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32 episodes with jake hess
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Jake Hess, founder of Solar Con and The Morning Energy Show, joins the podcast to talk about his journey from door-knocker to industry leader. He shares how his drive to educate solar professionals led to the creation of Solar Academy and how Solar Con became a powerful platform for connection and growth. Jake reflects on the industry's recent challenges, the rising focus on sales compliance, and his vision for a more sustainable future in solar. Don't miss this insightful conversation about resilience, impact, and what's next for solar in 2025.
Sometimes our hearts get hardened from the pressures and the pace of life. We need to guard against this so that we can remain open to God and able to invite others into life with Him. Invite and share this message with your family and friends and bless them with this great message. If you're new to Cornerstone and this is your first time watching us, we'd love to say “hello!” Just click on this url http://cornerstonesf.org/welcome to fill out our Welcome Card and one of our community members will follow up with you. Also if you are in need of prayer, don't hesitate to put in a prayer request at http://cornerstonesf.org/prayer ---- Song Credits: First Things First - Consumed By Fire Caleb Ward, Grant Bias, Jake Hess, Jordan David Ward © 2022 Red Street Blue Publishing | Remaining portion is unaffiliated All music performed by the CornerstoneSF Worship Band under CCLI license No. 48786, CCS No. 8434
Today's passage, Philippians 1:12-26, is an amazing passage that displays the apostle Paul's joy and peace in the midst of great trials. Paul shows us what it looks like to live a gospel-saturated life by being uninterested in his own self fulfillment and being entirely devoted to the advance of the gospel and to magnification of Christ in all things. His devotion and perspective is an example not only for the Philippians, but for the Church of every place and time.
Daniel 10-12 brings a close to the book of Daniel by taking us through one final vision that views the rise and fall of evil empires from a different lens. Through the text we see that God is the Author of history and is guiding us toward the day that He will at last bring final judgment on evil and unite heaven and earth in the restoration of all things. This resurrection hope promised at the end of all history should guide us in following after Jesus through all the ups and downs of life. Sermon Outline: Spiritual Rebellion Heavenly Battle Dan 10:12-13 Dan 10:12 Humility and Prayer Provision for the Faithful 1 Cor 10:13 Human Rebellion Earthly Battle Dan 11:31-32 Dan 11:34 The Author of History Proverbs 16:9 Faithful Presence Rom 12:19-21 Dan 11:35 Resurrection Hope Dan 12:1-3 The Renewal of All Things Gen 3:19 Lk 20:35-36 Final Judgment Dan 12:2 “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done', and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done'. All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.” Dan 12:12 The Call to Wait 1 Cor 15:20-22 1 Cor 15:58
Daniel 7 is a wonderful and wild vision that captures the narrative arch of God's story of redemption. In it, we see that God is in control no matter what violent kingdoms may rage. We also see that God has won the final victory through the true King and true human Jesus, who unites heaven and earth and establishes a kingdom that will never end.
When King Nebuchadnezzar builds an image for his empire to worship, Daniel's three friends are confronted with a terrible choice: do we risk our lives and remain faithful to the One True God or do we bow down to the image? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego choose faithfulness and through their obedience God reveals that He alone is powerful to save, and still, His deliverance does not always come in the way that we might think. Daniel 3 The Defiance of the King Vv 1 Exalting the Image Exalting the Nation The Defiance of God's People The Denouncers Vv 8 Vv 15 The Answer of the Faithful Vv 16-18 The Consequence The Deliverance of the True King God's Intervention Vv 25 Isa 43:1-2 Rom 8:28 Reversals Vv 27 God is Praised Col 1:15-17 Col 1:19-20
Daniel 1 gives us a glimpse into the major themes of the book: God is in control and He will win the final victory. In light of these two truths, Daniel and his friends show us what it looks like not only to live faithfully in exile, but also what it looks like to flourish.
Are you tired of knocking on doors and cold-calling people who aren't interested? Do you want to learn how to control the leads and dominate your business? If you're tired of the same old solar shows, then you won't want to miss this episode. SolarCon is changing the game with its innovative approach to the solar industry, and its founder, Jake Hess, is here to share exactly how he's doing it. From the latest technology to the most creative marketing strategies, you'll discover how this year's SolarCon show stands out from the crowd!But that's not all—we'll also delve into the benefits of digital marketing in the solar industry. Our seasoned marketing pro Bernie is here, and he'll share his insights on leveraging the internet's power to reach your target audience and grow your business.And let's not forget about the importance of controlling your leads. As we all know, "He who controls the leads controls the business." In this episode, you'll learn how to take control of your leads and dominate your market.In the video, you'll learn about the following:How SolarCon is different from other solar showsThe benefits of digital marketing in the solar industryThe importance of controlling your leadsTips and tricks for growing your solar business#InTheDen #Podcast #SolarCon #SheHandlesIt #solarindustry #digitalmarketing #leads #solarbusiness #solarenergy #solartechnologyKeep up with CJ Bachmann: Website: https://shehandlesit.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CJBachmann1SEO Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cjbachmann/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/cjbachmann1seo
Today we talk with the founder of SolarCon, Jake Hess, about the event he's hosting, the state of the solar industry, as well as digging into the trials that both of us have gone through in life. Jake went from an alcoholic that was struggling in life to creating a thriving consulting business as well as hosting one of the biggest events in the solar industry.
