The Solarpreneur

Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one. What's going on Solarpreneurs?

Speaker 2 (00:45):

Secret Hack to book an extra two appointments this week and much more that's what's going to be in today's episode. We're going to jump into it. But before that, just want to give some thanks to all the people that have listened to the show. So pads, um, massive support and appreciate everyone that shared it. Appreciate the comments I receive. Appreciate everyone that is crushing it in solar. And let me know about it. That's what this podcast is all about, and that's what we're here to do with the Solarpreneur movement. And again, that's what we're doing with the podcast is helping you close more deals, generate more referrals, and have a lot more fun, hopefully, as you are out there selling some solar panels. So before we jump into the topic today, wanted to just invite you. If you haven't already checked out Solciety, go check it solciety.co have been getting great feedback from those that are already on it.

Speaker 2 (01:47):

Um, and if you don't know what that is, go back and listen. I think it was four or five episodes. Um, we did the Solciety breakdown on what it is, what you can expect in the training platform and why you should, you and your team should be on it. Go listen to that. If you haven't already and check out Solciety, it's going to help you close extra deals every month. And really just implement a lot of these things that you're hearing in the podcast. And it's so affordable. You guys, so go get on it. It's the best training platform that I've seen for solar. I've, I've done a lot of different training platforms. I think it's the most convenient because it's an app it's literally right in your pocket. So you can go train at any time at any hour. You don't have to have a log in.

Speaker 2 (02:36):

You don't have to remember your password. You're clicking on the app, you're logging in and then every month you're getting new content from the best people in solar. So if you're on an already update for this month, we are adding someone that knocks our content. Taylor McCarthy is going to be added on there, here, hopefully in the next couple of days. So you're definitely gonna want to get into that. Let's jump into the episode with all that being said, okay, I want to share with you guys something that I had forgotten about last week that helped me book an extra appointment. Okay. I only got one appointment from it, but, uh that's cause I didn't do it until later in the week. But if you follow what I'm going to tell you, it's going to get you an extra two appointments guaranteed in a week and who doesn't want an extra two solar appointments for the week.

Speaker 2 (03:29):

That's an extra two opportunities. You have to close up more deals. So here's what it is. Well, before I tell you what it is, um, I'll preface it. I had a rough week last week. I didn't close anything. And that's the first week that I haven't closed anything in probably a couple months, at least so definitely was frustrating. This was one of the bright spots of the week is what I'm going to share with you here is I don't want you to think that, you know, all the top guys, sometimes there's days where I go without closing, sometimes there's days where I go without booking an appointment. So for those that are listening to this, if you had a rough week, if you had a rough day knocking, if you had a rough day in your closes, just throw that to the side, focus on the positive and make it a better week next week.

Speaker 2 (04:26):

That's what I'm doing and that's what you should do to it. So that's why I'm focusing on a couple of things that went well for me last week, I'm sharing them with you so you can focus on the positive as well and focus on the things that are going to move the needle. And I'll be honest, there was, there's always the element of not working enough hours. So that's partly why I didn't close a deal last week. Cause I didn't have my fish in the line as much as I should have. Okay. But here's the technique that I was happy about. The, did it get me an extra appointment on the week? Okay. So this, I actually learned from surprisingly enough, I learned it from, uh, missionaries in my church. And the reason I forgot about it is because as many of you know, I did a two year service mission for my church.

Speaker 2 (05:16):

I was down in Columbia, south America. And the reason I got into sales is because I'm like, all right, if I go and knock doors. So in pest control cell and Jesus is going to be so easy because I already talked to people. I know how to knock doors. It's going to be ways you're knocking doors and my mission. And then I do a summer pest control. I get out to my mission and come to find out. We didn't even knock doors in Columbia. Our mission president was like, nah, you guys don't mean to knock doors. He just sent us around talking to people on the streets, doing activities with people playing soccer. So who knows maybe if I would've known that I would've never gotten into door to door cells, but glad I did change my life. But the reason I bring that up is because before I was getting ready to go on my mission, I remember I was asking some of my friends that had done their missions, like, Hey, do you guys knock a ton of doors?

Speaker 2 (06:11):

What's the deal? How do you go about knocking doors? And what I was hearing from a lot of them, they said, Taylor, we don't knock a ton of doors, but here's what we do. Every time we go to an appointment, every time we get like our referral, every time we go to someone's house that we're trying to follow up on, we have this little technique. We do, we knock the two houses to the side of it. And then we knock the three houses across the street. And that's it that's most of what our door knocking is. I'm like, oh, okay, that doesn't sound too bad. And so I started thinking, huh? Maybe that's a good idea. And maybe that could be applied to solar. Obviously I'm thinking this a lot later now, as you know, this was back in like 2012 when I did my mission and was talking about these things a lot.

Speaker 2 (07:03):

But I'm like, ah, that could definitely be applied to solar. So last week, for whatever reason as I was going on appointments, this just popped into my head again, Jay. And I will say the reason I'm talking about this is because last week I was going to a lot of appointments from our ciders, from our guys that were setting up appointments. I went to a decent amount of them. And so this is more, I guess you'd say applicable for those that are going to maybe online leads, you had to drive out to an appointment or maybe have a team people knocking the doors and you're going to some of their appointments. Okay? So it's going to be more applicable for that, but it also can be applied if you're knocking your own doors everyday, if you're doing purely self-generated leads, you could also do it with that.

Speaker 2 (07:52):

Because a lot of times you're not going to talk to all the neighbors around the appointments you book, right? So that's the technique is every time you go on an appointment specifically, make sure after the appointment, do what these missionaries told me, they were doing. Knock the doors next to it. The two neighbors to the side of it, then go across the street and knock the three neighbors across the street. Why should you do this? Because you already have a name right there. You have a name you can use. And the line that really worked for me last week, if you're driving or something, write this down, this is fire. So you say, think of the name of the appointment and maybe it's Joe. They say, Hey, did Joe tell you I was stopping by today? Did he let you know? He's the one with the Navy flag out front?

Speaker 2 (08:45):

Did he let you know, was coming by? This worked super well for me last week, it's a name someone they recognize and lucky for me, the appointments that I booked last week off this technique, everyone knew this guy in the neighborhood. So it works even better. If it's someone, uh, that people recognize or something they have out front of their house, this case, it was a Navy flag. A lot of people knew this guy. So use this start applying it. Um, what happened to me is I went to this appointment and he was one of those where he's like, okay, you got 10 minutes. I got to go soon. So I'll pop, open my truck bed in set your iPad down there, show me what you got. And anytime it's that, it's like, come on, man. We can't do this on the truck bed. I didn't tell you how many deals.

Speaker 2 (09:41):

Maybe in the past five years, maybe one or two deals have been closed, standing on a truck bed outside, not many. So of course it's, you know, basically a situation where you're just gonna give them some basic info and then try to reschedule, which is what I did. But that's why I started thinking about this. I'm like, okay. I drove clear out here. It was like 20 minutes out of my way to this appointment. And I'm like, all right, I need to get something out of this. If I came clear out here, I can't be wasting my time, just showing up to these appointments and not getting something from this. So I went over a couple general details with the guy rescheduled for one, his wife was there. And um, when he had more time now that's when I decided to implement this. Like, I, I know this, I know someone was in this area.

Speaker 2 (10:33):

It was one of our newer reps that was knocking it. I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to do it anyways. Who cares if they already talked to him? And this is something that ran through my head before is I would be like, yeah, I'm not going to knock the neighbors of appointments of my setters. Um, they probably do talk to all of these people, but guess what? Every door approach is different. What you're seeing is probably a lot different than what the guy in the area saying, even if it's from your same company and maybe they caught the people at a bad time, Hey, if anything you can say, Hey, I'm just following up on what they told you. Okay, bye. I went and then none of these people had been talked to. So I don't know if the rep maybe didn't, you know, get to them or whatever, but even if they have been talked to just try it out this week, if you're going to appointments or if you're getting out of your own appointment, make sure, just try it.

Speaker 2 (11:28):

Knock. The two sides knocked the one across. I went and knocked the one across to the left. So not the house directly across, but looking across to the left. And that's the house I ended up booking and the line worked perfectly said, Hey, did Joel let you know I was stopping by? So I go know what's going on, created the curiosity. And then after that, it just became super easy. It was an add on system too, which that's another pro tip. Make sure to not overlook people that already have solar or new homes that were built with solar. A lot of these people are still paying true out bills. A lot of them still have excess money. They're paying to the utility to make sure you don't overlook that. But I went and worked like a term and got a solar appointment out of it.

Speaker 2 (12:17):

Okay. So that's the tip start doing that. And then another bonus tip with this is if you haven't already go listen to Michael Donald's, uh, episode Michael O'Donnell. He was probably, it's been a little bit, you're going to have to go back probably 50 episodes or so, but he's been on the Solarpreneur podcast twice. And if you don't know who Mike O'Donnell is, let's be honest. You might be living under a rock because this guy is probably the top installer in the industry gets multiple golden door awards every year. But Michael O'Donnell one of my top takeaways from the podcast we did with him actually really relates to this. And it is every time he goes to appointments and he does do a lot of preset appointments from his team guys that he needs to go to their closes. So his thing is every time he gets out of them appointments, if he has any time at all, then what he does, he'll go.

Speaker 2 (13:15):

He calls them mini habits. So you can go listen to his episode here. He'll, it's one of his kind of core topics he talks about. But what he does is he goes and he knocks until he, he gets at least one, no. Okay. And so he has some stories with it. He tells stories of where sometimes unlock after and he'll get four or five yeses. Everyone wants to see if proposal for a, their home. So he asked to keep knocking until he gets at least one, no that's related to, if you want to take it to another level and implement that bonus tip, do what Mike O'Donnell does go till you get at least to know. And I know most days he doesn't leave. He doesn't go back home until he gets at least one no on the day. And he tributes just that little mini habits to, um, you know, dozens and dozens of extra closes on the year just by doing that.

Speaker 2 (14:14):

And if you are going to these, you know, preset leads or, um, appointments that other people on your team book, then make sure you're, you're also getting some self-generated deals in there. Everyone knows that's where the money's at. It's nice. You're showing up to appointments. If you do have a setter closer model, but do these little things, that's going to get you to make sure the extra money on the year, that's going to be the difference, the separator for you. And just these little things. It's the small and simple things that are going to change the outcome of your, of your story and of your success. So don't overlook those things. Hope that tip helped you guys start doing that. It's going to get you an extra two appointments again. If you are just knocking your own doors, then just try and make sure even if you have, you know, a late appointment or something that you booked yourself, go and, you know, knock the neighbors Cain, do what Michael Donald's says and get at least one note before you leave there yet. So hope that helps hope that gets you an extra few appointments this week, share it with your team, share it with someone that could use an extra appointment or two this week. And we will see you guys on the next episode. Peace.

Speaker 3 (15:32):

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Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.

Speaker 2 (00:42):

What's going on. Solarpreneurs we're here and this very special episode because we're alive at, I guess it's not door to door Fest, but, um, Danny Pessy Taylor McCarthy's knock star event here live in key west Florida, and we have got someone super awesome on the show with us today. We got my man, Alex. Thanks for coming on Alex

Speaker 3 (01:03):

Daily. Thanks for having me. I'm super, super grateful to jump on. The first podcast I've ever done is exciting. Something new.

Speaker 2 (01:08):

I know. And it's well deserved too. You're crushing it. We've had conversations and I'm just super impressed with what Alex has been able to do and Alex Smith, right? Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:19):

Got to make sure that the quarterback yeah. Most injuries

Speaker 2 (01:22):

Though. Okay. Okay. He played for Utah. It's my favorite football team. So it's a good name. He's also from San

Speaker 3 (01:28):

Diego. Yeah. Alex would like the quarterback to every one of my clients, literally every time. Cause they was like, like that's not a real name. I'm like, trust me. I told my parents that made it a little too generic. That's what I got. There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:40):

Well, this guy, he's the quarterback of solar. You can call him that because he is every time you throw in a solar deal, it's getting installed up there. So he's doing some pretty awesome stuff. So Alex, do you want to start off telling us kind of your background in a door-to-door, how you first got in the industry into solar and all that.

Speaker 3 (01:57):

So I went to FSU fun school, good times. Good memories met a lot of good people, developed a lot of bad habits. A lot of friends that kind of bring me in the wrong direction. Um, but it was a good time. It was part of growing and, you know, experience. I'm happy I had. So when I graduated from FSU or was about to graduate, I didn't know what I was going to do at all. All my friends already accepted the roles like 50, 60, $70,000 a year jobs. And I thought they were crushing it because I didn't go to any career fairs. I didn't show up to anything. And I was like, man, and then the interviews I did get, I didn't show up because the people that were recruiting me, I was like, I don't want to be like those people. Like I don't, I wasn't trying to say like an arrogant way or think about it go away.

Speaker 3 (02:30):

But they were trying to bring me in. And I was just like, I don't think they are very happy with where they're at. So I never went to any of the interviews. And so luckily someone I became friends with because he worked at a bar, he just hit me up and told me about the opportunity. And he's was in California, said he made $10,000 his first month. And I was like, that's a heck of a lot better than 50, 60, 70 K a year. And then he dropped the ball. It's going to be door to door. And he just done. And I was like, man, I was a triple major. I did finance professional sales and marketing. So definitely didn't expect to go door to door. Um, but at the end of the day, I was willing to take a bet on myself for that one. And I didn't have anything else lined up.

Speaker 3 (03:07):

So I was pretty excited to get away from everyone I knew and just get a chance to kind of recreate myself rather than just being this frat star or whatever else you want to call me at FSU. I wanted to like, all right, let me peek in a different bubble. Like I did really well in this bubble. It's a small vicinity, you know, 2.3 miles or whatever. And Tallahassee wanted to bring that to a bigger area. Right. And like my career path. And so I moved out to California and started, started solar door to door. Wow. And when I, the funny thing getting out there too, I don't come from money. Um, so I had a bar of four grand for my grandma to get out there that was enough to ship the car. And then I had to pay the security deposit, which in Walnut Creek, for those who know it's very expensive.

Speaker 3 (03:46):

So my security deposit and the car, I basically had no money when I got there. So it was freezing out. I didn't have money to buy a jacket or anything. And so when I got out there, it was do or die a hundred percent. Commission-based getting paid a lot less than what we're getting paid now. So I'm always grateful thinking back to what it was before and just put my head down, deleted all my social media. Didn't talk to any girls. Didn't have anyone dragging me in the wrong direction. So it was, I was just hyper-focused and I was sleeping on a pool float, so I didn't have any furniture. So it was an expensive apartment with nothing in it, standing up eating. And then, uh, yeah, so they've got a pool full, you wake up really early. Cause those things deflate, you exceed a certain body weight, you ended up on the ground. So it just wake up. And there's the only thing I eat, slept and breathed every single day. And so that was, that was the kickoff to my career.

Speaker 2 (04:31):

That's crazy dude. And um, yeah, if you haven't seen, uh, Alex on social media, go give him a fall. We'll drop his info after, but this guy you can't tell if he has a Bulletproof vest on or if it's real life. Cause I mean, he's jacked out of his mind. So if you can imagine this guy, all pure muscle sleeping on a pool float, I think I'm sure it's the plate in pretty quick. So

Speaker 3 (04:51):

2, 3, 2, 3:00 AM start feeling the ground four or five. I got to get up every single day.

Speaker 2 (04:58):

So were you staying at like someone's house there

Speaker 3 (05:00):

Or whatever? Yeah, I was in an inexpensive apartment, so splitting it with another new guy. And so the total rent was about 3000 a month. I don't know why they put us in this place to start. That's where they told us we should live. I guess the other guys were living there. So it made sense. And then, uh, yeah, so my half is 1500 a month. Uh, but we hadn't, we had literally

Speaker 2 (05:18):

Nothing, no furniture in there. There's like we were literally

Speaker 3 (05:21):

Standing eating. We had plastic forks. You'd stand either sit on the ground for four. That was a full month. Geez man. Guess what? My first investment was

Speaker 2 (05:30):

A couch cushions, the bed,

Speaker 3 (05:34):

First thing I spent good money on and I appreciate bed so much because of it.

Speaker 2 (05:39):

That's crazy, man. I mean, I thought I was bad. I was a similar thing. Um, but I at least had a bed. We had company housing, so I didn't have to pay any rent. I had 50 bucks in my bank account, but I didn't pay any rent out there, but in California. Yeah. So I went out to

Speaker 3 (05:54):

Good. They're covering the rent that's

Speaker 2 (05:57):

But I can imagine, I mean, if you're, if you have no other options, just burn the boats. Right. I mean it's like do or die out there. Yeah. You don't get to sell. You're not, um, you're not eaten basically. So do you feel like that was one of the main things that's first helped you out success? Just like, no,

Speaker 3 (06:12):

That was one of the biggest things for me. That was when I first realized how true it is that like, you have to get outside your comfort zone. Like you have to, I don't know for everyone, you have to go to a different place. But I think for a lot of people, they want to stick around in their hometowns. They want to stay where they're at because it's comfortable. They know people and the idea of getting to where they don't know anyone. And they're just going to be with a bunch of new guys, new, new people. They're not friends with. Yeah. Essentially on their own is usually too much. Most people pull the trigger. But the fact that I did that, I wasn't even scared about it. Cause I was excited more than anything else. And like, just knowing that, Hey, I'm stuck with a 12 month lease because a lot of people will try to say like, all right, we'll get an Airbnb for a month.

Speaker 3 (06:49):

Like, dude, you're not going to make it. I already know you want to get a HomeAway place where you stay in a hotel. Like, dude, you're going to be out of here within a week. As soon as it gets hard, you like, you can just go. And so coming out there with nothing else, but solar was the best thing, best thing I ever did. So like now it's like, all right, how do I, when I see someone as a really comfortable or a new location or something that, uh, you know, as new it's like, I gotta, I gotta attack it.

Speaker 2 (07:11):

Yeah. I love that. And um, I think you've probably seen it too, Alex, but like local guys that come in, it's like so hard to get them bought in they're reading. Cause like you're saying they can just go back to mom and pops, Allison just hanging out. They got the financial support. If it doesn't work out, but it's like so hard to get these guys getting results. If they're just still have that like lifeline, they can go back to it anytime. So I think that's a huge secret for anyone that's listening to this. If you are struggling, if you're just working in a local market, I mean, I think gets the point where you just got to switch things up. Maybe go someplace else, go to a new market, burn the boats. But I don't know if you been able to have success with like local guys. Have you S do you have any, I dunno, tips for people who maybe are like staying home, like maybe out of that

Speaker 3 (07:55):

In California, I didn't really have that much success with local guys and my power base people. I would bring people out there was from Florida. So, and that was a hard sell. Yeah. Cause even though it, I could show them my pay stubs. I changed my life. A lot of people weren't willing to move across the country, but those that did, they usually ended up being successful because they had no plan B. Um, so, but now in Orlando we actually have, uh, a couple of decent amount of local guys. And so I'm super impressed by them because I know even for myself, if I was in my hometown, I would have a very difficult time, not falling back into my old habits, not hanging out with the friends that were anchors, right. That were holding me down that wanted me to keep doing their thing.

