And as always, always be looking for ways you can level up events, I think are one of the best ways is networking with other people and then learning from amazing speakers like this. So I want to jump into a few of these takeaways. You're going to be a quicker episode, but Andy Frisella, he just talked on basically that mindset. You need to have to push past your limitations and he gave five tips. I'm going to be given examples that we can use in the solar industry on this podcast today. And then just think about how can you apply these things in your life, in all areas, because what he talked about, it applies to everything.Speaker 2 (05:55):And that's why when we highlighting Frisella in specific, um, just because I thought it's most applicable and most takeaways I got that I can go do these things in change my results today, especially when it comes to solar sales. And then number two, cause he is actually, um, I guess I shouldn't say this, um, prematurely, but if he is hopefully coming on the podcast soon, so stay tuned for that. And um, that's line work, working out the details. So don't quote me on it yet, but I got a verbal confirmation. Hey Andy, for sale, it's going to be sick. Okay. So the first takeaway and first point he made is make sure you call your mind to your purpose, make sure you know where you want to go. And this mistake I realize I've been making right now, I've got a lot going on. I've got the podcasts, we're launching our society training platform.Speaker 2 (06:49):We're making some huge changes to that coming up very soon. So a lot of work with that. And then I realized that I lose. I've lost focus on really how many deals do I want to be closing a month? What's my purpose. Hey, what, what do I want to be doing with the money I'm making in solar? And one of my goals, favorite month, I've lost purpose. And I've lost really sight on the clarity that I used to have in solar. So I want to remind, especially the people that have been in solar for a while, make sure that you call your mind your purpose. Make sure you remember what, what's my crystal clear goal. What do I want to do with the money I'm making? And um, just remind yourself why you're doing it. Vision boards are a great way to do that. We talked about it before, but put your goal on your mirror, put it somewhere you can see and then remind yourself of that.Speaker 2 (07:41):Okay? Cause I go month after month, I've been in this industry, well almost six years now. And at this point, sometimes it gets easy for me. Am I okay? I'm just going to close. I'm just going to go for a couple of deals this week, where the guys that are having extreme success, they know, okay, this month I'm going to close 15 deals and here's what I'm going to do with that money I'm making, here's the investment I'm going to make. Make sure you have that type of clarity. And then number two, Andy talked about make up your mind that rules are set in stone. So he's in me. What does he mean by this? Basically just doing the hard things, even when you don't want to do them so we can apply this, especially when it comes to solar. Um, if we're out there on the doors knocking doors for trying to get in a specific amount of duels for trying to hit a specific amount of hours, what's the minimum.Speaker 2 (08:33):What's the minimum thing that you're going to let that you're going to do this today. Right? How many hours are you going to work minimum? So make sure you have, as a rule, that's set in stone for me, we recently did. We're going to knock, um, eat no matter how many deals we have that day, we recently started talking about at our company, okay, we're going to 15 doors minimum. Even if we have, I don't know, five, six deals that day five, six appointments. We're still going to go out and we're going to hit our 15 doors. Okay. So something like that. What's your non-negotiable what thing are you going to do? No matter what's maybe it's, you're going to follow up with five people no matter what every day. So set something in stone and make sure you do it in Andy. What I thought was really cool.Speaker 2 (09:21):He talked about when we start to compromise, it leads to complacency and then that complacency, it will lead to lack of confidence, which will eventually lead to quitting. And as he said that, I'm like, well, that is why a lot of people have quit in solar because they start compromise. They start compromising the little things that they were supposed to do that day. And then what does that do? Leads the complacency. Ah, I didn't hit, I didn't hit my 15 doors today. Um, yeah, I, I don't have to do that every day. I'll just do it when I'm feeling like it. Then that leads to the lack of confidence. And most people quit after that. Okay. If they don't quit, they're going to start making way less money and selling themselves short. So that was the second point. And then number three, he talked about, get your mind clear on the specific critical tasks that are essential for you.Speaker 2 (10:10):And if anyone follows Andy Frisella, he has something, he calls a powerless. I know he has like a planner. You can go buy a new this, but it was funny. He was talking about his planner. He's like, guys, I don't even have this planner to myself. To be honest, he doesn't even have his own product. He's like, you can do this on a piece of paper in a notebook. And his thing is, write down five critical tasks that must be done to consider your day a win. So I thought that's a great idea for people that maybe you've gotten some bad habits. Maybe you're not clear on what you need to do, do this. And your daily planning, try it, pick out the five things you need to do to consider that data win and all he does at the end of the day, he puts a w next to it.Speaker 2 (10:53):If he got it done, he puts an L next to it. If he lost, if you didn't get it done. And then once you execute a specific task for 21 days, you take it off your list. And at that point, hopefully it's a habit, right? If you miss three days of that thing of that thing, that's helping you win the day. Then that task must go back on the list. So for our Solarpreneurs, think about what five things do you need to do today? What are your five critical tasks? Maybe two, you need to knock the 15 doors. Like I was saying to maybe it's you need to make, um, knocks X amount of doors or talk to X amount of homeowners or get an X amount of appointments. If some of these things, obviously you can control more than others, but think about five things that you can control, the hours you work, the, uh, contacts you make the follow-ups you do.Speaker 2 (11:45):These are all things you can control. So what are things like that? And also, you know, just things that are helping you in your, in your, what are five things you can put on the list and then start to do that. And then you're going to see very clearly if you're winning or losing. So I thought that was a great thing. Something I'm going to start implementing right away. Then number four, he said, intentionally, focus your mind on what you will gain, not what you're giving up. This is a great tip. Just in general, anything you're trying to achieve. If you focus on the things you're giving up, it's gonna make it way harder to have success. He gave the example of like a diet, right? If you focus on, oh, I'm giving up my Twinkies, I'm giving up my Krispy Kreme donuts. I'm giving up my, uh, pizza hut.Speaker 2 (12:30):Like all these things. If you focus on that piece of it, it's gonna make it way harder to have success because your mind is so focused on your mind is gonna want whatever you're thinking about. Right? So if you're thinking about all that junk food, it's going to make it way harder to have success in whatever diet you're trying to be a part of. So that's a good example, but also it applies to sales, right? Um, if I'm out there knocking doors and I have fallen, I know cause I've fallen in this chap. Um, a lot myself is I'm focusing on, oh, I gotta go out and work. If I'm focusing on, oh, I need to knock five hours today. Um, this is going to, it's going to be hot out there. It's going to suck. My legs are going to be tired. All these things, the more attention you give them, the more it gets in your brain.Speaker 2 (13:15):That's no different whether you apply it to a diet, whether you play it to sales, whether you apply it, apply it to closing deals, whatever your mind thinks about that's what's going to happen, right. Law of attraction right there. So, um, consider that as you're outworking today, focus on the good things, right? Oh, I'm going to talk to 20 homeowners out here. That's all I need to do for me. That's a lot easier than I'm going to go out and knock four hours can be hot skin. My legs are going to be tired. Repeat at yourself. This is what affirmations are for. Hey I'm I follow a river Skinner guests we had on the podcast, but he puts out a great pod podcast and great content. He gives, he talks about affirmations or something that helps them all the time. As y'all, as he's out closing deals, he's on the doors.Speaker 2 (14:02):I love myself. I love myself. I love myself. I'm the greatest salesman in the world. All these things. You're going to repeat it verbally. And it's training your mind to think about those things rather than the negatives, right? So that's how you do it. And that's a great key to success as you're out there closing soul retails. And the last point before we wrap up is mentally transform negative emotions into triggers. Hey, and a great book. I would recommend, I think I've mentioned it before, but as the power of habit by Charles Duhigg, he talks about these triggers. Okay. So think about how you can transform the negative into a trigger for the positive. A N Andy said, emotions can't force you to do anything, understand, understand that your emotions are commentators, not commanders. Okay? So even if you feel depressed, overwhelmed, use those as triggers to go out and work harder.Speaker 2 (14:56):And Andy talked about that's how he's had success in all his businesses. Any time he calls him test days, anytime where he felt terrible, he didn't want to go work. He didn't want to push that day. Old days. He pushed even harder because he knew if he could train his brain to push, even when he felt terrible and didn't want to do anything that day, then it's going to make it that much easier when he did feel decent. So go and do it have a test day. We're all going to feel like not knocking doors, where I'm going to feel like not going to that next deal. We're going to feel like we suck, but if we can push past it and do it anyways, that's going to train our brain brain to have success and execute in spite of the negative day. And then go read that book power habits.Speaker 2 (15:41):It's a, if you want to get more in depth on it, Charles, do he, he talks about all the triggers and in our habits and really ways we can set ourselves up for things to be a trigger instead of a hindrance. So that those are some key takeaways. I hope you enjoy those. So I was, um, maybe a little bit over the, all over the place with my notes here, but I thought he had some super powerful things. We can start applying today in the solar industry, my Solarpreneurs. Let me know if you have anything else that helps you on those tough days. Look forward to connecting with you more. That's the episode today, send it to someone that needs help. And that's really what we're trying to do. We're trying to help as many people as possible. So don't forget push hard even when you don't want to.Speaker 2 (16:24):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's going on. Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong, your host here, and we have the first female guest ever on the Solarpreneur podcast. I'm super excited. So we got a Suli Zinck. Can I say your last name? Right. Zinc. Okay, so, so will you, thanks for coming on the show, I'm so excited to finally have a girl knocker on, so appreciate it. Appreciate you coming on,Speaker 3 (01:07):But I'll be honest. Taylor, yours was one. When I was looking into the solar industry, yours is one of the first ones that I like found. And I was like, oh, he there, there's not like a ton of like episodes, not a ton of people. This is definitely where I'm going to start because it's going to be like, he's going to be methodical and he's going to give you tips. And it's exactly been that since like what, when I started listening to you back in November. SoSpeaker 2 (01:32):Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I've been following your podcast too, and your story and, um, pretty amazing stuff. So yeah, I will say we've been, yeah, I've, I think I've scheduled a one or two other girls to come on and both of them like fell through, um, um, one of them, one of them like just no showing me and then like one responds. I'm like, all right, maybe I'm not going to chain get girls on if they do this. So maybe I left kind of bad days, my mother, but yeah. But God, we made it work and no, um, you guys are crushing it with your team and I know there's some powerhouse ladies in the industry, so I think it's important. And actually, I remember now that I think back, I remember one of my like lower reviews on the PA I think it was like three stars or something, but, um, one of the reviews was like, Taylor focuses so much on like guys, Neil, he just says, here's the thing guys. And like, he never brings on me in girl.Speaker 3 (02:27):They was like, that is going to be my one full year. And then we like failure by two of us. Go see.Speaker 2 (02:35):So yeah, that's when I realized, like, I, I gotta be, uh, you know, conscious that the ladies listen to the show and not, you know, just suggest everyone by guys and stuff like that. So glad we're making it happen though. Um, but yeah, so slowly, do you want to maybe get into your story a little bit? I know you just did an awesome interview on the, uh, the door knocker podcasts. So we probably won't go quite as in depth as you went on that podcast. So people go listen to that to you, if you want to hear kind of her full in-depth story, which was awesome. But I, yeah. Do you want to give us just a little bit of the background for people who don't know you on the podcast or?Speaker 3 (03:12):Yeah, so I'm Sui, Juliana, Zuli all the weird games. People call me on the doors, whatever floats your boat. But, um, I started in the door to door industry 13 summers ago. This is my 13th summer. Um, I just came in with like the mindset. If I was going to give up, you know, a good job, I was going to make it count. And I ended up my first summer, I just asked the team, they're like, Hey, what is the number one girl did, uh, how many accounts pest control accounts that she serviced the summer. And, and when he told me it was like three 11, I was like, all right. And, uh, but originally the person who recruited me, it was like, look, if everything fails and sucks, like I'll at least pay for your plane ticket, everything. So at least you had like fun while you're out here.Speaker 3 (03:58):And so those three weeks ended up turning into 13 years. Like later I ended up, uh, that girl had did three, uh, 3 0 9 and I finished with three 16 that summer. And then there was just no turning back for me in the door to door to industry. When I saw that there was just no cap on, on basically, uh, my pay, there's just a cap with companies. And so, um, once I realized that I was like, there's no way that I was going to go to a nine to five. And, um, two summers in, I get married to my husband of 10 years now. And then I recruited him to be my service pro and then I got in trouble for having to be a service pro because I would have him work through his lunch breaks. I would be calling him on Sundays. Like, Hey, we're going to go to these homes. And we're not even supposed to like, is a W2 employee.Speaker 2 (04:55):Like I'm a church, let me go to church.Speaker 3 (04:59):And so my branch manager was like, sweet. You can be doing this. Like, there's, this is, he works for us, not for you. And, and then the following summer, um, I, we had our first kid AMA I knocked until I gave birth to her on the doors, like eight months pregnant and still did more than like my team leader on the team. And it was just no turning back. Like I just, I just have one of those like mindsets. I just feel like I'm a little bit different in the sense, like, I, I I've seen the money. I've seen the success. I've seen what this industry can do. And I just now want to have a lot more women be in the same space.Speaker 2 (05:40):That's incredible. And no, I got mad respect because my wife she's actually, I think, seven months pregnant right now. So, um, yeah, but she's not, she's not moving much. Like I can't even imagine trying to get her out on a door. Yeah. Just imagining that, just blow my mind that you would even, you know, attempt to knock eight months pregnant. Um, so pretty incredible. Yeah. Um, have you, but yeah, I was wondering, have you always been like that competitive because I see, I don't think there's a lot of girls. They're like, oh, what's the, what did the top girl female rap do? And then want to beat it? Is it always just been like super competitive your whole life? Or where did that come from?Speaker 3 (06:22):Yeah. And so that's like one of the tips that I give to like men or people in general and the door to door to industry when they are looking at female reps in the sense of like who they're wanting to recruit, like any woman who's like been in like sports for more than one year, or I've done piano lessons for more than a year have been in karate for more than a year, or have done anything consistent that, that had a little bit of competition for more than a year. Those are definitely the people that definitely the girls that you do want to want to start with. And yeah, I was super competitive period, but, um, it's, it's weird because in the industry, like, I, my husband says it all the time. He's like, you're humble in public, but in private, you're not. And I was like, well, not like, you know, I'm just like, oh, good job. And like, whatever. And I'm like, how did they get right. That's how I have to do that tomorrow or whatever. But yeah. So those are definitely a quality that you want to look in, look for when you're looking for girls to recruit.Speaker 2 (07:24):Yeah. And I bet I can only imagine like Sunday game night at your house, you're gonna have to invite me over to one of those things. That's just likeSpeaker 3 (07:31):Been, and I are not allowed to play games together. We just don't do games because like he doesn't care enough and it bugs me. Like he won't even like compete in like UNO or anything like that. So we just don't do card games.Speaker 2 (07:49):Yeah. I won a competition. That's funny. Yeah. Well you can come next time. You're in San Diego, let us know because me and my wife, we get, we get into it quite a bit. So we'll play monopoly or something.Speaker 3 (08:02):I known to just pop up when people tell me like, Hey, just come over here at any time. I typically just go up.Speaker 2 (08:09):Okay. Well, let's do it. We'd love to have you, but no, that's awesome. So w what was your background? Were you like a sports background then? Or music or?Speaker 3 (08:20):Yeah, so I did soccer for a few years, actually got like a full ride scholarship to go and play soccer. I was just, uh, I played goalie, but I play like Ford. I also did basketball too, but I was like more of like the sucky offense player, but I was going to be like the best defense player. Like typically they were just always calling me just play events, but I wasn't that great of a shooter. I wasn't that great of an athlete. I was just competitive plus all.Speaker 2 (08:47):Yeah. That's awesome. Well, no, that's good. And yeah. I mean any, um, yeah, I think that applies to, you know, girls and anyone with a sports background. Um, yeah, you've probably seen it too, but guys that have like wrestled and done just those like kind of endurance sports too, I think are great at this because especially out on the doors, it's a mental grain, you know, andSpeaker 3 (09:11):Tracking McNeil piano, like anything consistently. Yeah.Speaker 2 (09:15):Yeah. So yeah, definitely a nugget right there as you're recruiting. Um, but no, that's cool. And so PEs, um, yeah, again, you can go listen to the other interview. I think you went pretty in depth in that soil, but, um, just the short version. Why did you decide to switch from a pest to solar then? And what was because I came from a pest background too. I don't know if you knew that, but I did it too, as summer's a pest control. And, um, you were much better than me. I would've, you would have destroyed me and pest. I think my best summer is like 120 accounts or something. SoSpeaker 3 (09:53):Yeah.Speaker 3 (09:54):They're low maintenance. Um, no, that's it, it was funny. That's actually how female knockers started. And so I did my first summer three 16, and then my very last summer, before I transitioned into solar, I was the number one rep in the company. I had serviced 1,012, uh, past accounts in like 156, uh, knocking days. But before that summer, before that summer, um, had started, I, you know, basically went to like the leadership about how we needed to have a program for women, uh, in the company. And it wasn't even like, you know, I'm not even trying to say like, Hey, girls are better than guys. Guys are better than girls. It's more of just like a space. And, um, just a little bit of awareness that I just saw. A lot of regionals and team leaders were flying to Vegas and Arizona and all these other states to basically recruit more men.Speaker 3 (10:53):And I'm like, why don't you just make this space a little bit more inviting for the 40% of people we're not even tapping into who are returning from their missions, who are doing all these things. And they're literally in our back yards. And, um, but basically I was just kind of dismissed a little bit. And so I was like, and this was before I did the thousand accounts. And so when I came home in September, just throughout the summer, I just seen how many women were rooting me on that didn't even know me. And they were just like texting me. And they were just like keeping track of like what I was doing during the summer, because I would just post weekly updates. And the amount of like women would just like reach out to me. I was just like, so like, it kept me going and I'm on a team where there's not even like women period.Speaker 3 (11:38):And so that was like the biggest thing for me. So I swore once the summer ended that I was going to do something to give back. And so I'm not a social media guru. I am not the, I don't even dress fancy. I don't even feel like I fit in with like the cool, proud, but I'm like, I'm going to start something. Even if it means that I just pay like out of my own pocket. And so I started, I finished knocking for pest control in September, and then I was like, I'm going to create a coaching program or a coaching platform for women in the industry. And it doesn't matter what the shirt that they're wearing, but I want to teach concepts that could be used in alarms that can be used in Bish that could be used in solar and whatever industry, basically for women.Speaker 3 (12:19):Because when we're going into a lot of these teams, a lot of the men are focusing their training. And it's just kind of like we forget about the emotional side. And I used to actually not want women on my team. And I thought, this is a way of me giving back and making up for that mindset that I bought into, of not wanting women on my team. And so in October, when I basically started this platform, I started recruiting, um, women just from different, I don't know, I wasn't recruiting. I basically created this coaching program and I put it out there and I was surprised at how many people I signed up and I wasn't doing it to be rich or anything like that. I think I had like 15 people and, um, I had some from vivid or alarms at some from past and, uh, some from dish and then from solar.Speaker 3 (13:07):And I'm coming from the highest summer that I've ever had in pest control, like off of this high, doing financially great. Like everything's great. And I felt like a hypocrite. I'm like, I'm over here, coaching women in the industry. And I only know pest control. So I was like, screw it. I'm going to go and do blitzes, like with everyone, just for it as a learning tool to be a better coach and to be a better mentor. And so I fell flat on my face when it came to alarms and bless the hearts of the people who do alarms. I'm never going to do that again. And then I wanted to dish and I was like, okay, you guys do not get paid enough. This is way too easy. And then I had this one girl who was on this team doing solar and crap. That's probably going to sound crappy on your and try to be on your, on your team.Speaker 3 (14:02):Yeah. And so I was like, you know what? Um, this girl had told me that, uh, she was the only girl and, um, no one on her team had made a cell for solar like that month. I, and I literally overheard teaching her concepts about like mental toughness. And the only reason that you're not going to get a deal is because you're not going out there, you know, on the doors. So I was like, all right, well, I've got to go do a blitz, um, with them. And so I ended up going and doing a blitz, um, with their team. And I basically fell flat on my face on, uh, the first three days. And I was like, what am I doing? And, uh, it was basically the competitiveness in me that I was like, there's no way that I can't like make this happen.Speaker 3 (14:48):Like I am telling this girl that I am like mentally tough and I can do all these things. Like I'm going to have to figure it out. There was no pitch for solar. There's no manual, there's no nothing. I basically wrote up a pitch. I basically just put everything together and I was all right. Um, and then finally, day three, I set a bunch of appointments before lunch and I ended up closing one and I closed one every day for the next three days. And I left with like 30 grand and was like, Chad, that was a fluke I have to do again. And so I invited a couple of my pest control buddies. We didn't tell anyone, it was just about five of us. And we would meet up every morning, just like we did in pest control. And like, again, there's no training, no nothing.Speaker 3 (15:30):We just do like, our role plays with each other. We shared our pitch and then we'd go set appointments before lunch. We were on the doors by like 11:00 AM, like every single or 10 30. And then every day each one of us comes on with a deal and we're going home with like 50 plus K a week, all of us. And I'm like, what? The crap. Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, it was from there that basically my solar journey started, but basically my, uh, female knockers page just kind of like evolved from that mindset. And from that little accident, like I always tell people that I got into solar by accident and hearing themSpeaker 2 (16:06):Wow, crazy. That's a cool story. And yeah, I mean, it's awesome. You're able to connect and cause I think that's a big issue with like, I don't know, maybe guy manager, stuff like that is maybe the girls feel like they can't understand their perspectives. Point of view. I know that's how it was for me. I brought out my sister-in-law actually, um, she really struggled. I wish this was like three years ago. So I wish, um, you would have been training in the solar space at that time because I was just like, I was like, all right, just get out there, knock harder. Just do it. She was, yeah. I mean, she was pretty emotional girl and I just, I didn't really know what to do. I'm just like, I dunno, just get out there and just go knock doors. So it was rough and um, you know, it didn't have a very good summer and everything, but yeah. What do you think like for you, what you've seen solely as your coach, all these female reps and, um, leading knockers and all that, have you seen that there's like, I don't know, maybe a way that they like to be coached or treated that's different than like the guy reps or what have you seen that? Uh, well I guess from a female perspective,Speaker 3 (17:18):Yeah. Well, one we're not teaching the concept of just, uh, how to compartmentalize our emotions because a lot of times we're talking about like women and how emotional we are, but men are just as emotional. But what you guys are really good at is compartmentalizing. Like you guys can put things aside and emotions and just go do what you gotta do. Whereas us as women, that's one thing is just, we're just not being taught how to put our emotions aside for how to put them in a box just for a short time, while we focus on what we need to do in front of us. And so I spent a lot of time just working on the mindset aspect in the sense of like how we compartmentalize, like how we can overcome anxiety, how is it that we can overcome like the negative things that are happening?Speaker 3 (18:03):Because once women can figure that out on your teams who like the, the success is going to be endless. And so like my whole goal in female knockers is not to have all of us women knocking on freaking ones on one team. But my whole goal is all of us, no matter what shirt that we're wearing, because we're all gonna ha we're going to be in different phases of our lives. But to be able to have that unity and know like, Hey, I'm going to have someone who's going to understand and have my back and root me on where I'm at exactly where I literally want to be a big sister in the industry for women in every aspect of like, you're there in pest control. Like let's figure out how you can level up in pest control, but you're going to have to start with your emotions.Speaker 2 (18:46):Yeah, no, I think that's huge because for me, I don't know if this is wrong, but what I've seen is pretty much any girl that can figure out the emotional part of it. I see them have success like that. The teams I've been on. Cause it's like, I don't know for me, it's like, it seems like people are nicer to girls. It seems like bill here at Mount Moore. Um, I was always jealous of that. I remember doing pest control. I'm like, man, you can get through like way more easier pitch than I can see.Speaker 3 (19:15):And it's true. And I focus on the reasons I, I focus on the things that we have a leg up on w w as women in the industry and that we can look at them as like strengths rather than, you know, rather than weaknesses. And I feel like in solar, especially for me, my emotional side and how emotion and like how much emotion I put into, like my deals. Like people feel it, like, it's, it's just a different dynamic than a guy who's just, you know, just going through it.Speaker 2 (19:42):Yeah. A hundred percent. But yeah. Um, for you to slowly, do you have any, I dunno, like stories or examples of times where you coach like some girl reps that maybe were struggling or super emotional and I don't know, I wanted to go home, things like that and like specific things you did to turn it around. I don't know if you have any examples of people you've coached or anything like that.Speaker 3 (20:03):So I'll be honest. Um, so I've actually had like a, a couple of girls actually just on my team. Um, and, uh, they have been in another industry and they'd been with another company and, um, they basically always do use their emotions and the negativity to get in their cars and to go home and to let it bleed over to the next to the next day. And then we worked together again and I actually had her come out and we started just focusing on all the positive things. We actually took away, all the things that, that was negative for her in her life. And the biggest thing was having a car. The biggest thing was being a driver. It was being the driver and how easy it was for her to be able to get back in the car, get over here, taking that one thing away because we recognize that that was like one of her weaknesses and where, what she would use to be able to, um, let it bleed over to the next day.Speaker 3 (20:59):She ended up being one of the top producers this year, just by focusing on that one little thing. Is she still emotional? Yes. Do we still have rough days? Yes. But we were able to see a lot, a lot more success just by taking away a couple of the little things that were triggers for her. And so I, and so a lot of the girls who reach out to me who are having emotional days and things that, that stink, we, we basically just work on, find out like what some of their triggers are. We remove some of those triggers and it just makes it a little bit better to focus on the things that they can control.Speaker 2 (21:31):Um, yeah. That I love that I reminds me of that you grid the power of habit, that book they talked about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Super important principle. And it's so true. Um, I think a lot of people struggle with that being the driver and whatnot, but it's like, if you're on a diet, you need to get the Oreos out of the kitchen. Right. Get the stuff that's tempting out of the way. It's not tempting, tempting anymore. This is the same thing. If you're struggling to knock the door or whatever, it might be that trigger, like you're saying, see if you can figure out a way to eliminate it because a lot of people just solves a problem instantly. Yeah. So, yeah. That's powerful. Um, and what about like for guys, let's say you're, um, uh, you know, a guy who's managing a team with girls, um, maybe you seen guys be super successful with it. And what would you say to like, like me, for example, if I manage a team I'm trying to help the ladies out. Um, would you have any tips for like a guy trained to manage the ladies on his team and help them coaching?Speaker 3 (22:32):Yeah. It's just going to be like focusing on the little things like, whoa, what a lot of people don't understand. It's like, women are not, we're not like, yes, we're, we're wanting equal pay and all these things, but the little things like really like, matter to us, like a shirt that actually fits a girl, like actually having incentives that doesn't include a freaking wallet. That's just a one or a pocket knife or like the little things just really go a long ways in the sense of like texting and actually calling like what I do and why I don't have a car partners as a leader and in my car, because I also use that time to be able to follow up on reps. Like I'm always like driving in from like an appointment or to a house or whatever. So I'm thinking about that rep who may have had like a bad day.Speaker 3 (23:22):And I'm thinking about that girl who talked to me about this and I'll shoot her a text or a call, or like, Hey, how are you feeling today? Like using that time in, that's a focus on the business in front of me, but take care of that. People around me as well. So every night, like when I'm coming home, I'm reaching out to someone on my team to just ask them how their day was to just to ask them like what it is that I can train on that would help them personally. And it's every day it's gonna be like a new rep. And so every one knows that I'm going to reach out and at some point or time and another, and it's just something so small as like calling them regularly and like, Hey, how was your day?Speaker 2 (23:59):Hmm. That's awesome. Yeah. How do you like, remember, do you have a system set up to like, I dunno, remember, oh, this is having a hard time or keep track of all their, I dunno how big your team is, but you have, I dunno, a system in place to remember, oh, I need to call this your app. Or they were struggling with this or their numbers are down or you just going to come to you while you're driving.Speaker 3 (24:20):So one it's my, I have a good relationship with all the girls that they're just like coming to me, but two, we have a group chat. So like on our group, me, if I see that someone doesn't have a set or if like someone's numbers, like is enough or, um, or it's, I just don't see like any doors knock or anything, like I'll reach out to that person and be like, Hey, what time today? Can I come and knock with you? Or like, Hey, and so I, I, based the day, like when it's, if I have like a no show or an appointment, that's not there, I'll go and look at group me and see who's produced and who isn't. And I'll just start from there. And then at the end of the night, when I am going home, I'm just starting with someone who actually texted me and reached out to me about like an issue or problem or something.Speaker 2 (25:02):Okay. I love that. And I like this. I like your point about the little things, the shirts and the incentives and stuff like that. Um, yeah. I didn't even think about that, but I can see why that'd be a big thing. It's like a shirt that fits.Speaker 3 (25:19):Yeah. Even just that, like I had some girls come over here from another company and they're like, what? The, like, they're different from them. Like these are actually like women's shirt. And I didn't realize like how big of a deal, like it was to them. And it was literally an $11 shirt.Speaker 2 (25:36):Yeah. No, that's true. Yeah. I'm just thinking of, I don't know if you watch the office, do you watch the office? I'm just, I'm just thinking of the one where Michael takes model to them, all the girls, like, like to the mall and take small than Victoria's secret. I remember that upset. So maybe not to that level, but I think that is really important. Just being, um, you know, aware that girls probably, maybe they don't want to go, uh, dirt biking for the day or whatever. Maybe they want to get.Speaker 3 (26:12):Maybe they don't want to go on a golfing trip for like a lot of little things.Speaker 2 (26:18):Yeah. Yeah, no, that's important. Um, so cool. No, that helps a lot. Um, and yeah, I guess I wanted to ask you too. How many people are you managing right now?Speaker 3 (26:31):So at the beginning of this summer, so like our whole team, there was probably for the whole summer, about 35 of us. And, um, so I had another co-manager and then there was like another guy on the team. We're just kind of like, I had recruited him, but he had like a bunch of guys. So we were just because we all came from pests, we just kind of wanted to stick together. And so, yeah, I think he had about a 15 and then I had about 25 of like my own. So we can kind of just like combine and ran the summer together.Speaker 2 (27:05):Yeah. Big team. And, and, sorry, I guess I, I know before we started the call here, um, yeah. We're just talking about how you don't like to call yourself the boss and stuff, but you're just almost like,Speaker 3 (27:17):Yeah. I like, yeah. I just want to be the sister. Like, even when I have the, the girls like introducing me and we're like, yeah, like this boss you see now my, no, I'm just like a team member. I was like, I never want to look at myself as above them. I truly look at them as like, especially on solar. Like my, my mindset is just a lot different. Like I truly feel that I'm an employee of them, but like, I need to continually like take care of them obviously to take care of myself first. But like they come first.Speaker 2 (27:49):Yeah. I'm sure that's a huge key to your success and they can feel, um, you know, that you really care about them. Appreciate them. Um, I'm sure you learned this on your mission and everything, but speaking of missions, I think that was one of the keys to success we saw in like our missions is the more you care about people, the more they're going to respond because it's like, oh, they actually want me to get baptized or whatever. Cause they love me. And they like for like, believe in this.Speaker 3 (28:18):Exactly. I probably kept people longer, you know, just because they're not a number then who I should have. And I have like some reps who are super protective of me or just like, why don't you let them leave? Like, you're just too nice. Like you're just like, and this and that. I'm like, Hey guys, it's a GSpeaker 2 (28:34):Yeah. I know. It's super important though. Like Zig Ziglar says the more people, um, you know, the more people know you care, I forget the quote, but when people see you care, that's how they're gonna, you know, respond to you and, and wanting to do business with you, tune on a team. Yeah. Um, but the point I was, I think what I was going to ask you before I got distracted by that is also like the family aspects of the way. So I know you're a mom. How many kids do you have now?Speaker 3 (29:04):So I have three. I have a nine-year-old I haven't about to be an eight year old and