Confronted for a third and final time on the proper way to observe the Sabbath, Jesus reveals the Sabbath's meaning and purpose in Luke 14:1-6. As He does so, we get a glimpse of the truth that Jesus alone gives us the rest we need. Sermon outline: Luke 14:1-6 Our Need For Rest Luke 10:25 The Religious Response Mark 3:6 Matt. 11:28-30 The Irreligious Response The Gift of the Sabbath Creation Ex. 20:9-11 Gen 1:31 Redemption Deu. 5:15 Matt. 5:18 Vv. 5 The Fulfillment of the Sabbath Jesus Is Our Rest Col. 2:16-17 Luke 24:44 2 Cor. 5:21 The Gospel Response
Explore Luke 13:18-21 with Jake Hess during our Hallows Wallingford worship gathering. Through two parables Jesus reveals that though the God's Kingdom appears to start small, it has wide and lasting effects. It makes a home for all nations both now and forever and one day it will bring transformation across the entire world.
Nationally Acclaimed Entrepreneur, Founder of SolarCon and The Solar Academy- #1 in Solar Training for Businesses and Sales Professionals Across the Country, Built and Sold Businesses. The Solar Academy has successfully educated hundreds across the country on refined practices in sales and entrepreneurship including Inc. 500 companies and award-winning national organizations. Best known for the ability to create solar programs for organizations resulting in millions in revenue, The Solar Academy is still recognized as the top source in its industry for Sales Professionals to receive an uncontested education providing a strong emphasis on all sales practices, technical knowledge, and growth within their industry. The pride of The Solar Academy derives from its experience in assisting national and global corporations to refine their operational processes and systems to compliment the transition of assets between sale and fulfillment. Jake Hess & Tyler McAllister are co-founders of SolarCon, a conference specializing in solar energy, selling it, and educating about the topic. In this episode, Brad, Jake, and Tyler discuss why the solar energy industry is booming and their opinions on alternate methods. Check out where you can find more information about solar from them here: https://thesolaracademy.com Get your ticket to Solar Con here: https://attendsolarcon.com/
I sat down w artist, promoter, singer-songwriter and movie buff Jake Hess, who was last on Mr. Nice Guy a couple years ago as part of heavy metal band Ahabs Ghost. He's currently focusing on his solo acoustic project Wylie Jakobs, promoting/hosting events at Bremen Cafe and creating art/flyers. In fact, Jake created my current Mr. Nice Guy logo. We had a few drinks and discussed the dissolving of Ahabs Ghost, AI art and the emotion behind creating, hosting the monthly burlesque variety show BremSin, Wylie Jakobs' 2020 album "Unmarked Graves", and Jake's top 10 movies of 2022! BremSin's next edition will be Saturday, January 14th. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ben-slowey/support
Emily is joined by Jake Hess III this month on Let's Talk!Jake is an extremely talented young man (this is my biased opinion, we are related) paying his dues in Nashville. We talked about how he got there and what he has learned. I even convinced him to sing a little bit of a song he wrote!Check out his group on social media: @jawbonehoney --- Let's Talk - a monthly podcast series by Nothin' But Fine. People are interesting! We all have a story to tell. Emily Trotter talks to everyday, fascinating people. Feels a little like “who are the people in your neighborhood!"Learn more about Nothin' But Fine at our website: https://nothinbutfine.com/Follow us on social media: InstagramFacebookTwitterYouTube
Throughout Scripture God is continually revealing who He is and who He has made us to be. In this passage, Jesus summarizes all the laws of God to two commands, revealing both what God requires and how we can live into His purpose for us. What does God Require? What does Love look like? How do we Love like this?