Speaker 3 (08:36):

So I, I, I give kudos to guys on our team that are doing, and I think a lot of it is because we, our culture is really strong. So we're meeting every day. Like one of our guys Lewis, for example, he, um, you know, he left his fraternity, like, you know, he, he quit his fraternity and he was just super happy because it felt like he was in a fraternity again, just the same brotherhood, except it's more focused on getting better and making money and, you know, leveling up. So he just turned what he was doing before into something else. But similar premise just now it's focused on growth. And so he's, he's just super happy with it. So the local guys have kind of figured it out, which is awesome. And I think a lot of that comes from, uh, the daily meetings for meeting every single day. So these guys are like, you know, they have to do something different.

Speaker 2 (09:13):

Yeah, for sure. No. So we'll get to all that for sure. Um, yeah. I want to dive deep into that, but before that, I was curious to know like three in California. How long were you out there then? In total three and a half years. Three and half years. Okay. What, uh, what company was that? Where you go there?

Speaker 3 (09:30):

I started with sun grid solar. Okay. And then I went over to Coda energy group. Okay. And so that's where I spent all my time between those two companies. Okay.

Speaker 2 (09:40):

So yeah. Tell me about like when you first started out, was it like instant success? Did you have to like build up into it or what was your experience out? Just getting out there at first.

Speaker 3 (09:49):

So it would be when I started, like I said, I didn't know. I thought California is always sunny and always 70 degrees. It's not the case in the wintertime. It was pretty darn cold. And so I didn't have a jacket the first night they took us out to our first day in the morning. Um, I want to leave, just took me out to a breakfast Andrews and Betty took me out to breakfast. I ate the food there. I got food poisoning. And so I was going out to the doors, like having to throw up. And I was in fetal position every night when I got back. But I just kept thinking. I was like, no, I can't have this failure. Start this early in my career. Like, that's literally, I was thinking, I was like, no, like this cannot be me my will to survive my will to do something was way higher than like those problems pouring rain, freezing and food poisoning. Yeah. So still knocking through that and then pushing through that and made everything else easy. Like a lot of people complain when it rains is like, dude, I was in a monsoon. I was in the worst monsoon of California for like five, six years. Everyone was saying go. And so pushing through that, I got, yeah. Had some, had some quick success, but it was just cause I was, I was putting a lot out.

Speaker 2 (10:45):

Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. You're telling me this story the other day when we were talking, um, at least I think that was you about, um, how you're like running. I know this translates like all areas of your life. So Alex, he's not just like this in solar, but you're telling me like, when you would work out, you're drawn. Like what was it when you were doing 75 hard, you're done like 10 miles at night. It's doing 75 and stuff like that. Right.

Speaker 3 (11:11):

I had David Goggins via because I can't say it was all me. I had a complete, absolute beast in my ear all the time. Yeah. So 75 hard. I think a lot of people already know what it is, but my second workout at nighttime, I just turned it into 10 miles a day and it was fun to see how far you can push up. Cause I'm working out heavy every single morning and then like heavy weights going hard in the gym. And then at nighttime after work, it could be 10:00 PM. I'm running 10 miles. And so I was like, all right, what am I capable of? And half the time I would come back crippled like shin splints beyond belief, Achilles heel feels like it was ripping knee, complete knee issues. I don't even know what those issues are. I would just go into my pool and float and be like, I'm done.

Speaker 3 (11:50):

And then, so I wouldn't be able to move. I even bought those. Um, he does things like LeBron uses his compression legs. Uh, I don't know exactly what those are, but I got those because I need something. And the craziest thing was like, I kept pushing through all the pain and I like, every time I felt like I was going to break, like I was, I don't even know if I could work tomorrow kind of thing. I was like, this might be a bad idea. And then all of a sudden, there's just one day I think around like day like 25 30 something in that range where you might, my, all my pains went away. My shin splints went away. My Achilles problem went because I felt it. Kelly was like in a snap break. It had this like clicking, feeling like a rubber band. And then my knee was given out, like I had all these like compression things on.

Speaker 3 (12:25):

I looked like a robot running around and all of a sudden my body just completely adapted to it. And all the pain went away and 10 miles became a breeze. I wasn't winded tired or sore after it, there was like a flip a switch. And that just made me realize what David Goggins found out. Like he found out that if you push yourself really hard, like your body and your mind can figure it out. And so that's like something I've carried that little nugget, that reference point with me through a lot of other things. So even though that was a physical thing, like it, it definitely is a yeah,

Speaker 2 (12:52):

No, it's so true. And that's something we've talked about with a few guys here at this event is just like, I don't know at first, not going in sore. I mean, a lot of them guys in our team would only go out and knock for hours, but it's like, it came from pest control. We're knocking like 10 hours a day in pest control. Yeah. So I first came out, was guys and solar, we're only doing four I'm like, why are these guys complaining about knocking a lot to do 10

Speaker 3 (13:15):

Totally different mindset. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:17):

Like I've been in solar five years now. And so yeah. There's times where now I complain about, I'm like one of those guys sometimes where I'm kind of complaining about knocking for hours, but then we get guys coming to our team that got back from alarms. It's like, same thing that like, you guys only knock four or five hours here. And it's like, it's just adapting because we can do so much harder things. Um, if we condition our minds, like we knew we harder things, but guys get complacent. It's so easy to let yourself be like, oh, this is hard. This is, I can't, I can't do more than this. That's like a max effort. But just like the same thing. Once the first guy hit the four minute mile, it's like

Speaker 3 (13:54):

Those a little bit. And do you recall it after that a lot of people from alarms or pest then into your business, have you felt that yeah,

Speaker 2 (14:01):

Yeah, we do. And like, I'm work, I'm out here with Jason newbie's team now and he's obviously alarm backgrounds. He brought tons of people from alarms.

Speaker 3 (14:09):

It brings a ton of like lifeblood to the team. Yeah. Just they're exposed to the people that have done it at a high clip. They're like, oh crap. I'm really not working that hard. That is valuable. Having those people like come in, cause they're like, I was doing this for 10 hours a day, unless they revert to the, what you guys are doing. But hopefully they bring in, you know, that leadership there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:27):

Yeah. So I think it's super important. Just bringing in guys that are from maybe different industries, guys doing different trainees, keeping it fresh. None of that's something you've invested a ton into and we'll talk about, but just bringing in like Taylor McCarthy, trains, your teams dropping a ton of money on just keeping your team motivated, working with other guys and you know, going to events. We see all your guys here. Um, but yeah, huge. Yeah. That's huge. And then I guess last thing I wanted to ask you about California, Alex, what was your biggest struggle starting out as you like, you know, first started hitting doors. What was the biggest thing you struggle with and how did you overcome it? And honestly,

Speaker 3 (15:03):

The, I, I did a really good job when I started out. So like by deleting all my social media. Okay. Not talking to any girls, like just head down. I didn't think about anything else. There's literally nothing else I thought about. Yeah. So I think I gave myself the best start possible. So there was nothing. I, I felt like I really struggle with the beginning cause I enjoyed it, doing it every single day. Yeah. Like it was, it was a good time and I was working from morning. I literally saw the other guys, they were getting out at our meetings were at 8:00 AM every day. Wow. So you're knocking. So I, other guys, I was waiting, I didn't have my car cause it was getting shipped out. So I was waiting until 10 30, 11 they're dragging their feet. I didn't understand. I'm like, I need to get to the doors.

Speaker 3 (15:39):

So when my car got shipped out, dude, I was out to the doors. As soon as the meeting was over. I didn't go back to my apartment because the office was right across the street. Just go to the car, go straight out turf. And I was there until it was pitch pitch black. And so, yeah, I think at the beginning, if anyone's new getting into this, but you don't need social media, you haven't gotten to the point where you need to share anything. Probably it's probably not that much stuff for success to share. Yeah. And so, um,

Speaker 2 (16:03):

Well, so no, that's a super awesome though. I think three's and for your success is just like burning the bridges, just getting rid of everything. Um, I mean, honestly, probably most of the problems that people have can be solved by just like working insane amounts of hours. Would you agree?

Speaker 3 (16:18):

Yeah. I think that's really, it. One person told me like any problem I had, whether it was customers, cancels, installation, cause all that stuff happens. The solution is at the next door. Like it will literally solve whatever probably have the next door will solve it and thinking anything else is going to do. It won't happen. Like it just won't work.

Speaker 2 (16:35):

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. How many hours would you say you were hitting then? In the beginning, like

Speaker 3 (16:40):

In the beginning, in the beginning I was there nine 30 till whatever dark was like really dark, like rain, shine, anything. It was the entire time. And that was my big advantage because all the other guys are veterans there. Yeah. I jumped well like way past them for anyone that's new in the industry. Like I don't think any company operates based on a hierarchy or in a structure where it's political, it's all based on production, effort results. And for anyone that's new into the business. I think the biggest thing you can do is separate yourself early because you can either take three months to get incredibly good or you can take three years. A lot of people take the three year out, then they're gone within a year because they don't realize without that early success without really grinding the beginning, it's going to, you're going to be four or five months and you're not producing you're out. You're going to leave because you never went down head first at the beginning.

Speaker 2 (17:27):

I agree for sure. What about, were there guys where you like the hardest worker at your company starting out or was that kind of like the culture was everyone like doing those amounts of hours and you're just following

Speaker 3 (17:38):

Along. There's only one other, guy's got a manual that was a new guy with me that was working just as hard as me. Um, so that helped having someone else working really hard too. But everyone else is funny. Like within a month all the veterans were asking to go knocking with me and I literally told them, no, I was like, I can't go out knocking with you because I can't my goals. I won't hit my goal if I'm splitting commission with someone. So everything flipped and like, this is weird. Like you guys have been doing this for awhile and you know, they're still cooking lunch and staying out of the apartment and whatever they did, I was just basically doing the opposite. And then they started wherever I would go and turf, they would draw a circle with sales rabbit right next to mine. Cause they thought wherever I was was just like this magical bubble. So everything, everything changed pretty, pretty drastically. They had just started trying to do whatever I was doing and then, uh, try to hop on the train and it seemed

Speaker 2 (18:21):

Like, yeah, geez. So you've changed. The culture sounds like and gotten, kinda got their button to gear probably because they were like, dang, gotta keep up

Speaker 3 (18:27):

With this guy. Yeah. It exposed a lot of people. A lot of people that are veterans are sliding by to expose them. And so, you know, based on their time and effort they put in, you know, it seemed like they should have been the next person to be a manager in office. But other than the first month I was asking, what's going to take for me to be a manager because I knew I wanted more out of it. And uh, so yeah, I just passed all of them.

Speaker 2 (18:49):

That's awesome. So what would you say for guys, like maybe the inner company where yeah. It's like people aren't working much and culture. Isn't great. Um, maybe you had times where you've had to, I dunno, like maybe on your team guys, aren't working as hard. Do you have any experiences or ways that you think are good to change that and kind of turn it around and then I'll inspire guys to work more.

Speaker 3 (19:09):

Yeah. I think the number one is, and this is the cliche lead from the front. That's the easiest one. Yeah. But the thing you can always do. And I think even me, I didn't really want to do it for a while. A lot of companies we'll meet, do correlation once, twice a week, maybe do something zoom. And so for any new guy or anyone that's feeling burnt out those days where you don't have a meeting, you don't get dressed. You don't put on your superhero outfit. Right? Like you don't play the part and you don't act it like you don't do it. So meeting every day has been crucial. So we meet every single day, either at 9:00 AM or 12:00 PM. We do team buildings when we're doing like a sport. So football, basketball, Frisbee, golf, bowling, you name it. We do a sport from 10 to 12 and then Saturdays we're meeting at nine.

Speaker 3 (19:47):

So we're with each other six days a week, sometimes seven, if we're doing other activities on Sunday. Yeah. And so at the end of the day, anyone that wasn't working when you're seeing the numbers every single day and you have to put up a bagel, you have to put up a zero. Cause you're, you're going the numbers every day. Not just what you did the last three days recapping that, that right there alone. I think can, if any company adopts that, I think that's the easiest, quickest solution to boosting production because then your guys get dressed and ready to go. They're not gonna want to go home the dress. They got to the office, they just ready to roll. Man. Put them in a car group, put them in a car group. That's number two, put them in a car group, have a leader in the car group, call him the commander, general, whatever you wanna name and make them feel important because yes, have him running the show, let him be a leader for his group of guys. It could be three guys. See what he's capable of. You might empower him. And then all of a sudden, you know, like he's the guy for the job. He's gonna run the next office. And so that also is critical because now these guys are forced to go out. Um, I was against hardships for awhile, but once I started doing them, I'll never go back to anything else. Just let the leaders have a chance to shine. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:43):

Well I know it works because we were just talking yesterday about how like they pretty much the same schedule you're doing. It's what Jason newbie in our squad here is doing, doing. I mean, he's I think how long have you been? How long have you started your like dealer out here? Uh, March. March. Okay. Jason started about the same time. Um, and yeah, he's got a team like 40, 50 guys. I know your team's crush an hour. So it's like success is leaving clues. These are the top guys are

Speaker 3 (21:09):

Doing they're meeting everyday too.

Speaker 2 (21:13):

Um, we meet at 1130 right now. So 30 minutes,

Speaker 3 (21:20):

30 minutes on these guys. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. It's funny to hear that because you guys are crushing it rain a ton of momentum. Everyone I think sees what you know, Jason and you guys are doing over there, so yeah. Yeah. You're right. Success doesn't. Yeah. And I mean,

Speaker 2 (21:32):

I mean, I, I didn't implement this so I should have done it earlier. Cause I had my own squad out there and we weren't doing daily meetings and our production was for sure suffering because of it. We were just meeting like once or twice a week. It's like you said, those two days we were seeing guys produce, you know, pretty good. But then the rest of the days it's like guarantee you guys were getting out at least two hours later than they would have just because yeah, they didn't have, in my opinion, like 90% of the purpose of the meeting is just like to get the guys to get it together and go out there. And there, cause like, you know, you can only do so many trainings. I mean, trainings are good, but it gets to a point where you're just getting out, you're building the team, building the momentum and getting out there. So

Speaker 3 (22:11):

Yeah, no, it brings some energy to the meetings. Give him, give him some boost. Yeah. Give him a little boost. Give him some shout outs, give him some recognition. Let them jump some ranks of other people on the leaderboard. Yeah. That's it. Get out there. They have a fun time getting together and it's fun to see that you're doing that too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:24):

And it's fun. And I see, I see your means. You guys are like screaming and shouting and getting guys fired up and stuff do. Right.

Speaker 3 (22:29):

That'd be a little ridiculous. Try to make it a little different. Every single time we like to do energy exercises. A lot of stuff. I picked up from other people in the industry. It's nothing I created on my own. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that stuff works as a cheesier. Weird. As it sounds running around an office and yelling random stuff just creates energy.

Speaker 2 (22:45):

Well, yeah. I don't know if you've been to like Tony Robbins events, but it's like the same stuff Tony Robbins is doing. You're like standing up screaming and shouting and all

Speaker 3 (22:52):

That. You've been to a Tony Robbins event.

Speaker 2 (22:55):

I've seen him speak like two or three times, but it's pretty exact same thing. He's like his big thing is you're changing your state. And if you change your states, it's going to like, you need to change something about your state in order to change your like, you know, momentum and change what you're doing, change your state. So I mean, it's something I forgot about because yeah. I'll be honest. Like I was a lot of, sometimes I would run some pretty boring meetings, just like, all right guys, what's your goals. Cool. All right, let's get out there. Clap. And then that was it.

Speaker 3 (23:24):

I've done that to men too. But

Speaker 2 (23:26):

Yeah, the stuff works. The fact that the same thing that Danny, Danny and Taylor are doing here, then it's like, they're having to stand up scream, shell, whisper, yell, and really, uh, get after

Speaker 3 (23:36):

It. Yeah. I'm guessing the ma it's funny with, with like Danny and Taylor, one of the main things I was taking notes on was exactly how they're handling us. Yeah. Like how they getting our energy, bringing us the present, you know, the snaps snap three times. If you can hear me. Okay. Snap four times and then eventually the homes aren't now be quiet. Yeah. I was taking notes, all that stuff because that stuff is like super effective. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:57):

That works. It works. So yeah. Any boring sells managers or company owners out there, if you are not getting your guys fired up, I think you're doing them a disservice because even if they don't like it, but it works and you need to get your guys on a different level because then they can take that out on the doors too. If they're feeling like at a low state on the doors. I mean it's the same stuff. Yeah. Do some jumping jacks, get your guys fired up and teach them how to change their state when they're out there on the doors too. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:24):

How do you, how do you cheat him on that? What do you do to rehearse, to change their state on the doors?

Speaker 2 (24:29):

Um, I mean, just like the affirmation stuff. I'm sure you've taught your guys. Just like, you know, the brain Tracy stuff. I liked myself. I like myself and I love my job. It's like repeating that between the doors works for me. And I know for me, if I've gotten like a hard rejection, it's just like affirmation affirmation before the next door that in popping on my, a little sideway

Speaker 3 (24:48):

Thing lately. Yeah. It's funny how cheesy it sounds though. Like I think a lot of people listening in like, man, if you haven't ever done it before you think self-talk affirmations, like that's just for, gazy for Godsey because I thought the same thing. And then you hear people like Taylor doing it every second, we can be playing tennis. Taylor McCarthy's out there just talking to himself, always talking positively, come on, Taylor, you got this really good at this stuff. And so it's yeah. It's one of those things until you actually try, if you haven't tried it and you're listening to this, absolutely. Try to love my job. My job is easy. Yeah. All they do is write a line down a piece of paper. So your current situation, what your new situation would be, just keep saying that kind of stuff out loud. It surprisingly works. And then just smiling. Just smiling to just remembering, just to smile. That'll change your state too, for sure.

Speaker 2 (25:32):

I know. Yeah. It works a hundred percent. So yeah, definitely go out and do it if you haven't tried that for all our listeners. Um, so I'll see. I want to jump into now. Like, I mean, like I was saying, you have what? Seven or eight guys here though, man. Yeah. Include me. Okay. And you have what? Like around 20 guys or something in your office

Speaker 3 (25:50):

Right now? Yeah, I think we just went up to like 23. Okay.

Speaker 2 (25:54):

So grown a ton. Um, but yeah, that's pretty, pretty impressive to have that many guys here. And I know it's just, uh, you know, shown what you guys have built. I can see that your guys are like hungry to learn, want to grow a ton and like just eat this stuff up. So, um, any company I've been with even, you know, how to like 50 guys with my company, we only got three of us here, not to say they don't like learn in, but pretty impressive that you can bring like a whole crowd here and get them all excited about these things. So yeah. What do you, um, how have you kind of built that or how do you get your guys to buy into this whole, like culture of learning ins and get them to show up for these things?