then a two year old. Mr.Speaker 2 (29:11):Okay. Nice, cute, cute. So that's impressive to me. I'm um, you know, I have one kid right now, one on the way here in a couple of months. And, um, so something that I really respect about you is just being able to do all this and have the level of success that you've been all that cheap. Um, while being a mom for three kids, I don't even know cause I'm with the one kid, I feel like I'm, uh, you know, already not there as much as I need to be and not the best dad at times, things that, so, um, maybe this doesn't apply to everyone who isn't a parent, but how do you manage your time being like a mom and being there for your kids and all that, how do you manage like the family aspect of everything?Speaker 3 (29:53):So I'll be honest. And I, one person that I love in this industry is Michael Donal. And, um, one thing that he talks about is seasons. And so I just, I, I no longer, um, you know, have this like guilt of what I used to when I was in pest control and I wouldn't see my kids. So till the, till the evening, but we have the mindset, like my kids understand it. And so to my husband, that there's a season that there's going to be a season for everything. And right now my season is going to be solar. My season is in this industry is basically just like building and being able to set up our family into a position to where that season is going to be just us and still because my, my, my husband is like bought in to like the fact of like seasons. We, we just have like that mindset, like right now, like, like this very second, it's just going to be a season and it's going to end. And I know that there's gonna be a season and a time and a place for me to be with my family and with my kids. And because we both just bought into it, it just, there's no more guilt. Like he's just a thousand percent in. And, uh, it just worked out.Speaker 2 (31:02):Yeah, no, that's true. Yeah. I do remember Michael Donald talking about that too. And anyone that has a family, um, that's a topic I love is like the whole work-life balance, but any successful person I hear, they always, they say pretty much the same thing. There's no like balance. There's just gonna be ups and downs, different seasons times when you're focused on different things. Right.Speaker 3 (31:23):But when we are with our family, it's like, we are with our family. Like my husband has to intentionally like turn off my phones and put things down and, and things like that. So he's like, okay, this second, the season, this time, this moment is for us. And I'm like, you're right. So it's just about communication and working it together.Speaker 2 (31:44):Uh, your husband's name is Walter right of that. What does Walter think of all this is he, uh, I know he's probably used to the old kind of sells life by now, but does he, uh, is he kind of the stay at home dad then while you're off slinging deals? Or how does that,Speaker 3 (32:00):Uh, so it's just kinda like funny, cause people are like, well, you know, they'll try to like, get me to talk to like these women who have kids and like try to recruit them and try to do that on my guys. There's, you know, there's hot buttons and not every woman is as mobile as me, or has like a companion who, who is willing to sacrifice. Like my husband was, he had a great job. Like he loved it. He was going to school. He's making like six figures. He was doing all those things. Um, but he saw that my season was going to get us to our end goal a lot sooner. And so when COVID hit and, uh, he just saw how anxious it was going to be for me to worry about a babysitter for our kids, not being at work, the different things like that.Speaker 3 (32:41):He decided that his season was to be the best day at home dad. Like he legitimately is a lot more patient of a father. He's a great cook. And he freaking takes care of the house a lot better than me. So, you know, roles are, are, are, are different for everyone. And so he enjoys our kids. He enjoys the season, he enjoys cooking. He enjoys, like, he knows my stats better than me. Like he's always kept spreadsheets. He, he knows what I did from like my first year in pest control. Like it's a sport to him. Like he can tell you which rep that I competed with, which month can tell you, he can tell you which company, which rep has the best rep. And like, he it's like the NBA for him, like thrives off of my life. And so he is just so bought into it that he just saw how much less anxiety that I would have by him doing a great job at home with the kids. So we never questioned me being gone and one parent being home with the kids and he's just an all star stay at home dad. So,Speaker 2 (33:44):Wow. He's like the analytic he's he has all this stats and analytics down and it's almost like the side by side announcer for,Speaker 3 (33:52):Yeah. He texted me, Rick texted me the other day and was like, Hey, I'm knocking in Nashville. And I know you, I know you slayed it over here. Like, what cities did you do? Well, and I'm like, I have no clue. Give me a sec. I'm going to text the hubby literally in 30 seconds, that hubby texts me a list of places that I did well. And I sent it through and he's like, oh, whoa.Speaker 2 (34:13):Oh my gosh. That's incredible.Speaker 3 (34:16):So he thrives off of like the door to door industry and he's just the cheerleaders.Speaker 2 (34:22):So do you ever come back to him and like, I don't know, a slower day or anything and he'll like, be slinging off the stats, say, you know, how many doors did you talk to? How many homeowners starts going through stats like that to make sure you,Speaker 3 (34:35):We would get in arguments. Like it had to get to the point where like, he, because I would be in like competitions for the past and whatnot. And like, I do not pay attention to numbers. That's like one thing about me. Like, I will not look at stats. I will not check them throughout the day. And when I come home, just like, you know, if you would've only did one more account, I'm like, he's secretly like it because he knows that I don't check it. It like stresses him out because he's like wanting you to win. And he knows that I just care less than he knows.Speaker 2 (35:11):That's awesome. Here. We might have to have him on the show and go through like the stats to hit, to be successful on the doors or whatever.Speaker 2 (35:23):That's awesome. Well, no, that's, that's good. And always helps a ton to have a supportive spouse and, um, you know, be, make sure you're on the same level one to explain to them that their seasons and make the time. Um, yeah, one of our interviews, Ashton, I don't know if you know Ashton Boswell, but, um, he's over like VP of sales at legacy, but that's one of his big secrets. Is he coaches all his reps just on, um, I think he says having him set aside just like one day a week or one evening, a week, go on your date night or whatever. And that's like his big thing. He's like, yeah, he's like set aside one night. Do your date night, take a break from appointments.Speaker 2 (36:04):So I thought that was cool. And that's like something, he coaches all of his reps. Like I'm sure whether they're married or not. He's like go on a date or whatever I needed to do that I'm here. So, so, so that's cool. And I love to about hearing about people, is that just the way that their seasons and the ways they make at work? Um, so yeah, speaking of seasons Suli I know before the recording, we were just talking about how you sort of brought the whole pest control idea of the summer sprint over to solar and you guys are obviously crushing it. Um, how, how many deals is your team doing on these like blitzes and stuff? What's like an average blitz. How many deals would you say you guys do?Speaker 3 (36:42):So basically my team and a, it was like 136 days. We sold a 4.7 megawatts. Uh, we had 3.9, uh, still in the pipeline to have been installed in. Uh, we've still got 1.9 and that's in a hundred and, uh, 37 knocking days that we have in the summer. So,Speaker 2 (37:07):Oh, again, you guys are just in Texas, right? Or any otherSpeaker 3 (37:11):Just in Texas. Yeah, we just, uh, we just traveled different cities here in Texas. We just call ourself the pure blood squad. And, uh, we do, uh, 18 days on and we'd do a full week off and I make people go home. I'm like, I wasn't supposed to run a team. I was literally going to do one week a month for a whole year and call it good. But the whole team thing came by accident and just organically. And I was like, I'm supposed to be traveling. So if I'm going to do this, we're taking a week off and I'm going to go live my life. And so it's why people see a lot of like traveling stuff like throughout the summer. Cause I'm like, because I'm making the schedule I'm choosing even and make people go home. So it's been kind of night.Speaker 2 (37:52):Yeah. That's cool. And so you have a house out there in Texas or what's like,Speaker 3 (37:57):So we don't, so all of my we've been doing like Airbnbs and so I'm actually closing on a, on a property here, like right now in Texas, because the housing that I've spent on rabbis have just been like crazy. And so I'm basically just setting stuff up to where I'm not having to, to, to worry about housing, but, um, we've been in Airbnbs all summer.Speaker 2 (38:20):Okay. And so when you, when you get your house closed on, is that, are you just going to still be traveling around and then go back to your house for that week still?Speaker 3 (38:29):Yeah, like literally the like, I'm, I'm kind of like in no man's land, I like our, this property that we're going to get, it's literally going to be a rental. It's literally going to be on Airbnb, like the rest of the year. But during the summer it's going to be used to house reps because I'm cheap and don't want to keep spending 20 grand a month on housing. And so I'm like finding a way to like how's reps. And then like my place in Utah is like rented out and I have tenants on the top and bottom and like, our properties are like rented out and I live nowhere. Like I am like thisSpeaker 2 (39:03):[inaudible]. Yeah.Speaker 3 (39:05):And so until I settled down on solar and I kind of want to ride this tax credit, I'm just, I'm just not choosing a place to be, but I'm going to everywhere.Speaker 2 (39:15):Yeah. Might as well that's you guys are crushing it. And so like, is this, you're doing it all year round, just this blitz model though, or you just,Speaker 3 (39:25):So we weren't supposed to do oppose these. And that was another thing. Like, all this stuff just happens. It's like my team grows and people wants different things. And so we were, I was supposed to be done in August and then I had girls on the team. It was like local. I want to transition into closing or I want to like, get a head start for like next summer. And then it's like, Hey, I want to recruit this person. So basically what my post season is, it's just like, it's, they're just low key vivant schedule where I'm just allowing people to come and test it out. And I'm actually like looking and, and sharpening the sob, like people that I want to be leaders to take over next summer, but I only want to be a summer program. The reason people just still see me working right now is because I'm prepping training and recruiting to set up a good next summer model. Oh,Speaker 2 (40:09):Okay. Interesting. That's cool. And I don't, to my knowledge, I don't know if there's anyone else doing just like a pure summer model in solar, is there?Speaker 3 (40:19):No, no, no. It's it's, it's why I refuse to let it fail.Speaker 2 (40:25):Yeah. Pulling up by the teeth. Um,Speaker 3 (40:30):Yeah. So this is my, uh, I'm definitely sharpening things up and putting a lot of things together and place to basically set up for April 1st when we started again. So,Speaker 2 (40:40):Yeah. Wow. And yeah, what's incredible is you guys are in this summer, I'm sure you've done more than most like year round solar gummies. Like there's probably not too many year round solar companies that do that for the entire year, let alone a summer. That's incredible. So what's your arguments, I guess. Would that just come from pest control or what's your argument? Why did you even try to just do that when everyone else in the solar industry's doing all year round, what's your argument for this?Speaker 3 (41:10):So, because I, I actually dabbled in a couple of solar companies before I came here. And again, like, I, I I'm new to this. It's like, I don't even know what I'm doing. It's why I reached out to so many people in solar before I even started. Because like, I know if I'm coaching people who don't know what they're doing, that I need to be taught and be coached, what I don't know. And from the solar places that I've been and the, and the different companies, what I saw is just, it's just a lot easier to be relaxed when you live in the location that you're knocking. It's why I would never knock in Utah when I was doing pest control. The summer that I did, I spent more time at my auntie's house. I spent more time with my grandparents. I spent more times at barbecue than I did like actually knocking doors.Speaker 3 (41:55):And so I just had that same mindset. I was like, look, if I can convince people to leave their homes and come to a place where they have no friends, or they don't have no family members, like, aren't they going to work just a little bit quick? Aren't they just going to work a little bit longer? But the reason I wanted to change it from the way that pest control dynamic was where it was literally just going stay for the full summer is because I felt like there wasn't enough of a break, like mental space, like physical breaks. It was just go, go, go. And I wanted to find like a happy medium. And so I saw when people can see the light sooner, or they can see the end a lot sooner, they're gonna work a little bit harder. So I want it to have end dates every single month that people could be like, look, it's 18 knocking days. Anyone can do anything for 18 knocking days, as opposed to saying, Hey, for 365 days out of the year, and let's just go knock three or four hours every day. Yeah, no, that was what it was for me. I just knew that people were just going to be a lot less laxed when they saw that there was going to be an end date each month. Yeah.Speaker 2 (43:02):No, that makes sense. And yeah, I was telling you before we started the recording, that a lot of this stuff is you're describing like what I do, and I can see that my numbers are just cause in my head, it's like, I'm doing this all year round. I don't need it more than three or four hours a day.Speaker 3 (43:19):So we lived there.Speaker 2 (43:22):Yeah. And I've seen that. I think that's the curse of the solar industry. Is everyone coming like so many lazy reps, that's the big thing. And then solar understanding, because you won't see this level of laziness in it, like any other door knocking companies, but it's,Speaker 3 (43:37):We also like miss out on a lot of things too. Right. There's some people who just need like an extra week to think about it or like, so I feel like we have lost some deals because it's like we are coming in and going from like different cities that we basically set up appointments for like other solar companies to come in and take a bath, you know? So the it's pros and cons, I feel like.Speaker 2 (44:01):Yeah. Yeah, no, that's true. But yeah. I mean, it's just like, if you can get in there close the deals, um, you guys do a lot of like same day appointments. Do things like that as your,Speaker 3 (44:12):Especially. Yes. Like it's like same day or die. It's like same day next day. And like, period. And I just, I just incentivize like so much on same day as the next days that it just like, we, we push it like so hard.Speaker 2 (44:25):Yeah. No, I think it's no secret. I think that's how people do high numbers. Um, in solar that's all Mo fall. I don't know if, you know, morphology keep bringing up these successful people in the industry, but that's basically, I think what he did do, he just brought over what was working in alarms and other industries and apply it at a solar. And now they're doing a similar thing to you blitz and all over the place. And I'm just working hours,Speaker 3 (44:49):Same day tips. I, I remember listening to, I was like, this is money if people aren't doing this and solar they're.Speaker 2 (44:56):Yeah. It helps that done. So, yeah. Um, how would you, like, I dunno, maybe someone that's used to working just a year round model, um, like myself I'm use, I'll be honest. I haven't knocked more than probably four or five hours in a day for, I don't know, probably like six months at least just because that's what I get, you know, book my same day or whatever. And I'm like, sweet. I'm off the doors. Just hit up that appointment, go close it. And so how do you turn around? I don't know if you've brought in recruited people that are used to that model and maybe have some, uh, laziness in them of not knocking as much and coming out and doing a blitz. Do you have any tips for like how to break that or how to, um, shift that mindset to going to like a blitz model versus just doing like three, four hours a day? Maybe like you're used to as a year-round rep.Speaker 3 (45:46):Yeah. So it's hard. I'm actually dealing with that. Like right now it was like people who've been doing like your and, and stuff like that. And so I basically managed the expectation and it's why I like the Airbnb model because I let my reps know at the very beginning, like, Hey, these 18 days are for you to judge me. And for me to judge you at the end of the 18 days, you know, if you feel like this is the team for you, if you feel like, great, Hey, like we're going to move on to the next blitz. But it's also for me to be like, Hey, if I feel like your negativity or your mindset, or you're just not adding value to this team being, it allows me to be able to be like, Hey, the Airbnb ends at this date. Like, that's it.Speaker 3 (46:25):And it's one of the biggest reasons why I want it to have Airbnbs because I just didn't know how well these people were coming and going and what the dynamics would look like. So for one, letting them know that at the very beginning that, Hey, every single blitz is a trial and at the end of the 18 days, if we're going to work together and it's going to be great, Hey, I'll book you another Airbnb. But if it's not, we're going to have to part ways and be friends. And so when people have that expectation that every blitz was going to be a trial and that there was a certain amount of kilowatts. So I actually, every single month in order to not be charged their rent back, they had to hit certain milestones. And so people were always doing at least the minimum and that's all I required minimum as well as a positive attitude.Speaker 3 (47:08):And if they have those two things they could keep coming on. And so when I have like some of the, the year round reps are coming in and they're like, holy cow, I've never knocked six hours in a day. And like, not like, I'm not sure if this is for me. And so it makes it to where the expectations are already there and they can approach me. And I don't have to be the bad guy about like, this is what our team is prepping for next summer. If it works great. If not the solar industry is endless and plenty of people will take.Speaker 2 (47:37):Sure, sure. No, I think that's so important though. In so many solar companies, aren't doing that setting expectations with their reps, especially your own well, yeah, as most companies are a year round, I think that's super important for our listeners. Even if, um, you know, maybe you are doing three, four hours, but set the expectations, the milestones that people need to hit, because it's like, you can go get mad at them for not producing, but if they didn't know they needed to close two deals that week or whatever it was then, I mean, how can you get mad at them? You know, they didn't know what the expectation was. Yes.Speaker 3 (48:10):Yeah. People milestones and give them a, give them something to work towards or else there's going to be like, you know, there has to be like consequences or there has to be something in order to hurt a little bit.Speaker 2 (48:19):Yeah, definitely. And um, yeah, no, we'll, we'll, uh, we're running a little bit short on time. Don't want to keep you super late. I know we're going on like 10 o'clock there your time, which you said you're a night out, so that's cool. Um, but yeah, last couple of things. So we what's your guys' schedule for a blitz. What is your, I know you're saying 18 days on then a week off. What's like your schedule during that Boyd, do you have meetings every day? Or what does that look like?Speaker 3 (48:45):Oh yeah. Like that's like a big thing. Like when I brought other people, they're like you guys meet every day and I'm like, you don't, you guys even learn. So we, uh, we basically meet at 10:00 AM. Every single morning. We train from 10 to 10 45, our reps around the doors between 11 and 1130. We knocked from 1130, till three o'clock. Then we have lunch from three o'clock to four o'clock and then they're knocking from four o'clock to dark Monday through Friday. And then on Saturdays, we only not sell four o'clock now. And then Sundays, no one works unless they want to.Speaker 2 (49:20):Okay. Awesome. Now, are you, uh, for meetings, you guys swap and trainings or, uh, do you kind of run it?Speaker 3 (49:28):No, it's never a guessing game. Like there's some I'm OCD and, uh, that's one thing with women, women, uh, of reps. They, they want to know that there's a little bit of a structure and I feel like I kind of overly structured. So to go into those meetings where like, Hey guys, what do you guys want to learn about today? What do you guys want to look like one it's showing your team that you don't really care. You didn't really put a lot of effort and thought into what it was that they were struggling in the day before. So me and my other co managers, yes. Each single day, we would have like, one of our lead, our lead setters would take one day. We would take a day, uh, and, uh, we would rotate. And so every single day there was going to be a planned lesson, a planned discussion.Speaker 3 (50:10):We going to make sure every single day that everyone had time to be able to role play, but we would have a concept every single day. And then we would incentivize on the doors based on those concepts. Hey, if you go and do like this concept that we taught today or whatnot, you're going to be able to receive XYZ. So every single day we are training, we are role playing. Um, I just don't believe in this once a week, zoom meeting that a lot of solar companies do and just kind of like let their reps come and go like, yeah,Speaker 2 (50:39):Yeah, no, that's, I think that's super important. I noticed that too, actually, I'm with, uh, um, Jason newbie in his squad if you know him, but that's one of the things that he brought over the, I saw like an instant boost in people's numbers. It's just like meeting, because number, I think in my opinion, the main purposes, if you meet people are gonna actually gonna go out and work, right. Like if you're not going to meet the likelihood that people drag themselves out and actually go out like way lower. Yeah.Speaker 3 (51:10):Girls it's like, how do you get out of your car? Like, how do you get to area? Like, how do you do all these things? And like, the biggest thing is they're meeting once a week, so It's not their fault, butSpeaker 2 (51:23):Yeah, no, it's because yeah, I brought other people on that are seen way more success do meaning every day. And it's like, you show up, you got your game clothes on, you got your, a game base, you just get in the right mindset versus you trying to drag yourself out and, and, uh, do it all yourself. So I think that's a big secret for people that are managing teams are trained to boost their numbers, maybe consider meeting everyday, or just doing mini blitzes. Because I think that might be the future. I'm seeing almost more and more people I bring on, even if they are year round, they're doing mini blitzes like that throughout the year and going to different areas and mixing it up because yeah, it is, it is tough.Speaker 3 (52:02):So makes it more fun. Yeah.Speaker 2 (52:05):Well, Zoe, um, we appreciate you coming on the show and, um, don't want to take up your entire evening. Hopefully you got some dinner. Um, but if people want to find out more about, I know you got your own podcast and everything, so do you want to tell people where they can find out more about you and possibly, I dunno, I dunno if you're still running coaching or whatever you're doing. So let's hear about that.Speaker 3 (52:28):So you can find me on female knockers, uh, unite. Uh, I do do coaching, but since solar was just so new and I feel like I'm just trying to put like so many things together for me. I want to be intentional. Um, and so right now I'm just doing a lot more educating just on my female page, my female knockers, you can I'm uh, also my podcast is sales with Suli twice a month, every single month I'll drop some nuggets. Uh, basically the same thing that I teach in some of my coaching calls, um, and things like that. And so, um, you can find me on Spotify and all the same spots. So you can find Taylor for pretty much.Speaker 2 (53:06):No. Yeah. Awesome podcasts. I've been listening to them. They are. So, um, yeah, they play it at home. Guys can listen to them too. Right. It's not just girls.Speaker 3 (53:16):I have them episodes in there just for the guys. So check out the title.Speaker 2 (53:20):Yeah. And I fall a female knockers United page. So I think guys got me if I'm wrong, I guys are allowed to fall that through. Right.Speaker 3 (53:28):It's an open publicSpeaker 2 (53:33):Gopal that is dropping in great content in there. And yeah, I learned a ton from her podcasts and stuff. She shares, so go shoot or a follow. So I slowly thanks for coming on today. And before we let you go, do you have any, like, I dunno, final tips or things you wish you knew first getting in solar industry that you want to share with our solar printers before we say goodbye here.Speaker 3 (53:52):Yes. Definitely find people who have content. I remember the first solar company that I started with one, they basically gave everyone two shirts because they basically planned on you or one shirt because they planned on you never coming back. So that's already like a red flag for me. Um, but two, if you're going to find someone who is going to train you, who is going to basically teach you from a to Z exactly what to do, you're definitely going to find success, just control the controllables and just focus on the little things. It doesn't matter which industry you're in. You're going to find success. If you just focus on the things you can control. So no,Speaker 2 (54:28):I appreciate that. So guys, go give Sulia follow control. The things you can control, like she just mentioned and make sure you find a good mentor. Cause I think those are the keys to having success in the industry for sure. And have meetings every day.Speaker 3 (54:42):Yeah. Thanks so much Taylor for having me like literally, I, I I've found rolled your, your podcast for like a while. It's literally one of the reasons that I have the success that I do and I, I share your podcasts with everyone.Speaker 2 (54:55):Uh, thank you so much. That means a ton then that's like why I've kept it going. So I love hearing comments like that. Appreciate you Suli. So go give Suli follow and Suli we'll be in touch. Thanks again for coming on the show. HaveSpeaker 3 (55:07):A good one. Yeah.Speaker 2 (55:10):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's going on Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong back with another week, another episode, and I hope you are crushing the fall. We are getting into the fall weather, perfect time to knock. And I just got back from an event myself. Um, it was called driven. So I will preface this episode. We got back at, uh, 4:00 AM last night. Um, it was up in LA the event and I'm down in San Diego. So I'm recording this because I'm not gonna miss out on some fire content that we need to drop this week, but I am a little out of it. So if things don't make sense, they, I apologize in advance, but we're going to have a great episode. So let's get right into it. My name's Taylor Armstrong, and I'm here to help you take your solar sales game to another level, by closing more deals, journey, more referrals, and hopefully having a much better time in the solar industry.Speaker 2 (01:39):Hope you're doing well this week, I wanted to do something a little bit different, and that is we're going to focus on our friends, our dear friends, the ladies in the solar industry. I've never done this before. And the reason I'm kind of calling this, the women focus week is because we have, um, one of my friends Suli Zinc she's coming on the next episode, we had an awesome interview with her. She had some just, I thought amazing advice on how to basically better treat women in the solar industry, how to make them feel more included in, you know, in your sales teams, in your organizations, and then just how to help them really, um, sell to their potential. And I mean, it complied to guys too. So if you're a guy listening to this, don't miss out on these episodes because don't get me wrong slowly.Speaker 2 (02:35):She's one of the top sellers in the solar industry. So she knows her stuff, but they're the reason I think this applies a lot to, you know, the guys in the industry is because let's be honest, it is a male dominated industry we're working in, but almost every sales team they're going to have probably a few ladies on the team do. So how can you get them to maximize their potential? And how can you make them feel included in the team? How can you treat them with, um, you know, respect and make sure they're getting their needs taken care of? Because as a guy, I didn't know, I didn't really know how to do this. I'm still trying to figure out how to do this case. We get girls on the team. And I think at times me leading our teams out here in San Diego, I don't think I've done a good enough job at helping the ladies, you know, feel more included in maximize their potential.Speaker 2 (03:30):So I'm going to talk about a few of my mistakes on this episode, and then I'm going to give just a little preview of, um, you know, what I've learned from mistakes I've made and then things coming up on the next episode, because I think next episode with soil, you're going to hear just a, you know, the raw stuff, the things that are helping her and things that she's, uh, has seen that haven't gone the best on teams. She's been a part of. So with that being said, let's jump into it. Um, my really first experience selling with ladies in this industry, I guess a couple of stories to start all this off is I started out on pest control. As many have heard on the podcast. This was back in 20. Uh, what was it? 2012. Yeah, summer of 2012, Dallas, Texas. And I remember starting out in the summer, um, one girl that started out with me.Speaker 2 (04:21):She was also a rookie sales rep. Her name was Alyssa and me and her, me and Alyssa. We started out about the same, but I remember after a month her sales just started exploding. She was getting like four or five deals in a day, which pest control. That's pretty decent day. I was lucky to get one or two. Right. And again, I wasn't that good at pest control, but I'm like, what is this girl doing? And then I remember I started to kind of like envy her. I'm like girls have it so much easier. I mean, she's, good-looking people are listening to her, she's flirting with the guys on the doors. Like how can I compete with that? So it became kind of a limiting belief in my head. I'm like, I'm never going to catch up to this girl in girls. I think having an advantage that way.Speaker 2 (05:07):So if you're a lady list in the podcast, I mean, you want to maximize the advantage. Not that you need to be all flirty and whatnot on the doors or in your sales, but the advantage they have is people open up more generally, I would say to the ladies on the doors, right? Because they come across less intimidating. They come across, um, you know, especially if you're a guy answering the door, then you're probably going to be nicer to that lady on the other side of the door, you're probably going to hear her out a little bit more. That's the unique advantage. I think they have. That was my first experience selling with a girl. And she crushed me and sells as a lot of girls. You know, there's a lot of superstar girls sown out there today, but then what happened, I started to have, I would say kind of a negative, um, per special in that that's where I've gone a little bit wrong.Speaker 2 (06:00):That's where I've, um, not been as good of a leader, especially with women as I think I could have been had, I did a two-year mission as many. You probably also know I went to Columbia, south America. And in my mission, we were, um, they assigned district leaders, which I was a district leader. That's basically imagined like a manager for a year, a little, uh, branch of missionaries or a little like group of missionaries. Typically you're in charge of, I don't know, maybe six other missionaries. So a few times in my mission, I had to, um, I had to, you know, basically help out these sister missionaries. They were, that's why they call them, call them brother, sister in the church. Um, but I had helped these two ladies out that were in our little group or organization there in Colombia. And I just remember it was good working with them, but I also got kind of like a negative thing in my head working with them.Speaker 2 (07:01):Um, I had to deal with problems. We would meet with the leaders in the church. And unfortunately, um, one of these sister missionaries, she was causing some problems. If any of you have been to like the Latin American culture, you know that they love it when you eat their food, if you don't eat their food that they give you, it's almost like a slap in the face. So we had one sister missionary that did not want to eat peoples figured she would reject it all the time. And boy, these people in the church there, um, they were super mad about it. So I went to church every Sunday and people in the church would come up and Hey, this girl, she didn't eat our, uh, Juni, our chicken and rice, or we seen Spanish I'm in Colombia. So I would deal with that. And I'm like, oh my gosh, why can't these girls just, you know, do what they're supposed to do.Speaker 2 (07:53):So I tried to help them out. And, but I think I could've done a lot better at the time. That's where the first sort of negative started is. I don't know. I just, like, I just thought, oh man, I'm better. I'm better off just like working with guys. I don't want to do what the drama, I don't want to, um, you know, deal with that. And I'm not saying all girls are like that. Okay. But I didn't know how to really help this sister missionary out. I think I could've done a lot better. Maybe understanding her point of view, seeing where she's coming from, but I pretty much just like, man, you need to knock this off at the time. And then my second negative experience, that's the last one I promise. And then we'll get into some points when I'm talking about this is I had my sister-in-law.Speaker 2 (08:41):She came out and sold for the summer. This was back in 2017. When I was first getting into solar, I had my sister-in-law come out and it was just a terrible experience the whole summer for she was living with us in our apartment, which was fine, but I don't think she had one deal closed the entire summer. So this is where I kind of just like had even more of a negative I'm like, all right, I don't want to like deal with these girls. These girls sales are ups anymore. They're just, yeah, they're just too hard. I just kind of made up this story in my head that girls were going to be too hard. I was just better off dealing with guys. And I talk about this a little bit in the episode with SWE, but you know, basically my sister-in-law, she would, uh, not really meant for sells, so maybe she should have, you know, figured that out sooner than later, but she would just, you know, go on the curving cry and it just wasn't, it wasn't a good experience for, so that's the stories I told myself.Speaker 2 (09:47):So why am I saying all these things? Just because I, now I know that after seeing all these girls crush it in the industry, now I know the reasons you should have girls on your team. If you can help them really channel their potential and become successful. The girls I've been seen, uh, you know, have success since a few of these more negative experiences have been some of the best sells or ups I've seen. I've had a couple of my team. They've been superstars. Obviously we have people like Suli. Um, another one is solar Lily in the industry and they're just dominating if they can figure out how to channel this potential and push past the rejection. Cause really, I think that's the biggest thing that probably the ladies need to overcome. And slowly talks about this too. You'll hear more about it. If you can help them get over the, like the mental part of it, then girls just naturally I think, you know, the girls have like the talking part of it, the selling probably you down a lot more naturally than most guys in my opinion.Speaker 2 (10:59):So that's why now more than ever, if you can find these girls, if you can help them channel their potential, they're going to be number one, super loyal. Cause that's what the ladies in this industry do. They are super loyal. If you can treat them right and help them discover their potential, and then they're going to be superstars. If you can help them get past that mental peace and help them feel inclusive. Okay. So that's why you really need to learn to manage the girls on your team and make them feel good. And I've been, um, putting off, having a girl on the podcast for a while now. Um, that's why I'm so excited that we finally got solely on the show. Um, but the first sort of negative review I had on the show was this was about a year ago. She said, um, lots of good info, but I love for the hosts and guests to try to be more inclusive with their wording regarding sells reps.Speaker 2 (11:59):I am a woman sales are up. So when you discuss girlfriend or wife at home or the guys or the boys that doesn't apply to us, it makes us feel out of place in excluded. We are here and we are kicking butts, selling soil as well. Pre please recognize this. So green gorgeously, I apologize publicly on the podcast for not making you feel more inclusive. That's my bad. And that's one of my goals in the podcast is to try to help the ladies in this industry feel more inclusive. So hopefully I've done a better job at that. This was a year ago. And when I saw that, I'm like, man, I'm totally doing that. I'm just talking about the boys. I'm talking about the guys. I think I was kind of probably just dwell. I'm more on the negative that I don't want to like, you know, have girls on my team and I really want to help him anymore.Speaker 2 (12:48):So I apologize for that green gorgeously, whoever you are. And I hope you're still in the solar industry. I hope, hope you're doing well. Maybe that was silly. I don't think it was, but maybe that's silly. That wrote that was a four-star review. So thanks for not making it worse than that, but that's my first tip for you guys or whoever you are leading a team, even if you're just a rep on a sales team or if you're whatever independent, you're your own dealer, whatever girls you deal with, try to make them feel inclusive. If you're running meetings, if you are running incentives. So what can you do? How can you make these people feel more inclusive? Maybe that's if you're in a meeting, you're not saying, all right, boys, let's go let's you want to get them fired up. But think about the language you're using in my case right now, we only have, yeah, we, um, currently we actually don't even have any girls on the team.Speaker 2 (13:46):We had a few, they balanced. So that's one of the challenges we're trained to face right now is how can you get girls on the team? If you have, you know, 25, 30 guys, how can you get girls in their film comfortable? And like they're part of the team, if they're the only ones selling with you. So I think it starts with that. Try to figure out a way for them to feel included. What are you doing in your own Santos? What are you doing in your team activities? Do you think girls would feel included in that? So think about that. As you're trying to recruit girls on the team, as you're running these sales, meetings, whatever you're doing, how can you make them feel more included game that goes, you know, think about every person on your team. Obviously this can apply to guys too.Speaker 2 (14:30):Okay. So that's step number one. And then I've got two more tips. And then after that, we're going to leave it to Suli on the next episode, sorry. I know I've been a rambling about a few stories there, but the two other tips that was the first one to help them be included. And then number two, help just the girls feel part of a community, I guess, kind of dealing with being included too. So in our case, if you don't have many girls on the team, then make sure they're listening to like Soulis podcasts. There's a couple of good Facebook groups. There's some good Instagram pages. And I know my friends, solar, Lily, if you don't follow her, she's doing a like, um, I think it's on clubhouse where she has girls go on and just talk about kind of their challenges in the industry.Speaker 2 (15:18):Things like that. I think she invites guys too, but people like that, they're doing great things. So go follow solar, Lily, go follow, um, solely they have two pages on Instagram. I think they might be on Facebook too. And guys, um, I know guys can follow these pages too, so go follow them. Cause I'm actually learning more about how to, um, you know, manage the females too, by being part of these groups. So the first one is called woman United and solar solar. Really. She runs that page and she also has, I think, a clubhouse where they go and talk about it. Maybe a Facebook group too. She just got done with an event that she put on two and the other one is female knockers United, or maybe it's female knockers unite and that Soulis page. And she has great content on there. See, she features different, um, uh, lady like doorknockers from different industries.Speaker 2 (16:16):Do you? I know she has people in alarms pest control and they'll go on there. They'll show her share tips and um, just what's working for them. So whether you are a girl or a guy, I highly recommend you go follow these pages and it's going to help you become a better sales rep. And then also learn to just, you know, help. Like I said, help the girl help the girls on your team, unlock their potential. Okay. And then the last tip I have before we wrap it up here and this really deals with, you know, guys and girls, anyone really in sales or in the solar industry is just figure out your motivation. Hey, I was listening to a Ted talk, just kind of preparing for the podcast before, um, a lady that runs like a sales organization for women. And this was her big thing.Speaker 2 (17:08):Is girls more than anything that females they're not usually motivated by money. Okay. And I think this goes for both guys and girls, but she was saying, especially girls. So ladies, I guess you can tell me if that's true, but this is what the Ted talk lady said. It's usually not money that the ladies are motivated by. Even though, even if they say I want to make money a lot of times that's not it. So what is it, why do you want to make the money? And I've talked about this in previous episodes. Um, I think one of them is if you go back and listen to how to develop extreme confidence or to develop confidence in sales, I think it was probably like six months back. But I talk about this going seven layers, deep on your why. So, especially with your ladies, figure out why they want to make the money, why they want to do what they say their goal is.Speaker 2 (18:06):And then the lady in this Ted talk, I really, I thought it was cool. What she did a girl on her team. Um, once she told her she wanted to make the money, she kind of took her through this exercise though. Why do you want to make the money? And she figured out she wanted to take her kids to Disneyland. So what she had her do, she had her kids write her a note saying, mom, I know it's a tough day today. But remember we want to go to Disneyland. And her kids wrote her this note and then put on a picture. She put this on her desk. In this case, it was a like a phone sales job, but she put this on her desk. And then any time she didn't want to like make another call or she wanted to take a break, whatever.Speaker 2 (18:45):She looked at this note from her kids and her card, she was like, ah, all right, I want to take my kids to Disneyland. So for you that are knocking doors that are trying to get more appointments, consider that figuring out your why, make sure you have your motivation written out and for anyone leading a team or managing, make sure you help the ladies and anyone on your team do this. So hope that helped guys let me know what you think. And if you are working with a lot of women on your team, hit me up, let me know what's working for you. And let me know. Um, yeah, what you thought. So send this to anyone that's working with the women on the team and that I can't wait to see you on the next episode where we're going to get the one and only Suli and she's going to be dropping some fire.Speaker 2 (19:34):So we'll see you on the next one and go crush it this week. Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:41):How do you get yourself in a peak mental state, prepared to close any deal and lift yourself up. When you're feeling down, maybe you're having a rough day on the doors. Maybe you got your face kicked in, in that last appointment you stepped into today. That's what we're going to talk about. How do you overcome those feelings and be ready at all times? Hope you're doing well. My name's Taylor Armstrong. We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time working in the solar industry. Today's episode is going to be pretty freaking awesome. Hopefully you are ready for it. And just what inspired this episode about how to get yourself in the peak mental state, two things. Number one, I'm going to see a Tony Robbins this weekend. He's at an event I'm going to call it funnel hacking live.Speaker 2 (01:39):At least I hope he is. Um, I guess we'll see. Um, by the time you hear this episode, I will be at the event. So come say, what's up if you listen to this and you're a happened to be at the summit as well, it's in Orlando. Um, but the other thing was just following some cool people on Facebook. One of my, uh, Facebook friends, hopefully you can get them on the podcast soon. His name is TJ Nilsson. He's running his company out in Vegas. So shout out to TJ. If you're listening to this, get a lot of value from your posts. Um, so quick side note, go follow as many people as you can in the solar industry. It's great to be able to see what's working for other guys connect, uh, do some networking. So I definitely suggest hopping on Facebook and Instagram as always hit me up, but fall guys like TJ and other people that have been on the podcast because a lot of them are sure, valuable content, valuable stuff on a daily basis.Speaker 2 (02:39):So TJ shared a little post I'll, um, I'll mention a few things from it, but he talks about staying in state and he went through his process of how he stays in state. I know he's had a lot of ups and down in his business and, um, this reminded me a lot of things that he does. I also am doing, um, a few of the things I'm not doing as often as I should have. And it remind me of things that I used to do that maybe I don't do as much currently. So just to highlight a couple of things from his post, sorry, I make sure my mic is plugged in here. Um, but he talks about number one to get in that states. You got to have an anchor here and we'll talk about that, but that's anchoring in a positive feeling essentially, and then stacking it with other, um, um, basically things you can do to trigger yourself in that confidence, trigger yourself in that state that you want to achieve and wants to, um, be able to get to, as you're pulling up to that deal as you're going to knock, maybe you're down.Speaker 2 (03:54):So that's the two ways of doing it and a great book. If you haven't already read, go read the way of the Wolf. Um, I have posted a few videos of this in the Facebook group. So we're premier free super group. So I've talked a little bit about it before, but just in this book, the way of the Wolf, Jordan Belfort talks about how he uses these anchoring techniques that he's going in deals. Um, when he was doing this back in his Haiti, I think he was, you know, snorting the good stuff though, cocaine. That's the powerful stuff, I guess. So obviously I don't endorse that, but I'm sure that's works too, but now I know Jordan's calmed down a little bit. So what he does, he uses these things called boom boom sticks, which we will put a link to this in the show notes and grant, if you want to support the show, that will be an affiliate link.Speaker 2 (04:50):Um, so great way to support if you would like to, if you enjoy the content. Um, but just to review what he talks about, go read the book. I received goes way more in depth on this, but he has a whole chapter on this anchoring technique. And so he says, anchoring is a process used in NLP, which is neuro-linguistic programming. And that's why I bring up Tony Robbins is because Tony Robbins, that's his bread and butter. He's all about the NLP. Basically. Neuro is your mind linguistic is language programming. So it's the language to trigger your minds in the specific things. So if any of you have been to a Tony Robbins event, I haven't only seen him speak a few times. So I'm definitely not the Tony Robbins expert, but that's what he does the few times I've seen him speak. He has you jump up and down.Speaker 2 (05:41):He has you repeat things. He has you touch. Uh, other people hug all these different things. And what he's trained to do with this is connect the information that he's giving you with the actions. Cause if he can get your emotions in involved in it, that's going to give you the best shot at really remembering it and applying it and taking action in your life. Hey, if you think back to all the memories you have, anytime it's tied with an emotion, those are the things you really remember, right? Hey, I think back to all the things I've done in my life, if they're tied to a song, for example, I listened to tons of alternative music in high school. Um, you know, everyone had those days, those good old nineties, two thousands, the alternative, uh, trying to think of examples, the Jimmy world, the, uh, you know, my chemical romance, all these like punk emo, alternative bands, all that good stuff.Speaker 2 (06:42):Anytime I turn on that music, now it takes me right back to high school. I remember the fire, the bonfires were billed. I remember jamming on my guitar. I remember going out in the Hills, jiving trucks and Jeeps. Cause that's all I was to do and can have Utah's just drive around in the Hills and go spotlight for deer and all that stuff. Shout out to all my small town people. Well, that's all we had to do. So anytime I listen to those things that triggers that emotional response, and that's essentially what you're trying to do with this anchoring process, right? You're trying to connect it with emotion. You're trying to connect it with that, feeling that a super high feeling where you did something awesome, where you achieve something great. So that is what Jordan Belfort teaches you to do in way of the Wolf.Speaker 2 (07:31):And he compares it to the Powerwall dog experiment, which you've probably heard of in psychology, right? Scientists were doing a bell every time before feeding the dog and eventually they'd ring the bell and the dog would start to salivate even without any figured. So that's what we're trying to do with this NLP, with the boom, boom. So go and go grab yourself. If you don't have a boom, boom, go grab yourself one. You can use other sands, but something unique right. And is convenient. So we're going to go through a couple stips steps here. If you want to start using this method specifically with the boom, boom, these are the steps to do this. And then we'll talk about a few ways. You can take it even further if you'd like to. So step one, if you're trained to anchor it, if you're trained to anchor that high emotion, you can get yourself prepared for those deals.Speaker 2 (08:27):Um, he, this is why they suggest scent because it's strong, right? It's strong. It can be tied to that emotion. So if you are using sense with it, number one, it must be a smell that you love. Okay. So don't go putting, I don't know, having your dog poop in a bag and smell that. Probably not going to be the greatest. Don't go get COVID for crying out loud because you won't be able to smell as that's the first step. And what is the point of a listing, a positive state if the smells repulsive, right? So find the smell that you love. You won't get tired of. And then number two, it must be a smell that is unique that you don't smell super often. Hey I'm you don't want to go, but most fries in a bag. Um, I dunno if you smell that often, but it's something you smell often.Speaker 2 (09:14):Make sure it is something unique that you're not going to smell all the time. Hey, and then number three, pick an anchor that is easy to carry and administer effectively. This means light, compact, and concentrated to get into your nose with the least amount of effort. Um, you want to be able to pull it out of your pocket or purse that moment you feel a peak state that you want to anchor. All right. So those are the three strip steps as you're picking your smell. So you don't necessarily have to use the boom boom sticks. I don't even know if I explain what that is, but just basically it essential oil and a stick that has a strong scent. So I carry them around any time I go to an a, uh, I just put it in my car at any time, I'm going to knock anytime and going on appointments at my boom, boom, stick, ready?Speaker 2 (10:03):Hey, and then the key with this is, is you need to make sure you set that anchor. So you got your boom, boom, you got your essential oils. You got your strong scent, whatever it is now, take a minute and recall an emotional state where you were maybe super successful. So maybe you just close the biggest deal of your life. Imagine that even better. If you can capture this in the moment, it's going to be even better. But if you're not in the moment of a super confident that super peak states just think back, close your eyes, you can do it right now. Close your eyes. Think back to a time where you were super confident, super high on something, um, was having a ton of success. Imagine that, and now take whatever that scent is and just inhale it. Try to connect it to the best you can to that specific states you are failing.Speaker 2 (10:56):So for me, one of the states I was doing when I was setting this up, is I in high school, I had a ton of success playing, uh, my drums, my percussion, right? I was the band nerd playing the progression. I would go out and win competitions on this instrument called the marimba. And at one point I won the state competition for the best marimba player in Utah in high school. When I was, when I won that competition, I was like, man, I'm from a small school, no one even knows what a marimba is in my town. And I just won the best marimba in the state, um, out of all these like bigger schools and stuff. So I go back to that time when I like won this award and I'm like, man, I'm the best. No one can stop me. Um, I am unstoppable on this thing.Speaker 2 (11:52):That's one of the states I went back to. So I'm sniffing my boom, boom, and I'm triggering that mental state or I'm anchoring it rather. And then what does it do if you can get that anchor set nice and deep. And now every time you smell the boom, boom, what's, it's going to do, it's going to trigger those same peak emotions that you had. So that was mine. So I think is what was your peak emotional state? I'm sure there's one in sales you've had already, but maybe you're just getting started in sales. Think back to something awesome. You did. You did. And then sniff your boom, boom. So that's how you're going to anchor it down. And then one thing, just to be careful of make sure to not overuse the recall function of the anchor. Okay. So just basically don't do this like super often.Speaker 2 (12:43):You're not going to do it like, um, you're probably not going to be doing it multiple times a day. You want to just, um, they recommend, um, the 80/20 rule. So, um, you just don't want to overuse it because then if you're feeling down, you want to make sure it's connected with the correct emotions. Um, and then it says, uh, what does it say here? She says, this will ensure that your body associates, the trigger primarily with the real feeling, just as, it's not a good idea to choose an anchor that you experience often it could be detrimental to lean on your anchor too much as your body will begin to anchor in a lower level of confidence. And so make sure with great power comes great responsibility like uncle Ben says, so make sure you're not overusing this great power, make sure you're saving it for the times.Speaker 2 (13:41):You really need it. Those important deals. So I do it before. Most of the deals that I go into and then just a few other ideas before we wrap this segment up here, a few other things you can do. And, um, music is another super powerful thing. And that's something my boy TJ Nelson talked about in his post too, is he, um, his example is he says, I'm the best while holding his left hand and a certain Wayne listens to a specific song. So he's combining kind of all three of them. He's speaking his affirmations, he's holding something physically in a different way and he's hearing something and he's smelling something. So I thought that was a great idea is many of the senses is you can activate, it's going to hit home even more. Um, so consider using music too. This is something that TJ talked about.Speaker 2 (14:37):I also do this before every deal I step into, I try to listen to something that pumps me up. Okay. And I still listen to a lot of that same alternative music that I did in high school, because that's what I to, during a lot of the times, whereas filling on top of the world. Okay. But I pick a song. I have my playlist hit me up. If you want my a playlist of music, it's probably going to be different than a lot of people's, but picks your song that makes you feel super confident and think you're Conor McGregor walking out into the ring, right? What song are you going to choose? We're fighters. We're fighting for our livelihood. We're fighting for deals. So you want to have something that pumps you up, takes you to that state and just gets you in the mood to crush it.Speaker 2 (15:24):I think of a, all you office fan Dwight. He, uh, I don't know if you remember the episode, but Dwight he's listened to his, I think metal music or something, and then banging his head against his seat in his car, stuff like that. I mean, Dwight got it right in the office. Do things like that. Just get yourself pumped, get yourself fired up. And then as you combine all these things, I've found, that's how I'm getting myself in a state to go in there. Even if I'm tired, even if I'm not feeling it, these things really helped me get in that peak state and get myself in the mood to go and clues that deal or go out and knock that door. Or if I'm getting rejected hard, sometimes I, uh, do these same techniques to bring me out of it. So let me know if you guys have any other things you were doing to get yourself in a peak mental state, but super important.Speaker 2 (16:19):Sometimes we don't think about this mental side as much and really sells so much of it is mental, right? You can learn all the closing techniques. You can learn all the cool lines, the slick lanes from Taylor McCarthy and always, you know, top closers. You can learn it all, but if you are not in the right mental state, it's going to be tough to have the success. And no matter what you say, if you're not seeing it confident, if you're not coming across as the boss in the room, it's going to be tough to close deals. So think about that. Write down. I want you to write down after this episode, what is the things you're committed to doing to get yourself in that peak mental state? Okay. So maybe you're going to start out with your boom boom stick. Make sure you get that anchoring in what is your pre deal routine, write it out and then commit to that. And then that's how you're going to be able to trigger these emotions, trigger this confidence, trigger this wave of success coming your way. Hope that helped share it with someone, you know, is struggling maybe with their clothing or struggle with their mental state and try it today. Look forward to connecting with you all. And we will see you on the next one.Speaker 3 (17:33):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Learn more about https://siro.ai/Sign up for www.solciety.co! Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's going on. Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong here back with another fabulous episode. We've got a great guest here on today. We, um, always love to feature new products. New software we're finding out about here is Solarpreneurs. So I've got one that I'm stoked for you guys to hear about, and he's going to tell us all about it and kind of his background with everything. So we've got Mr. Joe Jordan on the show junkie, Joe. Thanks for coming on with us today.Speaker 3 (01:08):Taylor it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.Speaker 2 (01:11):Yeah, for sure, man. And, um, I was telling you before we kind of made the connection. I usually just pretty much delete people's messages. They send me, um, if, if I, you know, feel like they're trying to pitch me something and I'm like, oh whatever, but when you, when you messages me, it actually caught my attention. I'm like, wow, I've never heard like a product like this. So this actually might be worth hearing out. And so sure enough, I heard them out and pretty frequent awesome where you guys are doing with the product. So, uh, before we get into it, do you want us to kind of give people, uh, Jen, uh, I guess just a general overview of what your company is and what the product is that you guys do. And then obviously we'll get into a lot more detail here in a little bit.Speaker 3 (01:52):Sure. So Siro is a sales coaching platform for field sales and door to door sales teams. So how zero works reps record all their conversations with customers through CRM and they'll surface to you their most coachable moments from their conversations that day. And at the end of the day in between your own doors at lunch, whatever it might be for you as a sales leader, you can jump into each moment and respond to them with a role play or piece of advice as easily as you might respond to a text message. Okay.Speaker 2 (02:25):Yeah, super awesome. And I had never really, I mean, I'm sure most people listen to this podcast. I think most of us have just recorded ourselves on like voice memos or some type of recording app. But, um, once Joe showed me on all the features, which we'll get into in more depth here in a little bit, um, it just made it so much easier to, you know, get transcriptions that are recording, help your team out. And yeah, just so much more streamlined than trying to do this on a voice recording app and, you know, listen back to it. So, uh, cool. Anyways, that's what the is, that's what the Siro software is. And so before we get into that, Joe, do you want to kind of walk us through your background, just like cells in general and the queen here, um, kind of your background in that whole, in the whole industry?Speaker 3 (03:14):Yeah, I'd love to. So my, my story and sales starts my freshmen summer in college. I got a letter in the mail to sell Cutco knives for vector marketing, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it sounded like something that would look better on my resume than camp counselor. So, uh, I tried it, I ended up really liking it and being pretty good at it. Um, my after my first summer, I was the only student asked to come run the division headquarters as a sales manager of the following campaign. And we started with one sales rep at the beginning of the summer and ended up hiring over 180 throughout the course of the summer and being one of the top, top offices in the company that year. And it was an amazing experience. I learned so much from that, which I'm happy to talk more about.Speaker 3 (04:04):Um, and then next up for me as I finished up college, I wanted to get really good at building things, creating products. So I did a stint in software engineering and Amazon over on the Alexa team. So, you know, Michael, my, you know, Alexa wake me up to Michael Jackson. That was us. And, uh, when I, when I graduated college, I teamed up with my partner, Jake Ronan, who also got started in Cutco, spent two years at McKinsey. And, uh, we both quit, our jobs, started working on this thing and we've been doing that for about the past year or so. And then, Hey,Speaker 2 (04:37):Love it. That's cool. Did you guys know each other in Cutco then, or you just kind of made that connection after we met each other?Speaker 3 (04:44):So it's actually a really funny story. Uh, we didn't know each other while we were at Cutco, but we were both building separate competing apps for Cutco sales reps to make phone calls through, uh, without sort of knowing about each other. And Jake saw me on the app store, saw my app reached out to me, asked if I wanted to work together and, uh, working with Jake ended up being the best decision, uh, by far that I've made so far in my, in my young business career has been an awesome partner and we've done some, some really great things together. Yeah.Speaker 2 (05:19):That's awesome. Well, that's cool. And yeah. What makes it even cores? You guys have the Cutco background because, um, I think that makes, for me that makes a lot more powerful that you guys have been in sales. You know, what people kind of struggle with. And, um, all of the sales concepts is pretty similar across, you know, all industries. So it makes it a really powerful as you guys are, um, you know, trying to get your product launched and in, in the hands of more sales teams, which is awesome. But yeah, I wanted to hear a little bit about, more about your cook co background, Joe. Um, you guys got my mad respect just because to me that sounds like a, I don't know, like a tough product to sell. Maybe you tell me, but, um, like Caicos it pretty, pretty rough start, or how has it just like getting started in Cutco?Speaker 3 (06:07):Yeah. Uh, it was an awesome introduction to sales. Um, once you get in the home, uh, doing the demo, the product actually does a pretty decent job of, of selling itself. Um, the toughest part is actually booking the appointments over the phone and that's probably what is the most similar to the door to door experience. And because of that, we've seen a lot of people graduate from Costco into door to door and do really well. Um, and the biggest things that that I learned from from Cutco, um, the first thing was just that personal growth is not just a means to other ends. Um, it's an end in itself and it's one of the most noble ends. There is, um, it was a really growth focused culture. And I think all of direct sales, including DOD is very focused on, on growth as well. And it's one of the most rewarding things that you can focus on for yourself.Speaker 3 (07:04):Um, and at the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn here. Um, you know, I, I graduated from Wharton, um, which is the best business school in the world, but I would trade, um, the Wharton experience for the Cutco experience. If someone made me the two things I learned at, at Costco that I would not have been able to learn anywhere else where risk tolerance and rejection tolerance, and those two things are not optional. Those are requirements. If you want to go out and start your own business. And I think the lack of those two attributes are the number one thing, holding Americans back in today's economy.Speaker 2 (07:46):Yeah, no, I agree. A hundred percent. And that's interesting. So your Cutco, was it door to door to, or was it mostly just like phone setting appointments and going to homes?Speaker 3 (07:56):Yeah, it was mostly setting appointments over the phone and then doing the appointments. And, um, once I'd set them up, I don't tell my manager, we're not supposed to do this, but I did go door to door a little bit in one of those pushes because I was running well on weeds and then wanted to try something new. Um, as one might expect my first time out there, I wasn't too hot, but the push ended up going, going well for me. SoSpeaker 2 (08:20):That's cool. So they like to encourage you to not go door to door, then they pretty much told me, you know, don't go door to door, just focus on the phone.Speaker 3 (08:28):Yeah. You start out with, with people, you know, that you practice with, you call them book appointments, and then at each appointment, um, you know, you ask for referrals and then sort of call those guys. Yeah.Speaker 2 (08:40):Okay. Gotcha. Now what's really cool. Cause I've heard a few people that have that background that are now in the solar industry and are crushing it now. And, um, a lot of things they learned from Cutco, they're applying to their solar cells and I know it's helping them a ton. Matter of fact, we had a guest on his name was Matt Crowder. I don't know if you'd know him, but, uh, he sold Cutco for, I think years too. And he just said the biggest thing for him is the like referral principles and Cutco. Cause he was just talking about how in every Cutco presentation, the next thing you had to do was just pretty much go through their whole list of contacts and say, all right, let's see what they could, could they possibly bike at the end, just help the customer get you referrals and really incentivize them for that. So he's getting just mountains of referrals now in solar. And I think it's just cause that Cutco journey, cause he knew that every single Cutco presentation he was walking out with referrals. So yeah. Tell me about, is that, would you agree with that? Was it pretty focused on referrals? And do you want to tell us a little bit about your referral process when you were in Cutco?Speaker 3 (09:41):Yeah, sure thing. Um, it's definitely very heavily focused on referrals because the number one thing you need as a sales rep to keep your business going is referrals. Like I'd rather have an appointment where it's a no sell, but I got 10 referrals then an appointment where I sell a $1,200 set and get zero referrals. Um, and we let people know that that the best way to prep people for referrals upfront is to get them tied into your personal story. So the most important thing that I've role play with reps, um, ad Cutco is their goal sharing at the beginning of the presentation. And so, um, before I have my reps dive into their conversations, I have them say by the way, um, before we dive into this, do you mind if I share my goals with you? And after that we let the rep authentically tell their story and share why they're in this business, why they're excited about the product, why they're sitting down in front of you and what I'm working on and how you can help me towards that.Speaker 3 (10:43):And once you get someone tied into you like that, when you make a friend before you make a sale, um, and they feel like they want to help you, that's the, that's the first step to opening the door to having them give you referrals. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing you want to do is just name drop. Um, as you go, uh, people that referred you on the way to that person and it's like, Hey, by the way, but so-and-so loved about it was this with so-and-so loved about the presentation was that, um, and sort of get them feeling like everyone gives a ton of referrals. And then the last neat trick that I saw, a lot of people do at, at Cutco is when they're asking for referrals, um, they'll take a binder with everyone's referrals that they wrote down on them.Speaker 3 (11:25):They're if you collect them like on a phone or using red card or something like that, just go back in and write them down on a piece of paper afterwards. And when you open the binder to get their referrals, just flip through a bunch of pages, full of names before you get to that one page that's empty. Um, and you can sort of make a show that like, oh, I can't find like a, like an open one, wait a second. Oh, here we go. Um, and, and that, those are the sort of the, the big three tips on referrals there. Yeah.Speaker 2 (11:54):That's awesome. No, I like that. And I like the personal story. That's something my Catherine really chaired before signing. That's cool. And so for like personal story, are you talking more like kind of their business goals? Or can you give us an example for what you mean by like say I'm telling you my personal story. What would your story be? When were you when you were open in these presentations?Speaker 3 (12:14):Sure. So how to put myself in the Headspace of a 19 year old Joe here, um, it was something like, you know, I got a letter in the mail for this job and I thought it seemed kind of weird, like selling knives, but I ended up really loving this thing because as an athlete, my favorite thing about this is the harder I work and the better I get, the more money, the more money I earned, but more importantly, the more things I learned and I want to run my own business someday. And when I love about this is it teaches me how to face rejection. Um, it teaches me how to make sales, which is something that's super important, um, everywhere else and there's opportunities to advance. So my biggest goal with you here today is that you like me, you want to recommend me to your friends and you'd recommend me for the promotion I have coming up. And in order to hit it, my goal was to get to $10,000 in sales by the end of the week, right now I'm at 5,000. Um, you don't have to buy the other 5,000 just to help me out by the way Mrs. Jones, if you do, that would be great. Um, but really I'm just here to, to, to, to work on my goals and make sure we're friends by the end of this presentation,Speaker 2 (13:27):Um, that's fire. I love that. It's cool. Cause you're getting them emotionally bought in and I'm sure they taught you this all the time, but you know, people buy with their emotion, then they're justifying it with the logic. So I think, especially in solar, we get caught up more in the logic piece of it, just because solar is so logical for people. It's like, look, you're paying 200 bucks a month right now. You're only gonna pay one 60 with solar. And then so many times, especially a newer reps, that's all they focus on. Um, but then they get cancels. They get people shopping out and everything. But I think that's the important thing that, especially in solar, we forget about if you can get these people bought in emotionally and then kind of bought into your cause that, oh, you're, um, we're trying to get to more, you know, this week or whatever.Speaker 2 (14:08):I liked that line a lot and people are a lot more willing to help you out and want to see you succeed and then obviously get more referrals from it too. So that's awesome. I'm definitely something I'm going to play with that. So, uh, yeah. Personal story, make the friend and then name drop as you go. And then yeah, I remember my, my buddy Matt Crowder that was on the podcast. He said a similar thing with the name list where he would just, you know, have a sheet all filled in and then he would just pass in the sheet and it wasn't even like an option really. He just said, okay. So yeah, what we do with everyone is we just help you get like, um, at least 10 people that could potentially benefit from our product. And so I'll help you. And then he would basically just have them go through their contacts and get they'll send people not limited to den. So, uh, yeah, that's been actually helping me a ton with referrals and slower as well. Um, but yeah, that's awesome. And then anything else? Um, how long, how long did you do Cutco for, by the way, Joe?Speaker 3 (15:06):Sure. So I was a sales rep for about a year and a half and then a sales manager for a campaign and a half.Speaker 2 (15:14):Okay. What does a campaign, what does that mean?Speaker 3 (15:17):Also a campaign is a third of the year, so there's the spring campaign, the fall campaign in the summer campaign. Um, gotcha.Speaker 2 (15:25):Cool. Okay. And so after Cutco, that's, when you went and did the whole business school thing and gotten the software stuff after thatSpeaker 3 (15:32):That's right. Yeah. I was sort of doing the business school and Cutco in parallel. Uh, I was in both the engineering school and the Wharton school at Penn. So, um, I was sort of getting the business and the technical side and the sales side all at the same time. So it was really a whirlwind of, of learning. Um, and my last summer going towards the end of college was when I did that software engineering stint at an Amazon, got a chance to write some real production code for a company that has some of the best engineering practices out there.Speaker 2 (16:04):Wow. That's incredible. That's awesome. Um, so I'm curious to know at Cutco we're like, role-plays a huge same as your in Cutco is. And would you say that contributed you to you like eventually making Siro and everything? Um, tell me about thatSpeaker 3 (16:20):For sure. Um, so I was driven to start Siro by two feelings that I had while I Cutco the first was just an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the amazing experience that I got while I was there. I would not be where I am without my cocktail experience. There's no way I could have started this thing. And the second feeling was just frustration that I couldn't replicate that experience for the people I was responsible for coaching. I had a ton of people that I was working with who were perfectly capable of creating awesome experiences, having the success I had, but their results weren't meeting their expectations. And I didn't have the time to help them. And even when I could set aside like an hour to sit down with them and figure out what was going wrong, um, it was really difficult to make that time productive because someone can tell me what's going wrong, but usually they're not right about it.Speaker 3 (17:18):And sometimes reps, aren't totally honest with you about what's going wrong and it's not because they're trying to deceive you. Like when you're struggling, the first person you lie to is yourself. And, you know, we might role play, but the way they role play is not going to be the way they role play with the customer. They might say they're having trouble handling this objection, but really the problems earlier in the conversation because it didn't gain the customer's trust. So I just thought, how awesome would it be if I could be a fly on the wall in these conversation and just listened to your last three or four referral approaches and see why you're not getting referrals, you know, listen to how you're sharing your goals. So I know why you're not getting the customer on your side. And, um, that that's sort of where the idea for this thing came from just the ability not to jump in and listen to an end tire hour long breezing and listen to the stuff that I knew reps were struggling with and leave them some feedback on a, on a situation they actually had. Hm.Speaker 2 (18:11):Yeah. That's cool. And when you were at Cutco where you guys kind of doing this whole same old school stuff of district coordinator on your phones and doing that, or did you have any like similar thing at Costco where you guys recorded yourselves?Speaker 3 (18:25):Yeah, so we, we tried it, um, a couple of times, but the problem was, it was difficult to do at scale because of how long these conversations were, you know, waiting through a voice memo, even getting a rep to send you a voice memo. Once they recorded actually turns out to be a pretty big problem. Um, and not knowing when they actually had their appointments and when they missed her record. So it was difficult to do as an office system. And so we only ended up using it sparingly. Um,Speaker 2 (18:58):Yeah, no, it makes sense. And that's pretty much the same that I've seen on solar sales seems to, it's just like, um, I don't know, sales reps just think it's a hassle. They don't want to get their phones out. They forget. And then they, after Korea, like 10 times