This week on The Gospel Jubilee Chip and Denny pay tribute to The Cathedral Quartet, 1964 - 1999, Akron, Ohio.Here are all of the ways you can listen to the Gospel Jubilee…On your Echo device say, Alexa, play the Gospel Jubilee on Apple podcast.We are pleased to announce that you can now hear the Gospel Jubilee on Legend Oldies Radio.Our broadcast will be aired every Sunday morning at 9:00 AM CDT.Listen here: Legend Oldies Radio is online 24-7 playing the best music from the first four decades of Rock-N-Roll, currently broadcasting many live shows from Presenters that take your requests, and is just one of many entities under the umbrella of Legend Oldies Radio Inc – Based in Indianapolis Indiana USA, and overseen by Bill Sparks.https://www.legendoldies.comFor a direct download go to: https://api.spreaker.com/v2/episodes/49780552/download.mp3Ocean Waves Radio ... every Wednesday at 12 noon Eastern time., www.OceanWavesRadio.comThursday afternoons at 4:00 PM and Sunday mornings at 9:30 AM EST on Southern Branch Bluegrass Radio, www.sbbradio.orgSaturday evenings at 7:00 and Wednesday afternoons at 4:00 CST on Radio For Life, www.RadioForLife.orgThe Cathedral Quartet, also known as the Cathedrals, was an American southern gospel quartet who performed from 1964 to December 1999.The Cathedral Quartet was arguably the most popular Gospel Quartet of the 20th Century.The Cathedrals formed in 1963 as a trio consisting of the California Weatherford Quartet lead singer Glen Payne, tenor Bobby Clark, and baritone Danny Koker.Initially a house group of Rex Humbard's Cathedral of Tomorrow, they called themselves the Cathedral Trio. The group became a quartet with the addition of Blue Ridge Quartet bass singer George Younce in 1964. They decided to become a full-time touring group in 1969, leaving the Cathedral of Tomorrow.The group signed with Canaan Records; Canaan producer Marvin Norcross worked with them and Florida Boys lead singer Les Beasley to help the group gain exposure. Norcross gave them performance time on the nationally-syndicated television Gospel Singing Jubilee. With Canaan, the group experimented with different styles of dress and performance to find their identity.Rise to prominenceGospel singer Bill Gaither invited the group to perform at his annual Praise Gathering in Indianapolis, and they received more requests for appearances.Gaither collaborated with Younce and Payne to produce their future albums for Word Records. The group began incorporating Younce and Payne's comedy routines, and added Roy Tremble as a tenor.Kirk Talley of the Hoppers, was a tenor; Steve Lee was added to sing baritone and play piano. Shortly before 1980, the group hired Roger Bennett as their pianist after hearing him play for their opening act. Lee left the group, and former member Roger Horne filled in briefly before bass guitarist and Kingsmen baritone Mark Trammell joined the group. They left Canaan (Word), and signed with Riversong (Benson).1980sKirk Talley left the group in the fall of 1983 to form the Talleys with his brother, Roger, and sister-in-law, Debra. Danny Funderburk of the Singing Americans was chosen to replace him in December of that year. This lineup remained in place for several years, until Roger Bennett left to help found Journey Records. Bennett was replaced by young, classically-trained pianist and vocalist Gerald Wolfe. With Wolfe at the piano and singing, the group contributed to Symphony of Praise a 1987 album with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The album included "This Ole House", "Champion Of Love", "I Can See The Hand" (written by Steven Curtis Chapman), and "I've Just Started Living". During this period, the group added Trammell's bass guitar and a synthesizer to its quartet vocals.1990s: Gaither Homecoming yearsIn February 1990, Funderburk left to help form the quartet Perfect Heart. The Cathedrals hired tenor Kurt Young to replace him, but Young left the quartet after two months. Young was replaced by Ernie Haase, a young tenor from Indiana. Later that year, Trammell left to form Greater Vision with Gerald Wolfe. Scott Fowler, former lead singer of the Sound, became the quartet's baritone and bass guitarist; this was the final version of the Cathedrals. The full group (including present and former members) recorded a concert, The Cathedral Quartet: A Reunion, in 1995.Bill Gaither and the Gaither Vocal Band recorded Homecoming, a tribute to Southern gospel music, during the early 1990s. Gaither enlisted George Younce and Glen Payne for the album (which inspired the Gaither Homecoming videos), and the Cathedral Quartet was included on later videos in the series. In addition to touring and appearing in the Gaither Homecoming videos, the group appeared three times on NBC's Today show during the decade.Final years and farewell tourYounce and Payne's health began to decline; Younce had kidney failure and heart disease by 1999, and Payne was diagnosed with liver cancer. They decided to disband the group after a farewell tour, as the group's health permitted. The Gaithers and the Cathedrals recorded a live Cathedrals Farewell Celebration video on May 18, 1999, on which they were joined by the Statler Brothers, the Oak Ridge Boys, Sandi Patty, Guy Penrod, and the Gaither Vocal Band. On October 15, 1999, Glen Payne died.After the groupIn 2000, former Cathedrals Scott Fowler and Roger Bennett formed the Southern gospel group Legacy Five; Fowler was the lead singer and bass guitarist, and Bennett was the group's emcee and pianist. Haase continued a solo career he had begun and, with Gaither's help, formed The Old Friends Quartet with Younce, Jake Hess, Wesley Pritchard, and Gold City alumnus Garry Jones on piano. They recorded two