Speaker 3 (26:30):

So these kinds of trips are basically incentive driven, right? Like there's always good to do incentives for prizes. Cool watches, a segway, whatever it is. But the most beneficial, and these they're fired up to just have the opportunity to come here and be able to expose them to higher level people. Even if we're losing three, four or five days of production is going to pay off tenfold. Yeah. So just having guys that understand the value, personal development, and if you're not working on yourself every day, like they don't see you becoming better. Like I'm always posting when I'm reading books, I'm always writing quotes. I'm always like showing things. I'm learning on social media so everyone can see it. And part of the reason I do, it's not because I just, you know, have an ego for it. It's because they're going to see what I'm doing on a regular basis and realize that personal velvet getting better is really part of the process to be happier.

Speaker 3 (27:20):

If you're becoming better every day, you're going to be happy. Yeah. That's like, I think that the easiest way to boil it down, if you just feel like you're becoming better, it could be in fitness, health, business relationships. If you just feel like you're getting better, learning more stuff, you'll be happy. So just having the whole culture based around that. And then in the past, I used to think like whatever, whatever leaders I had in my circle or in my company, I could get everything I wanted from them. Yeah. That was like, what I thought of you like felt that too, like, Hey, this is like, I'm good. I don't need to pay for anything else. Yeah. And once I realized that paying to play is the most important way. Quickest way to hack time. Yeah. It's, it's like been a game changer for me. I'll pay for all my guys, good ticket. Anyone that's working, putting the time I'm gonna invest as much time and money as possible into them. Because if they can understand the same value of like what what's like the CAC time and pay to play and just get a few shortcuts, a few nuggets from these things will do it for the rest of your life. That'd be happier. Guys are going to come back more motivated, hungry, and then bring that to other guys and bleeds over. It just keeps bleeding over. Right.

Speaker 2 (28:20):

I love that. And I think it's important that you're saying like do it as an incentive too, because it's like, I've been, I remember my previous company I was with, they like, you know, bought a bunch of bunch of people, like take us to go see grant Cardone. Yeah. Um, but then I, I don't, I can't remember if it was an incentive or if it was, maybe it was like a really easy one. So we went there and then half the guys like showed up for half the events and you know, half the time they're like on their phones. And I dunno if like, like not like appreciating it. It's like people when people pay, they're going to pay attention. Right. So it's like at least get them to like earn it. So they're going to come in and show up.

Speaker 3 (28:59):

That's that's so funny. It's it's true. But people don't pay for it. It's like you give someone a book, they won't read it. You just give it to them for free. Like one of the guys, Mike, Mikey that came to talk to us, he was like, Hey, we're putting this code and you'll get a book for free. I'm like, dude, I want to pay for this book. No, don't, don't give me this sort of for free. If I, if I don't pay for, it's going to sit on the shelf a lot longer. And then they, you know what they did with telling everyone to silence their phones or put their phones in the room. I'm doing that. Any of these kinds of ads, I grabbed everyone's phone on my team and put it all in the room. Everyone's everyone's phone was gone. And so, uh, yeah. Cause every, when everyone takes a ping or check something else, there's so many of the things going on. So like when there was at the grand Cardone event, that's just like, makes you not want to do it again. Like why would an owner want to bring people out to another event where no one's paying attention.

Speaker 2 (29:41):

I know. So super important run, figure out a way to get these guys they're bought in. And yeah, I was telling you about, I mean, we have this sole society app, we launched the training platform, which will be all of our listeners are on, but it's like, I can't remember. I told you, but all the people I gave free access, we did kind of like a trial period gave like, I don't know, 15 people free access. And it's like, guess how many of them logged on like three or four of them at something like that? And then probably two of them have actually like, you know, done something with it.

Speaker 3 (30:10):

So yeah. And then what about the people that paid? Yeah. What about those people that were paying?

Speaker 2 (30:16):

Um, yeah, I mean, they're going through it. They're the ones that are actually getting results. So that's awesome. It's like, yeah. And it's what Danny do. We're talking to these events. They're super expensive, but if people don't pay their lights, like they're doing us a disservice. If they don't charge us because we're not going to take it seriously, we're not going to appreciate the content. So, um, yeah, no, I think it's just getting your guys to buy in with that. And if you are, I don't know, using some sort of training platform, figure out a way to get them like skin in the game. Cause if not, yeah,

Speaker 3 (30:46):

Yeah, yeah. That's right. You show me your app. I'm pretty excited about it. I felt like that was the one thing. Um, I really want a smooth transition from when someone gets onboarded, the content they consume that I can actually track and measure all the way to when they start and then for the next month. Right? Like I've always thought I need to get a good source of content for that interactive engaging. Yeah. And um, I mean, I'm not here even plugged down and this is like legit. What I think about what you showed me, super interactive, super engaging, and be able to bring in my own content to it on an app on their phone where people are glued to already, I'm excited to white label it, bringing those content, have your content on it. And so I could have that part of the standard operating procedures dialed in from the second a person gets onboarded. They have to complete all this all the way until they start for the next month. I think that's going to hack time too. So that's really quick. Great that it looks clean. It looks,

Speaker 2 (31:34):

I appreciate it, brother. I didn't tell him to do that. So

Speaker 3 (31:36):

Look looks, it looks clean, man. And it's good. It's good,

Speaker 2 (31:39):

Bridget. That, yeah. We'll get your team on it for sure. Um, but yeah, man, so no, it's just super impressive. What you've been able to do with your team and get them bought in and really get them, uh, coming to these events. And it's like, it's not really a secret. I mean, I'm another guest. I know, you know, Mo in his crew, but yeah, they're doing pretty similar things. You guys are both doing, he showed up at door to door con with like his, basically his whole team there and they're all getting up on stage. So doing all these things that as a team getting guys bought in, um, it's just helped you grow a ton. So yeah. How have you, uh, so you started in March. How many guys did you start with back in March then?

Speaker 3 (32:15):

So March was just me and one other person. Um, and then I think it was mid March. I got two other people and uh, then we S it was, I was just meeting my house and that was a pretty slow growth in the beginning. Brought in a couple other people. Um, obviously didn't have any systems or anything dialed in. Yeah. And then what was it in, uh, April? I think we were at nine people did a, we experiment with different stuff. Like hearing it from other people was working. I got some, some tips from Mo, so shout out to Mo flaw. Like he was, you know, providing some help on that side of things. I really appreciated that. Cool. Um, so blitz was effective as fun, getting everyone around each other. Um, and then we brought in, we got up to like 20 guys in June and brought a guy has got an office space.

Speaker 3 (32:59):

Office space was huge. Uh, you know, that was big. And then, uh, we actually went on a hiring freeze for like a month and a half, two months. We just started hiring again because I didn't want to plug people into a model that wasn't fully developed. Nice. And so I've done that before where I just bring people in and it's not where it needs to be in, you know, in your heart, if things are good to go, when can you bring it someone in? Are they going to be successful quickly or is it only gonna be a few people that are going to survive because it's only, you know, designed for the people that are ready to go on their own. And so waiting for that, hiring freeze, get everything dialed in our systems, our processes, how we do business. And now it's like, all right, let's open the flood gates. That's why I hired like, started creating these guys to do everything else. Nice.

Speaker 2 (33:36):

Yeah. Shout out to Serge. He's here. He's Sarah, I'm recording this right now. So you're going to see some video with this episode. I

Speaker 3 (33:43):

Appreciate it. I'm laughing.

Speaker 2 (33:46):

You're laughing. It's these Russians laughing at us. Um, but uh, no. So another thing that's been cool is you've invested a ton just in your growth and your team's growth. I mean, yeah, you're missing in surge. He's doing content for your team. You missed in Danny and Taylor. They're blowing things up. So I know a lot of, a lot of companies listening to this, maybe a lot of like team leaders, they're nervous to like invest in themselves dropping money. I mean, some pretty serious money that your job to work as closely as you are with Taylor

Speaker 3 (34:15):

And Dan, it was the cheapest thing I ever bought. No, I was kidding the cheap

Speaker 2 (34:20):

Stuff. No, but, um, so it's gotten you crazy as old, but I know you're telling me you're pretty like nervous to like invest in that. So what's been, I dunno, what's helped you, I guess, have confidence and like Joplin that kind of money and, um, just seeing your game grow.

Speaker 3 (34:33):

Yeah. I just saw other people doing it. And then I was like, they're dropping all this money. And like, not everyone, very few people are doing it, but I saw the people that were doing it, showing up all these events, bring the teams, doing this stuff. We're seeing a lot more success. Yeah. And I just realized like, yeah, I got to start paying. I got to start paying to get around the right people to expose myself, expose the team. And man, when I dropped that money for DocStar star select, it is, it is it's, it's, it's a decent amount of money. And in the beginning I was super nervous. I was like, man, did I just blow this much money right now? Um, because in the first month or two, I didn't really know exactly how to get what I wanted out of it. And the main reason I did it was because I to tell them McCarthy, like all the money was made, mostly just like even the master of it.

Speaker 3 (35:14):

I was even thinking about that. I just want to tell the McCarthy to be in my office for three days. Yeah. And so he came and blitzed with our team for three days and it completely changed everything. Yeah. Like it's one thing to show people how great this lakes are and like to use little tactics, um, myself. And then it's another thing to have someone that knows how to use it to the highest level, like highest technical level. Yeah. They see that stuff and you just realize what is possible with what you can do. And so just those three days pay for the entire thing without a doubt. And then having this mastermind events and everything else on top of it, one of the best decisions I've ever made. That's awesome. I'm going to keep doing it. That kind of just sparked it. I actually, the first thing I invested in was Knox our bootcamp, which Allison was hesitant to pay $5,000 for it.

Speaker 3 (35:58):

I was in it with you, we're in the same bootcamp. I was like, man, five grand for one zoom a week. Is this going to be worth it? Yeah. That was that paid for itself within three, four days, just got the motivation, got the competition going. And then it's like you, I think the biggest thing is just taking the first year, invest in like books. Then you might invest in some little training platforms and then you level up, you invest in, you know, something like $5,000 ticket item. Yeah. And then you just start to realize that at each level you're unlocking the next level. You're like, okay. I spent 5,000, so now I can spend 50,000. Yeah. Okay. So now I can spend a hundred thousand dollars on getting better working with the right people. And you know, even, even, uh, uh, Jerry that was talking today spending $400,000 on his coaches and he said he he'd pay more. If you could find more coaches that could help him out and level them up, we thought they could. And so it's like, yeah, like all the, all the real G's out there doing that. So it's just keep, keep, start small and keep growing that for sure. And it's cool. I think that's been,

Speaker 2 (36:55):

Yeah. And I don't know if you heard Jerry, but he was saying like, some of the programs seems in the mastermind groups, he didn't even like invest in it to, for the training. He just did it to be around like the other high level people. I was like, all right. If I'm paying 150 grand, there's going to be some people pretty committed in here that I'm going to be able to like, like make connections with. So he said that alone is made, I'm like millions of dollars just being able to network with those.

Speaker 3 (37:17):

Yeah. He said 150,000 made him 2.2 million. Yeah. Just being around the right people. That was a pretty aha moment. It's like, you don't even need to pay to get the training. It could just be purely the circle. Yeah. It was just the circle of people could change your life. So that was another aha moment with just like how far you can go with this thing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:33):

Yeah. No, that's awesome. And if you, have you ever made any like bad, I dunno, investments on the business that you regret making or has it all been a pretty, pretty good?

Speaker 3 (37:43):

Don't think I've made any bad investments on the business. Um, I think the only thing I didn't do is invest enough. Like in the past I think that was the biggest thing. I just didn't invest enough. And I think the worst investment I made was just not spending the money. Yeah. That was, that was the worst thing I did with the cash is put it toward dumb things. Yeah. You know, rather than back into the people, back into myself. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:02):

Yeah. Well, yeah. No, and it's pretty easy. I mean, you just look at the results. Like he's a mess then surge surge is getting massive results with his video clients and then Danny and Taylor, they get massive results for everyone they work with. So it's pretty simple. I mean, just look at this. I was asking Mikey this same question. Cause he's in all of these mastermind groups, I'm like, Mike, you, when you invest in so many, like you're in like four different mastermind groups, like that's not how you can track that. It's like, how do you figure out that they're all going to be worth it? So yeah, he just saying, I dunno, it's like Jesus said right by, by their fruits, you will know, um, what's going on with it. So for anyone that's doubting on investing in things like that and training, just, you know, go look at the results, see what other people are having success with. And I mean, it's just gonna come down to the work. You put into it too and apply it, which is what you guys are doing.

Speaker 3 (38:50):

One thing, one thing I heard that always stuck with me, there's three steps and basically laws to constant human improvement. The first one is you have to add knowledge. Second one is you have to act on it or apply it. And the third one is you have to evaluate how that went. Is it something you're gonna keep doing? A lot of people just add the knowledge. Like they'll come to these kinds of events. They get hyped up about it. And then they don't reflect on it. Right. They don't spend the time polishing or learning and studying what they just learned and then acting on. And then one thing I always left out of the equation, I was pretty good at acting on it. I left out of the equation, the evaluation part, like evaluating how that stuff get. Did it, did it make the, there was a result of worse? Like did not help me out or is it like something? Okay, this is really good. I need to fine tune this. So evaluating and reflecting on that, falling those three steps with reading a book with anything else, any mentorship, if you just follow those simple three steps, I think that's the key. That's the key to

Speaker 2 (39:42):

Improving. Yeah. That's fire ad knowledge. What was the ad knowledge evaluate and then reflect,

Speaker 3 (39:47):

Add knowledge, act on knowledge. Evaluate.

Speaker 2 (39:51):

Okay, bye. Right. That's awesome. That's super good stuff. Fire. Um, well, yeah. And so, um, I know you're you guys are what, uh, uh, I was talking to some of your guys and they're telling me you're closing like 70, 80% of your deals, which is like super good. Is that just been working with Taylor? You guys just implementing all this stuff and that's, what's taking you to the next level on the closing.

Speaker 3 (40:16):

Yeah. I, I can't take credit for that man or working with Taylor, just getting little tips and tricks, something as simple as his hypothetical, he throws in, you know, hypothetically, sir, if you already had the panels on your roof, you just have this, it's been three years, you just have this fixed payment of $150. So you've already added, you know, $4,500 of equity, $6,000 of equity to your home. And it's never going up. And then you have duke energy or whatever, utility knock on the door. And they try to convince you to rip all those panels off. They want to extract those three years of equity. So that four or $5,000 back to the CEO's pocket, and then go back to a variable rate. That's, you know, pretty high, much higher than what you're paying today. What would you tell duke energy? And so like just little things like that, just even the most simple one on the doors.

Speaker 3 (41:01):

This is a nugget everyone should take and apply to me to like, because it's so easy getting the appointment or even getting the clothes. My job is super simple. I just draw a line down a piece of paper. I show you what your current situation is and then what your new situation would be. Now, if this doesn't make sense, I wouldn't expect to do it. In fact, I won't even come back, but if it does make sense as logical, you're going to do it, right? Like it's not going to be a thing that you have to think about it. Just going to be a side-by-side comparison of your current and your new situation. And at the end of the day, if it ends up costing you less to own something, is there any reason you'd want to continue to rent it duke and pay your energy landlord? So just little, little nuggets like that.

Speaker 2 (41:38):

Boom. That's that's the thing I'm coming to these events. You just pick like I started making like a notes, just folder of all like the one-liners. So it's like all that stuff. It's just a game changer. And I know people have gone and listened to Taylor's podcast episode just on repeat and yeah, I think several year guys were telling me they've done

Speaker 3 (41:56):

It, but they posted, posted every day. Like you guys got to listen to this thing again. Let's do it again. Listen to the car. Yeah. Cause

Speaker 2 (42:03):

It's like that kind of stuff. It's yeah. It's just changing everybody. Those things. It's the little buy in the customers it's taking. What was your closing ratio? Would you say before you started working with those guys?

Speaker 3 (42:13):

I would say my closing ratio was about 40% or so I would say it's about 40%. Um, so it significantly went up. Yeah. There were just a lot of little tactics I used at the end. There's like a lot of people, like they'll a lot of new reps or they just started closing. They'll say all these objections that happen in. And like, they want to think about all these concerns. It's like, that doesn't happen to me anymore because all the little jabs I throw in that I've learned from Taylor and other people in the industry all along the way, by the time I get there, it's purely just, is this the correct spelling of her name? Okay, great. Is this the right last name? Okay. What's the last four of your social? Like there's no, there's no questioning what they're doing. There's no like pauses or breaks. And if you are having people throwing stuff at you at the end, when you get into numbers, it's because you haven't dialed in your technique before that point. So dialing the word tracks, getting the technique, thrown in enough jobs to where it makes complete sense for them. And it's just a no brainer. Yeah. Is something that a lot of people don't do and you have to get training from the best people to do it. Otherwise you're just going to try to figure it out on your own. It's going to take forever. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:16):

Fire. So yeah, guys, I know, uh, I know it sounds like knock star paid us to do this, but we're doing this for free Danny. And we promise that Danny and Taylor don't have a gun to our heads telling them to sail. Just kidding. But no, it's true. So yeah. Learn from the best and just yeah. Implement it, memorize those lines. Cause I think that's been a game changer for all of us. So last thing I wanted to ask you, Alex, before we kind of wrap up here is you have obviously huge social media following. I know it's probably 99% chicks to just want to, you know, feel your abs and all that stuff, which is yeah. But, uh, so you're big on social media and all that. And I know you've recruited a lot. How, um, how, how many followers you have on Instagram? Like a hundred, a hundred gay,

Speaker 3 (44:00):

Like 100, 105. K yeah. Hopefully that's going to go upsurge. Yeah. Right, man. We're going to need 200,000 or something or blows up. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (44:07):

Let me go up. But yeah. So how has that, uh, as far as like recruiting goes, is that been a big thing for you? The social media, or do you have anything else that's helped you kind of like recruit these guys and bring on more people.

Speaker 3 (44:18):

I'm glad you brought that up. Cause that, that is like the key I've used. Uh, I've restarted multiple times for anyone else. That's like grown a business or grown, uh, you know, like just talk about solar and you've grown a sales team and you leave that or something happens and you know, you have to move out and you're starting from square one. I've done that multiple times and that's gave me confidence that I could do it again. Like I know at the end of the day, I've always been able to do it again. So like, I keep that as a reference point that no matter what's going on, I can do it again. And the way I always did it was through social media. So I would simply find a better opportunity. I can offer other people. And then in the day that's what I'm always was always chasing.