before they get one, that's like an actual conversation, things like that. So it is a big ask and pretty much the only way we've gotten our teams to do it in the past is just like incentivizing say, Hey, if you guys record this day, we'll give you like 30 bucks just for recording. That's all you need to do. And even that sometimes like pulling teeth to get reps, to actually go out and do this just because if it is, you know, kind of a hassle and it is something they have to remember and, um, put forth effort to do.Speaker 2 (19:40):So I think that's a big key that you guys have. Um, I mean, you still got to put forth that effort with Siro and we'll talk about that more, but I think it just makes a lot easier and a lot more streamlined, so there's way less hassle. And then the rep doesn't have to remember to send you their reporting. It just gets sent to the manager automatically, things like that. Um, but yeah. So tell, um, you wanna tell us a little bit more about like how it first got started then, and then why you guys decided to like focus on the door to door industry and specific for your software, Joe?Speaker 3 (20:12):Sure. So we, we were always excited, uh, about door to door. Uh, from the very beginning we were talking to guys that at Vivint and other companies in the space, and we knew it was time to double down and focus mainly on door to door, especially solar. Um, after talking with Conner Ruggio they had decided at Aptive they were willing to pay just to try this thing based on the designs we had, we hadn't even built anything written, a single line of code. And he was like, yeah, this thing is awesome. We want to try this. And that's when we knew it's time to focus the door to door space. And so we launched a pilot with Aptive this past summer. Um, and since then we've gotten 40,000 sales conversations in the system. We have over 1300 reps who have used this thing and over 4,000 coaching comments have been sent through the system. Um, and that's just in the past couple of months here.Speaker 2 (21:07):Yeah. That's incredible. How did you guys first make the connection with it? You said his name was Conner from AptiveSpeaker 3 (21:13):Conner Ruggio. Uh, one of the presidents of sales over there. We reached out to him over LinkedIn. Um, it turns out Jake and I are pretty good at getting people to read our messages, even though a lot of people get gets fan. Um, so that's how we made the connection.Speaker 2 (21:28):Yeah. Okay. That's awesome. And no, I mean, that's all it takes too is, um, I mean, we're going through a similar thing actually, right now I've told you a little bit, but we've watched her Solciety, um, kind of training platform. So we're going through a similar thing, just trying to get that big domino and get people to start using it because once people see the benefits and you have some case studies and be like, look, look what the results they got helps a ton. Um, so yeah. Do you want, do you have any like stouts on results that, uh, and any like huge improvements that you saw from people Aptive or did they tell you, like, I don't know, some cool stats that you have to report from people that have been using it so far?Speaker 3 (22:05):Sure, sure. Um, so the biggest thing that people are loving about it so far is the time savings for sales leaders. We have guys who are saying, they went from spending 20 hours shadowing to spending two hours in Siro in a week, getting a certain amount of coaching value. Um, my favorite example is Logan Porter. He's a team lead over at Aptive. Um, he said that since they started using Siro faithfully, he saw the progression of this rookies pitches and sales increase exponentially. And when you look at the number of accounts sold per day, uh, for these reps, you can predict, uh, almost exactly what day they sought a recording and Siro because their accounts like double or triple, and he loved that. But his favorite part about it was how much time it gave him back. You know, a lot of us who are, who are coaching in this industry also have our own sales to make. And it's really difficult when you feel like you have to make a choice between [inaudible].Speaker 3 (23:07):And so, as an example, Logan, the week two of last summer, so the 11 accounts personally, and that's because he was doing a bunch of shadowing this summer after a couple of initial shadows, he was mostly coaching through Siro and he was able to sell 26 accounts personally that week. So almost doubling his personal sales, just because of those time savings there. Um, now obviously pest control pitches are much shorter than like a solar closing conversation. They might be anywhere from 10, 15 or 20 minutes, but why a Janet led like a hundred reps underneath them as a regional, got to the point where he could listen to 20 pitches in 12 minutes.Speaker 2 (23:49):Wow. That's so cool. And yeah, I mean, it's funny, cause it sounds like it's almost more beneficial probably to like the managers than it is, you know, like the new reps. Cause obviously it goes both ways, but like all the time-saving aspect of it and like you're mentioning the ability to be able to focus way more on yourselves and having to go out to people's areas, do more shadowing and uh, yeah, I mean, Joe, even, so we started using, it means, um, one of our coaching clients here over at, uh, that Solciety, we started using it. And um, could you not, I had been bugging my coaching client, his name's man I'd been bugging him for probably two and a half weeks and like, Hey man, send me a recording. Let's just do like a, you know, door approach analysis. Let's see if there's anything we can focus on, help you out and does the same old story like, oh Taylor, I forgot.Speaker 2 (24:44):Oh Taylor, I didn't get any good recordings today. Oh, Taylor, um, my phone deleted it, like all this same stuff you hear from reps over and over. And then right when we got Siro hooked up for both of us is like, you know, the next hour we are already lined up and I was already able to give them feedback. And I know he's seen, you know, improvements quickly now just because, you know, it's way better system set up. So yeah. Um, I think that's the main thing is just the time saving aspect and then being able to focus, especially I can imagine if you're leading a huge team, like I was getting overwhelmed, just trying to do this and bug one person to send it to me. So I can't even imagine time-saving with like you leading a team of like 20, 30 reps and then trying to bug them all to send and recording.Speaker 2 (25:27):So I think that's huge. Um, but no, that's cool. And so, yeah. Do you want to tell, like maybe just give us a walkthrough more and we can dig a little bit more into the features and then, um, tell us, I dunno, how, how they've been helped for any, uh, I guess any more takeaways from the features. So I guess first of all, records people on the app. So I don't know, maybe give us like, I guess sell us on serial here. If you're trying to get like a new client, tell us what the features are and how it's beneficial to the teams. You don't mind.Speaker 3 (26:00):Um, so again, sort of the one sentence overview is zero keeps your reps learning by recording all their conversations and servicing to you the most coachable moments. So you can dive into each one and respond to them like you would a text message. And so what that looks like for, for guys on the doors, they'll record right through Sera, either on their iPhone, their Android, or their tablet, any mobile device. And when they're done with the conversation, they can optionally send a moment from it to their coach. So wherever they felt like they were struggling, um, and it'll go to the coaches inbox. And as a coach, I can go through this inbox, choose which ones I want to dive into based on the, of like what the rep needs help with. And once I open it up, it might be a 10 minute recording, a 15 minute recording, a 60 minute recording.Speaker 3 (26:51):Obviously I don't have time to listen to a ton of these. So what I want to do is get to the point where the rep needs the most help, give them that feedback and move on to the next conversation. And that's helpful because it saves time for me, but B because a rep can only get one or two takeaways and actually implement them at one time. Anyway. So when you're spending like an hour diving deep on a reps conversation, a lot of that hour is wasted because they're only going to be able to take away a small portion of those things. So as an example, and this was super common for me, I'm sure it's common for you guys. Um, imagine you have a rep who the customer is asking questions that are demonstrating they're, they're interested and they're asking questions. And the rep is just busy entering the questions, losing control of the conversation and they don't set the appointment.Speaker 3 (27:42):Um, so if a rep flag that for me, uh, they flag setting the appointment. I could jump in and listen to them. Um, as they're struggling to handle this, this customer's questions and the moment I hear him starting to lose the conversation, I can hit audio comment and record how they might've role-played it better. So I say, Hey, next time, just answer this question and then try something like this. But when our technician comes around tomorrow, they'll be able to handle all those questions for you and make sure you're all up to speed to mornings or afternoons work better for you. Then you send that comment will resume the conversation and you can listen for the next moment before you move on to the next one. Um, so that's sort of the, how the coaching flow works. Now. The other value proposition that I think is actually even better for reps is the chance to learn from some of the top people around the company who match my sales style.Speaker 3 (28:41):So if there's a situation that a lot of people are struggling with, maybe it's like the spouse, not home objection or explaining net metering correctly. The moment someone on the team nails it, you can just clip that portion and drop it into group meeting or the WhatsApp, put it in the training library and a recognize them for doing a great job and incentivize everyone else on the team to try and nail those things so they can get their conversations, uh, shared and sort of flex on everyone. Um, but you also educate the other guys. And the moment you give a rep, an example of a sales rep who matches their style, that's better than them crushing something. You give them a target. And I think a lot of people struggle with superficial wise, like money, motivation, things like that. But once a rep gets a vision of who they want to become, what they could be like in two to three months, if they keep learning, then they have intrinsic motivation and that's a Y um, that can actually withstand the adversity that you face every day out on the doors when it's lonely out there.Speaker 2 (29:46):I love that. And now it's cool because especially if it's like, I don't know, a new year rep or a first year rep for a newer rep, um, it's like, it doesn't necessarily have to be an experienced guy. That's getting their clips and out you be like, Hey, this is someone's for their first year two. And then they're seeing that, okay, we got a new rep, that's already crushing it. He's already being featured. And then I think it's cool for people to be able to see, um, you know, reps in similar situations and be able to, um, just have that motivation, you know, copy what they're seeing. That's cool. I didn't even, I didn't even realize that. I don't think so. It's almost doubles as like a training platform to, for the company to be able to see clips. And then so once, so can you save on there? And, um, everyone that has access to the app, they can see kind of the top, uh, I don't know, I guess overcoming objections or whatever that clip might be and they can go on there and access that later too.Speaker 3 (30:40):Yeah, that's right. So we'll silo it to your company. Um, so that only people in your company are able to access it. There'll be a trending section for the top clips at the time across any category. And then we'll create custom categories for you based on what you think reps should be able to dive into and, and focus on. Um, and because Siro, bookmarks all the key places of the conversation and transcribes it, it's really easy to find clips that will match those things. So if you know, if there's a rep that's really great at pricing, you just want to populate the training library, just like you would, when you're giving some poaching feedback, you open up one of their recordings. We'll bookmark where they went over pricing, where they encountered this ice decise breaker and where they got the business card smoke screen. Um, and you can jump right to where, you know, there'll be crushing it, um, highlight the piece of the transcript, which we'll also provide for you automatically where they're crushing it and then share it either to your group. Me WhatsApp, I message. And then right to the training library and zero.Speaker 2 (31:40):Wow. Yeah, that's incredible. So much, so much time saving right there. And then, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you, so you'll add in that you can add in your company's presentation or pitch or whatever, and then it'll like automatically kind of categorize it based on kind of what step they're on and things like that too. Right?Speaker 3 (31:59):Exactly. And that's what makes these moments as easy to respond to as a text message is the ability to jump right to them and what our conversation engine will do over time is learn your pitch. So it knows this is what pricing looks like for this organization. Um, and obviously reps will differ on how they say certain things. Um, but it will be robust enough to detect, um, uh, differences across reps and let you know where they're doing the intro pricing, um, net metering, you know, explaining your company and, and so forth.Speaker 2 (32:37):That's cool. So this thing is like learning. It's like, uh, I guess that's why it's AI, right? It's like learning your pitch and, um, becoming smarter as days, go on stuff like that. It's not going to come alive and destroy the planet or anything. [inaudible],Speaker 2 (32:58):That's awesome though. So yeah, I mean, in all seriousness, so much time saving and I noticed that too, just, um, just the transcripts. That's another big thing. Cause, um, like how many times have we have to listen just like fluff, that's going on? Just like stuff. That's not even part of the presentation where as I was using it with men, our coaching client, I was able to just skip past all the stuff that's okay. I don't need to listen to hear them talk about their dog or how fluffy their cat was or how fat that cat was. So I don't need to listen to all that. I'm just going to go straight to the meat and potatoes and give them the feedback he needs and then get out and get out of there. So yeah, that's something I was really impressed with. So yeah, ton of cool features.Speaker 2 (33:37):And, uh, Joe, I know you guys are focused primarily on companies and that's probably how it's most beneficial if companies can use it and, um, you know, share all this throughout the entire organization. But, um, do you have any right now, do you have just like individual reps or let's say other companies aren't, I don't know, fully bought in on the, on the idea yet. Do you have any examples of just like reps using it for themselves or ways that it just looks like a single rep wanting to use it, that they could, you know, be able to still get benefits with it? DoSpeaker 3 (34:07):Sure. So, um, most of our clients right now, um, started out with a handful of teams or even just one team who started using this thing. Um, we had a meeting, a sales demo the other day with the guys at Google fiber out in Utah. And the reason they set the meeting was because the rep from Aptive came over and said, Hey, like, let's try this zero thing and booked a meeting with me. Um, so if you're a rep who is excited about using Siro to record your pitches, being able to digest them faster, um, and get more access to your coach, um, let them know and send them to our website, book a demo. I'm happy to speak to them and get your team on it. And, uh, if your team likes it, then we can, we can talk about moving it up after that. But, um, we're perfectly happy to work with any sales team, larger, small, um, our mission with this thing. I think direct sales is an amazing opportunity in this country. I think it's one of the most meritocratic industries that exists and is going to equip you with the skills you need to succeed. So you know what, whatever you are larger, small, we'll put together a plan that we can, we can get you on this thing and help you achieve those things.Speaker 2 (35:24):Yeah, for sure. And, and no, I'm, I think Joe and your team, you guys are super giving and, you know, trying to really train to get it out. So, um, I think even if you just want to like check it out and go back to your team, that's how you can experience it and just try it for yourself. And then, um, for sure, go back to your team. Cause that's how it's going to be most beneficial is getting an entire team on it and getting you guys all bought in and helping each other. Um, so yeah, speaking to that before we kind of start wrapping up here, Joe, um, just, um, to be able to connect with you and get the demo and all that, is it just best to go to your website or where's the best place people can kind of reach out to you and, um, be able to book a demo and everything.Speaker 3 (36:04):Sure. Head to www.siro.ai. And you can just book a demo with us there, let us know that you heard of us from Solarpreneurs and we'll get you a discount in there as well. And I'm happy to talk to you and figure out how we can help you.Speaker 2 (36:22):Awesome. So guys, our Solarpreneurs go take Joe up on this. If you're not recording yourself right now, it's probably because of those excuses that you taught that you're telling yourself, like I was just takes too much time. It's too much hassle. You have to go back and find the parts that I'll put that are applicable to you. And what school I was telling you about this, Joe. But we had a guest on, I think it was about a month ago now about Mikey Lucas. He's a consulting, a lot of people in solar, I'm helping out a ton of people. And that was one of his top tips is tops trainings that he did. He actually did a training for our team do. And she gave us like a sheet and he was like, guys, I guarantee you, if you just start recording yourself, you don't even have to send it to managers or other people just record yourself and then go through this checklist and give yourself the feedback.Speaker 2 (37:08):And I think that's 90% of the problem. People just aren't willing to record themselves. Cause you don't even have to give your, you don't have to send it to anyone necessarily, but it's like, you know, I was a musician. Like that's what I studied in school and everything. And I think the times when I improved the most is because I was recording myself like crazy and I was going back and just me listening to it. I didn't even have to get feedback, but it's like, cause we think we say one thing, we think we're doing it one way, but the recording never lies. Right. We can go back and listen and it might be completely different how we thought we were doing it. So that's another thing. Um, just even if you're not using it with your team, start recording yourself and Siro, I think is the best tool that I've seen. I'd never heard anything like this. So appreciate you guys, Joe, for coming up with the, uh, you know, the software and it's gonna, I think it's going to change the industry. And I think you've already seen that too. So, um, yeah, I know we've got to wrap up pretty quick, Joe, but uh, any, um, we always kind of leave with just, uh, any final words of advice or anything that you can leave with that the solar industry specifically, do you feel like could help our Solarpreneurs out, out here trying to change the world?Speaker 3 (38:18):Yeah, absolutely. So my biggest thing in sales guys is you have to have a really strong why, obviously it's not an easy business and if you're wiser, superficial, they're not going to be able to withstand the adversity that you're going to face. Um, and the best exercise that I'm aware of to find a why is to think about if you were able to execute at a hundred percent and fully realize your potential for the next 12 months and truly perform to the maximum of, of your natural abilities, what would you sell? Like what numbers would you put up and then take a look at that number and think about what kind of person you'd have to become to hit those numbers. What it would feel like to wake up as that person in the morning, what it would feel like to, um, to, to interact with other people as that person and to fully embody that in your daily life.Speaker 3 (39:15):And that's a reward that is worth going after. And that's a why that can withstand the university on the doors and any plan to become that that person will include recording yourself on the doors to take ownership over your conversations, to perform at your highest ability. And whether you record those things in, in Siro or not, make sure you do record them. If you're not you're burning money and potentially even losing out on, on faster promotions. The moment I started doing this, I doubled my average order and I could have got promoted way faster had I done it earlier. So whether it's through zero or not record your conversations, if you want to do it through Siro head to www.siro.ai and I'm happy to chat. Good luck on the doors guys.Speaker 2 (40:04):I love it. Fire Joe. Thanks. Thanks again for coming on guys, go check out his software. It's going to change the way you sell, bring it back to your teams. And uh, yeah, like Joe said, whatever you do, just record yourself, even if you don't get on it. So thanks again for coming on Joe. And hopefully we get lots of people reaching out to, if anything, go give him a shout out and let him know you appreciated everything he shared on the episode today. So, Joe, thanks again for coming on my man.Speaker 3 (40:28):My pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you, Taylor. All right.Speaker 2 (40:31):We'll talk soon. Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co! Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's up Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong here today. We're going to talk about why recording yourself is a must in today's sells environments. And also we're going to demo an exciting new software that you should be using to record yourselves more on that later. Welcome to the podcast. If you are a newcomer, appreciate you tuning in, and if you are new, we are all about helping you generate more leads, close, more deals, and get more referrals and make it a boss to be in this awesome solar industry. Hope we can accomplish that for you today. Just got back from an appointment and myself, I don't know if this has happened to you guys. I'm sure it has, but confirm with the, uh, with the wife and I'm like, Hey, uh, her name was, I think Mary Jane, I'm like Mary Jane. I'm uh, on my way.Speaker 2 (01:35):Husband's going to be there. Right? Make sure both decision makers are there. She's like, yeah, yeah, come on over Taylor. I show up sure enough. Guess what? Her husband's not home yet. She opens the door, comes outside and he's like, can you just show me what you got? And I'm like, well, I mean, I want to make sure we answer both you and your husband's questions. So she calls up her husband and sure enough, her husband's, you know, like go kick rocks tells me to get out of there. It says not interested. That's like, come on guys. That's the beauty of this industry though. I mean, you'd see it all you deal with all, you can confirm things 20 times and you still get people like that. So tests your patience, but Hey, happens to the best of us. Right? You just got to move on, go to that next door and push hard.Speaker 2 (02:25):So sorry, a little side story there, but just fresh on my mind anyways. So today's topic before we jump into that, just wanted to let you know, shoot me a message. If you guys have any topics, suggestions, if you have things you're struggling with, if you have things you want us to talk about guests, you want us to bring on the show. We're always looking for new people and we're always looking for different topics because I'm going to share, what's working for me. I'm going to share struggles that I'm going through, but really it's about you. We're here to serve our Solarpreneur audience. And we want to know what you guys think. We want to know what you're struggling with and how we can serve you better. So let us know, give us some feedback and again, appreciate all the reviews we got coming in and do.Speaker 2 (03:09):That's how we get more exposure on the show. But more importantly, if you can share this on social media, if you can send it to someone that's struggling, that's really helping us grow as well. So appreciate all the shares, all the tags on social media, you guys are awesome. So today's topic. The reason why I'm talking about this, if you haven't figured out the structure of the podcast yet for right now, it's basically every two episodes I'm coming at you with, um, things that are helping me with topics that I think are valuable with a specific things that are, uh, helping me have success that week. So it goes every, I do two episodes bringing some fire for you, and then we have a guest episode. So next week's guest, um, is someone named, uh, Joe, um, okay. I'm drawing a blank on his last name, but Joe, he created a software where you can record yourselves and use it with your teams.Speaker 2 (04:08):And it's super, super dope. You're not going to want to miss out if we're going to get into the nitty gritty of it. But, um, just to give you a little preview for next episode, um, you're not gonna want to miss out because he's going to go through all the features of the recording software and trust me, it's going to make it so much easier to record yourself and give reps feedback because it transcribes the recordings. It puts them into bite sized pieces and it breaks down where reps are struggling and tags unit. So you can give specific feedback and also makes it easier for you to give yourself feedback. So don't miss out on next episode, but today just wanted to really reiterate why it's important that you're recording yourselves. I know we've talked about that in some recent episodes. If you haven't listened to the Mike, Mike, you Lucas podcast, go listen to that.Speaker 2 (05:00):It's something that he swears by. It's something that he's used with his team to have massive improvements. Just recording yourself because when you record yourself, that's where you really see your weaknesses. That's where you see your chinks in your armor. So to speak. Sometimes we think, we think we're so awesome. We think we're saying everything super clear. We're explaining it, um, how the customer would understand, but then we would go back and listen. It's completely different than we thought. And I've talked about it. I go back and listen to my podcasts. And sometimes I think I sound freaking awesome too. And it's way different at times than I thought so happens. They're running. If you haven't recorded yourself, if you're not recording yourself, go and do it. Even if you're a super experienced rep, um, it's still important to record yourselves. I go on streaks where I'm closing deals and things are going great.Speaker 2 (05:55):And I forget that I should record myself, but I always get some nuggets when I go back and listen to any recording that I make. No matter how on fire, I feel. So I want to invite you to start recording yourselves again, this software that we're going to talk about on the next episode is going to make it 10 times easier to do that, but just wanted to get into a few reasons why you should do it more often. If you're not doing it and then leave it at that and hopefully leave you on a cliffhanger. So you go check out the next podcast. Hey, but really, um, number one, recording yourself is cause you sound much different than you think. So. Talked about that a little bit, but um, I always compare it to just learning a musical instrument, a N S mini, you know, that's what I studied in my university.Speaker 2 (06:47):I was studying percussion drums, playing it. Sometimes I would think I was playing my drums right on the beat. I was a grooving. I was hitting all the fills and rudiments and all that. If any, you know the drums, that's how you're throwing down some grooves. You're throwing in some fills. You're trying to stay on the beat. But many times I will go back and listen to myself. I would be off the beat. My fields wouldn't be how I thought they were. And it just wasn't near as good. So really it's the same thing in cells. I know I talked about that just barely, but when you record yourself, you can experience it from a different perspective. And that's why even more important than like sending it to your manager or anything is given yourself feedback. Because I guarantee you, if you give yourself the feedback first, rather than sending it out to just a manager for outside feedback, what's it going to do?Speaker 2 (07:48):It's going to force you to think what could I have done better? It's going to force you to evaluate yourself and think, did that make sense? What I was saying? Did that make sense? I was explaining it, what I buy from myself. And again, we talked about it in the Mikey Lukey Epps Lucas episode, but he has a rubric that he uses for himself, basically a little scoring sheet. And if you didn't do that, I want you to go hit up Mikey and, or send me a message. I can help you out, get that sheet from him. Cause that's what you're going to want to do. You're going to give yourself a self evaluation before you even send it to any manager or any company owner or whatever. And if you are a team, if you're leading a team right now, or if you're a company owner, make sure you have your reps think because so many times we're just, we just want to get feedback.Speaker 2 (08:39):Uh, Hey, what could I have done better coach coach me. And we're not helping our reps think for themselves. I do it too. I run a coaching program right now. We got guys in there and I have to catch myself all the time from just giving too much feedback and not having the rep think for themselves. I'm thinking back to like Yoda or something, all the star wars fans. How many times did Yoda give the direct, you know, specific thing to do versus coaching Luke Skywalker into what he thinks he should do. He made his jetties think, and that's what we should be doing as team leaders. That's what we should be doing when we coach our reps. So make sure you develop a rubric, hit me up for that or hit Nike Lucas up and then coach yourself before you get outside feedback. Okay.Speaker 2 (09:38):And then number two is try to get some video in there, gain the software we're talking about for next time is only audio, but get some video because you're going to want to analyze your body language. You're going to want to analyze how confident you look. You're going to want to analyze, um, how the interaction went with the customer, where they moving around a lot of different things you can see in video. And so we went to a, um, talked about this a lot too, so sorry, I keep drawing from this, but Danny PESI Taylor McCarthy's event, the knock star event down in key west Ford. I was out that and a lot of the, um, a lot of the different coaching moments, a lot of the teachings they went through was from Taylor McCarthy's own interactions on the doors. That was a big thing in his presentation.Speaker 2 (10:35):He kept pulling up videos of him on the actual doors and going through this, why I do this? This is why I say this supervisor. You will have that video content. And if you don't have why video content of view on the doors of view in presentations, highly recommended because people can learn from that. And that's one of the reasons why this Knox star program is so unique. They have hours and hours of footage, of live action of them on the doors of them closing deals in real time. So you use that and then get recordings from your top reps. This is a super invaluable for trainings for onboarding new people. If you can get recordings of your reps, video and audio, and then they can hear that it's going to help, help them, you know, develop their own presentation and just take elements from people that are most like their selling style and put it in their own presentations.Speaker 2 (11:33):Hey, and so that's another cool feature about the software we're going to be talking about on next episode is that it has the ability to store all these different recordings and then rep reps can go listen to the ones that are featured, um, ones that they feel like is, uh, most similar to their selling, selling style. Okay. So regardless if you use the software or not that we're going to be talking about, it's called serial by the way, S I R O regardless, if you use that, these are things you should be doing, okay. Get your own content, get your own recordings and get your own video content and make sure you have it in a place that reps are actually going to see in use. If you need help. With that, hit us up. We have got a whole training platform that companies are using and they're able to track.Speaker 2 (12:21):They're able to put their own content on there. They're able to see who is actually going on and logging into it, going through it. And they're able to test the reps on it. So if you need a solution for that, that's the next step, get your recordings in one place. And then we can help you put that in a training platform where people are really going to maximize the value they get from it. So make sure you're doing that. Okay. So three things get a rubric, score yourself, record yourself, and Hey, if you got to do an incentive, we did incentives like that all the time where let's be honest, it's tough to get reps sometimes to record themselves out there. But if you're a leaning team throwing a little incentive, we like to do the ones where, uh, you throw something random in your door presentation.Speaker 2 (13:09):We do like, I don't know, may the force be with you guess I'm on a star wars kick today, but have had them say something random in it and then give, I don't know, 20 bucks to whoever does that. That's a way to get people to record themselves, make sure people are doing it and then make sure they're grading themselves before they send it to you. And then another thing is have them condense it down, especially if you're leading a bigger team, you don't want to be going through hours and hours of these recordings, as much as you love your reps, right? Have them condense it down. This is what I do actually have a, a fitness coach right now. And I have to send in videos of the specific workouts, but he always says, Taylor, please trim it down. I don't want to watch 10 minutes of you a warming up or whatever.Speaker 2 (13:58):So I go at trimmed down the video to the specific exercise to the reps he wants me to do, and then I send it to him. Okay. And so something that software, the Ciro software makes way easier as well. But if you're going to do anything, coach your reps to send in a condensed version, the meat and potatoes of it, then it's going to help you be able to listen and give feedback to as many of these as possible. Okay? So most important things get a rubric, um, take examples from it, using, use them in trainings, and then just be a good example. Do it yourself. If you're asking people for these recordings, make sure your coordinator herself as well. So hopefully we've convinced you, you need to be recording yourself. You need to be giving yourself feedback and also getting outside feedback, but more importantly, give yourself feedback and then tune in for next episode, because we're going to be demoing the software.Speaker 2 (14:54):That's going to make it just 10 times easier, so much easier. So don't miss out. We'll see on the next one and it's shoot me some feedback. Let us know if you want us to cover specifics topics or bring on specific guests. So keep crushing hope you close some deals this week and we will see you on the next one.New Speaker (15:14):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:43):Speaker 2: (00:43)Why are you thinking like a real estate agent is a must in the solar industry, and what are the things that they're doing that you're probably not in your solar business? All that and much more in today's episode of the Solarpreneur podcast, let's jump into it. My name's Taylor Armstrong. I'm here to help you generate more referrals, get more leads, close, more deals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry. Hope you're doing well. We're entering fall and I'm loving it. It's cooler. What a perfect time to knock doors, right? Cooler outside. People are not sweating their, their pants off. It's uh, just a great time. The only downside is it does start getting darker a little bit earlier here in, uh, California. It's dark by like seven o'clock, which is kind of a bummer. And then once daylight savings, time hits start at like six.Speaker 2 (01:39):So we've done some episodes on that about why you should be knocking in the dark. Really. It's not that big of a deal, right. But great time to be knocking. And so before we jump into the topic today, wanted to just, um, thank those of you that have connected with me on a social media. I put out a post about an unfortunate experience I had on a Instagram. So thank you to all those who responded and helped me with some feedback on it. You can go, uh, follow me on Instagram, if you didn't see that, but had a unfortunate kind of referral experience that I got some great feedback on. So go check that out. Would love to hear your feedback on it. I did post on my story. So maybe by the time you're listening to this probably won't be up anymore. But, um, just the long story short, I got a referral from someone and they sent me just the address of it.Speaker 2 (02:35):And I did end up closing the deal, which was awesome. So I told him, I said, Hey, got the deal. Um, locked down. I'm going to shoot you a little referral bonus. And this person, they requested that I pay him half the commission on the deal. And I'm like, well, you only gave me the address. It wasn't like a, you know, set appointment or anything. He just sent me the address and told me to go check up on him. He had closed them earlier, I guess in the year, then an up canceling. So he said, Hey, if you're around here, see if you see if you can make something happen. And I did. And he expected half the commission. So I asked for some feedback on that. So I kind of a long story, but anyways, the overruling whelming response was that probably doesn't need half the commission, but I will shoot them a referral bonus anyways, great place to connect with people.Speaker 2 (03:27):And then the other thing I wanted to ask, if you know anyone that is crushing it, anyone that is doing something unique in the solar industry, shoot me a message. Let me know about them. Um, I got a phone call from someone yesterday who someone in his office closed a 60. I think it was 64 deals last month connected me. We're going to do a podcast. So guys like that, I mean, the world needs to know about these people. 