albums and a concert video for the Gaither Homecoming series, but Younce and Hess's poor health brought an end to the Old Friends two years later. In 2003, Haase and Garry Jones formed the Signature Sound Quartet. After Jones and Haase developed artistic differences, Jones left. The Signature Sound became associated with Gaither and his Homecoming tour, and changed its name to Ernie Haase & Signature Sound.After leaving the Cathedrals, Mark Trammell was the original baritone of Greater Vision before leaving to join Gold City. In 2002, Trammell formed his own quartet called Mark Trammell Quartet. Gerald Wolfe sings lead with Greater Vision and Danny Funderburk has recorded solo and has been in several groups since leaving Perfect Heart. Kirk Talley had a solo career from the Talleys breakup to December 2012, when he developed vocal problems. On April 11, 2005, George Younce died.[7] On March 17, 2007, Roger Bennett died.[8] Ernie Haase & Signature Sound released A Tribute to the Cathedral Quartet in 2010, a nominee for Southern Gospel Album of the Year at the 42nd GMA Dove Awards.[9]Playlist:Artists |Song Title | Album01. The Cathedrals - Step into the water - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD1"02. The Cathedrals - Can He, could He, would He, did He - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD1"03. The Cathedrals - This ole hous - "Through The Years - 20 All Time Favorites"04. The Cathedrals - Give the world a smile - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD1"05. The Cathedrals - Who can do anything - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD1"06. The Cathedrals - It is not whats over the door - "Camp Meeting Live"07. The Cathedrals - Dig a little deeper in God's love - "Camp Meeting Live"08. The Cathedrals - Supper time - "Camp Meeting Live"09. The Cathedrals - I thirst - "High & Lifted Up"10. The Cathedrals - Sinner saved by grace - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD1"11. The Cathedrals - Somebody touched me - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD1"12. The Cathedrals - Oh, what a Savior - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD1"13. The Cathedrals - Jesus saves - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD1"14. The Cathedrals - When we all get together with the Lord - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD1"15. The Cathedrals - An old convention song - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD1"16. The Cathedrals - I've just started living - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD2"17. The Cathedrals - Jesus is risen - "High & Lifted Up"18. The Cathedrals - The last Sunday - "Through The Years - 20 All Time Favorites"19. The Cathedrals - Child of the King - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD2"20. the Cathedrals - Standing on Holy ground - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD2"21. The Cathedrals - Daystar - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD2"22. The Cathedrals - Champion of love - "A 35 Year Musical Journey - CD2"Send your request to: Request@GatewayForTheBlind.ComOr call (636) 428-1500THE GOSPEL JUBILEEWITHCHIP & DENNYBRINGING YOU SOME OF THE VERY BEST IN YESTERDAY AND TODAY'SSOUTHERN COUNTRY AND BLUEGRASS GOSPEL MUSIC
Because our graduating high-school Seniors are recognized and because of their beautiful prayers, statements of testimony and blessings, we have included the whole service in this podcast. Sunday, May 8, 2022 11:00 AM Traditional Worship High School Senior Sunday Mother's Day The Prelude: "Laudation" by Gilbert Martin The Processional Hymn: "Come, Christians, Join to Sing" The Affirmation of Faith The Gloria Patri The Pastoral Prayer with The Lord's Prayer by Mr. Bo Trotter The Introduction of Graduation Gifts & Recognition of High School Seniors by Mrs. Laura Marvets The Introduction of the Class of 2022 Speakers by Mr. Logan Ogletree The Class of 2022 - Speakers by Miss Ellie Tommey & Mr. Russell Makepeace The Offertory Prayer The Offertory Anthem: "The Blessing” by Mr. Jake Hess, III and Ms. Caroline Green The Doxology The Scripture Lesson: Amos 2:6-8; Psalm 1 by Miss Raley Powell The Registration of Attendance The Welcome to St. Paul and Recognition of our Guests The Children's Moment by Rev. Dr. Shane Green The Sermon: “Patterns” by Rev. Dr. Shane Green The Recessional Hymn: “The Gift of Love” The Cross and Flame Go Before Us into the World The Benediction and Choral Response: “3-fold Amen" The Postlude: “Processional” by M. Sullivan
Jake Hess is the founder and CEO of The Solar Academy. Jake is a serial entrepreneur, starting and building 7 businesses over the last 4 years that have grossed over $100M in revenue. Jake is an experienced solar sales trainer whose passion for helping others has led him to become a sought-after mentor and coach in the industry. In the past 10 years, Jake has taught his time-tested sales strategies to hundreds of professionals all across the country. He mentors solar sales reps and entrepreneurs to help them grow their sales, improve their brand, and streamline their business to reach their goals. In this episode, Jake talks about starting The Solar Academy, training people across the country, building businesses, teaching them how to sell their business, building their back-end operations, training sales reps, and details about the SolarCon 2022. If you dream of being one of the solar experts, this episode is for you. Join @jakehess among many other speakers at Solar Con April 21st-23rd in Salt Lake City, UT! You do not want to miss all the inside scoop on selling solar. "We have a lot of exciting things happening at #SolarCon2022 this April 21-23 and we absolutely can't wait to see you there!"