Speaker 3 (44:52):

Like what's the best opportunity. Not for me. Like, that's a cool part, but like, I really want to find the best opportunity to bring guys in because the end of the day, if I have a better offer for them, I have a better culture. They're going to join me in the only way they're going to see that is if I'm posting stuff about it. Yeah. So that's all I've ever done ever since. And I've been consistently posting my lifestyle. I used to share my own success. And I think in the beginning you share your own success, right? Like how much you made. And it's not about ego. It's not about being arrogant. A lot of people think it's like that, but I can't tell you how many guys I brought in to this business because they said they saw their, or someone shared my story with them.

Speaker 3 (45:26):

And they exposed like, Hey, I just made $20,000 in a week. Like they got exposed to that. And they wanted to reach out because if I didn't do that stuff, which a lot of people steer, cause it is weird in the beginning, like sharing financial stuff. A lot of people steer away from that. But if you post that out there consistently over time, some people will hit you up immediately. Like there's going to be people that are ready for change right now. Just like Taylor says, the hardest part of my job is timing. And that involves social media too. Then I've had people three years later, like, Hey dude, I followed your journey for three years. Like, what you're doing is awesome. Yeah. Actually I just saw that you moved to Orlando. Like this might be perfect for me. I'm over in Tampa. Right? So those things start happening three, four years later and you don't realize it at the time that it's going to be that way.

Speaker 3 (46:08):

But it's just like the, just like investing. Like if you think about like, okay, I'm only going to make 8% this year. That's not that much more money, but it's like compounded over time. You keep doing it consistently and sharing success versus my success. Then I really now only focused on other success. So I share what Liam's make and I show what Will's make. And I started Sawyer, Jake, all these guys, they're closing all these deals. I shared their success because they ended Dave. You just keep talking to yourself. That's not going to be much family because they just think you're a one-off. Yeah. So showing new guys success in the industry on social media has been pivotal to growing all my businesses because that's where my teachers always used to tell me, LinkedIn, man, the LinkedIn is going to be a thing. You gotta be able to network and you need to, and have people write out your, you know, your level 10 or you're excellent at communicating Excel.

Speaker 3 (46:52):

And like, dude, that is from gazing from Gaza. If I've ever heard it. When I heard that stuff, I literally thought I was like, this is BS. And the fake platform in the world, people are just putting on a face and a front. I was like, they're not real. They're reaching out like, Hey Alexander, I really liked the things you're doing. I think it'd be great to connect. And you could be great for this opportunity. Like this is, that is dead. That is not the way it may work for some businesses. But I already knew that wasn't gonna work for mine. I didn't know Instagram was going to be the thing, but that's just where I shared my life on. And so, uh, yeah, it was, it was funny just reflecting on like the teachers were completely off for this business for sales and everything is social media. Man. Look at grant Cardone, look at anyone. That's good at high scale. That's where it's at.

Speaker 2 (47:29):

Yeah. I know one year taking advantage of it. I mean, I just started doing, doing this stuff. Like semi-recently, I mean, I got like 700 followers growing long, long ways, but you know, consistent stuff. But even with my 700 followers just by posting these videos, testimonial, videos, stuff like that, like I'm getting referrals, I'm getting people like reaching out. I'll be like, oh, Hey, I didn't know you do solar just from like doing that with like 700 people so

Speaker 3 (47:53):

I can get referrals for solar, for solar. Yeah. So, so I think that's an interesting, I think that's an interesting point. I don't have that at all because I think you could approach it two ways, either a it's going to be customer facing or B it's going to be sales rep facing, right. Like new guy facing recruiting facing. Yeah. It's pretty hard to do both. I think you can. Yeah, but I know for a fact, if my clients follow me on Instagram, there's going to be some cancels. There's going to be some problems that they can follow me on Facebook. Facebook is separate. Facebook is like, okay. Old people hang out here. This is a good platform to be friends with them on. Even though I don't really want to because they'll see my old college days. So yeah, I think it's like, you can go one or two ways about it. And for me, I picked like, okay, my lifeblood is bringing in new people. That's what makes me the most happy. I love selling deals. I love selling deals. But at the end of the day, like my lifeblood is bringing new people in bringing new people in sharing their success, helping them be successful. That's really what, what I want to

Speaker 2 (48:49):

Focus on. Yeah. No. And I think you gotta have a focus. I mean, this was kind of like a lucky thing because it wasn't, it was like a friend from Utah that just recently bought a home. So it, that go Hey on the out.

Speaker 3 (48:59):

But yeah, that's awesome. I know some of my friends are good at that part too. They get like friends and stuff through social media, so everyone, everyone could do differently. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:08):

Yeah. But now it's a huge tool, so yeah. And we'll have to have a Mr. Serge creator on, in another episode, he can share more about the social media part, but uh, yeah, man. So no, I appreciate you coming on Alex and dropping some fire for us and for our listeners. So yeah. Speaking of social media, where can people connect with you and hang out with you on social media and find out more about what you're doing?

Speaker 3 (49:28):

Alex H. Smith. Okay. Alex H. Smith on Instagram. I don't think I have anything else. Just Instagram man. Uh, but surge is going to add some platforms to that. Right. I'm going to tick Docker. And I would say, I would say one last thing I just wanted to bring up just because it was so pivotal in kind of creating a hockey stick trajectory for me. Yeah. And I don't know who this is going to lay to or who it's going to help out. But for the longest time you're in the sales cycle, you roll, you can ride the roller coaster. I had a lot of ups and downs. Yeah. And I even got to a point, you know, where I cleared my first a hundred thousand dollars in a month. And I, I literally was not happy. Like I wasn't feeling it. Like I was like, what is going on?

Speaker 3 (50:07):

I have all this stuff's going. Right. But I just didn't feel good. And there were just a couple bad vices I had, I always knew for me, and this is different for everyone, but I was new for me. Like drinking was one thing that always like caused me to go into a downward spiral. So like I would drink and then I would be depressed for three or four days. So if I drank on the side, I wasn't drinking everyday, venturing on a Saturday. I wasn't into myself by Thursday. And by then I was feeling good. It's like, okay, now I can do it on a Saturday. Yeah. So every time I would show up for my team, if I did that, I would go to every weekend. But if I did that I'd would be, you know, 40% of who I am. Yeah. And I always knew that was a problem.

Speaker 3 (50:40):

And it took, it took a long time. I tried to, you know, stop drinking because I used to say like, I can't drink. That was like kind of thing. Cause I started out just FSU, gave me some habits. So I would say, all right, I'm just kidding. You know, it'd just be like, I could pound forever and still keep my demeanor. I'm not going to be a menace out there. Um, and so finally it was like two, two and a half months ago, two months ago or something like that. When I was around a group of, you know, my whole team, we just got the office and for me, and I think a lot of people can relate to this. Like you see the opportunity in front of you and you see other people doing big things. And I felt the overwhelming weight on my shoulder of how we're gonna, here's like 20 guys that relying on, like I need to be here for them to be successful.

Speaker 3 (51:18):

Like I need to be showing up a hundred percent focused, a hundred percent clear every single day. And when I showed up for the first meeting, I was still hung over from going out and St. Pete. And I was like, man, like I had brain fog. I wasn't clear, I was tired. I had no energy. I was feeling sick because my immune system was down. And I just remember that exact moment looking at everyone. I was like, I'm done, I'm done. I'm Alex Smith. And I don't drink. I it's not that I can't drink. I don't drink. And when I made that decision, it no longer became, cause I think anyone can decide at any moment to change who they are. Like, it only takes a second to change it. Like you can decide, you know, I'm Alex Smith. I don't drink for me. I'm about to it.

Speaker 3 (51:55):

And I knocked doors for four hours a day. I knocked doors for six hours a day. I closed at least five I'm Alex Smith. And I closed 20 deals a month. Like I set that for myself and anything else is impossible. Like I can't do anything less. Yeah. And so for me, that was drinking. And when I stopped drinking, it was, it was crazy. Like focus, never lost. I never lost any focus, never got distracted. And so for me, that was like the biggest thing I made a change on. And if for anyone having bad vices that bring them down into, you know, being depressed or anything like that, I don't usually talk about this stuff publicly or to anyone. Um, but that was a big problem for me. And so I was happy, unhappy, wanted to stay in bed for like, you know, an order reads three times in a day and I'll just go back to bed and eat it. And I'm like, man. And so cutting, figuring out what those vices are for you that bring you to that bad state, those energy drainers, and then learning how to just make a decision. It's how you can't do it. It's you don't do it. Or it's just like who you are now. Um, that changed my life.

Speaker 2 (52:50):

I love that. And I'm glad you brought that up because yeah. I forgot to ask you that. But yeah. Another thing I remember you telling me yesterday, just like, as you did that now your entire team is basically like, you know, kind of cutting it out and I really integrate following your

Speaker 3 (53:05):

Lead. I never fully believed it when I heard it. But like they always said, you know, the, your guys will do half the good you do. And twice the bad you do. And I never fully believed that. I'm like, whatever, I'm just going out drinking. Like I would like to go with them too. Cause it turns out everyone I hang out with are people I work with. I don't hang out with anyone else. Like, that's it. That's my people I work with are my best friends. Yeah. So I love my job because of that. And so I was definitely showing them, you know, going out drinking. And so, and then I wasn't doing my morning routine and everything kind of falls away. Like if I would go drinking, okay now I'm or waking up early. Okay. Now I don't have time to read. I may have time to go to the gym, but now I don't have time to write goals and all these other little things to help myself in the morning have a good energy go away.

Speaker 3 (53:43):

And so when I stopped doing all that stuff, like I, I felt a ripple in the office because a lot of them started thinking about what they were doing, because if I'm doing it, I'm the guy in front of them. I'm the leader. Then it's okay for them to do twice as much. Right. That's the bad they're going to pick it up. And so that ripple effect was, I didn't even think about that when I did it, honestly, that wasn't, that wasn't a reason for it. But now I just realize how important it is as a leader to make sure you have the right habits. Make sure you're doing it on a regular basis. If not for your, for yourself first and foremost, if you can't help yourself, you can't help anyone else. But more so for everyone else, like at the end of the day, they're going to see what you do every single day. Like, they're see whether you're on the doors. They're going to see if you're reading books. If you're bringing them new information. Because if you're reading books in the morning, there's going to be a chance you find nuggets, you share with the team and the meeting. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you're adding value that you wouldn't be able to add before. So just doing those things every single day, it has a, I think it's compounded in the whole team.

Speaker 2 (54:37):

Yeah, yeah. No, a hundred percent so love that. And I think that's a great way to end. Just like, you know, do be the leader and for all our listeners, if you're managing, you're managing a team, your guys are out partying, weekends, whatever. I mean, do the good. And then it's like, you're saying, they're going to do, what was it? Half the good and twice the bad. Yep. Yeah. So I liked that. I never heard that. But um, so yeah, for everyone listening, be the example, be the leader on your team, go out and do these things that Alex is doing. I know another thing we talked about too is just a 75 hard. It's a good place to start and give yourself. And he talks about a lot of this similar stuff you were saying. Yeah. So maybe if you're doing stuff like that, go trade thing, like 75 or 75 days cut out the alcohol, get the solid routine. See what happens. Cause I know that's been a game changer for you and your guys.

Speaker 3 (55:23):

Yeah. And you completed it, man. You completed it. So kudos for you. That's that's a, that's a mental. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:28):

Well, Hey man, if I look like you, I don't think I would have even done it in the first

Speaker 3 (55:31):

Place pounds dropped at 75 days. Yeah. It's kind of ridiculous you man. That's awesome. Yeah. That's that's what was the biggest thing you took away from? I got asked that question because I think a lot of people think second of ours is just about getting into shape, but for you, what did it could have been that, but what did you get most out of that?

Speaker 2 (55:48):

Yeah, just the consistency honestly. And I'm sure most like if you listen to Andy, Frisella talk about it. He's he says it's not a fitness challenge. Right? That's not the purpose of it. It's more a mental thing to see how much you can stay consistent on just these little things. So it's really not that hard. Like anyone can go out and do 2 45 minute workouts in a day and read a book and you know, whatever the steps are, don't drink, drink their water, raise the progress pictures, which is the stupidest thing ever. Most people actually woke up in a one night. I mean maybe I cheated a little bit, but I forgot to do it one night. But then I woke up at like three in the morning remembered. So I agree. And random guy, it was like day 70 though. So I'm like, I'm not, I'm not counting.

Speaker 3 (56:30):

So that's clean, that's clean the sun didn't come out there. Wasn't a new day yet. I'm

Speaker 2 (56:33):

Like send that out. So yeah. But, but yeah, no. So just staying consistent and same thing we were saying with everyone, just all these little things you do consistently that social media, that working out, the leading your team from the front, the doom meetings every day. I mean, that's, it sounds like that's basically your entire like to success, right? He's not a lot

Speaker 3 (56:51):

And it's not super complicated. Yeah. A lot of people make it out to be more than it is, but it is pretty simple. It just hard. It's hard to do it. Yeah. Just got to just realize that she's got to do it and hopefully, hopefully there's some something you guys can take away from that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:04):

No, I love it. So yeah. Stay consistent. Go out and give Alex a fall on Instagram. Let them know you appreciated this episode and Alex, thanks again for coming on brother. And we'll look forward to connecting with you more and uh, keep crashing it.

Speaker 3 (57:17):

Taylor grew up super grateful of your man. Super nice.

Speaker 2 (57:20):

Awesome receipt. Your brother. Okay. Peace.

Speaker 4 (57:23):

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Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one. What's up Solarpreneurs! Your secret weapon to closing...

Speaker 2 (00:45):

You're about to find out what that is and how to use it and how to increase your closing ratio by at least 10%, all that, and more in today's episode, let's jump into it. My name's Taylor Armstrong. I'm here to help you close more deals, generate more referrals and make it more enjoyable to be in this awesome solar industry. Hope you're doing well. My voice sounds a little bit nasally it's because we had a little bit of a crisis. Just got back from an event and the knock star event in key west Florida, and a little weekend getaway after that got back and we noticed something smell and super strange in the house, thought it was the trash went and took the trash out. Then, uh, hit the gym. After that, when I got back, it still smelled even worse, like what is going on here?

Speaker 2 (01:39):

So I'm like, okay, I go and decide to get a drink from the fridge, open up the fridge. And I noticed there's like these fruit flies all over the place. I'm going to kind of, that's weird. Then I open up the freezer. This is our spare Ridge. We have, uh, in our second bedroom here, open up the freezer and just the nastiest thing I've ever seen. All this meat just gone that ground Turkey, chicken, apparently our fridge and our freezer got shut off. I don't know what happened, but just nastiest smell. You've ever smelled a smell like a dead body in there. And I'm having nightmares about it. I don't know if I need meat for a couple of days, at least. So anyways, long story short, that is why my place smells terrible right now. Got all the windows open. So you can probably hear crickets chirping outside stuff going on, because look, if I close the windows, I'm going to pass out right now.

Speaker 2 (02:37):

So that's my explanation of why it might be some little nasally or something going on here, but let's jump into it without further ado. I'm going to tell you guys about a secret that I was presented with at this event. And if you haven't followed Taylor McCarthy, Danny, PESI over at knock star, they're doing awesome things. Nominee. I'm going to be sharing a lot of what they shared with us and also just networking with other people there. This is why it's important that you go to events. You don't have to go to every event. Okay? Sometimes I get a little carried away. You go into too many events. I know I've talked about that previously in the podcast, but try to go to, I don't know, an event a quarter or at least a couple of times a year, right? Pick a few events that you can go to to further your craft and network with other people.

Speaker 2 (03:31):

Okay? Cause that's what it's all about. That's how you're going to make improvements. They say your network is your net worth. And I can definitely attest that because some of the things you learn, not from the people, not only from the people speaking, but from the people you associate with, it's that one thing that can possibly take your business to another level. Now I'm going to share one thing that I think will help you take your closing percentage to another level. And I'm saying this because it comes, this is what a couple of guys at the event, actually, multiple guys are phone. This exact closing process and their closing ratio is at like 89 to 90%. Super ridiculous. And then if you follow Taylor McCarthy, he is closing, you know, insane amounts of deals. He closed five deals himself. The other day just went out and knocked the doors, close five in a day.

Speaker 2 (04:27):

And I think before that he had closed like 18 in two weeks. He's he's not doing online leads. He's not getting referrals. These are fresh doors knocked. Most of them close on the spot and that's how he does it. And so this is what he does. I'm going to share it with you. And I'm going to give you guys this sheet that he shared with us, okay. I adopted it for a Solarpreneur. This is a Solarpreneur edition. So it's got some bells and whistles on it and I'm going to gift it to you for free. All you have to do is go to sor, uh, sorry. It's closer.solarpreneurs.com. That's closer.solarpreneurs.com. So head over there and you're going to enter your email. I'm going to gift you this sheet, this template adapted first of all, printers, right? I'm not, I'm not stealing the exact sheet, but I'm going to adapt it, added a few things and need to think, um, Alex Smith, he's actually going to be on the next episode cause he's another person that's using this sheet and is closing 89%.

Speaker 2 (05:36):

He's actually going to be in the next podcast you hear. So we might expound on that a little bit, but head on over to that website type in your email, and you're going to get instant access to this sheet and what it is. Okay. Here's where you can start taking some notes. It's basically a comparison of what they're doing right with the current utility company versus what they're going to get with solar. And here's why this is so cool. Even last week I went to a dual, I closed it up, but the lady's biggest concern. She's a Filipino lady down here in San Diego. She's like Taylor, I've switched, I've switched, uh, cell phone companies. I've switched, um, you know, satellite companies, cable. And they've all told me I'm going to save money, but then there's always like hidden fees, something too good to be true.

Speaker 2 (06:29):

I just don't believe that it's going to work out the way you're saying and ended up overcoming her concerns, overcome their objections. But the biggest thing after that, she kept on focusing so much on the total price. Her panels were going to cost her like 40 grand. She needed decent amount of panels up there. And I kept on saying, you're going to pay like 80 grand to the utility company or the same amount of time. So what's the big deal. So like, yeah, that's so expensive. I don't think people pay that much for solar and it's so many panels. So I had to just like drill it into her head. Just repeat after, repeat after, repeat that. Yeah, but you're not paying anything upfront. You're just redirecting your power. It's going to be cheaper monthly bill. And she kind of got it. But now that I'm looking back, if I were to use this sheet that you're going to get access to, it would have helped so much because it's just an apples to apples comparison.