64 deals in a month. Come on, man. What are you doing? Super impressive. So if you know people like that, that hidden gem, that undiscovered talent, let me know, let's get them on the show. Let's hear what they're doing to have so much success. So without further ado, let's jump into the topic today. And that topic is why you should be treating your solar business more like a real estate agent.Speaker 2 (04:20):Okay. And quick backstory. The reason we're talking about this is per usual because of some experiences I had last week. Um, if you haven't noticed, I base a lot of this podcast off what's happening to me in real time off. What I see is working for our team and I'm sharing it here with my Solarpreneur peeps. Cause that's where, what we're about is helping each other grow. So the reason we're talking about this is because, um, if you've been listening, you've been hearing some ways I've been getting referrals, some ways that I've been trying to create the perfect customer experience. Hey, we learned about this. I went to an NOC star retreat there in key west, which I've been talking about. And two in McCarthy, he talked a lot about that. What's the perfect customer experience that you can create the PCX. He called it.Speaker 2 (05:10):And if we do that, we're going to be getting more referrals in talking about real estate agents. They work mostly through referrals, right? At least the good ones that I know they're getting a lot of referrals. They're not necessarily knocking. I know some that knock doors, but most real estate agents they're working referral based, right? They're getting leads by different ways than just going out and knocking on doors. So how can we be more like that in the solar industry? I don't know about you, but sometimes knocking doors all day. It's not the first thing I want to do. Right? And I know if anyone is doing this year round, there's probably times where you enjoy getting more referrals than out there knocking all day. Okay? If you and no offense to those that are knocking all day that's I know people are killing it that way, but in my opinion, you should be a mixed bag of tricks, right?Speaker 2 (06:03):You should be getting your referrals. You should be thrown in some online leads. You should be knocking on doors. You should be networking, connecting with other people in getting leads in all avenues possible because that's how you're going to thrive. Okay? It's like people that only did online ads. Um, one of my mentors, Russell Brunson, he talks about how he built his business. He's the click funnels guy, super successful. Um, if you haven't heard of him, but he talks about some of his early businesses. He built them only off of Google ads. And what happened was Google ads. They changed their algorithms to only benefit basically the big juggernauts that were running ads. So anyone that had a huge ad ad budget ad spend that was spending, um, hundreds of thousands a month, basically those ones, um, all the results went to them after that.Speaker 2 (06:59):And so Russell Brunson, he was, you know, a small guy at the time, a small fish in the pond and his ads dried up basically overnight. So he had to adjust. He had to open his business to different avenues, different ways, because it's like anything. If they shut down, if it's COVID and they outlaw door knocking, what are you going to do? Right. That's what happened here in California. COVID hit for basically, I don't know, two, three months, you couldn't really go out and door knock. I knew a few people that did, but I don't think they had super great results during this time. So it's like, what are you going to do? You need to be able to adapt and adjust and pivot so you can still have success. Even when these things happen, even when these surprises come up. Okay. So that's why you should think more like a real estate agent and get leads through different avenues.Speaker 2 (07:53):And so something that I have been doing, give you an example. I learned this trick from, um, my boy, Mikey, Lucas, family go listen to his podcast. He was on about a month ago, but we were talking at this event, the knock starving in key west Florida. And here's a little, a little referral hack. Write this down or remember this. Okay. You get customer's birthdays. Okay. And you remember them, you send them stuff on their birthdays. Who's doing that in the solar industry. Pretty cool, huh? Okay. And um, let me expound on that. So Mikey, the way he gets people's birthdays is what do we have to all do? When we get someone signed up for solar, unless you're doing a cash deal, I guess you gotta run their credit. Right. And what do you need to run their credit? You need their date of birth.Speaker 2 (08:50):So what Mikey does, and I stole this from him. He gets a picture every time as he's running their credit, he takes a picture of their birthday. Maybe leave the social security number out of there. Right? I don't know if you'll necessarily need that. Okay. Unless you're planning on stealing people's identities, but snap, a picture of their date of birth, and then boom, you have their birthday and what can you start doing? You can start sending them gifts every time they're having a birthday. And Mikey talked about this, he works a lot referral base. He has some huge referral chains going on. Um, he was talking about how he got, I think it was like 15 referrals from one lady. And that's how you build referral chains is you start doing those little things. And that's why I'm talking about thinking like a real estate agent, because what does real estate agents do?Speaker 2 (09:40):They send people stuff on their birthdays. Maybe not all of them, but I know a lot of the good real estate guys. They're sending gifts on people's birthdays. They're sending their postcards, they're getting referrals, they're getting repeat customers. And this is how they do it. They do it by staying in the loop with their customers and connecting with them, gain to take that even a bit further. If you haven't already go listen to, I did an episode on, uh, using a service called send out cards. Okay. Um, I think it was, I don't know, four or five episodes ago. Go check that out. Um, it was, I think it was the why you should take pictures with your customers. Yeah, that should be it. Go look for that one. But I talk about send note cards as a service I use. What's really, really cool about this.Speaker 2 (10:32):I don't think I mentioned it in the episode if I did sorry for repeating myself, but you can put in the customer's birthday as you're sending them gifts and then you can schedule, send out cards. Um, it's sendoutcards.com go create an account. We'll put, uh, if you want to support the show, we'll put our, uh, affiliate link in there too. If you enjoy the content, but you can put in the customer's birthday and then you can have emails sent to you, reminding you that, Hey, it's a John Smith's birthday coming up and then you can send out a gifts for their birthday. There you go. Little hack right there. I'm starting to do that with every single customer. If you want to create that connection, if you want to create that long-term relationship, this is how you do it. You do it by staying in touch.Speaker 2 (11:20):And for a lot of us door to door, guys, this is tough. This took me forever to learn. I came from door to door, pest control. How many door to door pest guys keep in touch with their customers. Not too many, especially yet some of these guys. So on a thousand accounts, a lot of people to keep in touch with, but this is how you create that lasting value. And this is why solar is different. Let's be honest. We're making real estate commissions, a lot of us by selling these systems. So why are we not treating solar more like real estate, more like a business, more like something that we build real lasting relationships with people, and don't just sell and get out of there super important. You do that. And that's how you're going to last in the industry is by doing little things like that.Speaker 2 (12:04):Okay. So I'll try that out and let me know if you guys think of any other ideas on how to really just create a lasting relationship with your customers and treat it more like a real estate sell. I did a little Google Google search before I did this episode and obviously real estate. They get a lot of referrals. So I searched how to real estate agents get their referrals. A lot of stuff in here that can apply to solar as well. So I'm just going to jump through them real quick. This'll probably give you some ideas as well, but the first one it says offer exceptional service again. How can you create that perfect customer experience for me, it's sending out gifts to my customers. Okay. Every single time we send them, send out cards, you send them a picture that you took with them.Speaker 2 (12:51):You send them a personalized letter, which is super quick to do with send out cards and you send them some brownies. Okay? Boom, perfect customer experience. Obviously there's more to it than that. Hopefully your team has something on the back end where you're communicating with your customer every week, sending them updates. Okay. So that's something that if you don't have set up, if you're a company owner, let us know, we can definitely help you create that and craft that more. So, uh, anyways, what can you do though, to offer exceptional service, start thinking of that, thinking of all the things that you can do, that's going to differentiate, differentiate yourself from your competitors to create that exceptional service. Number two was be a specialist. If you think are real estate, they've got signs out here, but I'm driving to different areas in it. It'll say, uh, it'll say like condo real estate specialist, um, I'll see signs based on different areas of the town.Speaker 2 (13:53):Um, like alcohol is an area out here, alcohol and real estate specialist. So that's being specific. So how can you do that in solar? Maybe it's new move in real solar specialists, maybe it's, uh, I don't know, townhome solar specialist. Maybe it's mentioned solar specialist. Maybe it's maybe you can do it based on the area. So think how can you be a specialist? How can you specialize in a specific home and the specific type of person, maybe you're Latino, maybe you're Hispanic, maybe you're that, uh, Latino solar specialist. Right? And you're focusing on all the Mexican homes, the Mexican areas in your city and a lots of people doing that. So figure out a way to be a specialist. Okay. And that's one way to really get increase your lead flow. Number three, work with local business owners, but how can you network with other people and get them to provide you referrals, to work with local business owners?Speaker 2 (14:59):So you can go to networking events like BNI. Um, there's there are events that happen should be in every pretty much every local area where you can go and network with people. And I have not done this personally. So I know people that have had a ton of success. Um, guy named, uh, Jonathan Brunetto. He's on, he's one of that power's top guys. I know he has some good content on this, but people are having success going to meetings like that. Networking number four was providing useful content to your clients. Okay. And what contents do you have right now? Hopefully you have some content out there on your website on, um, if you're using rep card, great place to put some useful content that you'd send to customers. And we are actually helping companies do this. So if you are a company owner or want to pass this on your company, we are actually helping people now get some useful content.Speaker 2 (15:53):If you don't already have that established. So hit us up. If you need help with that number five was re rewarding referrals, which obviously is a no brainer, but hopefully everyone's doing that. Make sure you ever reward your people. And, and guys don't be that person that gets a referral and doesn't pay out. I know so many people in the industry that have not paid out their refers. So make sure if you promised or referral, uh, you know, pay out and make sure you pay them out and make sure you pay him out right away, because it's a quick way to never get a referral. Again, if you do not actually pay out your, uh, customers. And it's funny, I actually had a client who had a referral. He is going to give me, but then he, uh, he said, Hey, I'll give you this referral, but I want something in writing the name, gonna get paid out on it.Speaker 2 (16:42):Uh, Mike I'm like, dude, I set you up with solar help for sure. Pay you out. Is that give me something in writing. So I literally had to write them up, you know, like a document saying that he would get paid out for his referral. So hopefully your trust, your customers have more trust than that, but it's pretty sad. Don't be the person that causes distrust by not paying out your referral refers that, give you a referrals, tongue twister right there. Hey. And then last couple six build relationship with industry leaders. Okay. Um, so who are industry leaders in solar that you can build connections with?Speaker 2 (17:26):Um, and then seven have a strong social media presence. Okay. A lot of people are crushing it in the social media game. If we've talked about some ways to get it through this, I'm not going super in depth, but just hopefully giving you some ideas here. Number eight, email implement, email marketing, automate Asian. Um, this goes back to having your marketing in place. Hopefully you have content sequences, um, texts and email sequences that can go out to people. Again, hit us up. If you need help with this number nine request testimonials, Hey, you all should be doing this. If you're following me on social media, I try to get testimonials with the majority of my solar deals. Great way to get more referrals by showing people this and having them do this. And you really anchoring yourselves. Number 10, distribute, branded material, number 11, be easy to find and contact.Speaker 2 (18:20):Okay. So this goes back to a lot of people aren't doing this. Surprisingly, make sure you're putting your number in customers' phones. Right? Make sure they're saving it and make sure you put like something about solar in there, because most of these people are forgetting your name. The second you walk out of their door, right? So if you don't put like Taylor solar or something, easy to find, you're not going to hear from these people. They're not going to come back to you. Number 12, host a party, number 13, work with a referral agent. Okay. So hopefully this gives you a few ideas of how you can start thinking more like a real estate agent. Love to hear your thoughts. Let me know what you think and go connect with the real estate agent. There's another way. Okay. Get your leads from there. If you can connect with some real estate agents. So I'm just trying to get you to think outside the box. It's not just about having only one way to generate leads, think outside the box and get multiple ways of generating your leads. So I hope that was helpful. Let me know if you have any other ideas on how you can generate leads and referrals and think more like a real estate agent and send this to someone that you think could use help with that as well. And we'll see you on the next episode. Peace.Speaker 3 (19:35):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:41):What's going on Solarpreneurs. I am stoked today. We got an exciting episode because we got someone that everyone should know if you've been endorsed it or sells, or just like funny memes, then you definitely know this guy. We've got the master Miemer on the interwebs himself. Mr. Rick Martinez, Rick. Thanks for finally hopping on the show with us. My man. Thank you,Speaker 3 (01:04):Taylor. Appreciate appreciate it, man. It took us a while, but we, uh, we're we're we're finally doing it.Speaker 2 (01:10):Yeah, I know. I was just telling Rick before the show, him and Tony Robbins have been the two hardest guys to get on the podcasts. Haven't quite got Tony Robbins on yet, but, but, But, uh, Rick took a while to cause he's a busy guy and he's all over the place. And we'll talk about that. But, uh, no, we're just in key west Florida hanging out at the knock event and we're planning on to do a show there, but, um, Rick, he was kind of helping out things got busy and kind of make it happen. So like, all right, well got modern technology, just hop on the zoom and finally making it happen. So thanks again, Rick.Speaker 3 (01:52):We appreciate being on man. So let's, let's dive into it, bro. What exactly we're going to share with the people today?Speaker 2 (01:59):Well, we got something exciting. It's always exciting when you have Rick on. So Rick, do you want to, I don't know, maybe introduce how you got into door to door and how you first started making your memes. I guess a little background on him real quick. He runs the main page, no listing bra, which is like, you know, the biggest, I don't know, door to door entertainment page. I would say hands down, it's been entertaining door to door sales reps for years and years now, everyone loves them and he's been successful in pest control, uh, solar. And that's actually how we first met is because we brought both sold for a company called new power here in Southern California back in the day. So, uh, just a little introduction for you, Rick, but yeah. Do you want to, I don't know, go a little more in depth, how you got in the front door to door first and um, started up your meme page, all that good stuff. Yeah.Speaker 3 (02:51):Yeah, of course. So I started in door to door back in 2014. Um, six months after I got home from my LDS mission. Um, my buddy who's like, dude, you do so well at this. You do so well at this, but I just, I was hesitant. So I spent six months working as a painter's assistant at an auto body shop working 40, 50, even 60 hours some weeks. And I finally gave in, went out on the Saturdays, set a deal. And then that later that week it closed. And I was told that I was going to make like $1,400 off of that one deal. And I was like, you're kidding me. And they're like, yeah, I'm like, what the, so the next Saturday I go out and I booked three more. They all closed. And I think like two weeks later I'm like, yeah, I'm, I'm quitting my day job.Speaker 3 (03:42):And I'm doing solar full-time. So from 2014, up until like 2017ish, I was with a company called new power. Built, help them build that thing out quite a bit. That's where Armstrong and I had met. And then I took a little bit of a break. Um, tried out pest control with active. And then I was selling with Aaptiv in 2018. When I started the no soliciting bromine page, I was just going through a lot of anxiety, some depression at the time. Um, and my way to cope with me, it was so nice. I found a page called summer sales fails and I thought to myself, I can make way better memes and way better content. So that's what I started doing. And since then, yeah, it's taken three years for the page to take off. But now, um, I don't think I can go into any sales team without somebody knowing me. I can't fly into Utah or walk around Provo without someone knowing who I am, which is actually kind of insane.Speaker 2 (04:44):Yeah, no, everyone knows. And if you go to like door to door con or something with this guy, you feel like he's the Wolf of wall street in there. You just got, you know, ladies surrounding them, just crowds of people, just like no, this listing bruh. So it's a pretty surreal experience. And uh, I always joke just because me and Rick we've found a lot of events together over the years. And it used to be where we were like hanging out on equal footing at these events. But, but now he gets lost in the crowd pretty quick, because I feel like people are kind of walking around, you know, ask him for autographs and all that stuff. So I felt glad to know Rick before he was, you know, super famous and everyone knew him, but no you've had a ton of success now. And isn't it funny that back in the day we were so stoked or we're making like a thousand bucks on a solar deal and now it's like making that.Speaker 3 (05:39):Yeah. I remember being pumped about making 400 bucks a kilowatt Gosh, 400 bucks as a kilowatt, as a closer selling a 21 cent PPA, man.Speaker 2 (05:57):I knowSpeaker 3 (05:57):That's crazy because when you're comparing that to pest control, it's like, you know, crazy money, like no way you make over a thousand, because that was my background. I came from pest control and you're making, you know, maybe, I don't know, a couple hundred bucks. I know you guys make an R or make a more impasse now, too. But, but yeah, that's pretty crazy how far things have come. So tell me though, why did you decide to, uh, kind of, I know you've been in pest now. You've been doing now you're back doing a little bit of solar, but yeah. Why did you decide to try out pests coming from a solar and you know, and so the F the first time I did it, honestly, I was sold on the location. My recruiter told me that we were going to long island, New York, and he sold me on the fact that like, dude, we're in long island, we can go to Manhattan.Speaker 3 (06:45):And I was like, okay, cool. Yeah. He offered me some ridiculous, like really good deal that at the time I was like, you know what I mean? This is fine. But my whole thing was, I just wanted to go to New York. Yeah. So I went and I did, well, I sold like a little over 150 with like a six 90 contract value. And I was like, and they're like, dude, that's so good. I'm like, really? So the whole time, like, yeah, like the sales were there, but I was there just to go to New York, bro. Like for me, going to New York was a dream. So yeah, I did that the next year I took off last year, I went back in, um, it's so pest control is such a fun sale, right? Imagine like setting, if you can get a really good area where you can set a crap tenant deals, that's like the equivalent of selling the pest control account. You can go in and just, I mean, what setting you clearly don't get paid for the sets. Um, but with pest control, it's like that simple, you go in, Hey, you got bugs. This is what we're doing. Oh, you're with someone else. This is why people have been switching over to us and you just close them, get them set up, get them serviced and you get paid. Okay.Speaker 2 (07:55):Yeah. Love it. No, it is a quick sell. Yeah. How have you seen some similarities since you switched, you know, back and forth now kind of from pests or solar, do you feel like there's been a lot of things that have helped you, that you've learned in pest that you've been able to like apply to solar now as youSpeaker 3 (08:10):Yeah. Big time. Yeah. The option close. So does the morning or afternoon work better for my, for my, uh, specialist to Papa. Okay. Nice. The option close. Uh, try and try and get them outside of the house. Take, take taking them to the meter. Um, this is one of the things that I learned from, uh, McCarthy that we did a long time ago was, uh, downloading the Sunseeker app and taking them around the house and showing them on the app on your iPad, where, where the sun hours are at and say, so this is more than likely where the panels would go and then just getting them to move around the house.Speaker 2 (08:49):Yeah. That's money. Yeah. That is a huge difference. And yeah, it's funny you say that because I'm actually working right now on here on Jason newbie, steam. A lot of our top guys came from pests and that's all they talk about dues. They're just pulling people out, out, off that door. They're pulling people, the meter to the backyard. And I feel like it's just location, but getting people on like a different, you know, kind of mental state, because as you know, behind the doors, people are a lot of times super reserved, super guarded. Like what are you doing here? When we can get them outside of their castle, there are they like, it's crazy how much they open up and you know, you try it, the exact same clothes. You maybe just try it at the door, it'll work just cause you're, you know, outside, uh, you know, on their porch or in a different location with them or inside the home. Yeah.Speaker 3 (09:39):And one of the things that I took from solar that I started applying my first summer and past was, um, trying to get inside the home. Now when I wasn't, when I was in long island, um, it would, it would rain a lot. I think that was the one thing that I didn't like about how much it rains. So I made it really simple. I'm like, cool. I just got to fill this out with you real quick. Is there a, is there a small corner of the kitchen table, like a borrower to fill this out and they would give me some resistance. I'd be like, do you want me to take my shoes off? If they said yes or no, I would either take my shoes off or not and walk in. Yeah. Maybe I'd be inside people's homes. I'd be at the kitchen table, sign, signing them up for best control and then just open up the conversation. And then they would more than likely give me referrals.Speaker 2 (10:23):Nice. Love that. Yeah. That's shaped from new power and they're drone on that. So many times it's like, they can't say no to letting you in. You're like, yeah. I asked you, do you want me to take my shoes off? I didn't ask you. I can't come in. Like just transitioned straight to that question. But now that's a fire question for our Solarpreneurs that are listening. Yeah. You need to be using questions like that. Super assumptive getting inside homes, which side of the house is your meter on? Um, cause at that point you're just being assumptive. You're not asking them yes or no. Like, do you want to do, it's not. I think that's been a one been a, one of the biggest keys for my success if I had had. And probably you do right. Rick and solar. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So yeah. Love that. And no, I think there's a ton of things that apply in, I would say just like in the work ethic too. Cause I was out in an adjustment for you coming from solar where at new power, we are only doing like, I don't know, four or five hours maybe on the doors and pest control. They're like, all right, Rick, you got to come out. We're going from a 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM or whatever it was. Was that like an adjustment for you?Speaker 3 (11:35):Big time adjustment. I was like, dude, these guys are crazy. I can not do 12 hours on the doors, but I got used to it, bro. And then during, during competition do this, this, this is what these pest control companies do well is they, they get these kids so hyped up on competition that I remember my, the, the latest sale I ever made was in the, was in an Indian neighborhood because we knew the Indians were going to be up super late. And my last sale of the day I started, I knocked this guy's house at 1140 and I, and I left his house just a little after midnight. Wow.Speaker 2 (12:15):Crazy.Speaker 3 (12:17):And I had, I had never talked to this guy before I, I saw that the garage was open. People were in the garage talking, I go up and I'm like, Hey look like we're in the middle of a competition. And we are getting down to the wire, right? Like if we win, this is what we, when we do pass control, I'm going to take care of you. And then the haggling started. And I, and then I, I stopped them as low as I could so we can get enough points for the sale. I'm like, look, tell you what, this is, what I'll do. This is the best, the best I can do. And he took it.Speaker 2 (12:52):That's fricking awesome. Did it help? Did he pass for Indian? Did he see your darker skin? Oh, you're my brother. Yeah. A littleSpeaker 3 (13:00):Bit.Speaker 2 (13:03):Yeah. No, that's good. Yeah. If you can get those Indians, hopefully he gave you a referral chain. Do they give you like four referrals?Speaker 3 (13:09):I wish no. He told me. Yeah. I'll I'll I I'll refer you to everyone, everyone, anywhere for me and anybody, but that's fine because the only thing we needed, the only thing I needed was the sales so we can win. Yeah.Speaker 2 (13:21):That's good. I love that competition. Clothes helps a lot when people and see that you're bought into a competition and people just naturally want to help out. So I use that a lot in solar too.Speaker 3 (13:31):Do they happen so much? Like even this last year, like when I was going up in the masters, like the one-on-one I would tell people like, look, um, I don't know about you, but I, I hate losing. So tell you what I'm in the competition right now, me and one of the best guys in the company was my line. Um, and, and I would show them like I would pull up on my app and I'd show them the actual competition. Like, look, I do pass control. Right. I take care of the bugs. It's nothing crazy. If I can get you done while I'm out of here, this is what I'm willing to do. Yeah. I would show them like, I would show them like the regular price, regular price, what I would do. But then I would bring in McCarthy's model home clothes and be like, look, honestly, if I can just get you done as like a marketing home for me, this, this is what I'm willing to do. I'm willing to drop it instead of this, to this. The only thing I ask is that if you use social media, just give me a shout out on your Facebook or on next door. If you can give me a shout on the next door app, I will even do the first one for free. Nice. And then that way it gets me publicity out there. It gets people to know who I am and then some referrals would trickle in that way.Speaker 2 (14:41):Yeah. That's sweet. And then would you ever pull up to the next door? It'd be like, Hey, I'm the guy that they're posting about on the next door. Did they tell you is passing by?Speaker 3 (14:51):I would have her do it right then and there. Um, depending on the situation, sometimes I would have a technician in like literally in the area now with texts attack, I'd be like, Hey mark, I'm getting one down. I'm getting one right now. And I dropped my pen and then by the time I was signing docs, he was rolling up.Speaker 2 (15:08):Yeah. Wow. That's mySpeaker 3 (15:10):Dad, dude. It's money. It's money. And then from there I would have her posts on the next door app right then and there.Speaker 2 (15:17):Nice.Speaker 3 (15:19):But my squid you have, do you have, do you have your phone on you? Cool. Can you pull up the next door app? Okay. Um, do you mind if I just take over and I just type in the thing, put my number in and then I'd be like, cool. So you can post it. I'd just have her click post and there we go.Speaker 2 (15:35):Nice. No, that's yeah. That's insane. How good that stuff works. I had a guy on our team last week. He got like six deals in this, I think in one street or something just from doing that exact same thing. Just having people post on the neighborhood, Facebook group next door. And then just saying, Hey, I'm the solar guy out here that they've been posting about in the groups. Did you already see it? And then I think half the time they're like, oh yeah, we saw that. Yeah. Yeah. I guess they said, you're going to come by and it's like instant credibility, instant trust. It's basically wherever all at that point. And they were closing. Yep. So exactly. Yeah. That's something I've yeah. I haven't tried really trading the next door stuff, but yeah, I think, uh, for those that are listening, make sure you're utilizing the power of social media is, and you know, all the nextdoor stuff.Speaker 2 (16:22):Cause that's how people go from skeptical on the doors. Do you know, knowing you're going to be there and knowing you're going to come by. So that's good stuff, Rick. Exactly. Um, so yeah, something I did want to transition into though a little bit, I know you talked just how, um, you've gone through phases, you know, ups and downs. Like I'm sure a lot of us have, you've gone through like some depression. I know some, you know, mental side of things and that's, uh, the reason I want to touch on that super common in door to door. I know a lot of people struggle with, uh, the depression, the mental stuff that's going on in people's heads. Um, so what do you have some, uh, I don't know, advice for people that are struggling with those things or just like the mental aspect, things that have helped you to continue in this industry for what are you going on? Like seven, eight years now you've been doing all thisSpeaker 3 (17:12):Stuff. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm going on my seventh year. Wow.Speaker 2 (17:16):That's crazy.Speaker 3 (17:18):Um, I would say first and foremost, um, depression is real. Anxiety is real. So if it's really bad, then go get help. Okay. First and foremost, um, secondly, a lot of the time it's, it's situational anxiety and situational depression, meaning that it's, it's things that we've done to put us into this situation. You know, ultimately the, the most common thing is, is at, in the beginning, we start doing all the little things that brings us, brings us success. Once we have the success, we stopped doing the little things I got us to where we were at and we just expect to coast off of that confidence off of the skill set off of whatever it is that, that, that got us to that success. Um, I would say focus more on the action rather than focusing on the results. So many of us are fixated on, I need to make a sale today.Speaker 3 (18:10):I need to do this. I need to do that. And then they just, what do they do? They roll out of bed 20 minutes before the meeting, before the meeting or 20 minutes before they have to leave the correlation, the correlation, they're not getting any training. They're not reading, they're not studying. They just show up and expect things to happen. Right. Um, it's, it's, it just comes down to the actions, like focus on the little things like, you know, river Skinner. And I, we post every day about winning our mornings, um, rivers doing power hour. I do what I need to do. Um, ultimately if you can stack as many wins as you can, the success will come. So if you find yourself in a slump, one of the things that I've recently talked with, a lot of people is I've approached it in more of like a therapeutical manner, meaning that, okay, what happened for you to get into this slump?Speaker 3 (19:03):Know what, what may have caused it is a mental slump. Is it like in an emotional slump? Is it, what is it? You know what, first let's classify, what kind of slump it is for most people it's sales. Okay. That's understand. We're in the, we're in the last little bit of the summer. That's okay. People tend to, you know, work really hard in the beginning, but they can't maintain that. So what, what, what did you start dropping off last month? You stopped reading. You stopped ringing the training manual. Cool. We'll go back and start doing that. If you can, if you can figure out what caused the slump, then you know how to one prevent any future slumps, um, in the future. But you can go and fix the slump that you're currently in. Yeah. So go back and figure out what it is that may have caused it. Start working on that. Start working on a few other things, just, just, just comes down to work. I agree. Sometimes salespeople, we're, we're very egotistical, meaning that we have a lot of pride. Sometimes we just, you just got to swallow your pride and accept that, Hey, you've put yourself in this situation and now it's your turn to now it's on you to pull yourself out. Yeah,Speaker 2 (20:15):I like that. It's like what Taylor McCarthy always says first comes back, uh, was the first comes, the action then comes the motivation. Exactly. And uh, yeah, a lot of guys, they're just not doing enough of the action bottom line and expect and motivation to come first. So I think it's super helpful going and analyzing those things. Like most people have tasted some sort of success in door to door at this point. So this is actually like an exercise that I am having. One of my, uh, coaching students go through right now is just go write down all the things that you successful, all the things you did during the day, when you had a ton of success or during the week you had a ton of success. And most of the time it's completely different than the things they're doing right now. Like, like you said, they're not waking up at the same time.Speaker 2 (20:59):They're not going through a routine. They're just rolling out of bed, go into the correlation. So I think those are all super important things to go and just do an analysis of really, what are you doing now with your day? What are you doing with your routines? And chances are, you're probably doing different things. If you're not experiencing the success or experiencing the right mental state that you need to be. So, yeah. Um, I liked that though. Now I think, um, I wanted to ask you, cause like you're always traveling. You're always on the road and for me it's tough to like stay in the right mental state when I'm always a, you know, like traveling all over the place and like you're in a hotel room right here right now. So, um, do you feel like you've had to adjust like being on the road so much? I feel like this point you're like, you're like Mr. Circus, you're in so many different places. Like you're always adjusting to new environments, to new people and new places. So is that hard for you? Like traveling around so much or you just kind like,Speaker 3 (21:58):It's hard, it's hard. I mean, it's, it's hard on anybody. They just come down to just, I mean the best salespeople are those who are adaptable online. Um, it's almost like the sales rep that that's, oh, do you, do you, you sell more in like rich areas or poor or poor areas? My response is it doesn't matter where you put me on because I'm just going to go talk to people and I'm going to figure out how I need to adjust my presentation. So these people will buy. And that's what it is. It's just a Jessie and just like anything in life, I think even in sales, right, you have to have like a skeleton, like an outline of what you're going to do for me. It comes down to my mornings. It comes down to how I wind down at the end of the day. And a big factor is the people who are around me. So if I can get around like really, really good high-performing individuals, it makes it simpler on me to be able to adjust to this, to the market, to adjust to where I'm at, if I'm the high producer and I'm the guy that people are supposed to look up to, then it's a little bit harder. And I got to put in more work behind the scenes.Speaker 2 (23:10):Yeah, no doubt. And that's why it's, I mean, some people aren't as good as that. I know for me, sometimes it's tough to be that way too. Like the high producer and, um, be the best guy in everything. So for people that struggle, I mean, consider getting on a team where there are like high producers and, um, B Williams, because that starts to wear at you. I know there's times at new power G where maybe we didn't have as many guys and stuff. And then I knew going out in the car group that I was going to have to be the one to actually like, you know, jump out of that car and go sell that day. And, uh, that's fine. I did that for a long time, but then it starts to like wear on you if you're constantly having to be the one that has to get out and be the one to go hit that first door. So, um, just something to consider for guys who are struggling, get some people that you don't have to drag everywhere and consider getting around like higher level people, which I know your own high level people all the time.Speaker 3 (24:09):So, I mean, in that case, it makes it simpler. It makes it simpler for me to adjust. But dude, it's still hard. Like I've, I've been in every time zone this month.Speaker 2 (24:19):Wow.Speaker 3 (24:21):Like I didn't realize that last night or actually this morning at breakfast, I was talking to this girl and um, I remembered that I was doing a podcast with you and I'm like, shoot, I can't remember what time is that? And then she's like, how do you not remember me? Because he's in California and I'm here. And then we just started talking and then I told him again, I think I've been in every time zone this month. And just like her face was like, what? Like, how were you so functioning?Speaker 2 (24:50):I know, I don't know how you do it. I mean, I mean, Rick will go to events and you're up like helping people all night talking, getting back at three in the morning and then he's up at 6:00 AM for a workout. I'm like, dude, he's fricking nuts though. You're a different breed man, for sure. But, um, speaking of like events and stuff, Ricky, um, we've like, we're talking about, we've been to a lot of events. We go to these things. Uh, I think we both have that mindset of learning, which is awesome and trying to make connections with people. So how have you, I dunno, what's your reasoning for going to all these events and how do you feel like they've helped you in contributing to like upleveling and your success and everythingSpeaker 3 (25:34):It goes back to when you and I were both at new power. We, so I guess for example, let's take a step back. Um, John C. Maxwell in the, in the 21 laws of leadership talks about the law of the lid, right? Like your, your success will only be as high as your highest performer or as high as your, your leadership, your management will allow you to get we side. I mean, granted, we were trained by really good salespeople, but that's all we knew. Yeah. So when I left and when we both left and we started going to these events, we re, uh, for me, I think I realized that there's so much more I can learn out there. Yeah. And I'd be doing a disservice to myself if I just stuck with one form or one way of selling. Yeah.Speaker 2 (26:27):And now it's cool to see you're so like abundant, because I mean, on your