In this episode Jake breaks down some of the priciples that he has learned after coaching 100's of sales reps and mentoring business owners.He shares a few strategies on scaling sales teams while maintaining integrity and even a solar sales hack that served him well. Solar Joe, Jakes business partner in the solar academy even makes a suprise appearance!Jake and I really dive into what he is doing now as well with his training and education site www.solaracademy.com and his event SOLARCON.It was an honor having Jake on the podcast, I really appreciate his dedication to cleaning up the solar business.If you want to reach out to Jake you can find him on social media or at www.solaracademy.com.
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!
Jake Hess is an experienced solar sales trainer whose passion for helping others has led him to become a sought-after mentor and coach in the industry. Jake is a serial entrepreneur, starting and building 7 businesses over the last 4 years that have grossed over $100M in revenue. Fun Fact: Jake is interested in learning about nuclear energy.
Meet Jake Hess, let's talk about the first-ever SolarCon. SolarCon is April 20-23rd I'm Salt Lake City, UT Get your tickets now on attendsolarcon.com Use Titan code: Titan25 for 25% off
Jake Hess And Joe "Solar Joe" Mousakheel of The Solar Academy and SolarCon dropped by to talk about how roofing contractors can RISE ABOVE in the solar industry. The book they recommended were: 1. The E-Myth by Michael Gerber 2. Green Lights by Matthew McConaughey Find out more about RoofCON, REVOLT, and our courses at www.roofing.com Connect with Diego at https://www.facebook.com/diego.dante Join our community at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1667966683493967
Paid In Full, 1991 - present, a Gospel Trio from New Albany, Ms., will be the featured artists this week on The Gospel Jubilee.Listen to the Gospel Jubilee on your Echo device by saying, Alexa, play the Gospel Jubilee on Apple podcast.Or go to: https://api.spreaker.com/v2/episodes/48584733/download.mp3Paid In Full began their professional ministry while still in high school, singing in area revivals and camp meetings. Soon they were singing three nights a week all over the South, and were appearing in concert with some of Gospel music's finest artists, including The Gaither Vocal Band, The Happy Goodmans, The Martins, The Cathedrals, and the legendary Jake Hess. Jake first heard them in 1996, and immediately took Paid In Full under his musical wing, bringing them to his home church in Georgia for a concert, and introducing them to industry leaders and many of today's top Gospel musicians.Soon they were appearing in Gaither Homecoming Concerts all over the country as well as in such prestigious showcases as “Howard and Vestal Goodman and Friends” and “The Grand Ole Gospel Reunion.” They were performing in venues which are usually reserved for Gospel artists with much more experience and a longer list of credentials than such a young group can claim.As musical ambassadors since 1991, Paid In Full has been privileged to sing in churches with diverse denominational identities and has been widely accepted by each congregation. Celebrating what all Christians have in common, Paid In Full has worked to unify the body of Christ. As Southern Baptists, Paid In Full has been equally accepted by their own denomination. They have appeared at numerous LifeWay events and conventions as well as evangelism and pastors' conferences across the country. They have also sung in some of the nation's largest Baptist churches, including Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tennessee, and First Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi.Utilizing the talents of renowned Nashville producers Woody Wright and Michael Sykes, Paid In Full has released six major recordings, including four original Gospel projects, a Christmas collection, and an acoustic recording of hymns and favorites. Some of the industry's finest song writers have contributed their best original tunes to the group, helping Paid In Full produce over 10 Top 80 hit songs, as well as rave reviews from Gospel Music peers, press, and fans from all over the United States.Now, more than ever, Paid In Full is focused on presenting the Gospel of Christ through music. On television, in large metropolitan churches, or in small country churches, the mission is the same: share what Jesus Christ has done in their lives, and what he can do in the lives of every human being who will allow it. This is the message Paid In Full wants to deliver in their concerts and recorded music.Today's group members: Brock White, tenor, Lance Moore, lead, Bradley Littlejohn, baritone. The Gospel Jubilee with Chip and Denny is proud to announce that their program can now be heard on Ocean Waves Radio ... every Wednesday at 12 noon Eastern time.Go to: www.OceanWavesRadio.comYou can also catch The Gospel Jubilee Thursday afternoons at 4:00 PM and Sunday mornings at 9:30 AM EST on Southern Branch Bluegrass RadioGo to www.sbbradio.orgYou can also catch The Gospel Jubilee Saturday evenings at 7:00 and Wednesday afternoons at 4:00 CST on Radio For Life.Go to: www.RadioForLife.orgDon't miss a single minute of the next edition of the Gospel Jubilee.Playlist: Artists | Song Title | Album01. The Isaacs - he ain't never done me nothin' but good - "Favorites Revisited By Request"02. The Kingsmen - The church of the Great I Am - "More To The Story"03. Triumphant Quartet - We will remember "Awesome God"-04. Paid In Full - I've got good news, everybody - "30th Anniversary Special Edition"05. Paid In Full - Heaven is my goal - "30th Anniversary Special Edition"06. The Mark Trammell Quartet - Be saved - "God Has Provided"07. Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver - Best friends - "Burden Bearer"08. Sunday Drive - 11:59 - "Sunday Drive Special Edition"09. The Lebeaus - Never too broken to belong - "Sittin On Go"10. Brian Free & Assurance - I'm doing this for you - "Doing This For You"11. Sherri Perry - War room - "War Room"12. Paid In Full - More than amazing - "30th Anniversary Special Edition"13. Paid In Full - What the storm does not know "30th Anniversary Special Edition"-14. Paid In Full - Sailing toward home "30th Anniversary Special Edition"-15. Rusty Goodman - The greatest love story "The Ultimate Collection"-16. The Chuck Wagon Gang - Two gardens "Radio Days"-17. Karen Peck & New River - Put a little love in your heart - "How You Walk The Miles"18. Mercy's Well - Another hallelujah chorus - "There's A Song for That"19. The Perrys - Did I just hear the thunder - "Sing"20. Paid In Full - I'll be in the rapture "30th Anniversary Special Edition"-21. Soul'd Out Quartet - He's coming back soon "Resoul'd, Vol. 1"-22. Ernie Haase & Signature Sound - Lovest thou Me (more than these) - "Get Away Jordan"23. Darin & Brooke Aldridge - He's gettin' me ready "This Life We're Living"-Send your request to:request@gatewayfortheblind.com
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 (00:00:03):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 w
It's the official monthly countdown this week on The Gospel Jubilee as Chip and Denny countdown the top 10 most popular Southern Gospel songs for the month of October according to Singing News Magazine.Listen to the Gospel Jubilee on your Echo device by saying, Alexa, play the Gospel Jubilee on Apple podcast.Or go to: https://api.spreaker.com/v2/episodes/47215420/download.mp3The Gospel Jubilee with Chip and Denny is proud to announce that their program can now be heard on Ocean Waves Radio ... every Wednesday at 12 noon Eastern time.Go to: www.OceanWavesRadio.comYou can also catch The Gospel Jubilee Thursday afternoons at 4:00 PM and Sunday mornings at 9:30 AM EST on Southern Branch Bluegrass RadioGo to www.sbbradio.orgYou can also catch The Gospel Jubilee Saturday evenings at 7:00 and Wednesday afternoons at 4:00 CST on Radio For Life.Go to: www.RadioForLife.orgDon't miss a single minute of the next edition of the Gospel Jubilee.Playlist: Artists | Song Title | Album01. Zane & Donna King - Everyday battles - "Everyday Battles - Single"02. The Mylon Hayes Family - When that seeing man saw - "Home"03. The Browders - Healed by the stripes - "Authintic"04. The Gaither Vocal Band - The way (New Horizon) - "That's Gospel, Brother"05. The Hoskins Family - The sound of His voice - "Places To Go, People To see"06. The Mark Trammell Quartet - Treasures in heaven "Full Sail"-07. Wilburn & Wilburn - Raised on red - "Raised On Red"08. The Nelons - Grace ain't fair - "Peace At Last"09. The Vaughn Family I've never been this homesick before - "Closer"10. The Troy Burns Family - He has overcome "He Has Overcome - EP"-11. The Taylors - I choose joy - "Salvation's Song"12. Greater Vision - Start with well done - "The Journey"13. The Tony Brothers - Stand by me "Blessed"-14. Jeff Bumgardner - Empty chair - "Empty Chair - Single"15. 11th Hour - Whosoever will may come - "Anthem Of The Ages"16. The Crabb Family - My King is known by love - "The Crabb Family 2020"17. Tribute Quartet - Must I go (and empty handed) "Quartet Tribute - Volume 2"-18. The Rambos - One more valley "Rambo McGuire - Rambo classics"-19. Joseph Habedank - Religion isn't working - "Change Is Coming"20. Paid In Full - When my Master walks with me (featuring Jake Hess) - "30th Anniversary - Special Edition"21. The Hoppers - Can you see the clock - "Can You See The Clock - Single"22. The Whisnants - King Jesus is coming - "Life Worth Living"23. The Guardians - You're home to stay (where we ever shall be) - "It's Still Good News"Send your request to:request@gatewayfortheblind.com
STEVE HESS & SOUTHERN SALVATION, resident artists at the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky, will be the featured artists this week on The Gospel JubileeGo to: https://api.spreaker.com/v2/episodes/39823673/download.mp3Steve Hess and Southern Salvation are one of Southern Gospel's music's most exciting groups. This unique trio features a great blend, outstanding voices, and music you can sing along with. When you hear the group live, you will be treated to a music filled event that is energetic, fun and spirit filled.Steve Hess and Southern Salvation have the honor and privilege of being the resident artist at the Ark Encounter, performing around 400 concerts a year in the Answers Center Theater. The Ark Encounter is the Number One Christian-themed attraction in the world. This means this unique trio has a platform to sing the Gospel to hundreds of thousands of people each year.Steve Hess says, "One