Speaker 2 (07:30):

What they're getting right now with utility versus what they're going to get going solar. Okay. So if you downloaded the sheet, if I were you, I would pause right now, go head on over to close.solarpreneurs.com and just download it, putting your email, okay. Get it. And then you have this in front of you. But what you're going to see is it's just, it's nothing super fancy, but it's a line down the middle of the sheet. And then you're going to see two spaces. You're going to see for the current utility company versus what they get with solar. And then it's going to have a bunch of different, um, well, we'll just break it down here. So it's going to have your offset. So just the offset of energy, obviously with the utility company, I mean, it's just a hundred percent offset, right? I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (08:22):

Um, with that, it's more just comparing like with solar, we're going to give them a bigger offset, right? So this is just like, and see that they're not getting extra power. They're going to pay for the extra power, right. With the utility. But with solar me, we're going to give them 115% offset, which is what we usually do here. So it's comparing that. So all these different boxes, it's just a line down the middle and then it's going to give them just visually, they're going to be able to see what the difference is. They're getting with solar. And that's one of the things we learned when you go in your presentations, all you say is Mr. Homeowner. My job is very simple. Actually, all I'm going to do is just draw a line down on the Nova sheet. So you can see which what you're getting now versus what would happen with the solar.

Speaker 2 (09:07):

If we did get your home approved on it. That makes sense. Great. If we would submit an application, see if we can get your home approved, if not, we're not going to do anything, but that's all it is just going to draw a line down the middle of the middle of this sheet and we'll show you the comparison. That's a great way to preface what you're going to do. And then again, if they can see this visually, it's going to make it so much easier to give them, get that in their heads, get the comparison. And I know if I would've had this the other week, instead of having to just repeat after repeat, after repeat, I was just talking, right. I wasn't using the other means of communication, which is visually, which most people are visual learners. So if you can get them even write in themselves, but more importantly, taking in visually, then they're going to grasp what you're telling them much quicker.

Speaker 2 (09:57):

Okay. So the first one is offset the second space on there, you're going to see as monthly. So that's talking about what they're paying monthly to the utility currently, right? So monthly, maybe it's 150 with solar moves can be a hundred bucks. So you're going to write that name with them and you're going to get them obviously to agree out. So as you're presenting this, you're going to be asking them. So how much do you pay monthly and get them to tell you we're going to do another episode on questions that you can ask. Cause that's actually the next takeaway I got from the event that I'm going to start improving right away is just better questions. If you can help the customers, um, the homeowners really realize these things themselves versus you just telling them that's way more powerful than you telling them. So ask them questions, Mr.

Speaker 2 (10:47):

Homeowner, how much you paid monthly. Okay. So here's what would happen with the solar is instead of paying 150, you would only pay a hundred bucks. Okay. And then yearly do the math with them. Make sure it's crystal clear. Make sure they understand it. So yearly 150 adds up to 1800, right? Versus a hundred adds up to 1200. So that would be a $600 difference right. For the year. Okay. Now inflation. This is where you want to make sure you have proof of what you're saying because people are skeptical out there. If you just start throwing out numbers, you definitely want to be able to back it up so you can ask them inflation. Mr. Homeowner, how much do you think inflation is right now? 3%. Okay. So 3%. But with electricity here's, what's been happening. They just had a 10% rate increase. And this is where I like to pull up proof of what's been happening.

Speaker 2 (11:41):

So either go to it, depending on what market you're in find proof. Right? And I've talked about this before, bookmark your different folders and where you can just pull up this ammo of the rate increases or whatever's happened. So pull that up with them and say that they can see and then agree on a number. So is it fair to say that they're going up five to 7%? Okay. Whatever it is. Put down a number and then with solar, assuming you are doing financing, right. 0%. Okay. There's not going to be an escalator. So 0%, then you're building value in all these things. Okay? So I'm giving you the spark Noax spark notes version, but obviously you want to build value. You want to tell stories. You want to ask them great questions, which again, we'll do another episode on, okay. You're going to see next a spot that says interest.

Speaker 2 (12:31):

That's where you can talk about. Okay. Well right now, how much do you think it costs to maintain the infrastructure of the utility company? It's like a hundred years old. Right? Probably be pretty expensive. So in all to be blunt, you guys are paying a hundred percent interest right now. You're paying for all the repairs of the utility. They're putting band-aids on all the difference. Um, repairs are making on the equipment. So you're paying interest in that. Guess what? With solar, it's only going to be 2.9% or whatever it may be. Okay. You can put down the interest and then tax credits. Okay. With their utility. How much do you guys get any like tax benefits, paying your electric company? Have they ever given you like cash back or anything? No. Okay, cool. So here's, what's cool about the solar. Your neighbors have liked that they've gotten money back.

Speaker 2 (13:25):

Federal government is incentivizing people to go solar. So for this year, luckily got extended because of COVID. But they're going to give you 26% of the value of the system back in the taxes, in the form of credits. So for you, it's going to be about nine grand. Okay. Whatever it is, write it down, added home value. Again, something you want to show them proof for. Okay. But at a home value, maybe it's 15 to 20 grand pull up the Zillow article, pull up whatever approves you had, show them that they're going to get some value added to their home in California. We're saying, Hey look, have you probably noticed all the new homes are being built with solar? Have you seen that? Yeah, that's because they actually passed a law that all new homes need to be built with store hours. So obviously it's helping them sell quicker and for more.

Speaker 2 (14:14):

Okay. And then 25 year savings break down the numbers, break down what they're going to save 20 five-year cost investment. And then you can just add up. Okay. And here's where you can just write. Um, you can just add up straight what they're paying for utilities. So if they're paying 150 average, 1800 a year, Mr. Homeowner, what does the number 18 grand represent to you? That's how much you spent in paint over 10 years. Right? So put that down then you put plus inflation. So 20 year costs, double, that would be 36 grand plus inflation. So 25 year cost would be, what does that have that a 45, I think 45 plus inflation. Okay. So you don't have to get, yeah. You don't have to, you know, break it down. Exactly. But put the plus inflation so they can see that you're giving them like the bare minimum numbers.

Speaker 2 (15:09):

Okay. And then once you do this, they have all side by side. Hey, and what's really cool about this is you can leave this page with them. So guess what they're going to have in their head? My customer, the previous week, she's thinks she's focused so much on the 40 grand she's going to spend. But if I would have left this with her, she has this in front of her. She says, okay, I'm paying. Yeah. With solar, I'm paying 40 grand. But wow. Look at this. I'm actually saving 60 grand and that's. Yeah. And that's like without the inflation factor into. Okay. So start using this. I'm excited to hear what you think about it. Okay. And I'm just gonna, yeah. I'll, I'll be blunt. I haven't started using it yet because this is just content. We got straight from the, some of these top closers at the event.

Speaker 2 (16:01):

Yeah. But I'm just going off what I hear other people, all of the things I'm sharing, I'm just starting to implement it myself. Okay. So if other people are getting awesome results with it, it's all about the results, right? You follow people that are getting insane results. And that's what I'm sharing with you here. I'm sharing you something that people are getting insane results from 80, 90% closing ratios. So start using this. That's why I wanted to gift it to you for free. Again, head on the closer.solarpreneurs.com. You can get a copy of this and just print them off, print off 10 of them, try it this week, leave it with your homeowner, leave it with your next close. And let me know if it helped you. Hey, so I'm going to start implementing it, excited to hear what our Solarpreneur crowd thinks of it.

Speaker 2 (16:50):

Let me know if it's helped you and send it to someone, send it someone on your team that could also use some help in their closes. And most importantly, drill practice, rehearse, rural play like this roll. Role-play the sheet like crazy. And then come up with great questions that you can use as you're explaining it to the homeowners you present too. So that's what we got today. Hope this was valuable to you. And don't forget to tune into next episode because we're going to hear Alex Smith who is also using this sheet and has this team closing at an 80% ratio. So you won't want to miss out. This is doing crazy stuff in his business over in Florida. So we'll see you on the next one and keep closing deals.

Speaker 3 (17:37):

Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.

Ready to capture the hearts of your customers? 

Get started with SendOutCards by clicking this link https://www.SendOutCards.com/u/starms/send

Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one. What's going on. Solarprenuer its Taylor Armstrong here with another episode.

Speaker 2 (00:45):

Hope you're doing well. Hope you're crushing it this week. We're going to dive into a topic today to help you crush it even more. So let's hop into it before I do that. Just want to preface. I am out here in my living room. It's a Saturday four. O'clock here, my kids asleep in the other room. So if you hear a break in the audio, if you hear a kid screaming, that means he woke up. Hopefully he won't. But just wanted to preface that. Let's jump into it though. Saturdays, hopefully you're out crushing hard. Hopefully you were hitting some doors today. I want to talk about why you should be taking pictures with all your customers. You probably heard, I think six, seven episodes ago. I did a podcast on why you should take video testimonials with your customers. That's I think the preference, first of all, try to get video testimonials with your clients.

Speaker 2 (01:45):

But if you can't do that at the bare minimum, get pictures with them. So we're going to hop into a couple of reasons why you should be taking photos with all your customers. Okay? Number one, if you get pictures with your customers, it is great for posting on social media. If you follow me over on Instagram, Facebook, you've probably seen, I have made an effort to be posting at least a picture or a video testimonial with every one of my customers. And guess what? I've been doing that about three weeks now, and I've already gotten a referral just from doing that three weeks. I don't even have friends here in San Diego. Really? I should say friends that are homeowners, but I got a testimony or I got a referral who was actually someone in Utah, someone that I went to school with, haven't talked to, and I don't know for five years, probably he hits me up.

Speaker 2 (02:41):

He says, Hey Taylor, I didn't realize you do solar, but I see you posting these videos, these pictures. Can you get me some information out of the blue haven't talked to the guy for five years, hits me up, asked me for some info. So that's why you need to be posting on social media. Just post on your stories, post on your timelines. I'm still learning this. There are guys that are way better than me at this, but bare minimum. Start just posting it on your stories. Go on Instagram, share it. People are going to notice that. And you're going to get referrals just from doing that. So that's the first thing. And the number two, if you can get a picture or a video with your customers, it's going to just keep your quiver full your quiver of stories to use in your closes with your customers.

Speaker 2 (03:34):

Hey, hopefully, you know, by now you need to be using stories. As you sell to your customer stories are what sells stories are. What activate that motions of the homeowner. They can't all be about numbers. Some people you're going to close that way, but if you really want to take your closing to another level, you need to get that other side of the brain activated the emotional side, because once people can have an emotional connection, that is when they're going to just fight with that with log logic and they're going to close. So what stories can you use if you have a picture or a video to back up the story and better yet, if it's someone in the neighborhood they're going to buy that story, they're going to trust it. They're going to believe it. It's going to come across way more powerful than you just telling a story.

Speaker 2 (04:21):

If they can tie that to a picture you're showing them or a video. I did that this week. Matter of fact had an appointment. Filipino lady here, down here in San Diego showed her, um, another lady in her exact neighborhood. She didn't know this lady, but she knew, I told her it was two streets up from her. I showed her on the map, the exact house. So I said, Hey, this is your neighbor Lolita. You may be seeing her walking her around. And then I proceeded to tell her the story of how it will lead. I had some of the concerns she had about it, damaging the roof about it's causing radiation. Yeah, I don't get that too often, but this lady was concerned about it. Um, I don't know, creating radiation, given her cancer. I'm like, okay, there's microwaves. There's things in your house that are many way more radiation.

Speaker 2 (05:12):

Your cell phone for crying out loud is a mini way more radiation than you're going to get from your solar panels. But I tied that all in with the story of Alita, her neighbor, that was two streets up. And because I had a picture in a video to go with that story, she bought it way more than me just toner those things and overcoming her objection that way. So if you can have something like that, best case scenario is they recognize the neighbor, but next best is you're showing on map. You're saying, Hey, it's this house here. You probably seen her out walking her dog. Then you show her the video. That's your next best scenario. And that's how you're going to crush objections that come your way as you're doing your in-home presentations. So that's two use it in your stories. And then number three, which I think is probably one of the most powerful things I've been doing lately is you can use it to send in cards to your customers.

Speaker 2 (06:11):

As I brought this up a few weeks ago on the podcast, how my friend river Skinner guys should all give them a fall on Instagram. Think he's at the abundant king, but you share invaluable tips all the time. He reminded me of a service that I had stopped using it's called send out cards. Okay. So again, I mentioned this, but I'm going to give you guys the exact process that I am implementing now with my customers. So I closed them up. You go to send out cards.com and I'll include a link. Go in the show notes, obviously include a link. And um, yeah, this'll be my affiliate link too. So hope you guys don't mind pay it forward. If you want to support the show would appreciate it. If you can show some love, go click on my affiliate link. There I'll get a little kickback.

Speaker 2 (07:01):

If you want to use this service, but go click the link, send out cards.com. And what you'll do is you can go on there and you can send out these custom cards. And the reason it's super powerful, having a picture is you can take the picture you took with the customer. You can include that in the card, and then you can write a personalized note with them. How cool was that? So we're going to get a picture with you and them. They can frame it on their wall. They're going to see it all personalized, super cute. They're going to love it. Okay. So that's the, I think one of the most powerful things you can do to get your referrals okay. In this process, just another side note with this is I send out a pack of four brownies when I send them the card.

Speaker 2 (07:44):

So they're getting a custom card. They're getting four brownies sent and you can choose a font in there that shows it looks like you hand wrote, wrote it. Okay. So it's not taking you much time. I have my little conventional message I send, but then I always include like one or two sentences that are specific to that homeowner. So if they had a super cute Husky, I said, Hey, loved your cute dog. By the way, if they had a, uh, I don't know, huge trucks sitting on the driveway, Hey, your truck was awesome. Let me take a ride and get some time, whatever it is, include a couple lines that are accustomed to them. And then that's going to help them feel that you actually appreciated them, that you remembered their conversation and that you, they weren't just another customer. They weren't just another client.

Speaker 2 (08:32):

But hopefully they think of you as a friend, after this start doing that, I promise you it's going to also generate your referrals, but it's going to help you stay in touch. It's going to set you apart from the competition. If you're not doing this, it's great for retention. It's a way of anchoring your clients. We've done several episodes on that, but you need to figure out a way to anchor these customers, to get them to stick it. Because if they get a personalized card from you, if they get a pack of brownies, the next guy that comes to the door says, Hey, we can beat whatever quote you got. We can beat the price on the solar. Do you think they're more likely to stick with you if they could just got a car and a pack of brownies in the mill? Probably so, right.

Speaker 2 (09:14):

They're probably going to be like, nah, don't worry about it. So it's a way to set yourself apart. And last tip I have with this, don't do it on your own. Okay? I mean, you can take the time to do it, but what I do, I have my assistant, my virtual assistant. She will go and prepare all this. It doesn't take a ton of time. I mean, you can do it five or 10 minutes, but if you're closing massive amounts of deals, like you should be as a Solarpreneur, you should be learning how to outsource things. So this is a way that you can really truly become a solar printer, figure out things. You can outsource, figure out things. You can save time on and figure out how to delegate. This is how people are taking it to the next level. They're not doing everything.

Speaker 2 (09:59):

If you think of successful entrepreneurs, Henry Ford, he said, I can't remember the quote, but basically he's not the smartest man in the room. He didn't know what half the things were when it come to making cars. But guess what? He had people that didn't know how to do those things that he didn't know. And that's what every successful entrepreneur and Solarpreneur is doing. They are figuring out ways to save time and to delegate. So that's my recommendation. Get a virtual assistant, or maybe you have your spouse, your wife, your girlfriend, a boyfriend, whatever. Maybe they're helping you in your solar business. Maybe they can help do this. So when I close the deal immediately, I send my virtual assistant, her name's Angelica, which she actually produces the show. So give her a thank you if you ever run into her. But I sent Angelica message.

Speaker 2 (10:50):

I say, Hey, Angelica, here's the picture with the customer. Then I send her two sentences that are specific to that customer. I say, uh, really loved, um, hanging out with your dogs, really loved your pet iguana in the back. Let's talk soon. So something customed to that. And then she copies and piece the message. You know, how are you type thing, um, is nice connecting and then paste the two sentences that are specific to that person. She puts it all in the card. She hits the button. Guys. This only costs. I think it's like a, I dunno, 15 bucks a card, something like that. And you're getting a pack of Bruni sent to them and it's sending a card and it's sending a picture of you and the customer. So do that guarantee. It's going to get you some results. And then if you can get a video testimonial, okay.

Speaker 2 (11:43):

I don't take pictures and video testimonials, so I'll shoot for the video testimonial first, if I don't get it, all you do is simply screenshots. A moment in the video where, because you know, you're taking them with you and the customer. Go follow me if you need an example, this, but you're taking them with both of you and then just screenshot a place where it looks like you're both. I dunno, natural. Okay. Sometimes it's hard at the time I've got my mouth wide open and uh, my eyes doing strange things, but find a place where it looks like it probably was a picture screenshot that, and then there's your selfie. There's your selfie with the customer. So that's my recommendations on why you should start taking photos with your customers. Try it, let me know what you think. Let me know if you guys have other ways that you are using other creative things to connect more with your customers to generate more referrals, because that's what we're all about here on the soar printer movements.

Speaker 2 (12:42):

It's helping you guys make it easy as possible to get more leads, generate more referrals and close more deals. So hope this helped. Let me know what you think. Share this with someone who needs a way or who needs some encouragement to take more pictures. I was embarrassed about doing this. I remember my first, like three or four years in solar, I would never do this. And um, the only time I would do it, actually, it was when we had sales competitions, because that was our proof that we were actually with the customers getting inside the homes. And then after that, I'm like a photo with the customers. Now I forget about it, but now I am seeing how powerful it can be. So just do it. It's super easy to get a picture with a customer, even if they don't want to just assume it. I've never had anyone mad at taking a selfie with them and you can sneak it if you have to. Okay. Just don't get sued or something. Okay. Yeah. Release myself from all liability. That's what I got today. Guys. Hope it helped keep crushing it, close some deals this week and we will see you on the next episode.

Speaker 3 (13:51):

Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.

Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!

Speaker 1 (00:00:03):

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. I am excited for this episode. We've got someone that's been a long time coming with us on the show today. I've seen him speak probably three, four times. Now he's been on stages all across America and speaking of America, he loves America. He's got add a flag in the background here. So love that about our guests today. We've got, uh, Ian went on the show, Ian. Thanks for coming on with us.

Speaker 3 (00:01:05):

Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having me, dude. Appreciate it. Glad we can make it happen. Finally, you chasing me around long enough.

Speaker 2 (00:01:11):

I know sometimes I got to bug people, but it gets, we're used to that knocking doors. Right. So, Hey, how you doing man persistence? Well, yeah, I know it's an honor to finally have you on. And um, I obviously heard you speak last at the door to door Fest event and I was in Dallas, um, a couple months ago now I think. And uh, so yeah, Ian, you do quite a bit of speaking now, is that right? Speak at a lot of sales conferences and stuff like that?

Speaker 3 (00:01:37):

Yeah, I mean, I do. I do, uh, you know, anytime, anytime I can, anytime I'm invited. So it's been, it's been cool. I've, I've had the opportunity to speak in it quite a few in the last, uh, in the recent months. So yeah, man, it's been, it's been, it's been a fun time. I love, I love speaking, so I love being able to teach in that environment. So it's been cool.