page, you're always promoting different, people's like training programs and trying to help guys out and, um, you know, making connections with guys. That's another thing I wanted to ask you. Like, how have you been able to just, I don't know, bill all these connections because it's not just like, you've gone to the events and the courses, like everyone knows you, you can go up and talk to Taylor McCarthy. Obviously you guys are super tight and you're helping them promote. And, um, COVID Ivers all these guys. So how have you been able to like build these relationships with them? And, um, just kinda like, I don't know, put yourself out there on like the, not just, not just, uh, like the professional relationship, but you're like legit buddies with all of these dudes and like hanging out with them and stuff,Speaker 3 (27:13):I guess. So, so the, so the key to build relationships for me is the, it's the value that I bring right aside from like my page, the value that Rick brings to the marketplace. Right? Yeah. It's just about adding value. Um, luckily for me, the, the platform that I have allows me to bring exit existential amount of value. Yeah. Um, so yeah, with like Coda Ivers, Passy McCarthy, um, and even like recently, like Jake has, you know, like some of these people I've been connecting with, it's like, it's what, what can I do? Because ultimately you're right. And you, you mentioned this a little bit earlier that this abundance, um, mentality is, there is no one perfect training course. There is no one perfect way of selling. You need to take a little bit of everything from every one and apply it to mega you're out. Yeah. So whether it is, you know, society knock DocStar ODK, Spiller academy, I would say them all, like be, especially like, if you're in solar, here's your, here's my mindset behind them. It, this solar, solar is only going to be good for so long. Right. And recently I read a quote that says that if you're lazy and you know, working hard, it's because you're not grateful for the opportunity. Yeah. So how about us in five or 10 years down the road are going to look back and think, dude, I should have done more, man. I missed out I do it all the time. Cause we, we had, um, we had an option back in the day called green day. You you remember that?Speaker 2 (29:01):Uh, no, I don't actually, was that a new power?Speaker 3 (29:05):Was that new power? So I think so what it was was a super simple PPA. It was through CPN for like clean, clean power finance. It was like before Sunrun and Sunnova became super huge in the marketplace. Yeah. You can legit go in and sign them up. Same day within 20 minutes. OhSpeaker 2 (29:25):Man, that was before I was there.Speaker 3 (29:28):It was like 2015, I think 2015, 2016, somewhere around there. Anyways. Um, dude, like I kick myself in the foot so much because I saw a little pocket in Temecula where I did like three same days. Wow. And I called the good for like a week,Speaker 2 (29:50):But dude,Speaker 3 (29:51):Like, like looking back on it, like yeah. Why, why that's why I worked so hard bro. It's because I saw the oppor, I see the opportunity that I had. That was a lazy bastard. I settled for three same days and I'm like, nah, dude, I'm good at that. I made enough money to go Dick around for a little bit. You know?Speaker 2 (30:09):I know it's so easy to do that though. And like, I dunno, that's another thing to your point before. I think that's another reason why it's important to go to events and surround yourself by high level people. Because like where we used to think maybe three same days, it was like, unreal, good. Now we go to knock star event and Taylor McCarthy did five deals in a day, probably made, I don't know, 30, 40 grand or whatever in a day. So it's like getting around these higher level people you think you're doing good? Then it's like, go join some of these competitions, go join, knock star. Um, go get in some of these groups then you're really going to see guys who are doing insane amounts of deals. Yeah. This stuff blows my mind. Like going to the events. Where's your mind not blowing at some of these events, seeing the numbers, some of these guys ofSpeaker 3 (30:55):No doubt, no doubt, dude, dude, sometimes. And here's the crazy thing is you bring a McCarthy dude. Sometimes of McCarthy will text me when he's not being active on social media. He's like, bro, I just threw down four same days. I'm like, are you kidding me bro?Speaker 2 (31:10):It's no big deal.Speaker 3 (31:11):Yeah. Yeah. He just texted me and you know, he's like, bro, like I like went out and I did this. I tried out this new thing. I got four same days bro. I'm like, what, what?Speaker 2 (31:24):It's crazy.Speaker 3 (31:25):But it comes down to, this are going, going back to the training. I distinctly remember the same day or like the week that I got those three same days in Temecula. Um, we had just learned a new way of like trying to get inside the home and I did it. So the reason why I say buy up all of these training programs is because the reason sales reps become, I think stagnate is because they have nothing else to apply and they think that they know it all. Yeah. So if you take one thing from this course and you go into, you apply it today, as you do it and you see your work, it creates this level of excitement. Yeah, for sure. And you want to do it over and over and over again. Right. But that one thing is going to get boring. After a while the same way, like a kid gets bored with its toys, they go and they find a new toy.Speaker 3 (32:17):Right. So start, start learning different things to apply. But if you only have one, like your company training, how fast are you going to go through that? That, that training platform pretty fast. Right? And if that person is on can like, if that person's best month is like 20 deals in a month, then you're now limited to 20 deals in a month. Yeah. It makes it so much harder to get 20, 21 deals a month. But if you start learning from all these different people, all these different courses, you start investing in yourself. Now you're going to raise that lead.Speaker 2 (32:51):Yeah. A super powerful stuff. And yeah, that's why I respect people like you like river. Like I just saw a river post a few weeks ago. I think he went and, or maybe was last month or something, but he goes on by his door, door, door. You um, like he's, I mean, he's produced at a high level. He's closing tons of deals and guys like you and him, you're still looking for ways to level up and improve. And Ricky's at every single, you know, knock star event and everything. And like you probably have half the stuff McCarthy's as memorized at this point because I know you talked to them so much and them on your podcast and everything, but no, it's huge. Just invest in yourself. And that's what we're trying to do at Solciety do is just bring in guys that are produced.Speaker 2 (33:36):And it's not just my training course, but we're bringing in guys who are producing than eye level. Uh, the J Cass's the McCarthy's, they're all on there and they're, we're trying to get them in one place and keep adding content monthly. So keeps it fresh. Cause I think that's what guys need. And that's how, like you said, that's how they can keep themselves from getting stagnant and just falling back into old habits. They're investing in themselves and train them improve. Um, but yeah, speaking all that, Rick, I know you travel around as we talked about all the time and you're seeing teams that, uh, maybe you're seeing good and bad, but I know you're traveling to a lot of high level teams. So in your travels there with the Martinez circus, have you seen anything? I don't know what teams are doing, uh, to be successful or anything you notice, um, and in your, all your travels going to these different teams,Speaker 3 (34:32):Um, leadership first and foremost, um, dude, it comes down to the leadership really management. How, how well management does for me, for me, the key to a good manager or leader, someone who continuously works on themselves. Um, actually here's one thing that really sticks out to me Moe Falah recently, um, I think is on my podcast or your podcast, but he talks about when you become a leader, you become an owner. You no longer, these people will no longer work for you. You work for them.Speaker 2 (35:11):That's good.Speaker 3 (35:12):I think a leader that, that can instill that, that they work for other people and they work for their people. Right. Um, I've been in situations and I've, I've been in closes where like I've seen closers drop the price down to beat out a bed. Um, and I've been in situations where like the closure will do whatever it takes for the setter to get paid.Speaker 2 (35:40):Yeah. That's awesome.Speaker 3 (35:41):You know, and after we talk about it and the, you, yeah, the closest going to make like two, 300 bucks, right. Because they, they, they had to, they had to leverage the price so the seller can make their pay. Okay.Speaker 2 (35:54):Yeah. That's important that would taken care of your, you know, team, your centers. They're the ones that are, you know, feeding the golden goose. They're the ones that are helping you get paid. So that is important.Speaker 3 (36:06):It is. And I, and I mean, on the flip side, like even seeing some of the satyrs it's like dude, some of the centers have it really well. So I guess just this congruent or this fluid dynamic between setters and closers is really good, really important to have. No one is more important than, than the other, because I mean, I've been there and dude, I mean really singly. What happens if I know, I know you, Taylor will go out and knock if you need a knock, but you're going to back to and what the heck, there is so many closers in this industry who are so freaking spoiled that they won't even go knock, you know? So, so they just expect deals to come their way.Speaker 2 (36:51):Yeah. I know it's a problem for sure. Easy to get complacent, especially if they're running set or clothes or models and they're getting fed deals. It's like, oh, I got two hours. This is what I was doing when probably the last time we were working together, Rick is because Rick was actually a setter at the time and he was getting beaten the odds of deals. So if I have like a two hour break, I bet I'm just going to wait for Rick to go get another same day or even an appointment, go grab lunch, go up, look at some means.Speaker 2 (37:26):So yeah, it's super easy to get complacent and I'm sure you'd agree. The best people in the industry though. They're not. Yeah. They're, I'm sure they're getting deals too. But like Mike O'Donnell talks about this, how between deals he's going and getting a no on the doors. He's not waiting for the next deal. He's getting fed lots of deals. I know. But between his appointments, if he doesn't have anything, he's going to go, he's going to get at least a couple nos before he goes on to his next thing. And at the end of the day, that's what the top guys are doing. They're not waiting around for the next deal. They're going after, you know, their own appointments too and, and keeping up with it. So good. Uh, good stuff right there. Well, Ricky, I know you're a busy guy out in Texas. Um, so I want to be respectful your time. I know you've got means to create and uh, you know, places to be and all that. Um, but before we have maybe one or two other questions, do you want to tell people, um, if they don't already know and they might be living under a rock, you don't know where to connect with Rick at this point, but do you want to, um, I dunno, job, or be to connect with you and anything else you're working on?Speaker 3 (38:35):Yeah. So I'm mostly active on Instagram. Uh, I'm mostly known for the no soliciting bromine page. It's just at no soliciting bra I'm on Instagram. My personal Instagram is Rick dot Martinez with twosies and they are T I N E Z Z. Um, but yeah, I'm, I'm more active on Instagram. I have a Facebook or Twitter and a LinkedIn, but I don't ever check those.Speaker 2 (39:00):Okay. Who checks all that stuff. It's the boring social medias, so. Okay. Well cool. Well, Rick, we love having you on. And um, my last kind of question that I was thinking of anything you've seen delight, not do to like, I don't know, a successful person endorse it, or, um, what do you think they're staying away from? Or what do you think they're like cutting out of their lives, um, to be successful? Anything you have to say about that?Speaker 3 (39:29):I would say the most successful people that I know, oh, that's a good woman. What are they cutting out? Or what are they adding, right.Speaker 2 (39:40):Yeah. What are they cutting out and what are they not doing?Speaker 3 (39:44):Ooh.Speaker 2 (39:48):Or if you can think of stuff, they already, you can do that too. Whatever it is,Speaker 3 (39:52):There's so many, um, I would say things that take your time away from your craft. Okay. Time, time management is huge for a lot of the most successful people that I've seen. And I think I've been around just about all of them in a PR in like in, in a personal level to where they have a S they have a schedule. They have, if they don't have like a legit broken down schedule, they have an idea and they know where they are, where they need to be. At what time? Yeah. The more successful people that I've met, Carrie almost an hour by hour by hour schedule. And they plan the night before what they're going to do. And then the next day they confirm their plans by welcomes. Um, what, by what comes up the next day? I think the most successful people that I know don't leave anything up to chance. Yeah,Speaker 2 (40:51):Yeah. It's money. Yeah. And another thing is like, I don't know if you've done this before Rick, but just doing like a time analysis. That's something that I've seen top guys do. Cause I mean, the big problem is a lot of people don't even know where they're spending their time wasting their time. They think they were, uh, I don't know, maybe knocking for six hours when really it was like, they knocked, they spent 15 minutes on Instagram and they knocked a few more doors. They went and found a gas station. They might or might not even know that in their heads. So if you're struggling and that's, I think another huge key is figuring out what you're doing do at times study, write down for 15 minutes, every, you know, every 15, 20 minutes of the day. Exactly you did. And then that's going to tell you the truth. You know, it's like tracking your progress in the gym, do or tracking your sets. You can't really know what to improve if you don't even know what you did and you know, and kept track of it. So exactly important stuff for it. Uh, I know you got to go hit some doors and stuff, but any, uh, last, last words of advice you want to share with someone with a rep specifically in solar, I know you're in the solar mindset. Any, any final words you want to share?Speaker 3 (42:03):Don't miss out on this opportunity. Like I, so recently I had, I was in a team meeting and, um, it's, it's the same that Rob, Rob taught us a few years ago, Robert, um, he talked about two things, right? Life is going to be hard, no matter what, um, it's just which hard you want it to be. There. It comes down to two pains, the pains of discipline or the pain of regret, especially if, especially if you're working in these markets with high utility rates, you cannot afford to not be disciplined. You cannot afford to take time off because this time will come and it will come faster than you think. And then you're going to be looking back and you're going to be looking at your bank account and you're going to be like, I could have worked so much harder. I missed out on such a huge opportunity or you're going to be sitting on investments on whatever may be in your bank account is going to be exactly where you want it to be. If not more. And you're gonna think like, like that discipline and that pain of making that sacrifice is what's worth it. So I know for me, I've, I've, I've lived through regrets and I, and I'm not going to do it again.Speaker 2 (43:20):Yeah. Boom, that's fire. Perfect way to end. So for our Solarpreneurs, think about that next time you're struggling to get out on the doors. You're struggling to, I don't know, show up to your next appointment. Would you rather have that pain and go through it right now? Or would you rather look back and have the pain of knowing you didn't push as hard as you could have? So, Rick, thanks for coming on today. Everyone go give Rick a shout out, let him know you appreciated his content and more importantly, go follow them on his meme page if you're not already, but let's be honest. You should. Um, so Rick, thanks again for coming on and we will talk to you soon. My man.Speaker 3 (43:58):Thanks Taylor. Appreciate it, brother.Speaker 2 (44:00):Okay. Peace.Speaker 4 (44:03):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one. What's up Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong. Back with another episode, ISpeaker 2 (00:45):Hope you're doing well today. We're going to dive into why you should be asking your homeowner's thought provoking questions, why you should be getting them to realize the benefits of solar and what type of questions should you be asking your clients or the homeowners that you talk to all that and much more in today's episode, let's jump into it. So, um, it is almost a fall here. Those that have gone home for the summer. Hope you had an awesome summer, but let's be honest. You should be doing solar all year round because it's the greatest industry to be in. There's no better thing you could be doing than helping save the planet, helping homeowners get away from the utility company. That's what we're all about here. And as usual, that's what this podcast is going to train you to do. It's get more deals, get more referrals and get more results as you're out there, starting your solar business or continuing your solar business or whatever step you're at, along the journey.Speaker 2 (01:51):So before we jump into the topic today, um, I wanted to just remind you, go hop in the Solarpreneur Facebook group, if you're not already. And then along with that, we had a solar Joe on what was it a couple of weeks ago? He has, I think probably the, I'll say the best Facebook group. Okay. Solar printer, Facebook group. Isn't quite to the level, but we're going to get it there eventually. Um, but go join both those Facebook groups, his, his solar objections, and then Solarpreneur is the one where we're talking all things along with the podcast. And we are networking with the listeners and as usual, hoping to hear feedback from what you guys thought of the topics of the episodes of the guests we had, we've had on and suggestions for improvement, all that good stuff. But the reason I'm bringing that up is because last week I had a situation where, and I'm still going through this actually, but, um, I'm doing a solar on a couple of townhomes here in California and these hos, I don't know what's going on.Speaker 2 (02:59):It seems like they're getting tougher and tougher out here. Um, the past, I don't know, year or so year or two, I've done few townhomes here and there few places with shared roof spaces. And really hasn't been much of an issue. But last week I've had some just accounts on hold and I'm trying to figure out what to do for him. Um, what happened is that each ways basically came back and said, Hey, unless you guys take out a million dollar insurance policy, you can't have solar added onto these, um, to these units. And what's funny is I talked to several people in both the communities to different communities down here, and no one had to take out a policy, a separate, uh, insurance policy. I'm like, what is going on? So we brought this up to the hos and they're like, oh, we're just, we're requiring it.Speaker 2 (03:51):Now. They basically just ignored it and wouldn't give us an answer why it was being required. So I don't know if they talked to their lawyers again or had some issues who knows, but both of them just out of the blue started requiring this. And it's a huge hassle because the homeowners, they don't really want to take out a separate policy. And then one of them did get a quote and there's probably cheaper, you know, policies out there. But the co the one customer got, it was going to cost them an extra thousand bucks a year just for this million dollar insurance policy. And that's adding that on. Do you know what he's paying with the solar? He's paying a decent amount more than he's paying every month, which even with that, he still should go solar. But, um, he basically said, Taylor, and we don't really want to like go through this.Speaker 2 (04:41):We're going to have to pay more and have to get separate insurance and tough to, you know, tough to get him back on board. If he's going to have to go through this huge hassle hassle and pay all this extra money. So anyways, the reason I'm seeing all this is because I was pretty much stumped the installer where you're using. They're like, yeah, we can't even do this. And so I'm post a comment in, uh, both of those Facebook groups, solar printer, and then solar objections just got some great feedback, some great comments from guys that haven't gone through, similar situations. Um, one was from, uh, Jake [inaudible] who's at solar academy. We're going to get them on the show here soon, but they just reminded me that it's here in California. You can't have a homeowner spend more than a thousand dollars on their solar project, like extra for anything they each way requires.Speaker 2 (05:36):So it's not fully resolved yet. We're still going back and forth with HOA, but just from the great comments and the great feedback I got posted in the Facebook groups, I think we're going to get, be able to push these accounts there now, because California, they can't make you spend more than a thousand dollars. And if the policy itself they've already spent hundreds and hundreds just to like submit their HOA applications and everything. So if the separate insurance policy is going to cost a thousand, then come up, man, you can't make him do that. So that's where we're at. And once we figured that out, I honestly didn't know that. So, um, we're going back back to the HOA with that, um, quiver with that arrow in our quiver. And hopefully we can get these accounts push through. So just wanted to say that because if you ever are stuck on deals, if you ever need a feedback from the community, that's what it's all about.Speaker 2 (06:34):We're all, I've just been super grateful to get good feedback, to get, um, great people in the industry. Sharon what's helped them. And that's where you're going to get from these groups. So I wanted to invite you if you're not part of these Facebook groups, part of these communities go get in on them because there is some fantastic nuggets there, mean shared some great tidbits of info and actually going to bring up a few more things that I've learned from the groups. So go join them and then hit me up and hope to connect with you guys in there. I try to pop in there at least a couple times a week myself. So that being said, let's hop in today's topic. And that is why you should be asking your customers good questions. And the reason I'm doing this topic today is because a few weeks back at the knock star event, um, did an episode, talked a little bit about some takeaways from it, but, uh, we are in key west Florida.Speaker 2 (07:30):And one of the topics that Danny PESI, who was also on the pod on the podcast, go listen to his episode. If you haven't already, his topic was why we should be asking better questions. And what he talked about to start it all off is just basically, there's three ways. You can convince someone to do something and one is way more effective than the other two. And so I'm going to start with the least effective in that is you telling your homeowner why solar is a good thing, just from your perspective. It's like our Mr. Customer, this is going to save you a ton of money. This is going to help your home. This is going to benefits you long-term, it's never going to increase your electricity rate. It's an awesome product. That's basically you telling them why they should do it, right? The least effective way to explain to them.Speaker 2 (08:25):And I think many of us are doing that right now. So take a look at your presentation. Are you explaining to your customers just from your perspective, why your product is good and why your program is good? If not, then this episode is for you, or if you are doing it, I should say this episode is for you because the next two ways one is better than the other, but here's the next one is you telling your customer from a different perspective? So what I mean by that is we've a lot of us have heard, like, feel, felt, found, overcome objections, right? Um, I totally understand Mr. Homeowner, you know, what do you know your neighbor neighbor across the street? Yeah, he actually had the same concern and what he found that going solar, it was going to actually help him sell his home or whatever the objection is.Speaker 2 (09:12):Right? So that's an example of you saying something from someone else's perspective, and this is a lot more effective than you just telling them, because if they can hear it from someone else's perspective and in a story format, more importantly, then they're going to believe it more. It's going to activate that right side of the brain. Um, you want them emotionally involved, right? So if you can bring up names, if you can bring up other people, that's getting them emotionally involved because people at the end of the day, buy on emotion and justify their decision with logic. So this is the next best way. And it's a really good way in before hearing this. This is mostly what I was doing. I'll be honest. It was mostly explaining too, in my presentations, I was trained to utilize just the different points from different people's perspective.Speaker 2 (10:04):And so it's a great way to sell. It's a great way to make your presentation more effective, but here is the best way. And that's what we're going to talk about today. And that is you help the homeowner realize it themselves by the questions you ask them. So if you can ask them effective questions, hypothetical questions, and get them to realize the benefits themselves. This is the most effective way it's better than even telling it from a different person's perspective. Hey, so what we're going to do in this show is give you a couple talking tracks, give you some examples that you can start using in your presentation today. So go through it and I want to invite everyone. That's listening. All my Solarpreneurs that are listening today, go through your presentation, more importantly, record it and really take a look. See if you're asking effective questions, because if you're not guaranteed, your close closing ratio is going to go up.Speaker 2 (11:01):If you can start to utilize some of these questions and homeowners are going to realize that it's just not smart to stay with the utility company, if you can master these questions. Okay. So here's a few questions. Some of these are coming from Danny PESI so, um, appreciate him. And hopefully he doesn't mind me sharing these, but here's a few examples of great, uh, questions that you can ask your homeowners today right now. So here's one, if you are trained to get the homeowner to realize that rates are increasing, how are you doing that? Maybe you're just showing them articles, which is great. Maybe you're telling stories, but if you can get them to realize logically it has to go up, that's the best way. So here's an example that Danny PESI gave us. Um, and he does that, just asking them about the grid.Speaker 2 (11:55):So he says, Mr. Homeowner, do you know how old the grid is? The one that generates power to your house? And then usually there'll be like, ah, I don't know. Probably really old. Yeah. I mean, when you guys moved here 30 years ago, it was the same grid. Right. So help them realize that it's old. Okay. And in most cases, the infrastructure for the grids, I mean, they're probably a hundred years old, pretty old. So then you say anything that's a hundred years old, do you know how much money it costs to maintain something that old? And then this is where you're directing them to the customer, realizing that their rates have to go up. Hey, so you, um, and then you, and then once they kind of realize that, I mean, if basically we're putting band-aids on the grid, right? The grid is just being maintained.Speaker 2 (12:50):It's a hundred years old and guess who's going to pay for it. We are. So you're directing with those questions. And then the last kind of question to, um, hit the nail on the head with that one is who do you think is paying to maintain it? Do utility companies and the stock holders or the customers. Okay. And anyone that has logic, they're going to say the customers. And he gave him a great example too, of like cars for anyone that is a big car fan. Maybe they have an old car sitting in their garage or Cadillac or whatever you can say, Hey, how old is your car? I mean, it's, that's what, 70, 60 years old now old car, is it pretty ed? You have to do quite a bit of maintenance on it. Yeah. I mean, it's old, right? A lot of maintenance to be done with it.Speaker 2 (13:39):So think of the infrastructure of the grid, um, SDG that's our utility company, whatever your company is. They're basically putting band-aids on it because there's so much work that needs to be done. They have to put band-aids on it. They have to spend a ton to maintain it and they're passing on those costs to us. Okay. And then, so think of, it's going to depend on your area too, maybe in your area. There's Texas, for example, I mean, all of the, uh, the freezing, right? The grid went down. Maybe there's something local going on where you can bring up, you can ask them questions about, and then they can realize for themselves that their rates have to go up. There's no other option. The rates are going to go up. Hey. So whatever your point is, think of all the points you're trying to make in your presentation, go right down.Speaker 2 (14:30):I would say two to three good questions for each difference. Um, point you're trying to make in your presentation, then start to use these in your yeah. As you're presenting to your homeowners, Hey, here's another one. Uh, given the cost of inflation, do you see your bill in the future going up or down? Great question. I've been using that and that's a good one to kind of gauge if they really think their rates are going up. Right. So if they say no, I mean, basically no one is going to say no to that. I mean, rates cost some inflation. It's expensive, but it's a good way to gauge where they're at. Do they really believe that rates are going up? Do they really believe there's a big problem? Because if people do not see a problem with the utility rates or with what's happening in the utility infrastructure, they don't see a problem.Speaker 2 (15:21):They're not going to want a solution. So that's a first, that's the first thing you can do is make some questions to really see where they're at. Did they believe, did they hate the utility company right now? Hopefully they do. And then your job isn't going to be quite as hard, but if they don't have a big problem with you till the company, you have to create that forum again by using stories and again, by using questions. Okay. And then just to go through a couple other talking points, um, I'm going to pull up actually, some that I see in the group and this way you should go join these F Facebook groups because they have great content in there. They have some great, um, great points you can use in your presentations. So this one, um, actually my friend, uh, solar Lily made a kind of a list of questions in one of the Facebook groups.Speaker 2 (16:18):Here's another example, 20 years ago. How much was gas, Mr. Homeowner? Do you remember right about $1. So if 20 years ago I would have offered you a gas card with $0 down to have your gas fixed at $1 for the next 20 years, then you didn't have to pay for it. Uh, once paid off, what would you have said? Probably it's okay. It's only a dollar a gallon right now. What would you do for that card? So, great question. She's leading the homeowner down that road, down the golden brick road in helping them realize that that's what solar is. Okay. So once people agree to these things, that's essentially what solar is. Future-proofing your homes, energy bill against inflation, and the average 4% increases nationwide. Great talking point right there. So you can go see the group. There's a lot more examples, but bottom line start using more questions.Speaker 2 (17:17):Another one that I thought of is, um, just renting versus owning, right? If you're selling loans like most people in this industry, what's the main reason you guys bought your house. Do you think if renting was cheaper at the time you guys still would've bought? What if the house was $300 a month cheaper to rent? A N most people are gonna say that they would still buy their home. Even if it was a lot cheaper to rent. Why, why, why are they saying that? If you get the homeowner, think to think why it's better to own versus rent. It's going to be so much easier to get them to believe, to buy into the product of solar, especially for those of you that are in markets, where there's not much savings with solar. You need to really drill this down into their head. That it's so much better to own versus rent from the utility company.Speaker 2 (18:11):Right. And another great guest guest we had on, uh, Alex Smith, a couple of episodes. I thought that was something genius that he does. He said one of the main things he does in his presentation is just go through that exercise with the homeowner and be like, Hey, Mr. Homeowner, um, what if it was like 500 bucks cheaper to rent here? Would you, would you do that? No. Okay. What about 600? No. What about 700? And then just take it down. Most people would pay a ridiculous amount more to own than their rent. Right? So if you can help them see this, it's going to be so much easier. I hope this helped. Okay. But again, go and write down some questions you can start using. Let me know if you want to hear more episodes like this. If you want to hear more talking tracks, I got more, but don't want to sit here all day.Speaker 2 (18:59):Just, just, uh, we should probably do like a live role-play bring in someone to go back and forth with the questions. Probably be a little bit easier, but go down and write your questions. Your talking points, record yourselves. And then this is going to make it so much easier to get people to buy-in to the vision of solar and what we're doing. Hope that helped go out and think what questions can you use today in your presentations? And then how can you make it better? How can you use the questions and the stories and from other people's perspectives, those are the two best ones. Okay. So think question first, then think a story from another homeowner's perspective and then worst case scenario, it's you telling them, try not to do that. That's the least effective way to sell your product. Hope that helped let us know what you thought and you don't want to miss out on next episode, because we are going to have the one, the only Rick Martinez on. If you're on Instagram, you will have heard of this guy, for sure. He's the no soliciting bro. He makes the coolest memes in the door to door industry. So go give him a follow, but don't miss out because he has a fire episode. He's gonna be on them for the next show. We do. That's all we got today. Keep crushing, close your deals this week, and we'll see you on the next one.Speaker 3 (20:21):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one. Boom. What's going on Taylor. I'm strong hereSpeaker 2 (00:44):To help you your life easier as a solar sales professional, and close more deals, generate more referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry. So today's episode is what to do if you hate knocking, or if you're struggling to get out there and knock. And a quick prep is for that. The reason I am doing this episode is because I'll be blunt. I have struggled to knock as many hours as I want and need to lately. And I think it's a deeper issue. There gets to a point where you need to go and just identify your why, why are you out there? Go seven levels deep. So that's something that I'm going to do. And that's the first thing I would invite you to do. If you are struggling to get out there and knock doors, you're struggling with the motivation, figure out why you're even doing this.Speaker 2 (01:38):Why do you want to make, you know, six, seven figures, whatever your goal is this year, go write it down and go seven layers deep. If you haven't listened to the episode, um, I think it was a couple months back, but it was uh, about how to increase your confidence in sales. Actually, one of our more downloaded episodes, go listen to it though, because I talk about an exercise. It's great for this to just going seven levels, deep on your why and figuring out why you're really motivated to do the things that you're telling yourself you want to do. That's the first step. But before we get into the rest of the tips with that, I wanted to thank our loyal listeners. We've had a lot of great reviews, a lot of people sharing. So I want to think all those that have hopped on and shared the podcast.Speaker 2 (02:33):So wanted to just give those people a shout out and pull up a couple of reviews that people have been leaving lately. So we got to Ruff Munios. He says Taylor does an exceptional job of bringing in people that are experienced and high-performers to help elevate others. Someone looking into solar, like myself, listening and studying these interviews brings me confidence on the jump. Thank you. Thank you, Rafael. I assume you haven't made the jump over to solar yet, so hopefully you do it soon. Um, we got, uh, uh, I'm not going to try to say this, uh, username. You're cute. Okay. I'll try to say it. CUPE we're you WQ, uh, letters on there, but he says, I like how Taylor is constantly working to help the door to door space. I love how freely he gives out pro tips and shares his years of experience.Speaker 2 (03:32):Great interviews with top guests. Love it. And then he gives me five fire emojis. You just made my day QP we're you WQ thank you so much. And let's do one more for fun. We got a T pep says podcasts helped me out a lot here in Pennsylvania. One of the best podcasts about solar really goes in depth about the process of making a solar deal. Appreciate you guys. And that is how we grow the podcast. That's how we help others in the industry. And it's good karma. The more you help others, it's going to come back to you. So guys, I'm not just requesting this and not doing it myself. I go on and leave reviews for the podcast I'm listening to you do. And hopefully it's going to help me get reviews back. If you want something done to you, make sure you're actively doing it yourself.Speaker 2 (04:25):Okay. But I want to give, I think you, those that have made an effort to share and to repost and to leave good reviews on the podcast. That's what it's all about. So let's jump into the topic today. Again, we're jamming on what you can do if you are struggling to knock, or if you're just hating knocking lately, it's too hot million reasons we can tell ourselves. Right? And one of the reasons I start thinking to the future about things, we got college football coming up. My favorite time, one of my favorite times of the year is I get to watch college football, which that an MBA. That's my two sports that I watch more than any other sports. I'm a Utah Utes fan. And sometimes I start thinking forward. I'm like, man, it's going to be so nice when I can just take a Saturday, not knock, whatever.Speaker 2 (05:20):And that's the problem with college football is most of the good games are on Saturdays, right? So got to figure out a way to start recording games, but there's all sorts of things. Once we get into this phase of the year, people knock in the summer are gone. Um, sometimes you feel alone. Sometimes your team isn't producing as much. So what can you do to not fall into this trap of not producing at the level you need to and not getting out there and hustling because these months in solar, especially out here in San Diego, for whatever reason, get there. Um, hi, these are the hotter months, more than July. Um, more than August. Usually September, October are super