of the thrills of being the resident artist at the Ark Encounter, aside from singing daily, is the great teaching we hear from Ken Hamm and other great speakers.Steve says they are a group of men who love God, and they have been saved by the blood of Jesus, and they take every ounce of talent he has given them and humbly sing his praise!Steve Hess sings baritone and plays piano. He played live concerts with the likes of Jake Hess, JD Sumner and the Stamps quartet and many others.Steve has played and sang on albums and concert videos with some of Gospel music's legend's. For a number of years while signed to Polygram records, Steve was blessed to work on the west coast and across this country, on live dates and in the studio, with many of the world's best known artist, producers and choreographers. He truly feels all of these experiences have led him to this moment and the most exciting time of his life.John McCall truly brings one of music's great voices to the group. John's whose life testimony is moving and amazing reaches people all over the country... John is a true tenor, in a world where there are very few. His high notes, just like his life are real.... We are thrilled to have he and his family as part of the SHSS family !!!, says Hess.The third member of SHSS is lead singer Matt Randell... This young man is a crowd favorite everywhere... There is no limit to the styles and inflections Matt can bring to a song... Matt's passion for Christ comes through.. What a blessing to have Matt and his family as part of the SHSS Family, again says Hess.The group has had multiple Christian Music charting songs, toured nationally and recorded multiple albums over the years. Their 2019 single, “Three Beating Hearts”, was a personal message of the sanctity of life and a ministry message of Ken Ham, founder and CEO of the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum.The group has also been regularly featured on Paul Heil's, The Gospel Greats, radio program. Syndicated on over 200 outlets, including Sirius XM. Together these men have dedicated their talent and their lives to Presenting the Gospel through music. The next time you are at the Ark Encounter, catch a Steve Hess & Southern Salvation concert. Visit ArkEncounter.com for scheduling information.The Ark Encounter's resident Gospel Trio will be sure to touch your heart with their music.You can also catch The Gospel Jubilee Saturday evenings at 7:00 and Wednesday afternoons at 4:00 CDT on Praise Radio.Go to: www.PraiseRadio.netPlaylist:Artist | Song Title | Album01. The Down East Boys - Amazing amounts of amazing grace - “Faithful Still”02. The LeFevre Quartet - Practice what you're preaching - “Hope”03. The Gaither Vocal Band - Hallelujah band - “We Have This Moment”04. Steve Hess & Southern Salvation - Burden lifter - “Three Beating Hearts”05. Steve Hess & Southern Salvation - Foundation - “Three Beating Hearts”06. The Talleys - Never been a time - “The Music Goes On” 07. The Browns - Better off there - “Brave”08. Jeff & Sheri Easter - Never been too sad to sing - “You Are Loved”09. The Barnett Trio - Power in the name of Jesus - “Mix Tape Sessions - Restoration”10. Canton Junction - How great Thou art - “Great Is Thy Faithfulness Live”11. The Old Paths - Look at all I lost - “What Love Does”12. Steve Hess & Southern Salvation - In an instant - “Three Beating Hearts”13. Steve Hess & Southern Salvation - Three beating hearts - “Three Beating Hearts”14. Steve Hess & Southern Salvation - We'll need no light in that city - “Three Beating Hearts”15. The Freemans - Til the end - “Til The End Single”16. The 3 Heath Brothers - Dream small - “Who We Are”17. The Chandlers - Go answer the door - “Seasons”18. The Lore Family - In His presence - “Hidden Blessings”19. The Whisnants - He will be God - “He Will Be God”20. Mercy's Well - I'll see you soon - “Skywriting”21. 11th Hour - Room with a view - “Steppin' Out”Send your request to:request@gatewayfortheblind.comor call 636-428-1500
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss the Netflix original film 'Velvet Buzzsaw'. They praise the terrific cast and compare it to 'Nightcrawler' before discussing what didn't work as well for them. Make sure to follow and rate the podcast on your platform!
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss another Joaquin Phoenix film, this time about heartbreak and the healing process. Make sure to check out this fantastic film on Netflix and follow the podcast for future episode notifications!
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss the weirdest film they've reviewed yet. Enough said.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes dissect the hit 2009 zombie-comedy film starring Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson. They also discuss the complicated history of zombie film and what makes this one stand out.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss an Oscar-winning 2017 film that feels all too familiar currently. They discuss the amazing cast, as well as what their favorite scenes and moments were and what a sequel would look like.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes return to start Season 2 of The Vault! They discuss an Oscar-winning film, as well as introduce new topics and segments for future episodes!