Speaker 2 (00:01:56):

Yeah, no, it's been awesome to hear for me. I think I first heard you probably door to door con I don't know, probably like four years ago now, so been a little bit. Um, but yeah, I know you've spoken all over and for, for our listeners that don't know Ian, he is a sales trainer and marketing expert. Um, I mean top door, uh, door to door for like dish satellite for years and years. And now I correct me if I'm wrong, Ian, but now mostly just consulting in them, building up your, uh, Patriot brands in speaking at events, stuff like that, right?

Speaker 3 (00:02:31):

Yeah. Yeah. So I was, I was with, uh, I was with dish one or now they're known as caliber for my entire career in door to door, um, which I started in 2009 and I ended just barely like maybe, maybe a year ago, almost so, you know, 10 plus years. Um, and, uh, so I, I sold for them for, you know, four or five years, and then I, I trained a little bit. Um, and then there, I just, I realized that what I was doing was, was working on a big scale. And so they actually had me come in and, and run the training program for them. So I built the training, I built the different training programs or different training, um, courses and things like that, that they used throughout the company for leadership and reps. And, uh, and then eventually I also took over all the marketing when we rebranded to caliber.

Speaker 3 (00:03:19):

So, um, awesome, awesome, awesome time that, you know, that time that I had at caliber has, has very much shaped who I am and made it possible for me to have the opportunities that I have say. And so, yeah, to answer your question, um, I haven't been on the doors for a long time. I haven't been in the door to door space for a little, I think, I think it's about a year, maybe a little over a year. Um, and now I own my own clothing brands or my own brand in general, we do a lot of different things, um, official Patriot gear. And then, like you said, I, I can solve for marketing and sales on the side for individuals and businesses. So, yeah. Nice.

Speaker 2 (00:03:58):

Yeah. And if you're not following Ian on social media, we definitely would recommend it. Um, he's one of the most entertaining guys. I would say that I follow on social media. Love it when you get in a, you know, political debates and stuff like that. So appreciate your fights. Give me some good entertainment.

Speaker 3 (00:04:15):

If you do follow me on social media, be ready for it. It's very political and just know this. We may disagree on things and that's okay. Um, I welcome everybody. If you have a disagreement or something like that, reach out to me, let's talk about it. Like those are the conversations that I want to have with people. And so rather than just following, see something, you don't like an unfollow, like that's what we need more in the world now is people to understand and talk and, you know, figure out because I think at the end of the day, we all have a lot more in common than we think we do, but we're just so we're so reactionary and we're so triggered and we're so ready to just, oh, that person doesn't agree with me. And so, you know, cut them off. And it's like, that's, that's the reason why right now I believe that we're closer to being the divided states of America than we ever have been. And we need to be the United States. So if you follow me, yes, it's very political. If you may not agree with everything, but please reach out and I'd love to have the conversation. And at the end of the day, like we can agree to disagree or we can not agree at all. And trust me when I tell you we can still exist, harm me like it's possible.

Speaker 2 (00:05:17):

Yeah, no, I love that. And that's what I love about you. You're not afraid to open the can of worms and actually have discussions because I think that's the big problem. That's why we're so divided. As people don't want to talk about it. People just, you know, get all off on following, you know, don't want to talk about it instead of having healthy discussions. So, um, I know definitely important. Yeah. We just, I just got back from a family reunion. Matter of fact. And um, our family union theme was a unity is pretty funny because, you know, in my, in my family, a lot of my extended family have a lot of different political beliefs and stuff like that. So we kind of had some burned, some bridges, but yeah, it was nice getting everyone together and you know, what you got to do.

Speaker 2 (00:05:58):

Yeah. It's important. So yeah, follow lean for that. Um, he loves, you know, talking about the hard topics too, and it's, um, getting political and love that about him. So Ian, we're going to get into a couple of things. The reason why I wanted to bring you on so bad is because I heard you speak at door to door Fest. And I know you've never, I know you haven't specifically like sold solar, obviously done a ton of door to door, but he spoke to all the solar guys at Door to Door Fest in Dallas and talked about the buyer types, which I thought is super applicable. Probably even more so in solar than I think probably any other door to door type thing. Just because solar, as you probably know, Ian, we're like, you know, meeting in homes, it's more of like a long drawn out sell than just like, you know, right at the door like you're doing in satellite and a lot of these other other industries.

Speaker 2 (00:06:48):

So I think even more so in this industry, it's important to recognize your buyer types recognize, um, what's making people tick and just be able to have that advantage. Cause that's, what's, it's coming too. People heard about soar at this point. People have been through the spill and heard the pitch and everything. So it's important to give yourself as many tools as possible. And I think recognizing the buyer types is a huge thing. So yeah. I want to talk about that a little bit, but I guess before we get into that, do you want to give us the quick rundown, I guess, of how you got into door to door and how that all started in?

Speaker 3 (00:07:24):

Um, yeah, sure. So, like I said, I, I was with dish one since 2009. I actually, I got recruited out of the freaking school gym college gym by my, by my good friend, Teagan Judd. Um, which is funny. Cause when he recruited me, it was the, like, it was the textbook recruit. It was his first year and he recruited me textbook recruit like, Hey, do I know you from somewhere? And of course I had no idea what was going on and I was completely oblivious. And so just so you guys know the textbook stuff does work like it does. And uh, anyway, you just, do I know you from somewhere? No, I don't think so. Did you do alarms? No. I never did alarms. Have you ever knocked doors? No. Well, I have an opportunity. I want to talk to you about, you know, if it doesn't, if it's not something that suits you, whatever, like no big deal, but would you mind waiting?

Speaker 3 (00:08:06):

I'm about to get off my shift and dude, that was, that was it like from then on 2009 until freaking 2020, you know? So it does work. Um, and the, you know, the, the simple things that you think don't work actually could, could make the biggest difference. The other thing too, this is kind of off topic and you're gonna, you're going to see me do this a lot. Cause I have just like a lot of you guys, I have literally the worst ADHD all time, but let me just tell you this guys. One thing that I feel like in the door industry, a lot of people forget the whole time I was there. I feel like no one really focused on the fourth quarter. And what I mean by the fourth quarter is you would be blown away if you knew how many of the, the biggest ballers in the top performers that I knew in the industry that I still know in the industry that are still there that were recruited in like April and may like or not April may, excuse me, March and April, March and April.

Speaker 3 (00:09:01):

Right? Especially April though, like I was recruited in April and all of my friends who are still in the industry that are absolute monsters on the doors were recruited in April. And it makes sense because, you know, in my case it was different. Cause I just didn't know anything. And it just happened to be the luck of the draw. But like these other guys, if you talk to them, they'll say I had, I had looked through all my other options. I've looked at different companies. I've been pitched by a bunch of different companies and I was trying to decide what to do and, and it was go time and I knew I was going to go sell. Right. But I just didn't know with who. And so guys, don't, don't like, don't discredit the idea that, that you can recruit somebody in the fourth quarter or like I said in March or even April.

Speaker 3 (00:09:45):

Um, and that they won't be one of your best reps you've ever had because they've already vetted the other companies. And they've already kind of like gotten to the point where if they jump on, if they jump in the ship with you, then they're solid. Like that's, it, they've already looked at the other ideas. They've already looked at the other options or whatever. So anyway, that's a ramp, but I just think it's super important because a lot of, I feel like a lot of people forget that and very, very few focus on recruiting in those months. Yeah. No, just from my experience, I've seen some of the best reps come out of those months.

Speaker 2 (00:10:18):

Yeah, no, I agree. A hundred percent, especially in solar because solar we're doing this year round, so we're getting recruits like Midsummer guys from pest control and all that that were selling pest control their industries.

Speaker 3 (00:10:32):

But anyway, so yeah, I got recruited. I sold for, I sold for, uh, four years just selling and um, and uh, I did really, really well. And then my fifth year I managed an office. And then after that, I just, I kinda got to a point where I realized, you know, Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm worth way more than just selling 300 accounts in a summer, which by the way back then when the ton, you know, I can teach, I can teach reps how to sell. I just, I realized that training was actually my passion in teaching because Teagan always empowered me to do correlations and train guys and things like that. And so I realized that was really my passion. And even though I was really, really good on the doors, it just, it wasn't my passion. And so I basically got to the point where I said, Hey, I'm going to figure out a way to make it so that I can do what I actually love doing and stay in the industry because this is, you know, like you guys know this is an opportunity unlike any other.

Speaker 3 (00:11:24):

And it opens a door to a life that people our age and your age dream of. And uh, and don't think it's real. Right. Anyway. So, so I did, I basically said, okay, I'm going to be, I'm going to train. And um, I train the office for a little bit and then I trained a couple more offices and I, I started to realize that, Hey, this is actually, you know, we're, we're seeing some insane results with these guys. So I actually went to the, um, to the, the COO at the time for one of the, one of the owners, basically one of the, one of the Hammond brothers. And I said, it was Jeremy. I said, Hey, I want to run the training program. You know, I want to be, I want to be an executive. I want to, I want to actually build the training program and I want to roll it out.

Speaker 3 (00:12:04):

Company-wide and at the time there was nothing, there was, there was no training program. Like there was no training team or anything like that. Right. Like it was just there, just there wasn't a position for that. Yeah. And he told me, um, he told me, yeah, there's, I mean, we don't have a position like that. And so we're not going to just create it, but if you go out and prove that this works, like, it won't even be a matter of if it'll just be how and when. Right. And I said, okay, challenge accepted. So I, I took off and, uh, for that summer I traveled the nation and I trained all of Teagan's offices first and I kept a binder and I kept track of all the reps that I was training personally, on the doors I kept, I kept track of all the offices.

Speaker 3 (00:12:50):

So basically what I would do is I would say, okay, you know, I got here on this day, 30 days prior to this day, this is what the results look like for both the individuals and the office. Right. And then I would track those results. 30 days after I left. And every single time it was like double, triple, quadruple the amount of sales, the better metrics, um, for, for both individuals and for the entire office. And so I did that. And then all of a sudden, the other regionals, because Teagan was a regional at the time, um, the other regional started hearing about what was going on. And they were like, Hey, come to my office, come to my office. And so after, after, you know, a few office visits, all of a sudden now I was visiting almost every office in the company doing the exact same thing.

Speaker 3 (00:13:31):

And I'll tell you this though. Like, it didn't come without sacrifice. And I think a lot of people forget this because you know, they look at me and they're like, I'm kind of an anomaly in the door to door industry because I didn't have a network. I didn't bring on a lot of recruits, but I was able to reach executive level without doing any of that. And so it's kind of like, I feel like a lot of people look at it and they're like, oh, he just kind of like, you know, he's favored or whatever. And he just kind of out there, but they don't realize that that year that I decided to prove and add the value that I knew I needed to in order to negotiate the, the position and the, and the career that I wanted. I overdrafted my bank account seven times.

Speaker 3 (00:14:08):

Wow. And any of you that are in door to door sales right now, you know, that overdraft, if you're, if you're doing it the right way, right. If you're, if you're doing it the right way and you're not spending your money stupidly, and you're actually like, you know, doing well, then you know, that overdrafting, your bank account is like, what? That doesn't happen. Are you kidding me? Right. And, uh, I did it seven times because, because I was living, basically I had a, my car, I put almost 80,000 miles on my car that summer. And, um, I was, I was giving all the sales away because I was all I was doing was shadowing guys. That's it? Cause, cause I could knock and I could sell, but like they didn't, they didn't learn that way. So I was just shadowing guys. And so I was basically living off of like a few sales here and there.

Speaker 3 (00:14:57):

But the majority of it, I was giving the money away to the reps because I was just shadowing them the whole time. Right. But I could really, really get them to, to, to perform the way I need. I knew I needed to. Wow. Anyway, so towards the end of the summer, I, uh, so the other thing I started to do was I started to do surveys. So I would survey the leadership and the reps and I would, I created these like 10 questions. I still have the binder somewhere. I created these 10 questions surveys, and I would have an answer it based on like, whether I was knocking with them or whether I was just teaching their office or whatever, if they were a leader, if their rep, and then I could take those surveys and I slipped, I slipped them under the door to, to Jeremy and, and actually at the time to do the vice president of dish itself because we were, we were partnered with dish directly.

Speaker 3 (00:15:44):

And so we worked directly with them. So I was literally emailing them these surveys and, uh, and I just kept sending them all summer long. And finally, at the end of the summer, or towards the end of the summer, it was probably about a month. It was probably in like mid July. I want to say, um, Jeremy reached out and said, okay man, you did it come in. Nice. And, uh, he had heard from Amir, the VP of dish who, who also saw the results and wanted to talk about it and everything. And, and, uh, they invited me in and they said, create the pitch deck and tell us what you're going to do. And I did. And, um, that was it from that day on, I, I, at the time I joined the training team and I, I, uh, I created all the content.

Speaker 3 (00:16:23):

I built the program from the ground up that they were using as far as how to teach reps, how to sell, whether they're are rookie or veteran. And then that just kind of evolved over the next couple of years or few years into me running the training program itself and, you know, doing all the live trainings and things like that. Um, and then, and then when they rebranded to caliber, um, I have always been very active on social media and I've always had kind of a creative bone and they knew that. And so, um, I actually ended up taking over the marketing as well when we ran into caliber. So I had a marketing team and I ran the marketing for a couple of years as well. So I was running all the training and all the marketing for a few years for caliber. And, um, yeah, dude, like I said, that's, you know, those years or those years have given me the mindset and the abilities and the skills I believe to do what I do today. And so I'm forever grateful and that's why I have, that's why I have a soft spot for the daughter ministry and I always will.

Speaker 2 (00:17:21):

Yeah. Wow. That's cool. I didn't know that story. That's powerful. And what I love about that is you went out and took the initiative and, you know, actually they created the training training programs. Cause I know tons of guys in the industry, it's like, they're just crossing their fingers, waiting for that opportunity to go on and I don't know, train or get told, okay, you're doing good. We're going to promote you to, I don't know, be a manager or whatever, but I think the best guys and the guys that are growing the quickest are the guys like you that went out and just was like, can I run this meeting? Can I do the training? Can I do the correlation? Can I go out to this team, train them? And that's actually how I first got into like my first management position. Do I, wasn't just going to wait around for them to be like, Hey, you're doing pretty good. Do you want to like, come be an assistant manager? I mean, I had to go and be like, Hey, can I run this training? Can I actually do a training this weekend? Or can I go out with these reps? And uh, you know, leaders recognize that. And I think that's how guys are going to get promoted and we'll get into those positions.

Speaker 3 (00:18:20):

Well, I think one of the most important principles that I've ever been taught and I've ever learned in, in one that I always try to teach everybody else is what you're saying. It's like too many people try to negotiate before they add value in this world in general, not only in the door to industry, but just in general, people always try to negotiate before they add value. And that's not how it goes. You add value and then you negotiate and you add so much value that the negotiation is just easy. Right. And if you think about it, that's exactly what sales is all about. It's adding enough value so that when it comes time to close, it's just like, duh, of course. Yeah. Let's do it. Okay. Yeah. So true.

Speaker 2 (00:18:59):

Yeah. And you, I mean, I guess you're the perfect example. I mean, you were overdrafting your bank account around it around, but in tons of miles on the car and no guarantee of anything. So yeah, that's a great example of what you're doing. Um, what was like the number before it gets to the next topic? What was like the number one thing would you say in that was like helping your teams out? Was there one thing that was like helping them double ourselves and all that? Or was it just going out and shadowing or what was like the general thing that helped your team so much? You think?

Speaker 3 (00:19:29):

Um, that's a great question. As far as the correlation and like the trainings go, um, the correlations themselves, I feel like 100%, it all came down to belief and energy. Um, as much I had so much belief in so much confidence in confidence in the product that we sold, like literally ask anybody what Ian thought about dish network and they will tell you, like, he thought it was godsend. Like it was, they they'll say he thought it was the greatest product on the planet and the truth. The truth is I did because I, I learned to believe in it so strongly that literally no one could tell me that there was anything better than it. And, and that confidence in that belief, in that product gave me a power. I feel like that most people didn't have. So, and, and I was able to project that onto other reps and other managers when I was in front of them training and teaching, because they could feel that confidence themselves.

Speaker 3 (00:20:22):

Right. So they didn't have it. It was like, how do I get that? Um, and then the energy, like this is, this is, you know, this is textbook stuff for, for correlation, but it was the energy that I was able to bring every time, because I was so excited about what I was doing because I love training. And I love teaching. I, I was, I was just always so excited and it, it was never, it was never like a downer, a negative moment when I was teaching and training people. And they could feel that they could, that energy was contagious. Right. I always tell managers, your first sale of the day is when you cross the threshold of your correlation room, like correlation is your first sale of the day, your reps, or the first sale of the day for you. And if you miss that sale, I promise you the rest of your day is going to be crap.

Speaker 3 (00:21:03):

And so is there, so, you know, it's, it's the, it was the intentional correlations and the energy. I feel like that made the difference for, for the office in general. And then for the reps, um, obviously the belief in the energy was, was big thing, right. But I would say the biggest thing with, with training reps on the doors was, um, was really teaching them not only how to be efficient and how to like prospect the right way, right? Like how to, how to find the right people and how to not waste time, but also allowing them to fail in front of me and then taking the time afterwards to tell them exactly why they failed a lot of trainers out there will train a rep and they won't let a sale go like in their mind, they're like, dude, I could save this so easy and they'll just jump in and they'll save the sale.

Speaker 3 (00:21:55):

And it's my belief. It's my opinion that the rep doesn't learn nearly as much if they, as if they'd lost the sale and then you take them to the side afterwards and say, Hey, do you know why you lost that sale? Well, no, not really. Or they might even say, yeah, I think it's this. And it's like, that is such a good teaching opportunity to say X, Y, and Z are the reasons why that sale was lost. And if we would have just done this, this and this, we would have saved that sale. And what's interesting to me is the reps always say, well, why didn't you save a sale dude? And it's like, because then what would you have learned? Right? Like, would you really learn anything from that? And maybe, but most of the time they're like, well, no, because when you get to a point where I was, especially if I'm, especially, if it's like a rookie that shadowing me, I mean to them and it's like, you know, it, it just looks easy, right?