hot months for us out here. And that's when people are getting their really high bills. So for us, it's a time when we need to be speeding up when we need to be going against the flow of people are slowing down.Speaker 2 (06:19):We need to be going quicker. So what can you do? So I'm going to go through, I did close three deals last week, had a decent week. Okay. I know there's guys closing three deals a day, but for me I'll I take three deals. I like that. And I'm going to build on that. So what I did to still produce, even though I did not feel like knocking it all last week. Number one thing I'm going to give you right here is I teamed up. I got with an accountability partner at someone that I was driving out to my areas. Hey, I know there's a lot of teams out there in solar. They don't do car groups. They don't go out together. They're just riding solo. Cause they have their own appointments. They got their own areas. But guess what? It doesn't matter if you have your own area, if you're not motivated, if you're not going to actually hit it up.Speaker 2 (07:18):So that's what I did. I recognize that I'm like, I do not want to get out there today. Do not want to go knock. I recognize that. And so I hit up one of the newer guys in our office said, Hey man, let's carpool out or areas. We're actually working like close to an hour drive away right now. It's a little bit further. So I said, Hey, let's carpool up. Let's uh, share the area. And then we can just both get out there at the same time. So this is the number one thing that helped me last week. Just get out with somebody's carpool, get your car group because it's like the circumstances you put yourself in. If you don't, if you're trying to cut out sugar, the best way to do that is not have sugar in the house. Right? And if you're trying to knock the same principle applies, get with someone that's going out there knocking.Speaker 2 (08:09):Don't put yourself in a tough situation where you have to decide to, you know, sit in the car or get out there, be with someone that you know is going to actually go get the job done, you know, is going to, um, shadow you whatever. And that's another pro tip. Um, if you haven't listened to Mike O'Donnell's episode, this is what he does. He always goes out with somebody when he's knocking. He pays someone. Um, I think it's 50 bucks. I don't know. He'll pay someone 50 bucks to meet him at the Starbucks and get out there and hit the doors. Because if he has someone out, waiting on them to go to the doors and he paid them money, how likely is he to not actually get out there and knock and have Michael Donald was doing this? The number one, you know, solar rep in the country.Speaker 2 (09:03):If he's doing this, then there's no shame in it and struggling to get out there and knock. There's no strain, shame in paying people to go out and knock. That's just Michael Donald doing the same thing. He recognizes that it will be tough for him to get out there and just knock on his own. Accord, opened the door himself. So he gets someone to meet him up. He pays someone to go meet him at the Starbucks and get out there at the same time. So if you're struggling at all, that's the first thing I would recommend. Just team up with somebody, get a newer guy in your office, get good excuse to recruit right there. Or, you know, get someone to hold you accountable. And maybe you don't have an office that's cranking ton of deals. Maybe you don't have a ton of good reps that are motivating.Speaker 2 (09:53):I struggled with this at my previous company. There sometimes are reps that weren't pushing me to work as hard as I needed to. So if that's the case, then consider getting in on our inner circle program. Okay. You can go to not CEO apply for that, but that's what we're all about is creating a group of like-minded people that need the accountability, need the motivation and are going to push to get results. So if you need help being around people like that, go hit, apply and book a call. We can see what we can do to help you out. Well, that's the first tip. And then the second thing is, I know I've talked about a few of these in previous episodes. So if you have binged a ton of episodes, you might be hearing a few of these again, but this is an app that I, I know I've talked about.Speaker 2 (10:44):It's called stick S T a C K K. And this app you can go and you can find accountability partners and you can literally place money on the line, um, for a habit, whatever action you're trained to do. So that's cool app. First heard about it from Tim Ferriss. Actually one of my, uh, favorite authors in his book, a four hour shift, great book, but he talks about this. He's trying to get people to basically falls recipes and he's like, guys, you're not going to learn how to cook. If you don't actually go through these recipes, I created and go through the book. So before you even continue in the book, he tells people to download the steak app and put money on the line that they're going to go through it. Funny part is I still haven't gone through the book, so I didn't take his advice seriously enough, but anything you're trying to do, that's a great app.Speaker 2 (11:39):You're putting money on the line and it goes to a charity that you don't agree with. Hey, so if you hate, uh, I don't know, Trump, if you hate by it and you can, don't download it and put money on the line and it'll go to the thing you don't want it to go to. So how motivating is that pretty sweet idea. Yes, me. Yes. That's the second tip. Get someone to hold you accountable on the stick app. And then the third tip actually talks about this in a little bit in last week's episode, but just develop a knocking routine and brought this up at Taylor McCarthy. He'll go get ice to really signal his brain that he's starting his knocking day. Okay. So what habits, what trigger can you put into place? That's going to trigger you. It's time to go and knock. Okay.Speaker 2 (12:31):And so I know I mentioned that in last week's episode, but it's worth mentioning again, just figure out how you can really trigger your brain to get out there and to hit those doors or to do whatever you're trying to do. Maybe it's make 50 calls that day. Maybe it's contact your referral sheet, just whatever you need to do, put a trigger around it and be super consistent. And it's so simple, guys, the success is simple. The guys that are closing tons of deals, they're not doing that many more things than the guys that aren't, but they're just doing it at a more consistent level and they're not giving up. Hey, so that's the key. I hope this helped rim. Remember those three things team up with someone and get someone newer to co go shout at you, go knock. I personally love it when people shadow me is because I can't get out of it either.Speaker 2 (13:22):I have to be out there and I'm not going to like, I'm going to show off. I'll, I'll be honest. I'm like try as hard as they can overcome the objections because I don't want people shadowing me, be like, Hey, this guy didn't even try to overcome that. So I'm pushing harder than I normally would not have closed a lot of same day deals just by having them, someone out shadow me. Hey, so that's the first one team up with someone. Number two, you've stick number three, develop your team and put sugars around you're knocking hours. You're prospecting hours or whatever difficult thing it is you're trying to do so hope that helped. Okay. Can't wait for you to go out and apply these things. Let me know if it helps send it someone who is struggling to knock and we will see you out on the doors and in the next episode,Speaker 3 (14:13):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:41):What's going on. Solarpreneurs. We are back with another episode and I'm excited today because we are in the studio with Mr. Dan Dunn. What's going on, Dan? Thanks for coming on the show. You bet.Speaker 3 (00:52):Good. He could to be here. Okay. Well, you'reSpeaker 2 (00:56):Hearing me too. Yeah, it's, it's fun. We're hearing a Newport beach, made the drive up here from San Diego and, um, we're doing some video content too. So excited about that. So Dan, you want to tell us a little bit how you got like in the solar space and your background, where you came from and everything.Speaker 3 (01:14):Sure. Yeah. I should have this down to an elevator pitch by now. Um, I was born in Illinois in the Midwest. I was then transplanted, California. So I clean California is my place of growth, I guess kind of sounds a little cooler. Um, and then, uh, went to yeah, went to college in Utah. I then, uh, and I majored in music in English. We just talked about that before this podcast started. Yeah. Um, yeah. I love music nerd and music nerd. That's right. And actually, uh, the movie pitch. Perfect. I was actually telling, um, this guy to the, to the left ear off, off camera earlier that, uh, my wife and I met through similar circumstances as Anna Kendrick and the guy. I don't remember his name anyway. She was in a female acapella group. I was in vocal point male acapella group kind of came together like jets and sharks and west side story anyway. Um, so yeah, met my wife there been married almost 16 years. Uh, live in Southern California. I love this place. Feels like home will never leave. And, uh, old harness. I started the harness brands in 2017, so we're almost five years old next year. Awesome. Um, and then have a production company in the music space called prosody music. Okay. That's me in a nutshell.Speaker 2 (02:31):That's awesome. I love hearing guys that are like, you know, like music nerds and stuff like that. Cause I was just telling you, I was a music major myself in college, studied drums, percussion. That was the dream I was all about, you know, just graduating and being a music teacher, making my 30, 40 grand a year. And I was like, this is it. I'm going to love it. That's the dream. And then yeah, came out. Yeah. Came out, made that, you know, like in the summer or whatever. And I'm like, it's a little bit longer.Speaker 3 (03:02):Right. I can still picture, Hey, imagine dragons. When they have their live shows, they need some good drummers up there. Right. Have you ever been to one of those?Speaker 2 (03:09):Uh, I haven't been to their show, but I haven't been to, I don't know. Been to all its other concerts. Yeah. Same with maybe they'll listen to this podcast. If they're listening, give me a call and I'll beSpeaker 3 (03:19):In the drummer. We've got a table right here. He can start anyway.Speaker 2 (03:22):Let's do it. But yeah, what I wanted to ask you, Dan, I mean being like music, English and all that. Yeah. Do you feel like, I mean, I don't think there's a ton of us that did music before, um, you know, solar, but the few that I have met that have, I feel like, I dunno, it's helped them in a way. Maybe like creativity. Do you feel like music has helped you in business or in any, any aspects of what you're doing now?Speaker 3 (03:45):Absolutely. So I mean, scientific studies have shown if you put your kids in piano lessons early on, they'll connect certain parts of their brain and think more critically. And I'm not trying to pump myself up at all. I mean, don't feel deficient out there guys, if you didn't get piano lessons, it's not your fault, but it does help. Uh, yeah. You looking at problems from multiple sides of the spectrum. And so when your brain makes those connections, you have kind of that openness to multiple solutions and seeing both sides of an argument, uh, really, really helps in problem solving interpersonal relationships, um, leading. It helps them and I think all aspects of business to me. Yeah.Speaker 2 (04:23):That's awesome. Leading. Why do you say that?Speaker 3 (04:27):Well, because as a leader, you're going to come across the fires. We have to put out constantly. Right. And so to put out fires, you could, you could throw a huge bucket of water on it and say, it's good. Or you could kind of massage it and come at it strategically and see if there's, you know, two or three different ways to go at it. And which one's best consider the consequences. Being able to look at that, that cube from all sides, I think will, uh, it has paid dividends. SoSpeaker 2 (04:53):Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. No, and I always compare it to just like, I'm sure, you know, music where you like a specific instrument. Are we just voice Canon boys in a way? Okay. Yeah, for me, it's like, I don't know about you, but all those hours you put in practicing. Yeah. That's true. That's something that I feel like it's like, I was, I was no way like a natural sales guy or whatever. And I still, like, I'm not like the top guy, but because of all those hours that I put in not being the top drummer or whatever, I'm like, okay, why don't I just use that same, you know, method of getting better at cells all the hours I put in practicing the guys are doing it. You know,Speaker 3 (05:27):I just made that connection. Now. That's crazy. I used to like hold myself up in a practice room for four to six hours a day just going at the keys. That's and then of course that's what I did on the doors too. That's weird. Never made that connection. Yeah.Speaker 2 (05:41):So cool. I think it's super power for sure. I agree. Well, you know, can go with a distance like that, but cool, man. So tell us Dan, how, uh, so harness you started that in 2017. Yep. Okay. And were you, uh, just working on a sales team before, how did you transition to like starting your own company and everything?Speaker 3 (06:00):Yeah. So back in 2002, I started doing pest control for a couple of summers. Then I did alarms for eight and a half years, mostly summers, but also some year round programs built up, you know, deems and regions during that time. And then transition to solar in 2012 with vivant, when they started their San Diego office, I was in that original office that was full of all kinds of cool guys. We were, we were a cool crew. Anybody that's listening? I don't know if you are, but it was, it was cool. Everybody from that office branched out and either became at least DMS, mostly regional VPs, owner, company owners, et cetera. Um, and so, uh, helped them went up to orange county and then, uh, left for solar city Tesla. And uh, when Elan fired us all in 2017, best thing that happened to me. Um, that's when I started harness because I, I felt like I had learned enough. Yeah.Speaker 2 (06:53):Okay. Yeah. A lot of good. A lot of superstars came from that. Yeah. Including, uh, you know, Taylor McCarthy. We were just talking about that a lot too. That's cool. We've been solar though. Were you, uh, do you know Rob Brian river? Yeah, for sure. With CLL, we used to call them the bull. The bull. Was he back there in 2012 with you guys? He was, yeah, he was in that office. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. So he, uh, yeah. New power that company he used to work for, he went on to be like VP of sales for that company. Yeah. Yeah. He was my boss for a long time over there, but I know that's cool. Yeah. A lot of superstars came from that and um, I know it was like rough, at least according to Rob, he said it's pretty rough. In the beginning, you have water issues with stuff. Well, we feltSpeaker 3 (07:34):So good about selling a 15 cent PPA for like $200 a kilowatt or 180. I think it was, we were so excited about 180 a kilowatt for a PPA. And by the way, the con the customers back then from a customer standpoint, we were setting people up with 15 cent CPAs now in San Diego. Um, you know, I think the average might be up to 19 20 cents somewhere in there. And so like just, I was talking about this with my team the other day at the companies feel at Liberty to continue to raise the prices as long as utility continues to escalate proportion with that. So yeah, it's interesting. The, the whole urgency pitch is, is real. It's not just a sales tool, like go solar now or you're going to probably pay more in the future. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.Speaker 2 (08:16):I know. I love those things. It's like natural urgency that we don't like. We don't have to make it up. It's like stuff is actually happening. Tax credits. It's actually happening a lot of good reasons. I'm not at the school. And so a harness it's a 2017. Do you think, do you think you would have like went on to start harness had solar city not had they not let everyone go. Do you think you would have gone that same path eventually orSpeaker 3 (08:42):Eventually, maybe? Yeah. Um, thing is, I was, I was pretty bought in to the vision. I was, I was a little bit of an Ilan worshiper, not a bad way. I mean, I did have a big blown up picture of him, you know, that Obama poster with the hope, you know, the blue and red and white. Yeah. I made one of Ilan and I put in progress and it was, it was a little foolish I think. But, um, I had that up in the office and uh, yeah, I just, I, I loved his vision. I was at like the Gigafactory grand opening and sparks Nevada. Um, I loved what we were doing. I felt like it was obviously much bigger than us, so everybody feels great about that. But, uh, when it stopped, it was an easy decision to do my own thing. I'd already been knocking doors for 15 years straight with no stops, you know, consistency and practice, um, and you know, running regions and divisions, stuff like that. So I felt like it was a good time, but how do you not fired us? That's a great question. I don't know. I think I was stuck with it for a while and man, it was just, it was, it was cool. Cool.Speaker 2 (09:47):Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. Everything happens for a reason, so sure. Yeah. Maybe a good thing. It happened definitely in hindsight. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so like, I mean, I know it's, you know, a lot of challenges going through starting your own company, starting your own brand business, all that. So starting out, I'm sure it wasn't all like sunshine and rainbows and all that. What was, what were some of like the challenges that you had to go through to get, you know, get things rolling with harness?Speaker 3 (10:13):I had the team from solar city pretty much. It was easy because there was no like non-slip stations. They fired us. So we just started, you know, it was no big deal. Uh, so I started with a T a sales team that was nice, but partner wise, um, a lot of companies, you know, instantly become dealers for other installation companies. And that was the, that was the thing. I'm a diligent student of who I'm going to be hopping into business bed with. And I did, I remember to this day I did 17. I interviewed 17 different EPBCS, which are, uh, installation companies went through it, got it on a PowerPoint, did like a, you know, a risk benefit analysis of it. Um, and I even presented it to my team like, Hey guys, this is what I've been going through to make sure we're going the right direction, settled in on one. I won't mention their name, but I sailed in on one and uh, on paper they were the best. And then in reality, they had horrible.Speaker 2 (11:08):Yeah. They leave me alone.Speaker 3 (11:11):Lost me a lot of money. Yeah, exactly. Interestingly enough, I hope I wish that the story was different, but, um, but what it did teach me was, uh, again, you can look good on paper executions, everything when you're in a partnership a lot of times too, and those go south like that, um, you can, you have to cut your losses. There were definitely some losses early on in the business first year, but I also came into the business knowing like all the stories I had read, that's pretty common. It's pretty common in your first year to anything, but in the five-year range. Yeah. It's common to, to have some struggles, have some learning lessons, some big ones. Um, and yeah, it's about it really tests your metal of if you're serious about the business and the long-term aspect of it or not. Yeah,Speaker 2 (11:53):No doubt about that. And so something that, uh, while I'm sure you've struggled with it too, like your teams just, I mean, commissions are so high in solar right now. Um, people are making 10, 15 grand on single deals and stuff, especially out here in California. Like how have you in your teams? I don't know if it's changed as time has gone on, but how, what, what are some things you're doing to like, keep your guys motivated earth stuff that you like passed down to like yourselves managers for our listeners,Speaker 3 (12:21):Uh, considering what they make, is that what you're asking?Speaker 2 (12:23):Yeah. And we'll just, that's one obstacle. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the curse of solar, right? It's like guys make 10 grand on a deal and then three weeks I'll be back next month. Right?Speaker 3 (12:33):Yeah. That is a, that is an interesting question. And it is something of course that we grappled with one way is to constantly have them expanding their idea of themselves. So, uh, it's, there's an income thermometer in every single person. And so once you've reached that thermometer top of a hundred thousand dollars a year, if that's essentially what you think you're worth, or I don't even know if it goes that far in your head, usually you're just like, this is where I'm comfortable. I love freedom and I love taking off and going on experiences. And now I have the freedom to do that. That's all fun and games. And I think everybody deserves to have that time in their life. But if you mentioned this concept of expanding the idea of yourself, often enough in meetings, which I try to, then you can, we actually have a, an archetype I created, uh, so Chad, the cheetah or Chad DRA for the women.Speaker 3 (13:24):Um, and, uh, so there's a, there's a turtle, Tom, the turtle there's Harriet the hair. And then there's Chad that cheetah. So essentially like how fast can you accelerate your progress towards semi-retirement towards being like a, you know, a 10 or a 20 or a hundred door owner properties, et cetera. And, you know, you can follow Dave all or some of these guys in the industry that have made it and have done that. Yeah. Um, and, uh, and it's, it's a reality for us in solar. Like we can get there quick because of the money, for sure. So do you want to just kind of live at this range, which I understand is extremely enticing and fun, but you could also make a million dollars in the next few years and accelerate your progress and, uh, do a whole lot more with your life. Right.Speaker 2 (14:06):Okay. So it sounds like just basically helping them see a higher vision and set bigger goals for themselves. Yeah, I have to. Yeah. That's huge. And so what are some ways that you do that for your reps? Is it like you personally sitting down with them or you like having your managers sat down and I don't know, I'm like quarterlies or anything you guys are doing to help them actually like see those bigger goals and visions for themselves.Speaker 3 (14:27):All of that. We started doing quarterly submits this year, which I don't know why we didn't do them before. They're extremely, they moved the needle a lot because we all get together and have that memory together. This, this quarter we're getting together at Pirate's Cove in Henderson, Nevada overlooking lake Mead. Oh yeah. I've heard about that.Speaker 2 (14:43):Yeah. Our, yeah. Cool. Same thing.Speaker 3 (14:46):This is one of those things that gets tossed around in the industry. So we rented it out for three days and we're, we're taking, uh, our top producers there for the three days. And then we're taking the rest of the company. We'll meet there for like a half day at the summit. That's awesome. And, uh, yeah, getting together and having those memories, having the comradery and the culture come together super important. And during those seasons, of course, we address that topic among many others. That's one needle mover. And the other one is, uh, yeah. Having, uh, you know, we have weekly calls with our leaders of course, and we disseminate what's most important. And there are things that we talk about over and over. Yeah. That's, that's one of them. SoSpeaker 2 (15:25):That's huge. It's communication. Yeah. It's funny. I'm so I'm working down with, uh, uh, Jason, I don't know if you know, Jason newbie squatting down there, but sure. Yeah. He's talking about the Pirate's Cove too. He said, yeah. I think he said Vivian got like banned from it or something likeSpeaker 3 (15:38):That. That doesn't surprise me. No, it doesn't surprise me though.Speaker 2 (15:41):He's like, but I didn't get banned, so yeah. Right. Yeah. There's no longer associated. Yeah.Speaker 3 (15:47):That's funny. I went there with Trevor, uh, Trevor in the top. He he's winning the cup every single year on the alarm side. Uh, I wonder if their group did it cause they're prettySpeaker 2 (15:56):Wild. Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, I guess that's a story Jason will have to tell black guys. Nice. No, that's cool. And so, yeah, I like the quarterly summits idea. I think that's huge for probably, you know, the culture and things like that. Anything else that you guys are doing just like build the culture of working of like going out every day, if not getting lazy reps, what else are you guys doing?Speaker 3 (16:18):That's a good question. So we have, um, we started a prime program prime, and I think this industry is moving in this direction anyway. Uh, prime is essentially our, uh, senators. So, you know, we have centers in most of our offices. Now it's a very structured program at keeps. Uh, I wouldn't say that keeps people not lazy and they may even contribute to a little bit more, but I don't, I don't think so because it's very dialed in. And of course we have it structured to where we give the most appointments to the highest, highest skilled closers. Um, and so I think that helps a little bit, but also, uh, just the, the, the cadence of accountability. And I don't know we to be Frank, this question is interesting because we, as a company we're, we're not high high, like, um, what's the best way to put this.Speaker 3 (17:09):I'm not super super concerned with being the, like the top sellers in the whole country. Uh, as far as solar sales, I'm concerned with quality mostly. And so I would take honestly, uh, you know, a hundred installs from a group a month versus 300. And I know that sounds rash, but I would take them if they were super quality, uh, you know, the, the sales were done with trust and, uh, and not sloppily and not creating a whole bunch of stress and extra stress for people. Yeah. That's just me. That's the way I want to run the business. Um, one of the things I noticed with publicly traded companies is they're always making decisions based on their stockholders. And, uh, I never wanted to have that again as just a, again, an archetype of what I want, I didn't want, so in this company, we're, um, more principles focused, I think, just trying to always do the right thing. Yeah, yeah,Speaker 2 (17:59):No, that's huge. Yeah. I talk with, you know, some of my friends that own their like EPC stuff like that, I mean, they deal with some of these dealers who it's just like, they're pushing through deals no matter what, on any type of roof, getting guys the same, like roof waivers and stuff, and just throw them panels up there. And it's crazy and, uh, [inaudible] cells, but yeah, it's like 25 years peopleSpeaker 3 (18:20):And that's a long time.Speaker 2 (18:22):It's like, yeah, you throw on these roof waivers and then just put the panels up. Stuff is going wrong. And it's like, what's that? What's that gonna look like down the road for customers and thingsSpeaker 3 (18:30):Like that. It's literally the roof over somebody's head. They worked their entire life to buy their house and make sure it's good. Yeah.Speaker 2 (18:38):So, no, I definitely appreciate that. I think that's the, you know, the only way really to build long-term and make sure you're focusing on your customers and your clients,Speaker 3 (18:49):That brings up a point. I mean, because there's so much money to be made in the solar industry. There's, it's naturally attracting fly by night people. So it's, it's an, it's an unfortunate fact, the industry right now, I feel, uh, needs a huge pivot towards integrity based sales and installs. And I think on the installation side, especially, yeah, there needs to be a big step up in quality and, uh, and customer service towards, you know, uh, sales partners.Speaker 2 (19:18):I know no doubt. And it's like, how many times have you heard it? Um, I hear it all the time where like, oh, what's the reason you haven't gone solar. Oh. Cause our neighbor had a bad experience. So cause their friend know, cause our uncle's roof is leaking. Like how many more customers could we all have? We were just doing quality work and know, you know, not lying to people. So yeah. Ripple effect. So yeah, it's definitely super frustrating, but I know, so yeah. That's good to hear that, um, you know, that you're passing that onto your leaders and it's your company. Cause I think that's really what the industry needs. Um, but yeah. So how many teams do you guys have? So you said you're in, uh, California, Utah. Where else?Speaker 3 (19:56):California, Utah, uh, New Jersey. Um, a little bit in Nevada and a little bit in Florida and then we've got a team in Puerto Rico as well. Okay.Speaker 2 (20:05):That's awesome. How many reps do you have for the whole company? Um,Speaker 3 (20:09):We're around two 50. Okay. All right.Speaker 2 (20:12):Okay. And so what do you see? I don't know. I'm sure some, obviously some teams are better than others. What do you see in your great teams, your best team versus, you know, teams that are struggling, anything you see that's um, is, you know, helping contribute to a good team or is it the teams that are struggling?Speaker 3 (20:27):Yes. I think a good team obviously starts with leaders so you can have a good team without good leaders. It's obviously, uh, a again, a ripple effect. I hate to use that phrase twice, but, um, so if the leaders aren't dialed in, you can, you don't even need to see or meet the leaders. You can tell by the team if you just met the team. But anyway, once that's dialed in and this is part of what the leaders do, having the team have an identity, a name, and even a creed, something that they can coalesce around as a principle or principles that they live by once they have that and identity as a group, then it's about having fun, which is part of culture is kind of what we think about with culture. Like, yeah, you want a yacht somewhere. Um, so having fun and then, uh, getting into flow.Speaker 3 (21:13):I was listening to Aubrey Marcus podcast recently and he had a guy on there it's supposed to be the master of flow. Um, my VP Owen recommends to me anyway. He says there's steps to get into flow. And, and uh, the first one is curiosity. So as if the leaders can create curiosity, uh, with their people somehow, I mean, there's, we can brainstorm around that for a while, but we've, we've had ideas about it and we're looking to increase this constantly because when people are in flow, they don't have to think too much. They just feel, and they're feeling great about what they're doing and, you know, flows. Like we just went surfing this more in the morning and got tossed around in the water, positive ions flowing all around. Yeah. And that was the best way for me to start my morning before I got here.Speaker 3 (21:59):Yeah. So activities like that, if we can, if we can make, um, sales and solar as flowy as, as the way I feel when I'm surfing. Um, then I think we've, we have hit the jackpot. So our best teams, they feel that they don't feel like they're going to work. They feel like they're just in a, in rhythm with a bunch of their friends and they're making a ton of money together, which is awesome. But it's, they want to show up to meetings. Yeah. It's fun. You know, so there's good quality content being shared in the trainings, the bad teams, um, again, bad leaders or it's hard to say bad, uh, ineffective, ineffective leaders. Yeah. Not doing some of these things, no identity. Maybe, maybe they missed on the culture piece. Um, they're not having a much, they're too serious. Not having enough fun. Yeah. Uh, and it's the fun is not just like throwing out incentives and let's meet a Jamba juice it's it's like, right. You know, it's making jokes and having actually vernacular having like inside jokes around your work. Yeah. That kind of, stuff's fun. Yeah. So that's, it's all about. Yeah.Speaker 2 (23:04):That's cool. And yeah. Be a big struggle with like companies I've been a part of, um, I mean that's a big struggle is starting new offices, especially like when it's far away from your home base. Right. Or what have you, it's like sometimes it's tough to keep that same culture and expand and ensure, you know, find good people. Cause yeah. I mean, one of the first companies I was with it's like we expanded to, I think we opened up five offices in a year, but then, um, the next year all of them closed down except for like one, it was just like, because they didn't have like solid leaders in place. And I don't know, it was just tough to grow in too fast. Yeah. Keep it going.Speaker 3 (23:39):So, one thing that we've we've found is to bring like, use your best office and bring your leaders that are struggling or new leaders for sure new leaders bring them into that office and by osmosis the learn and feel the culture. So in fact, we just hired a new Vegas manager today. I just got off a zoom call with him this morning. And uh, he's coming in for two weeks into San Clemente where our top offices, uh, and he'll be learning by osmosis what they're doing. And it's not even just because you could describe to them what to do, but it's, you got to feel it. And you got to meet the people and see how happy they are and talk to them and like all that's going to be super valuable, invaluable. And he'll bring that back to, I guess, have a much better start.Speaker 2 (24:21):Yeah. That's awesome. So that works pretty well. They kind of see what the other people are doing and like, oh, I'm going to go implement that in mySpeaker 3 (24:26):Office. It's pretty basic, but I don't think on a lot of people are doing it.Speaker 2 (24:31):Yeah. I know. We definitely weren't when we were having that problem though. Right. That's that's a great idea. Um, and yeah, like as far as like, uh, your inspiration and everything, what's what are the things that like motivate you to keep it going through all the challenges? And I don't know when their struggles, ups and downs, what are some things that,Speaker 3 (24:51):Um, that's a good question. Multiple things. So I've thought about, what's been driving me since I've been a kid and it's actually hard to put my finger on it. I have some kind of motor in me that won't stop. I feel I've seen the musical Hamilton. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just the Disney plus version. Yeah, exactly. Me too. I haven't been to a live show, but you know how there's a song in there that there's, the lyrics are like he's running out of time. He always felt he was running out of time. I've always felt that way. I've always felt like, Hey, this is a very, it's a short life. Um, you gotta, you got your time to make a mark on it. And uh, and so I think that's ever present in my mind. Yeah. And I, that drives me. I mean, I actually just heard, you know, some of the most successful people in the world, art are both running away from something and running towards something.Speaker 3 (25:38):Yeah. There's like two motors driving them. Yeah. And so, uh, I can certainly agree with and relate to the running away from things. Um, you know, came from a divorced family. Dad died when I was young bunch of interesting, you know, storyline items that I could bring up, but running towards something I'm running towards really excellence. I'm trying my best to just be excellent because at some point along the road, the way I got the idea in my head, that being excellent is just so much more fun. And it's a choice. So why not? Like why would you choose not to be excellent? Yeah. I know it's hard and I'm certainly not good at it, uh, all the time. But, uh, I think I've developed that skill over time to just, you know, achieve excellence in certain areas of life. Yeah.Speaker 2 (26:24):Yeah. It's sweet. I like animals. I remember when I first listened to it watched the Disney plus palms and I was like, listen to that, that same song, I think on the way to my, like my deals and stuff like that run out of time. Nice. You know, I guess it's the sweet, but it's true. I mean, especially in solar, that's like a real thing. Cause you don't know, like, I don't know what your thoughts, but it's like solar is probably, probably not going to be, oh yeah. It is profitableSpeaker 3 (26:47):For a long, I mean, yeah. Not, not 10 years from now. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna, it's going to hit critical mass. It's already doing that in certain markets and uh, in California specifically where we are right now, I'm not gonna make a prediction, but you know, we're, we're living on borrowed time for sure. He thinks though. I mean with, yeah, with the, with the level of commissions that we're getting, um, the way and just modeled it off of any other industry in the way it's matured, you know, it's still young. Yeah. But we can model this off of a lot of other industries and you can, you can predict what's going to happen in the next five years. Pretty well. Yeah.Speaker 2 (27:22):Yeah. So yeah. I mean, that's what we're trying to tell our listeners too, is like for those that are listening to this, make sure you understand that and take Dan's words you're living on borrowed time. So push as hard as you can right now be present. That's right. So it's like the days where you're making huge commissions, probably not going to be around forever. So no. So I invest in yourself, invest in coaching and get as good as you can right now. So you can reap the benefits and make as much as possible. Yep. I think is something huge and something I'm sure you, you know, share with your reps. Do ISpeaker 3 (27:53):Bet? Sure. Again, I mean, we've been on the wave of starting out 2012, just nine years ago, making 185 bucks kilowatt or whatever. It was 180 and being so excited and then it just kept going up every single year, but it's just like the real estate market. You can't just keep going up. It's got to crash at some point. Right. So I don't, I'm not saying we're going to crash, but we're certainly going to see corrections in the market. Uh, yeah.Speaker 2 (28:18):It's funny. I feel like the grandpa and solar, I started in Soren 2016. So coming up on five and a half years or so, but yeah, like I don't know all the new reps coming in. They're seeing these seats commissions. I the grandpa. I'm like, oh, back in my day, I was only making two 50. I know it's real.Speaker 3 (28:36):Yeah. And the opportunity arrogance is there. It's like, uh, you know them, like you said, those numbers, you mentioned earlier, they think that's normal. That's not normal. This is not normal. ISpeaker 2 (28:47):Know. So it's like, guys, you got to understand. There's like, solar's the gold rush right now. Go take your pick and hammer and all that. No, get it now andSpeaker 3 (28:56):Get it now and do it. Right. You know, don't ruin it for the rest of us. Don't be that. Don't be that guy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.Speaker 2 (29:01):For sure. Well, Dan, I know we're going to wrap up soon here, but yeah. Last question or two, I wanted to ask you, like from your reps that are, um, seeing a ton of success out there compared to reps that are struggling and whatnot, what are you seeing? What's separating like the super successful reps versus the ones that are struggling or new teams,Speaker 3 (29:19):The super successful reps have their schedules dialed in. We've got a motto at harness called win the day. You'll see it on our Instagrams. Okay. Um, it's on, well, it's actually in the back of my shirt, right? Is it on the back of my shirt?Speaker 4 (29:32):Not this one.Speaker 3 (29:34):Cool moment. Anyway, you put it on the back of our swag. Uh, when the day came from Owen Santos, RVP of execution, it's a, it's something that he came up with in his own life, basically to win the morning. He wakes up every day at 5:00 AM. I was disciplined guy. I know, um, gets his workout and gets his healthy eating go and gets the surf on surfed with him this morning. Um, basically does more than a lot of people do before 8:00 AM is over. And so winning the day is what our successful reps do. They have a pretty regimented schedule that they stick to live and die by it. And, um, that makes all of their targets time-bound, which has, if you listen to Tony Robbins, you got to have smart goals. S M a R T the T stands for time bound. So, uh, I think that's critical.Speaker 3 (30:20):And then they are students of the game, a students of the game. So they're constantly curious again, way to get into flow state about how to get better and what's happening and, you know, stay on top of their stuff. Yeah. So I mean, those, I could say a lot more than that, but that separates them again. If you want to look at the, the flip side of the coin reps that aren't being successful are treating this, like, you know, they'll come to a meeting and they'll expect the meeting to kind of fill their cup and uh, other people to give them all the knowledge and the skills that they need instead of taking that bowl by their own bull, by the horns, with their own hands and, uh, doing homework, you actually do have to do homework to be great at this. Yeah. So I know one of the best things I can give you is when I first started, I had, uh, an approach that I would record in my phone every day when I was driving out to the area.Speaker 3 (31:10):And I would listen back to it to hear how I sounded to myself and put myself in the customer's shoes. Like how would I react to this guy coming to my door? And I would do that over and over and over and over and over, like, I just became obsessed with like the right words and the right cadence and my meta verbal and nonverbal communication. And it probably took me like two and a half to three months, uh, right when I got into solar to come up with an approach that I felt was hitting on all the psychological principles that you would need to have in place to make sure the customer responded in a certain way. Yeah. And that's, that's what you do. You dial that in so that you're hitting on all those things, the takeaways, the questions, the, the motion creates emotion, all that. Stuff's so critical. ISpeaker 2 (31:49):Love that. Yeah. I can tell, let's go back to your music days. You're probably doing the same stuff and you're practicing piano, right. Recording yourself here and what's going on. That's what I'm saying. It's like so many parallels be doing it. Oh yeah. And top guys are doing it. They're recording themselves in their closes at the doors. It's just like so many things that we didn't think were doing there. Courtney is not going to lie. Right. Like it's like stupid, but I was actually sounded like that actually said that. Yeah. So yeah. So yeah, no, I think that's a huge separator and lots of people I've had on the podcast actually brought that up. That's one of the number one things that reps can do that most people aren't doing it's yeah. I didn't do it for years either, but I'm hearing it so many times. Good recording yourselves, getting feedback and just, you know, analyzing what went wrong and looking in the mirror. Yeah. That's huge. Um, well then we appreciate this secrets you shared with us today and um, yeah, I guess last question or two, I had like, what's been your biggest, uh, I dunno, is there any time at harness that there was like a, a down point or like a big struggle you had at harness and then what, what did you do to get out of it or any, or maybe there hasn't been any, but ISpeaker 3 (32:58):Don't know. Uh, I mean there was the installation misfire in the, in the early year, the most recent one was actually online leads, man, I'll tell you, I can go off for an hour about this. So many companies sprung up during the pandemic saying that they were experts and gurus on lead gen. So many dollars were lost to those companies. Not only by me, but others. Uh, but yeah, that was definitely a struggle. Um, we, we, I think we were shut down for probably, uh, I don't know, maybe a month and a half or two. And then we kind of rebounded with the idea that we were tied to the utility company. And I think everybody in the industry agreed we were essential services, but it's still, you know, um, had our best year during the pandemic, which is cool obviously, but spent a lot of money on online leads that didn't pan out. And again, I could name some companies, I can name some names, but I won't yeah. Blacklisted names. Uh, but I would just caution any, any of the listeners to be very, I would never go with an online lead company that hasn't been vetted by somebody, you know, that can show you proof of the results. Yeah. I just, it's such a trap right now, so yeah.Speaker 2 (34:06):And that's huge. I don't know if you've seen it, but there's like groups on Facebook now, like blacklisted, solar online leads. I follow people just go and follow them. Yeah. Talk crap on all the people that screwed him over.Speaker 3 (34:18):So the names that have scorned me have shown up, so it wasn't just me.Speaker 2 (34:23):Okay. Yeah. No, that's good to observe. I know a lot of people are looking, thinking, oh, online leads. That's the wave. Never going to have to knock the door again,Speaker 3 (34:30):But yeah. Yeah. They think it's a panacea. It's really not. Yeah. It's a supplement. It always should be treated such as such.Speaker 2 (34:37):Yeah. A hundred percent. Um, well Dan, thanks for coming on the show today. Um, where can people find out more about your teams and what you're doing and kind of connect with you on social media and all that? Yeah.Speaker 3 (34:47):Luckily, uh, there's this great guy named Serge. That's been, uh, managing our social media recently and, uh, anyways, you can find us on, you can find it on Instagram at harness your future. Okay. Uh, we also have harness power official. That's kinda more of a customer facing Instagram. Okay. Easiest way to find us. And you can slide into our DMS and have some conversations. Yeah. Okay. I love it.Speaker 2 (35:06):And speaking of surge, I mean, I know surge comes at the price. He's not doing this stuff for free, but, uh, w w what's driving you to kind of invest in like the social media side of things. And what's the goal with that?Speaker 3 (35:17):The goal with that is really because we were a closed loop before, like we were growing mostly organically by referral. And then late last year December-ish of last year, we just decided, you know what, we're going to do some, we're going to make some more efforts to grow. Uh, not just organically, but you know, get ourselves out there a little bit more and show the world what we've got going. We feel like we have something very special here. It's not contrived. It's a special culture of great people that want to be part of this because it's fun. It's special. We create a lot of cool programs that are proprietary to us. So nice. Um, so we wanted to get that out there a little bit more. And Serge is just such a charismatic gentleman came to me. He's like, Hey, I can do all this for you. And he made these massive promises and, uh, now he's, he's delivered quite well so far. Um, yeah, he does a great job, great content, uh, very organized. And he's got some automated systems that are pretty impressive. So yeah.Speaker 2 (36:10):Yeah. Surges them in. He said, we've gotten smiling on the sidelines there. So yeah. Give him a shout out. He's in the room, but no, so yeah, social media definitely important. I know if there's a building brand and also recruiting helps a ton just recruit your ideal salesperson.Speaker 3 (36:26):Yeah. Yeah. And I've been averse to it, to be honest that I haven't been on social media in a while. I took a hiatus for a Facebook for like a, I dunno, a year, year and a half or something. But I think the resistance to social media was like, I just don't want to feel obligated to put myself out there with something contrived. I want it to feel authentic. And I want to feel like, I don't know that we're not trying to like manipulate people into anything. So luckily surges give me free reign on what to put on there. Um, and has worked with me on, um, the way I want to do things, which is, has been awesome. Yeah.Speaker 2 (36:59):That's awesome. Cool. Well, Dan, appreciate you coming on. And before we wrap up here, any final, I guess, words of advice you want to share with our solar printers with RS or guys that are listening on the show here today? Yeah.Speaker 3 (37:10):I would just say something I say often there's magic in the mundane, which is, goes back full circle to what we talk about. Like if you, if you practice piano for hours on end or, you know, parlayed any kind of musical talent or any other kind of rhythm, maybe from athletics, when you were young into knocking doors, you know, that the magic is in doing the same mundane things over and over and finding the magic, which is the income, the success, the, uh, the leadership, eventually all the things that you kind of want and are going after it's it's in the consistent daily. Yes.Speaker 2 (37:44):Yeah. Love that. And yeah, I'm sure you read the two book compound effect slight edge, but yeah. It's just like, if you haven't read those for our listeners, go read those for sure. I mean, that's yeah. That's the key to success. Most people aren't willing to do the little things everyday over a long period of time. Anyone can do it for one or two days, but the guys that are having success in this industry, or really anything they're doing the little things that no one wants to do for, you know, day after day afterSpeaker 3 (38:09):Day formula was written long ago. I just gotta follow it. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.Speaker 2 (38:14):Love it. Dan will links were coming on the show. Guys, go give Dan a shout out soon, a message a DM on Instagram, Facebook, let them know you appreciate him on the show. And Dan, thanks again. We'll talk to you soon. Cool. Thanks Taylor. Appreciate it.Speaker 5 (38:28):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. 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We'll see you on the inside.
Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one. What's up Solapreneurs Taylor Armstrong back withSpeaker 2 (00:44):Another episode here to help you close more deals, generate more referrals and dominate in the solar industry. Today, we're going to be talking about the two step framework that you can use today to go from one to two closes to four plus monthly. Okay. And the reason I'm seeing one to two to four, plus this is primarily for people that haven't broken through that barrier yet. Hey, that being said, if you are already closing, you know, four or 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 deals, you can implement these things and they are going to help. But the reason I'm saying from one to two to four plus is because this process, I think is the number one thing missing from people that are trying, they start hitting those consistent four plus a month. Okay. And we'll get into that. But before we jump into the topic of today, I wanted to give my boy Surge creator, a shout out.Speaker 2 (01:40):If you don't follow a Surge, he is, uh, helping a lot of guys in the solar industry, crush it on social media on Instagram, Facebook, if you don't, if you haven't heard of this guy, go shoot him a follow, look them up. And he's been actually helping us with some of our content, depending on when you're listening to this, you were probably going to see more video content that we're posting along with episodes. We're going to be posting some of these interviews now on YouTube. Okay. So we'll, um, we'll post a link. Once those things come out, but, uh, go search Solarpreneur. They might on YouTube. They might already be out as we're are recording this episode, but Serge has been helping us get some killer video content with some of our recent interviews. So we'd love to hear what you guys think of that.Speaker 2 (02:28):Do you want more video? Do you guys like the video or are you just audio people personally? I love the podcasts. I listen to podcasts when I'm at the gym, when I'm driving to deals, when I'm driving out to my turf, to my area. So I'm a huge proponent of podcasts, but I know there's a lot of people that prefer the video. So anyways, let me know what you think. I think it's good to have both options, video and audio, but we're going to be posting more and more video. And we're going to try to get some of these, uh, interviews on a YouTube. So let us know if you vibe with that, let's jump into the episode. So the two-step framework to go from one to two to four plus deals in a month. The reason we're talking about this today is because I'm actually coaching.Speaker 2 (03:19):Um, we are doing, we are accepting a coaching clients in our Solciety, inner circle. If you want to find out more about that, go to Solciety.co. There should be an inner circle tab. You can hit that and book a call. If you're interested in some, um, personal coaching and masterminding to take your cells, um, your closes up by 40%, 40 to 50% in a month. Okay. But, um, anyways, the reason I'm talking about this, one of our coaching clients in the inner circle, he is right now, he's not, he's primarily setting appointments and he has closers, but he's working up to, um, close his own deals. And he tells me, Taylor, my goal is in the next two months that we're working together. I want to get closing my own deals and I want to have five deals closed in a month. So I'm like, all right, that's an awesome goal, dude, let's, let's hit it.Speaker 2 (04:20):Let's go for it. So we've been working together three weeks or so now we're talking, we're talking, he's making some small improvements, but our last call is the reason for this episode, as we get on the call. And, um, he didn't have, he didn't have much no improvement from the previous week. We talked and I started realizing that a few of our recent calls that we had is we were talking about almost all of the sales techniques. He's like, Taylor, what do you do on the doors? What do you, how do you overcome this? Objection, how do you get more referral? All these cells, specific things, very technical what's, which is awesome to know all the technical sales knowledge and that's going to create improvements. But as I was trying to think, why, why is he making slower improvements? And this was the reasons cause we're focused so much on these little technical things that we weren't, we weren't talking as much about what needed to be talked about.Speaker 2 (05:25):And that is the behind the scenes, things that consistency, the routines that showing up every day, working the exact hours that you need, and then making sure you have your routines dialed in. So I started realizing this I'm like, dude, before we get in all the technical sales stuff, again, let's talk about what are you doing every day to show up? What are you doing everyday to be consistent in your morning routine and your evening routine in your hours knocked in your appointments booked. And that's the purpose of these KPIs, right? The key performance indicators is they help you see where the improvements need to be made. So for those that are training new teams, think about that. I think this is the number one thing for newer reps to take them from the couple deals a month to start closing four plus a month, because that's the thing that people don't talk about as much as they need to that.Speaker 2 (06:27):I see everyone wants to talk about the sexy sales techniques, the sexy closing lanes, the things that you can say on the door, what's the magic words that people are going to sign up instantly. But guess what if you're not putting in consistent hours, if you are not, if you don't have your Headspace dialed in, if you're not there mentally, if you're not following your routines, your morning routine, it's going to make it super tough to have success. Even if you are the world's greatest, closer, even if you know all the cool lanes, even if you know all the good stuff. If you read all of the sells books in the world, none of that matters if you can't be consistent. And if you can't do the small little things, day after day decree success, okay. And I brought these books up quite a few times in the podcast, but go read.Speaker 2 (07:15):I'm looking at it right now on my bookshelf. It's the slight edge and the compound effect. They talk about it. And there's a reason why those are two of the best. I would say personal development books that have been written because they're not talking about secret lines. They're just talking about being consistent, doing something small every day. And that's, what's going to create a massive results in your life. So think about that. What is the things, what are the things that you can do every day to create the mental space you want to get in? When I was at this knock star event, um, a couple of weeks back, we've been talking about it kind of all lately. Um, Taylor McCarthy, Danny Pessy two awesome, awesome guys in the door to door training industry. Um, they're changing the game of, for solar training. They got some great content, but I was at their mastermind event and they're in key west Florida.Speaker 2 (08:15):And this is something that Taylor McCarthy was talking about. He was telling us how he closed five deals in a day, all self-generated just him going out and knock. And he closed five in a day. And then he closed like 14 in the week. Um, yeah, all knocking himself, no leads, no setters, none of that. And someone was asking him like to, what did you do to create that? And the question he threw at us, he asked us to write down what our perfect day of knocking looks like. What's our knocking process in what he meant by that is, and this is a good exercise for, to go through. Um, if you have a notepad or something, it's be a great time to pause and write the answer to this down. Think back to the time when you had a massive day on the doors, massive day, closing to some of your most successful days, what were the things you did during that day?Speaker 2 (09:17):Okay. Maybe you haven't had a ton of success yet, but write them down. Think what were the routines you went through? How did you feel? What were the hours you worked make a checklist of those things. Okay. And this is something that Taylor had us do and kind of rate ourselves on. Okay. I'm sure you can notice a difference in the things you did on your days of massive success versus days where you didn't have much, much success. So notice those things. Did you take a, I dunno, ice bath that day? Did you do some meditation? Did you exercise? What type of food were you eating? How many hours did you work? Hey, some key things you can notice if you went through this exercise. Okay. And now start to think about, are you doing those things? Day after day, are you implementing falls? Little things that gave you the success that day, are those things that you implement in your day-to-day routine?Speaker 2 (10:21):Maybe so, maybe not. So what McCarthy told us is his perfect day and knocking looks like this, and this is how he, he got the five deals in a day, in 14 in a week. He said, guys, my perfect day of knocking is this nine 30 to 10. I knocked my first door. That's when I get out there before I get out, though I go in, I, yeah, my cooler full of ice. That's this trigger habit. Any of you have read, um, the power of habit. That's a great book as well, Charles Duhigg um, they talk about what are the triggers that you can put in a place for your habits. That's something to think about. So for those that are out knocking, what type of triggers do you have that can trigger you into knocking mindsets for Taylor McCarthy? He goes, and he fills up his cooler with ice.Speaker 2 (11:15):He goes to the gas station and then he gets all his drinks, his Gatorades. Cause he's not, he's not taking breaks to go, come back and go to gas stations. Right. He's gearing up for a full day and knocking. So from nine 30 to 10, before he's going to a gas station getting his ice. That's his trigger for his habit, which is getting out and knocking. So once he gets his ice, he knows, right? It's game time. That's his equivalent of like, I dunno, LeBron James chalking up his hands before the game, throwing it in the air. This is what Taylor McCarthy does. He gets his eyes. So I think what are, what's the key, what's the trigger you can put into place for when you're knocking for, when you're closing that can get you into that, right? Mindset can let your brain know. All right.Speaker 2 (12:04):It's time to go. Once I do this, that means it's time to go knock stem, to go close timing, to go work it because this job, as you know, you don't have people babysitting you. Lot of the times. There's a lot of people, a lot of solar guys out there that are getting out by themselves, much easier with the team, got respect for guys that are lone Wolf in it. But think of some trigger you can put into place. And then after that to McCarthy, he's hitting his first door from nine 30 to 10. And then from 10 to 12, he calls that just as like extra bonus time as bonus sales, anything he gets from 10 to 12 that's, um, just kind of icing on the cake. He's not necessarily expecting any deals, any, he closes from men, but he's going out there and he's just trying to talk to people.Speaker 2 (12:58):And then from what he does after that, he breaks it into, uh, quarters. And I guess it's not really for, I think he called them quarters, even though it's kind of three times thoughts. But instead of thinking, I'm knocking all day long, 10 to 12 is a bonus extra curricular time. 12 to three is his first quarter three to six is a second quarter and six to nine is his third quarter. And that's another pro tip right there. If you are knocking, um, you know, really any amount of time, make sure you break up your hours and it's something like that. The brain can manage quarters and little chunks of time, a lot better than it can. All right. We're going to be out here eight hours. That sounds pretty daunting. Right? So break it up into chunks. And that's what he does. That's his perfect day knocking every time there's a end of a quarter, 12 to three, he's going back to his car.Speaker 2 (13:58):He's getting a Gatorade, he's getting a snack, taking a little break. Okay. But he's not sitting in the car. He's not hanging out there. That's what he does. Okay. So the point of all this, make sure you have your perfect knocking day in place in the two-step framework is this number one, get a list of all the habits that are, um, contributing you, having success, write down exactly what your routines need to be. Write down the things that are helping you that have helped you have big days. And once you identify all of these habits, for example, you know, you craft your morning, your team, you exercise, you get out of bed at a specific hour, you do your meditation. This is what I talked about with my client. And then you make your green smoothie. It doesn't necessarily have to be these things, but these are just examples of things you can throw into your dailies habits.Speaker 2 (14:55):You can track. And then the other thing we put into place for my coaching student there is he wanted to be on the doors at one o'clock okay. Maybe it's different. Maybe your, maybe your goal is to just knock four hours for the day or go to X amount of appointments. But whatever your goal is, whatever you know is going to help you to have success. That's what you need to be tracking, measuring, and adjusting. So for my student, it was, he wanted to be on the doors by one, and then he wanted to be knocking until eight 30. Okay. So what we did is we assigned points to all these habits and all these things that he's trying to put into place because at the end of the day, he knew, he knew a lot of they close. It is a lot of the lines they say on the doors, but what he is missing and the reason he's not getting four plus deals in the month right now is because first he needs to get consistent with these things.Speaker 2 (15:53):First, he needs to get consistent with being out on the doors at a specific time with doing his perfect morning routine. Okay. And so if you're not closing four plus deals, or even if you are, this is a great exercise to go through, start tracking these habits, figure out what you're missing, write them all down and then assign a point value to them. That's what we've put into place. Okay. So maybe you're getting a point for waking up on time. Maybe you're getting a point if you're a green smoothie and then give yourself a couple of points for getting on the door as it can at a consistent time. And for him, it was, he wanted to talk to 15 homeowners in a day as he was out there. Cause that's what he can control. Right? He can't necessarily control how many appointments he books, but he can control how many people he talks to out there.Speaker 2 (16:48):Okay. So if you are for a rep or if you were training reps or even, yeah, if you are having success out there, go through this framework, all right. Write down the habits to things you want to be improving and then track them. Okay? This is something that every rep should do every week. Check these old things, give yourself points for them, make it a game, gain a guarantee. It's going to be something that increases the amount of cells, especially if you haven't tasted a ton of success yet, it's going to be the thing that if you are only closing one or two deals a month, just doing this, making this little change, tracking, measuring, adjusting, and seeing what's missing, that's going to be the number one thing. They can take you to four paws deals in a month. So try it, train your reps on it.Speaker 2 (17:40):Hey, let me know what you think. Share it with someone that's having trouble in their routines or being consistent and keep crushing out their hope. The end your summer is going awesome. Make sure they push super hard these months. Cause this one people are getting their high electric bills. Hope you enjoyed the episode. And next time don't miss out because we're going to have someone that is doing awesome things. His name's Dan Dunn. He is the CEO of harness power. It's a company that's, I think they're in four or five different states and his reps are doing awesome. He's doing awesome things in his company. So you're not gonna miss out on what he has to say next time on the Solarpreneur podcast. So keep crushing and we'll see you soon.Speaker 3 (18:28):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one. What's going on Solarpreneurs?Speaker 2 (00:45):Secret Hack to book an extra two appointments this week and much more that's what's going to be in today's episode. We're going to jump into it. But before that, just want to give some thanks to all the people that have listened to the show. So pads, um, massive support and appreciate everyone that shared it. Appreciate the comments I receive. Appreciate everyone that is crushing it in solar. And let me know about it. That's what this podcast is all about, and that's what we're here to do with the Solarpreneur movement. And again, that's what we're doing with the podcast is helping you close more deals, generate more referrals, and have a lot more fun, hopefully, as you are out there selling some solar panels. So before we jump into the topic today, wanted to just invite you. If you haven't already checked out Solciety, go check it solciety.co have been getting great feedback from those that are already on it.Speaker 2 (01:47):Um, and if you don't know what that is, go back and listen. I think it was four or five episodes. Um, we did the Solciety breakdown on what it is, what you can expect in the training platform and why you should, you and your team should be on it. Go listen to that. If you haven't already and check out Solciety, it's going to help you close extra deals every month. And really just implement a lot of these things that you're hearing in the podcast. And it's so affordable. You guys, so go get on it. It's the best training platform that I've seen for solar. I've, I've done a lot of different training platforms. I think it's the most convenient because it's an app it's literally right in your pocket. So you can go train at any time at any hour. You don't have to have a log in.Speaker 2 (02:36):You don't have to remember your password. You're clicking on the app, you're logging in and then every month you're getting new content from the best people in solar. So if you're on an already update for this month, we are adding someone that knocks our content. Taylor McCarthy is going to be added on there, here, hopefully in the next couple of days. So you're definitely gonna want to get into that. Let's jump into the episode with all that being said, okay, I want to share with you guys something that I had forgotten about last week that helped me book an extra appointment. Okay. I only got one appointment from it, but, uh that's cause I didn't do it until later in the week. But if you follow what I'm going to tell you, it's going to get you an extra two appointments guaranteed in a week and who doesn't want an extra two solar appointments for the week.Speaker 2 (03:29):That's an extra two opportunities. You have to close up more deals. So here's what it is. Well, before I tell you what it is, um, I'll preface it. I had a rough week last week. I didn't close anything. And that's the first week that I haven't closed anything in probably a couple months, at least so definitely was frustrating. This was one of the bright spots of the week is what I'm going to share with you here is I don't want you to think that, you know, all the top guys, sometimes there's days where I go without closing, sometimes there's days where I go without booking an appointment. So for those that are listening to this, if you had a rough week, if you had a rough day knocking, if you had a rough day in your closes, just throw that to the side, focus on the positive and make it a better week next week.Speaker 2 (04:26):That's what I'm doing and that's what you should do to it. So that's why I'm focusing on a couple of things that went well for me last week, I'm sharing them with you so you can focus on the positive as well and focus on the things that are going to move the needle. And I'll be honest, there was, there's always the element of not working enough hours. So that's partly why I didn't close a deal last week. Cause I didn't have my fish in the line as much as I should have. Okay. But here's the technique that I was happy about. The, did it get me an extra appointment on the week? Okay. So this, I actually learned from surprisingly enough, I learned it from, uh, missionaries in my church. And the reason I forgot about it is because as many of you know, I did a two year service mission for my church.Speaker 2 (05:16):I was down in Columbia, south America. And the reason I got into sales is because I'm like, all right, if I go and knock doors. So in pest control cell and Jesus is going to be so easy because I already talked to people. I know how to knock doors. It's going to be ways you're knocking doors and my mission. And then I do a summer pest control. I get out to my mission and come to find out. We didn't even knock doors in Columbia. Our mission president was like, nah, you guys don't mean to knock doors. He just sent us around talking to people on the streets, doing activities with people playing soccer. So who knows maybe if I would've known that I would've never gotten into door to door cells, but glad I did change my life. But the reason I bring that up is because before I was getting ready to go on my mission, I remember I was asking some of my friends that had done their missions, like, Hey, do you guys knock a ton of doors?Speaker 2 (06:11):What's the deal? How do you go about knocking doors? And what I was hearing from a lot of them, they said, Taylor, we don't knock a ton of doors, but here's what we do. Every time we go to an appointment, every time we get like our referral, every time we go to someone's house that we're trying to follow up on, we have this little technique. We do, we knock the two houses to the side of it. And then we knock the three houses across the street. And that's it that's most of what our door knocking is. I'm like, oh, okay, that doesn't sound too bad. And so I started thinking, huh? Maybe that's a good idea. And maybe that could be applied to solar. Obviously I'm thinking this a lot later now, as you know, this was back in like 2012 when I did my mission and was talking about these things a lot.Speaker 2 (07:03):But I'm like, ah, that could definitely be applied to solar. So last week, for whatever reason as I was going on appointments, this just popped into my head again, Jay. And I will say the reason I'm talking about this is because last week I was going to a lot of appointments from our ciders, from our guys that were setting up appointments. I went to a decent amount of them. And so this is more, I guess you'd say applicable for those that are going to maybe online leads, you had to drive out to an appointment or maybe have a team people knocking the doors and you're going to some of their appointments. Okay? So it's going to be more applicable for that, but it also can be applied if you're knocking your own doors everyday, if you're doing purely self-generated leads, you could also do it with that.Speaker 2 (07:52):Because a lot of times you're not going to talk to all the neighbors around the appointments you book, right? So that's the technique is every time you go on an appointment specifically, make sure after the appointment, do what these missionaries told me, they were doing. Knock the doors next to it. The two neighbors to the side of it, then go across the street and knock the three neighbors across the street. Why should you do this? Because you already have a name right there. You have a name you can use. And the line that really worked for me last week, if you're driving or something, write this down, this is fire. So you say, think of the name of the appointment and maybe it's Joe. They say, Hey, did Joe tell you I was stopping by today? Did he let you know? He's the one with the Navy flag out front?Speaker 2 (08:45):Did he let you know, was coming by? This worked super well for me last week, it's a name someone they recognize and lucky for me, the appointments that I booked last week off this technique, everyone knew this guy in the neighborhood. So it works even better. If it's someone, uh, that people recognize or something they have out front of their house, this case, it was a Navy flag. A lot of people knew this guy. So use this start applying it. Um, what happened to me is I went to this appointment and he was one of those where he's like, okay, you got 10 minutes. I got to go soon. So I'll pop, open my truck bed in set your iPad down there, show me what you got. And anytime it's that, it's like, come on, man. We can't do this on the truck bed. I didn't tell you how many deals.Speaker 2 (09:41):Maybe in the past five years, maybe one or two deals have been closed, standing on a truck bed outside, not many. So of course it's, you know, basically a situation where you're just gonna give them some basic info and then try to reschedule, which is what I did. But that's why I started thinking about this. I'm like, okay. I drove clear out here. It was like 20 minutes out of my way to this appointment. And I'm like, all right, I need to get something out of this. If I came clear out here, I can't be wasting my time, just showing up to these appointments and not getting something from this. So I went over a couple general details with the guy rescheduled for one, his wife was there. And um, when he had more time now that's when I decided to implement this. Like, I, I know this, I know someone was in this area.Speaker 2 (10:33):It was one of our newer reps that was knocking it. I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to do it anyways. Who cares if they already talked to him? And this is something that ran through my head before is I would be like, yeah, I'm not going to knock the neighbors of appointments of my setters. Um, they probably do talk to all of these people, but guess what? Every door approach is different. What you're seeing is probably a lot different than what the guy in the area saying, even if it's from your same company and maybe they caught the people at a bad time, Hey, if anything you can say, Hey, I'm just following up on what they told you. Okay, bye. I went and then none of these people had been talked to. So I don't know if the rep maybe didn't, you know, get to them or whatever, but even if they have been talked to just try it out this week, if you're going to appointments or if you're getting out of your own appointment, make sure, just try it.Speaker 2 (11:28):Knock. The two sides knocked the one across. I went and knocked the one across to the left. So not the house directly across, but looking across to the left. And that's the house I ended up booking and the line worked perfectly said, Hey, did Joel let you know I was stopping by? So I go know what's going on, created the curiosity. And then after that, it just became super easy. It was an add on system too, which that's another pro tip. Make sure to not overlook people that already have solar or new homes that were built with solar. A lot of these people are still paying true out bills. A lot of them still have excess money. They're paying to the utility to make sure you don't overlook that. But I went and worked like a term and got a solar appointment out of it.Speaker 2 (12:17):Okay. So that's the tip start doing that. And then another bonus tip with this is if you haven't already go listen to Michael Donald's, uh, episode Michael O'Donnell. He was probably, it's been a little bit, you're going to have to go back probably 50 episodes or so, but he's been on the Solarpreneur podcast twice. And if you don't know who Mike O'Donnell is, let's be honest. You might be living under a rock because this guy is probably the top installer in the industry gets multiple golden door awards every year. But Michael O'Donnell one of my top takeaways from the podcast we did with him actually really relates to this. And it is every time he goes to appointments and he does do a lot of preset appointments from his team guys that he needs to go to their closes. So his thing is every time he gets out of them appointments, if he has any time at all, then what he does, he'll go.Speaker 2 (13:15):He calls them mini habits. So you can go listen to his episode here. He'll, it's one of his kind of core topics he talks about. But what he does is he goes and he knocks until he, he gets at least one, no. Okay. And so he has some stories with it. He tells stories of where sometimes unlock after and he'll get four or five yeses. Everyone wants to see if proposal for a, their home. So he asked to keep knocking until he gets at least one, no that's related to, if you want to take it to another level and implement that bonus tip, do what Mike O'Donnell does go till you get at least to know. And I know most days he doesn't leave. He doesn't go back home until he gets at least one no on the day. And he tributes just that little mini habits to, um, you know, dozens and dozens of extra closes on the year just by doing that.Speaker 2 (14:14):And if you are going to these, you know, preset leads or, um, appointments that other people on your team book, then make sure you're, you're also getting some self-generated deals in there. Everyone knows that's where the money's at. It's nice. You're showing up to appointments. If you do have a setter closer model, but do these little things, that's going to get you to make sure the extra money on the year, that's going to be the difference, the separator for you. And just these little things. It's the small and simple things that are going to change the outcome of your, of your story and of your success. So don't overlook those things. Hope that tip helped you guys start doing that. It's going to get you an extra two appointments again. If you are just knocking your own doors, then just try and make sure even if you have, you know, a late appointment or something that you booked yourself, go and, you know, knock the neighbors Cain, do what Michael Donald's says and get at least one note before you leave there yet. So hope that helps hope that gets you an extra few appointments this week, share it with your team, share it with someone that could use an extra appointment or two this week. And we will see you guys on the next episode. Peace.Speaker 3 (15:32):Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.
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