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes celebrate the 16 films they watched over Season 1 before ranking their favorites, picking a winner for the season and previewing what is to come.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes review their last film of Season 1. They discuss the terrific performances by Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg, as well as the life of David Foster Wallace.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes begin to wind down Season 1 with their first look at a Joaquin Phoenix-led film. They discuss the themes and purpose of the film, as well as Joaquin Phoenix's standing in the film industry.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss Paul Thomas Anderson's critically acclaimed 2007 mega-hit There Will Be Blood. They also give more recommendations for what to watch while quarantined.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes kick off a new series by discussing the hit 2008 superhero film, Christopher Nolan's film career, and give recommendations for what to watch during quarantine.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes attempt to use Zoom to discuss 'Hell or High Water', the modern-day Western genre, why this movie could be a cult classic, and give some recommendations for what to watch during the COVID-19 quarantine.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss the shockingly funny and heartwarming 2007 film starring Steve Carell and why they found it to be such a sweet and sentimental film.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes break down the 2005 DC Comics film that definitely does not feel like a DC Comics film.
https://api.spreaker.com/v2/episodes/24148159/download.mp3Chip and Denny are back for another Gospel Jubilee. After several weeks off due to technical difficulties, Chip and Denny are pleased to present the Old Friends Quartet as their featured artist this week.The Old Friends Quartet consist of George Younce Bass, Jake Hess lead, Ernie Haase tenor, Wesley Pritchard baritone and Garry Jones on the piano.They were together a short time, 2000 - 2003 but were a very popular quartet during that time.We hope you enjoy not only the Old Friends Quartet but all of the other Southern Gospel music we have for you this week on the Gospel Jubilee.https://api.spreaker.com/v2/episodes/24148159/download.mp3
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes pick through a bracket of 32 films and try to crown the best movie of the last decade.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss the 1996 film that rebooted the horror genre and eventually became a cult classic.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss and dissect the star-studded 2015 action film that depicts the war on drugs.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes sit down to review their first movie of 2020. The beginning of this episode is spoiler-free.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss Bong Joon-ho's 2013 film that we had to check out after Parasite's big night at the Oscars.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes rank their five favorite Will Ferrell films and discuss what makes him an iconic comedy actor.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss an underrated comedy classic starring Will Ferrell and Woody Harrelson. Following the podcast on all social media: @tapoutpod
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss the teenage thriller from 2017. Later, Jake gives his super duper mystery theory that he's been teasing all week.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss the underappreciated 2014 thriller Nightcrawler. They discuss the best performance, scenes, and whether this is Jake Gyllenhaal's best role.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss Jake's favorite movie and why he connects with it.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss and remember the legacy of Kobe Bryant.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes finally deliver the long-awaited lists of the best films of 2019, along with the most disappointing films of the year as well.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss the polarizing and dividing horror film 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer' and whether or not it is truly a great film.
Today, Eli Brau, Jake Hess, and Casey Erbes discuss 'The Invitation' and talk about what makes this a cult classic film.
Today, Eli Brau and Jake Hess try to decipher and discuss the meaning of 'The Lighthouse'. The beginning of this episode is spoiler free.
Today, Eli Brau and Jake Hess sit down to talk about Rian Johnson's new murder mystery Knives Out. They talk about the good, mixed, and bad elements of the film before giving out a final score. The beginning of this episode is spoiler-free.
Today, Eli Brau and Jake Hess discuss what horror films truly stand out as best of the best. Jake gives his top 5 and some honorable mentions. Spoilers are sprinkled throughout.
Today, Eli Brau and Jake Hess sit down and discuss the Myles Garrett fiasco, who leads the MVP Race in both the NFL and NBA, and key storylines to start the NBA season.
In this episode, Darien Southerland takes you on a musical journey through some of his Christmas favorites. You will hear Old Friends Quartet with George Younce and Jake Hess, Vestal Goodman, Whitney Houston, Jason Crabb, The Kingdom Heirs, Karen Peck, Mac Powell, Jerry Clower, the Oak Ridge Boys, Celine Dion, The Perry Sisters and even Lynard Skynard and the classic Charlie Brown Christmas story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode, Darien Southerland takes you on a musical journey through some of his Christmas favorites. You will hear Old Friends Quartet with George Younce and Jake Hess, Vestal Goodman, Whitney Houston, Jason Crabb, The Kingdom Heirs, Karen Peck, Mac Powell, Jerry Clower, the Oak Ridge Boys, Celine Dion, The Perry Sisters and even Lynard Skynard and the classic Charlie Brown Christmas story.
We had so much fun with Ronnie and David, we decided to have on another member of the Collegiates/Good Time Singers! Jim Loving comes on to add to the treasure trove of stories, including bus fires on bridges, hair steaming, accidently writing great songs and drawing smiles on faces…literally. Plus a tribute to such legendary groups as The Happy Goodmans, Jake Hess and the Imperials and The Couriers. To hear on iTunes, click here!
Romeo: King of Rome, Chapter I Created by Brad Beideman and Will Stryker Will Stryker as: Merlin, Julius Caesar, Brutus, and Peasants 1-3 Jake Hess as: Noah Dylan McCollum as: Timeless Narrator Voice Written and Edited by Brad Beideman Special Thanks to John Gianvito, Pierre Huberson, and the BA capstone classmates who were kind enough to treat this like a real project.
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