Speaker 3 (00:22:47):

To them. It doesn't make sense at all. And to them, I can't tell you how many times I would always get people to say, Ian, how come you get all the lay downs? Right. Why, why is it that you get, why is it that all the lay downs that you get all the lay downs in the area? And it's like, what are you talking about? Well, I haven't, I haven't gotten anybody. That's, that's been that easy in my area and I'll be like, okay, let's go knock somewhere else. And then same exact thing, more lay downs. Right. Then I always told them the same thing. There's no such thing as a lay down, you create a lay down by, by doing it the right way and adding enough value. Right. That's so powerful. Um, so yeah, that's, I feel like that was the biggest thing was just giving them an actual learning experience by allowing them to fail and see that failure. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:23:29):

Awesome. So many, so many nuggets in there and yeah, but I love that belief in energy. I mean, that's super powerful. I was actually just listening to a training this morning. It's dude's name Alex or Mossi. I don't know if you've heard of them, but he does. He does consulting for gym companies. He has a hundred million dollar company and someone asked him, what's like the number one secret and training your reps. He said the exact same thing. He was just the belief and energy is as, is his new reps, outsells, experienced ones all the time, because they have more belief and energy in the product in the beginning. So, yeah, I think that's a huge secret and guys forget about after remind myself all the time, because I've been out here doing solar for five years, but we get new guys all the time that just came from alarms or something.

Speaker 2 (00:24:13):

And they're like super stoked about solar. Like no way we're saving people money. We don't have to charge them anything extra than what they're paying already. And they're so excited about it. They go out and hustle eight hours a day. And um, some of these guys come out and sell circles around me just because I forget how good of a product we have in solar. Um, oops. Yep. Um, so yeah, I think that's super important. And then, I mean, a lot of other stuff you mentioned there, but just being efficient and um, yeah. I mean the leaders, I think that's a big problem though. Just in general is so many like door to door leaders are just focused on, um, you know, like the money and like you were saying, just them making money, not going out and shadowing reps. So is that something that you're big on too, is just training your leaders to actually go out and like shadow the reps and things like that? No,

Speaker 3 (00:24:59):

No, because here's the thing too. I don't, I'm not about giving sales away either. I mean, that's the point, right? Like when I say, when I like, I don't, I don't just give sales away either because then they don't learn anything either. Right? Like that, it's the same exact thing. If I'm just giving sales away, then all that's doing is teaching them to be, you know? Yeah. I don't know. It's just, I'm not about that. I'm not about like people getting anything for nothing, right. For not putting any effort in, so no, not that's not at all what I'm saying, but, and, and those leaders when they're, when they're training and when they're selling day shift, for sure take the sales that they make. Right. No question about it. But all I'm saying is that there's power to shadowing the rep and allowing them to fail and not saving the sale.

Speaker 3 (00:25:44):

And then using that opportunity to actually teach them why and what they could have done differently. What we always did at caliber was we did a three, a three tier or a three-step system, I guess, is when we took a rep on the doors. We shadowed them or, sorry, we knocked and we got a sale and then we shadowed them and we help them get a sale. And then we shadow them and we don't say anything and they get the sale on their own. I like that. Oh, if the sale help get the sale and then they get the sale by themselves. Right. And that was kind of the, and obviously it's never perfect and it never works out perfectly and there's different situations and things like that. But like that was the ideal situation. Um, but no, I don't think you should give sales away ever. I think the rep should always have to work for that sale. Um, but it's finding that fine finding that balance right. Of you're a leader. And so you make more money than they do, so allow them to have that opportunity, but don't just give it to them, you know? Right. Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:26:45):

No, yeah. I love that. Super powerful. Um, yeah. And I think that's missing in a lot of organizations is just actually going on shadow. Cause I know when I started, I never really had the opportunity is more just them letting me shadow, you know, the leader, the manager, seeing them get herself and then just kind of off on my own. So I think that's something that's forgotten is actually the leader actually going out and shadowing and letting them struggle through SL because yeah, that's another thing that I don't think I've ever really experienced is anytime I've been shadowed, it's usually by people that want to jump in and save cells. So I don't even think about that, letting them experience the failure. And then, um, yeah, I think recording is a big thing to recording the guys and just kind of doing a play by play with them, see what, see what goes wrong.

Speaker 2 (00:27:29):

So yeah. Good stuff in there, Ian. Um, so yeah. I want to shift gears a little bit, talk about some of these buyer types. And I know that's like a, probably a four hour training you could give, so we're not going to go like super in depth on it, but I did want to, you know, touch on at least a few of them and hear kind of why you thought that was important. So I guess, first of all, why did you decide to give that training yet add or Fest and what's what, how did you, I guess, come across all this and think it's so important?

Speaker 3 (00:27:58):

So I think the reason why I did is because I, I think that the single most important thing that someone can learn being a door-to-door salesman is how to relate to every type of person. Because it's not about the product. It's not about the pitch. It's not about the service. It's literally about how you interact with customers, the best salesman, the reason why they're the best is because, I mean, I, I always say this when I do this training, but I always say, what does it really mean to be talented? And I'll get, I'll get a bunch of answers. Always get people to say, oh, it means that you can, you know, you can prospect, right? Or you're, you're very good with your clothes or, you know, whatever. But very few people ever say the, the most talented reps are the ones that can sell everyone, anything anywhere.

Speaker 3 (00:28:43):

And that's true. Talent to me, true talent is you can sell anyone, anything anywhere, right? No matter what the area is, no matter what the state is, no matter what the product is, no matter who it is, you're talking to, you can sell them lights out. Right? And, and what that comes down to is knowing who the person is that you're talking to because every single person has a certain way. They want to be pitched. They want to be, you know, every person wants to be, they want their handshake shook differently. They want to be presented to differently. They want to be closed differently. Every person has a certain behavior style. And when you learn to adapt your behavior style, your selling style to their buying style. Now you have the, you literally have the perfect, um, the perfect marriage when it comes to, to, to, uh, a customer client or, uh, sorry, a customer, um, sales and relationship.

Speaker 3 (00:29:41):

And the, you know, we always talk about how we, we teach our reps, how to mirror customers. Well, cool. But like if I'm teaching my rep to mirror a customer and that customer isn't that type of person, like for example, let's say the customer he's talking to is a much more aggressive person, right? Just by nearing that person, it doesn't mean that they're going to actually get to them. It doesn't mean that they're actually selling them the way that this person likes to buy. It just means that they're like creating a little bit more comfortability, but people don't buy based off comfort. They buy based off trust and people trust those who they feel like actually care about them and actually have their best interest in mind. And the best way to show somebody that you have their best interest in mind, and that you actually care about them as a person.

Speaker 3 (00:30:29):

And you actually want to put them in a better situation than you than they were in before they got you got there is by treating them the way they want to be treated, selling them the way they want to buy. And every person has a different, a different way. And I think a lot of salesmen forget that the fact that sales is, is it's all about people. It's not about the product. It's not about the sales process. It's not about the pitch. Those things are important, but if you don't know how to actually talk to people, then you will never be able to sell. I don't care who you are. You have to understand how to communicate and how to talk to people. But not just like we always talk about, oh, communication skills and persuasion and things like that. It's, it's not just that. It's, it's literally understanding how to adapt your personality to the person you're talking to so that they can relate to you on a much, much higher and much deeper level. That's what personality selling is all about. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:31:25):

I totally agree. And, um, I think that's one of the reasons I liked your training so much is because, um, in the past I've just been like, okay, well I know I'm not good at selling engineers. I'm not, I know I'm not good at selling, uh, super rich people. So I'm just going to avoid those people at all costs. And I think a lot of guys get in that mindset, but then when I heard your training, I was reminded. I'm like, okay, even though that's not like my ideal person that I like to sell to, I mean, I need to get good at selling all these people. And that's, what's going to take me to the next level. I think a lot of people forget that I was just trying to double down so much on the guys I am selling to, which is great. But like, I mean, I think everyone agrees. How about you should talk to your neighbors when they're getting their solar installed? What if their neighbors and engineer, I mean, you gotta be able to sell all these different types. Well, so

Speaker 3 (00:32:11):

I would actually, I would actually disagree with that. I'll actually, so what you said when I teach reps, how to sell person, how to do personality selling, I actually teach them exactly the opposite that you just said, if they're a rookie or if they feel like they don't have their buyer type nailed down. So let's say, so there's four main buyer types, right? There's aggressive, there's social, there's analytical and there's thoughtful. Okay. Now no person is like exactly type. They might be a hybrid of two, or they might be a few different ones. Most people though have one dominant type. Right? And so when you're selling somebody, you're focusing on, like, when you, when you pitch somebody you're focusing on their dominant personality, because if you can pitch their dominant personality, then you'll be able to get past their sales wall. Their true sales wall is really just getting past that dominant personality is getting somebody to feel like, okay, this guy actually is like different than any other salesman I've ever met.

Speaker 3 (00:33:07):

And he's, I can relate to this guy because he's basically me. Right? And, and it's just like, if you walk into a best buy and you want to buy a TV and all you want to know is what is the bottom line? What's the price. And why is this CD better than all the other ones? If that rep walks up to you and starts talking about how your day has been and you know, do you have a dog and, and, oh, what's your dog's name? And, oh, Hey, by the way, we have this new TV that does this and this and this, like, you're not going to buy from them. You're going to walk away because they didn't sell you the way you wanted to buy. But if that rep knew that all you wanted to know was the bottom line and you wanted to know which TV was the best and why.

Speaker 3 (00:33:43):

And all he did was walk up and say, Hey man, how's it going? How's your day going? Cool. So check it out. Um, I'm assuming you probably just want to know exactly which TV is the best and like, why it's the best. Right. Well, let me take you over here and let me give you exactly what I think is going to be best for you. And then I'll tell you the price and then you can make a decision. Oh, boom. All of a sudden, now he's selling you exactly how you want to buy. There's no BS, it's straight bottom line. Right. You're going to be much more likely to buy from that guy. Does that make sense? Yeah. So, so again, it comes down to understanding those types and, and realizing that each of them want to want to be sold a different way. Um, before I got to remind me where we were before.

Speaker 2 (00:34:31):

Yeah. I was just, I was just saying, you know, like, I think it's important for guys to be able to like, you know, learn all different types. So you're saying your disputes. So you're saying you agree with being able to sell, sell to all different types? Or what

Speaker 3 (00:34:44):

Do you mean by that? No. So what I'm saying is when I teach reps, the reason why I just said all that is because the reason when I teach reps, how to do personality selling, if they're a rookie or if they're a veteran, but they haven't quite nailed down their buyer types. So let's say, let's say this guy, just his buyer type a hundred percent is the aggressive buyer, but he's still losing sales when he talks to aggressive buyers. Okay. I'm not going to tell that guy, Hey, learn how to sell this type and this type and this type and this type until he gets to the point where it's like clockwork, he hits an aggressive buyer, boom sold every single time or 90% of the time, 95% of the time. Right? So, same thing with rookies. I'm not going to teach a rookie how to sell four different types of people.

Speaker 3 (00:35:28):

I'm going to find out based on what that rookie seller type is like, what, how they like to sell. That's going to tell me what their buyer type is. And then I'm going to teach them exactly how to sell that buyer type so that they can crush it every single time. And then once that rookie is selling that type every single time. And once that veteran is knocking down those types every single time, then it's like, okay, now let's go to the type. That's most like that type. And now all you have to do is a few different things. And now you're adding two buyers to your arsenal. And then eventually when you get past those two, it's like, okay, now we're going to go to this one and you have to understand that you have to do this and this and this and this.

Speaker 3 (00:36:06):

And now all of a sudden there's three buyers to the arsenal. Right? Okay. And, and the reason why I always tell people again, to go back and answer the question of why did I decide to train on that at knock star? It's because I believe that that is the difference between talent and hard work. Everybody always says, artwork, beats talent when talent doesn't work hard, but they forget that the second part to that is hard work, beats talent when talent doesn't work hard, but when talent works hard, it's game over. Because if you can find somebody that knows how to sell every single type of person they ever meet, and they work really, really hard, I promise you that person is going to run circles around any salesman that ever comes across that ever comes. Right. Okay. But the problem is, at least I haven't seen it yet.

Speaker 3 (00:36:54):

I haven't seen a rep that has that much talent, that doesn't only rely on the talent and get complacent and not work as hard, which is why you always hear the top performers. The number one rep say, Hey, I'm not that talented. I just work really hard. I work harder than everybody else. Well, why? Because most of the time that rep is only going to be selling one or two types of people. And so they have to work harder than the talented rep. Not, not saying that the, the number one rep is not talented. They're both talented, but there's a very big gap in talent. If one can only sell one or two types of people and they have to search for those one or two types of people all day, every day, and one can sell every type of person and they don't really have to search.

Speaker 3 (00:37:35):

And they, those are the guys that go out and knock one street and sell six or seven accounts or whatever. And everybody's like, how the freak did you do that? And it's like, well, I know how to sell everyone. And so where you have to sell five streets to find the six types of people that you know, how to sell, or the six people that are the type that you know how to sell. I mean, I just have to knock one street and I can sell six people that are totally different types. Hmm. Does that make

Speaker 2 (00:38:01):

Sense? Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Let me ask you this. Well, yeah, in this year still going, but I was just going to ask,

Speaker 3 (00:38:08):

I was just going to say, I think, I think the reason why I decided to teach this all the time is because I think it's literally the key to unlocking like the absolute best in a, in a door to door salesman. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I would agree with that.

Speaker 2 (00:38:23):

Um, I was going to ask you, would you say, um, like for the sales reps, you train, would you say their buying type matches up with their selling type? Like the type of buyer there is that always the type of that they like to sell to

Speaker 3 (00:38:36):

Every single time. So for example, what kind of, I'll just do you, for example, what kind of person do you feel most comfortable selling?

Speaker 2 (00:38:46):

Um, I would say the people that like to talk a lot that let me build rapport with them. Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:38:54):

You like the social buyers more, right? Yeah. So social buyers. Okay. They are, they are extremely talkative, right? Sometimes they'll appear to have they'll look like they have like add, right? They like to gossip. They like to talk a ton. They like to be complimented. Their greatest need in life is social acceptance. And their greatest fear is being rejected. Right. They dress, they dress like fancy or they wear bright clothes. They care a lot about their outward appearance. Right. So now I don't know you super well tailored, but I, and the other thing too is I'll, let's just talk about facial features. A facial feature for a social buyer is they have puffy cheeks, like round puffy cheeks. That, that basically signify. They laugh a lot. Right? Laugh lines from the nose to their mouth. Okay. Around her face. Okay. Now I'm looking at you right now and you have those features.

Speaker 3 (00:39:51):

You have the puffy cheeks right now. You're smiling and you have the line through your nose, through your mouth. You have a rounder face. Okay. You probably care what people think about you and that's okay. You probably care what you're wearing and how you look and how you appear. You obviously like to talk a lot. And you're very social because you're running a podcast and, and I guarantee you without even knowing you, I can tell you right now that one of your greatest fears is probably being rejected. Now, maybe because it's door to door sales, you've kind of like, you know, you kind of taught yourself to not be so afraid of that, but I promise you before the doors, that was probably one of your biggest, like, you probably took a long time to sign on because you were so afraid of, of rejection and of, of getting into a place where it was like impossible.

Speaker 3 (00:40:38):

Right? The other thing too is your greatest need is to be socially accepted. So I can tell that right now you have the golden door behind you right now, right? The golden door. Okay. You have the golden door award behind you on your podcast because you want people to see what you've accomplished because you care about that social recognition. Right? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I don't know you very well, but I just sized you up in what, 30 seconds. So, because of that, I would know as your manager or as your trainer, that the best place to put you as somewhere where there's a lot of people, just like you, because you'll sell them much easier than you would sell someone say that cares more about data and numbers and is very monotone and doesn't want to talk. And doesn't like to be happy and always seems like a freaking judge in a courtroom. Right? Someone very rich, someone, very skeptical. That's probably one of your hardest sales ever because that's the opposite of your personality. Yeah, no doubt. And,

Speaker 2 (00:41:33):

Um, I don't know. I might be like a hybrid too, because I don't know if you remember this, but at a door knock star, you called me up. And I was dressed like basically in sweats and

Speaker 3 (00:41:42):

Just like thoughtful,

Speaker 2 (00:41:45):

Like thoughtful. And, uh, Ian calls me out. He's like, all right, this guy, a hundred percent is thoughtful. Look, because look what he's dressed in at Justin, like this baggy shirt, like some sweat dance and everything. I'm like, dang, maybe I should have showed up to the podcast and like a tux or something. So I can't read

Speaker 3 (00:42:02):

That's okay though, because again, the thing about salesmen too, is it's kind of hard to size up salesmen as much as it is, as it is to size up just regular individuals. Because as a salesman, you kind of have to become a hybrid of everything anyway. Right. Just naturally. Um, but I would for sure, say like, you're, you're going to be a social thoughtful hybrid for sure. Yeah. So the question is when you get into a group of people, like, let's say, you don't know anybody in a room and you walk into the room, are you the type of person that's going to go strike up a conversation and be, and be the life of the party? Or are you the type of person that's going to kind of wait until somebody comes to you? And then once they, once they get to meet you, that's when the life of the party comes out. And like that's when the energetic Taylor comes out. Which, which one of those is more of

Speaker 2 (00:42:49):

What would happen? Um, I mean, I would say a combination because I don't like to be the guy that, again, like the recognition part, I know that if I'm like sitting at a party by myself, just like standing there awkward, then I'm going to be like recognized, oh, what's this guy. Like, it doesn't like talking to people or whatever. So it's all, it's not that I like have a huge desire to go talk to people, but I don't want to be recognized as someone that's just like a loner standing there. So all like forced myself to go like initiate something, just so I'm not recognized as like, you know, the guy that doesn't want to go talk to people and present himself. So I don't know if that would be like a hybrid or,

Speaker 3 (00:43:23):

Yeah. So let me ask you one more, let me ask you another question. We'll try to dig down. So would you say that your greatest need is social recognition or your greatest need is guarantees? Which one of those would you say is the greatest need for you in life? Um,

Speaker 2 (00:43:41):

I would say guarantees, I think

Speaker 3 (00:43:44):

So you'd rather have a guarantee than be liked.

Speaker 2 (00:43:49):

Um, I don't know. Like, are we talking to my guarantee of success guarantee and money guarantee of happiness, stuff like that,

Speaker 3 (00:43:56):

Or, or even let's put it this way. Do you care more about your own personal success or do you care more about the success of those around you?

Speaker 2 (00:44:05):

Um, I think I would say it's success of those around me. Um, okay,

Speaker 3 (00:44:11):

So you, so you, so I might've nailed it at door to door, honestly, dude, you might be the thoughtful slash um, social rather than the social slash thoughtful. And the only reason I'm saying that, because I'm facing you right now and I can see your facial features and those are more on the social side. Right. Okay. But the fact that you want others to succeed and the, that you care more about guarantees and the fact that you, you would go talk to people, but you wouldn't be like super energetic about it and stuff. And just kind of more doing it because you like have to, and you are more of the thoughtful person first and the social person is the in dominant. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:44:47):

I would agree with that because I was always super shy growing up as like the shyest kid in school type thing for a long time. And then, but I was sick of being like recognized that way. So I would again like force myself to try to not be shy, to try to like go out and talk to people just because I was sick of being like, oh, Hey, this is Taylor. He doesn't talk very much. So that's how I got presented, like by my own parents and stuff like that. Um, so yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (00:45:12):

And that's a perfect hybrid because you can see like, you didn't like being, you didn't like them saying that about you because you didn't want people to think badly about you, you, you cared about what people thought about you, right? Yeah. And, and so all of that kind of just grows into the same thing. And, and again, you know, at Knox star, I called you out and I said, Hey, you're thoughtful right away. Right. Because of the way you're addressing, because of the way you're carrying yourself. And I believe you put your hands in your pocket. When I told you we were going to write that things like here, here, we're conversing and we're being social and I see your facial features. And so now I'm seeing the social side of you. So, so it's different. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. So, so you kind of have to, you kind of have to just know those personalities, but realize that people are going to be a hybrid.

Speaker 3 (00:45:53):

And you're a perfect example of it. But knowing that I would know to put you in places where you're going to find people who are social or people who are thoughtful, and I'm not going to put you in places that are just like crazy aggressive and very skeptical. And like data driven will fall flat on your face. You know what I'm saying? Okay. So now think about how powerful that is for a manager. Let's say. And I, and I can't tell you how many times this has happened. That I'll go to an office and the manager will say, dude, this guy, he is the most outgoing, like super confident. He knows how to talk. He knows the pitch. He knows the product, but he keeps on battling or he goes out and he only gets a couple sales and it doesn't make sense to me.

Speaker 3 (00:46:36):

And then I have this guy and, and, and he should also be selling a ton as well, but he's not doing very well or whatever. Right. And my first question is always, okay, where are you putting the guy that's super outgoing and confident and social and, and should be selling a lot. Where are you putting him? And I'm telling you, I cannot tell you how many times this has happened, where they're like, yeah, he's in this neighborhood. And it's like a retirement community or where people are constantly going to be thoughtful and analytical, right. Because they're skeptical and they care about their community and they want guarantees and they hate change. And it's like, of course, that guy's going to suck there. He doesn't know how to sell those types of people. So then it's like, okay, put him where that other guy was, put them in the city where people are more aggressive and social. And every single time that rep comes back and all of a sudden he's selling 5, 6, 7, consistently every single. And then all of a sudden he's reaching his potential simply because he's selling the people that he knows how to sell. Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:47:36):

Yeah. That's awesome. That's crazy. Yeah. This stuff makes you, like, I dunno, you could almost be a psychologist. Well, with all this stuff, Ian saying these things and I'm like, dang, this, guy's like, tell him my life story. Some of these things he's able to identify. I think it's a super power, but yeah, that's actually kind of what I was going to ask you next is like, say you're a manager, you know, these things, you know, you need to put this sells wrap in like a social area. How do you recognize in these areas? It was like for you as it just kind of like city?

Speaker 3 (00:48:05):

No, no, not at all. So think about it this way. Right? So prospecting a lot of people, especially everyone in the door industry, I feel like, think that prospecting comes down to, you know, oh, uh, signs of life, like, oh, the doors open or the mailbox or, or the, the freaking oil marks on the thing or whatever. Right. We're just looking for signs of life. And that's all the prospecting is that couldn't be farther from the truth. Real prospecting comes down to prospecting based on the people. So for example, if I know that I know how to sell really aggressive people, if that's my buyer type, when I get to my area, the first thing I'm looking for is a signs of an aggressive buyer. So what are signs of an aggressive buyer? Well, aggressive people are very, um, confident, right? Their greatest fear is, is, uh, is, is losing control.

Speaker 3 (00:48:57):

And their greatest need is being in control, right? Is meaning control and always like being right. That's their, that's their greatest need. Right? They're also the type of people that don't want any BS. They're the type of person that, like I said before, where you walk into the TV store and this is that type of person they want the bottom line. That's all they want is the bottom line. All they care about is here's my problem. Here's the solution. Why does it make sense? Why is it the best? Why is it the best solution? And what's going to make it so that I'm not wrong about what I'm doing. Right. And so that I can control that situation. So those types of people are usually very, um, very like outspoken and loud, right? They're going to wear solid colors. They're going to look and walk.

Speaker 3 (00:49:43):

Like, they're very confident. So you have, you know, military people, you have athletes, you have, um, uh, you know, just like if I'm walking on the street and I see a huge lifted truck that has, uh, uh, a freaking American flag on the back and like a bunch of stickers about guns, chances are that person's probably pretty aggressive period. Right? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. If I am, I'm an aggressive person. You came to my house, you would be finding an aggressive person. I am a hundred percent aggressive. Right. So then let's say I'm walking on the same street. And I see, you know, a bunch of, a bunch of sports memorabilia and a bunch of, a bunch of stuff like that in the garage and a motorcycle. And then on the door, there's a sign says, solicitors will be shot or there's like an aggressive, no soliciting sign.

Speaker 3 (00:50:31):

The chances are that person's also probably pretty aggressive, right? Yeah. But let's say I'm walking down that same street. And instead, now I see a really, really nice Escalade and their house is super nice. And there's like, like really cool or really like pretty flowers all over the place. And it just looks like it's meant to stand out and how, you know, whoever lives there, once everyone that drives down that road to say, see that house and be like, whoa, chances are, that's probably a really social person because they care a lot about recognition. Right. Okay. See what I'm saying? So you can prospect based on, based on just the outward appearances of houses, but the other thing about that is understanding personalities and understanding what kind of environments those personalities live in. So for example, cities, why is it that a lot of people struggle to sell in cities?

Speaker 3 (00:51:25):

Well, because cities are full of people that are super fast. Like their, their lives are fast paced. They don't want any BS. They don't want to bother with anybody. If they're gonna make decisions, they're probably gonna make it themselves. Right. They're the kind of people that don't want to just sit around and talk and small talk and be friendly. Right. There's also a lot of people that are very analytical in cities, right. They have a lot of, you know, whatever. So what does that tell me if I have a rep that sucks at selling aggressive people and it's the type of rep that is very much more inclined to selling people that are going to sit down on their porch and offer them a lemonade. Right. And talk about Joe, Bob down the street and, and like talk about their family and, and just, you know, they want to know about the features and they want to, they want to have a friendly conversation.

Speaker 3 (00:52:13):

There's no way in this world or the next that I'm going to put that rep in the city. Right. I'm going to take my, yeah. I'm going to take my freaking soldiers of reps, the ones that are super aggressive, very fast, very smart. Very, to the point they don't want to BS. They don't want to waste time with everybody. I'm going to put them in the city. Right. Gotcha. Okay. So, so city aggressive, analytical, right? Um, also social you'll find a lot of social people there too. But when you put people in like smaller towns, what do you think you're finding in smaller towns? Mostly social, right. Thoughtful. Yeah. Every rep likes to sell in small towns because you're meeting tons of people that are just happy and like very slow paced. And, you know, they like to give referrals because they're friends with everybody, right. People in the city, most people in the city don't even know their neighbor. True. Because again, they're just aggressive. They just, the type of people that don't care. They don't like just get to the point of life in general. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:53:14):

I see. Now, um, yeah. What about like, cause there's lots of companies that might listen to this that have huge teams, like they're just sending out armies of reps too. I mean, they're not spending the time to go through all this and recognize, you know, their selves rep buying type, selling type, all these things. So what do you say to those teams, like say a team of like 70 reps and I mean, they, don't got time to recognize all these things and give out specific areas. So, um, I don't know. Is there anything you suggest?

Speaker 3 (00:53:43):

Yeah. Yeah. So that's a great question. So, so I mean, obviously this that's a perfect scenario where you can put your, you know, you can put your, your reps that are this type in that perfect area and you know, that's not always going to happen. So what I would, what I would say is anytime I would go out to an office to train them, the first thing I would try to realize with a big office is, or I would try to figure out is what are they running into the most? Right. So I'll give you a perfect example. One office that I trained, um, this is years and years back. And they actually ended up being the number one office. What I realized was the people they were selling, um, in this state were very, very, um, thoughtful because their biggest concern, as I listened to their reps and their managers, I'm like, what is it?

Speaker 3 (00:54:28):

You guys are running into like, why are you having so much? Why are you struggling so much? Will do everybody just wants to think about it. Everyone wants to think about it. They all want cards that nobody wants to make a decision. Well, what does that tell me? That tells me that they're selling nothing but thoughtful people because thoughtful people hate change. Right. And they want guarantee and consistency. So those are the type of people that are always going to say, I want to think about it, right. Or I want more time or whatever. So what did I do? That's the situation where you have to say, okay, you have 50 reps. And every single one of them is probably a different type of, of, of seller, but we're going to teach every single one of you, how to be a thoughtful seller. Okay. So, so when everybody comes to me and says, Hey, you know, I hate it. When people make the excuse of bad area, there is no such thing as bad area area. There's just a such thing as different area. Yeah. There's no bad area. It's just different. The people are different. The pace is different. The way you need to sell them is different. Everything is different. Right. Um, but that's, again why I said at the very beginning of this, that I believe that truly talented reps are the ones that know how to sell anyone, anything, anywhere. And that all comes down to the fact that they just know people. Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:55:41):

A hundred percent. So yeah. For our Solarpreneurs listening, I think that's a great point. The reason I asked that Ian is because, I mean, our, our company just merged with another team. So we're sitting at like 50 reps right now. And I know our team's not taking the time out and recognize these things. So yeah. I like that answer. I mean, for people listening, if you are getting a specific objection, go out and train on that. Recognize these buyer types. Yeah. Anything else you want to say to that?

Speaker 3 (00:56:07):

Well, I would just say, but at the same time, if you have, you know, if your team of 50, you have four or five guys that are just absolute monsters on the doors and you want to put them in the best situation possible, we'll then focus on putting them in the best situation possible. Okay. Does that make sense? Because with a rookie you can whitewash them to learn how to sell whoever you need to teach them how to sell. If you bring in 20 brand new reps and they don't even know how to sell period. Well, it's easier to teach a puppy how to be a different [inaudible], you know, it's easy to teach to a calm puppy to be more aggressive or aggressive puppy, to be more calm at the very beginning. Right. But if you have veteran reps that are just absolute monsters and it's because they sell a certain type of way, put them where they're going to be the most successful and focus on getting them in the best situation possible and then teach all the other guys how to sell where they are. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. I love that.

Speaker 2 (00:56:58):

It makes sense. So yeah. Huge key there. And yeah, I'm going to take that back to my team because I'm definitely, we're not doing that on our teams right now, thinking that's a great solution. Um, so yeah, I know we're running short on time here, Ian, we barely scratched the surface and all these things. So I know for guys that haven't really heard much about these buying types. Definitely go look more into it. Do you have any books or where did you first hear about all these buying types and things seen?

Speaker 3 (00:57:23):

So, um, the F the number one book I would suggest is called navigate 2.0, it's literally exactly what, what I'm teaching, but this book was geared more towards like phone sales and business to business sales. So basically Fridays, I just took all the parents apples out of that book, and I made it, I tailored it to, to door to door. Okay. Um, and, uh, and so that would, that's where I would start. And then there's, there's tons of other books that you can get out there, tons of other programs and things. You've just got to kind of dive into Google and look for that stuff. Um, yeah, but I would also say what you said about psychology. Like a lot of this has to do with psychology. I actually read a lot of books on psychology, understanding how people's brains work and how their minds work and, you know, what makes them tick and what, what they want and how to give it to them. Like that's sales is the study of people. And if you're not studying people, you are missing the boat. And I promise you, you're not being nearly as effective as you could be. Yes. I agree

Speaker 2 (00:58:20):

For sure. For sure. So yeah, guys, go dive more into that super important. And like Ian said, you're not going to get it all at one time, but first of all, I think most important recognize what type of, um, you know, buyer you are, um, figure out how you can get in touch with morals, people, and then take it one step at a time. I mean, I'm still just barely figuring out what type of buyer I am. So been doing this five years. So I think a lot of people, it's probably the first time they're hearing about all these things. So go check out the book. I know you had some slides in, um, I don't know if you stopped those slides, but maybe people might hit you up if they want to see you, like, you know, a few of these slides. So

Speaker 3 (00:58:56):

The slide I do have the slides and I, I basically, I turned them into a course. So I do have courses available if they want to, um, buy the course. And then I also do consulting, like I said, I do consulting for individuals and for, for, um, offices or companies or whatever. So if you guys want to do that, just hit me up and I'll tell you, I'll tell you what we're looking at, based on whatever your needs are. Um, and then, you know, we can, we can, we can dive into for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:59:21):

Awesome. Cool. Well, listen, this, this one of these podcasts listened to on repeat and then go, you know, taking the information. Don't apply it all at one time, but figure it out one step at a time, the buyer buying types, and it's already been helping me. So we appreciate you being all the fire you've dropped for audience and wisdom that you've shared with us. So before we let you go in, I know we've, uh, you know, dropped you a couple of times, but social media is Instagram best place to find your where's the best place.

Speaker 3 (00:59:49):

Yeah. Instagram's where I'm the most active. So it's, I it's, I Winster, I w E N D T S T E R. Um, you're going to have to type in my full name cause I'm crazy shadow banned right now. So it'll probably pop up my backup account, which is, I went straight to, that's not my account. It's, it's just, I went to her, I w E N D T S T E R. Um, that's my Instagram. And then my company, Instagram is official Patriot gear, the official Patriot gear, excuse me, our website is official Patriot gear.com. Um, and then yeah, if you want to do any kind of consulting or anything like that, just, just hit me up, um, DME and, uh, and we can talk about it. You know, first I want to find out what it is you actually need. And based on those needs, we'll figure out what we, what we need to do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):

Perfect. Love it. So reach out to Ian, if anything, let him know you appreciated the wisdom he dropped with us today. And, uh, before we let you go in, do you have any, I don't know, final words of wisdom or final advice that you would share with, uh, sore reps in specific, or I guess, I mean, door to door, any last tips?

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):

I would just say, yeah, I'll leave you with one last thing. Okay. Um, any of you guys that are out there that are feeling like, you know, I know that it's common to feel like, Hey, I'm never going to be as good as that guy, or I'm never going to get to the top or whatever. You know, I know a lot of reps struggle with having that feeling. I'll just tell you this. If you played sports in school, you know, let's say, let's say you played football, right? When you first started playing football as a freshmen, did it ever cross your mind that, oh, I'll never make varsity. Probably not. It was probably more like I'm going to make varsity. And in order to make varsity, I need to figure this and this and this out. And I need to pay my dues over the next three years or two years or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):

Right? Yeah. I think there's a common misconception in sales that sales is any different than any other skill that you can develop and that you just won't ever reach a certain point. And that's just not true. The fact is you just have to work. If you feel like learning to sell is harder for you than other people. All that means is that you have to work harder than the guys that are working hard. It just means you have to put more into it, but it doesn't mean you can't be great. You can be, you just need to actually put the effort in and, and, and do any like, just like anything else. If you're going to learn how to play the guitar, you need to have the bloody callouses on your fingers to be able to play the guitar really, really well. It's no different in sales.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):

So when everybody else is partying or hanging out or whatever, you should be studying and diving in and learning and constantly making this, just everything you focus on, because I promise you that if you're just starting out here, if you only knew what actually lies behind the door, that you have the ability to open in the door to door industry metaphorically or whatever, like you would never stop pushing for that. For that goal, you would never stop pushing to open that door ever because it's, it's a life that people dream about. It's, it's, it's freedom and opportunity that most people will never have in their life. And if you only knew what that really was, you would never make an excuse of, oh, I can't do this. Or, ah, I'll just, I'll just slack off today. Yeah, yeah, no, I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):

A hundred percent and yeah. Um, I mean, yeah, just to finish up here, it's like, guys think they can get in this and we're making doctor's money without, uh, without a degree. Right. So why should we not to work hard? I mean, to make this amount of money, a lot of guys come in thinking it's easy, but to that point, yeah, you gotta push, you gotta push super hard, harder than you'd think. Especially the guys that struggle coming out. So love that. And so with that said, we'll wrap it up here in, um, but guys remember hit Ian up, let them know you're appreciated that sod shared. And thanks again for coming on the podcast podcast with us today. I know you're super busy, but we'll be in touch and appreciate everything you shared again. No problem. Thanks Taylor. Talk soon.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):

Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.

Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one. Boom, shake the room of what is going on. Solarpreneurs, Taylor Armstrong,

Speaker 2 (00:46):

Ready to light some fire under you and get you crushing the rest of your summer. Hope you're doing well. We are in August. Now, the timing of this recording and crazy how fast the time has gone. You got one month before, basically the end of the summer. So let's go. If you aren't where you are wanting to be. Let's push hard. After this last month, we had a meeting last week where, uh, Jason newbie, the guy I work with, he showed us this video by Gary V up to post it in the show notes, but where he talks about how August is his favorite month for those that don't follow Gary V. He used to work in the wine industry and he talked about how August was basically the month where all these wine, uh, I don't know, whatever you call them, white and people who wait, make the wine.

Speaker 2 (01:42):

Um, okay. I don't know what the word you can tell. I don't drink wine, but the guys who manufacture the wine, right? He was talking about how they take August basically off because the whole days you think in Thanksgiving, Christmas voles, they're just slammed, slammed with customers and making tons of wine during those months. But August it's kind of their slower month. So Gary V said, he always pushed extremely hard during this month because he knew the rest of his competitors. Guess what? They're all in The Bahamas, they're out snoozing. They were taking a nap. So we should think the same way about August. Go look up that video. If you haven't seen it, push extremely hard and don't let up just because of summer is going. I do have regrets when I sold at pest control. And that is, I would always slow down in August.

Speaker 2 (02:32):

I knew, okay, I got two more weeks left. I'm going back to school. I'm going to slow down and enjoy the rest of the summer. I'm going to take it easy. But solar, we are a new breed of salespeople and we do not slow down. We speed up. We Zig when other people are zagging. So let's go. That being said, got done with my little, uh, rant on August today. I want to talk about a couple of things you can do to just access that motivation and really turn your bad week into a good week. Got a couple of weeks recently where they started off pretty terrible cancellations appointments, fallen through things out of my control, HOA issues and some tough situations that really got me de-motivated to start the week. And I want to share a few things I've done that have helped me turn those bad weeks into good weeks.

Speaker 2 (03:29):

So just in general though, before I hop into those, just yet general, you should be working as a team. This is something I talked about. When I went to a Sam Taggart's event, he's a little door to door tour, go back and listen that episode if you haven't already. But he talked about how door to door sells. It should be similar to like riding in a pack of bikes and Peloton, right? You look at those bikers, Lance Armstrong, all these guys biking, they go in packs. They go in groups. And when you're selling, especially if you're going door to door should be no different figure out a way to get in a group. And if you are not surrounded by an awesome sells organization by a great team, then get in our coaching program. That's why we just launched Solciety, did a whole episode on it last week.

Speaker 2 (04:22):

So go listen to that. But Solciety is designed. So you can be surrounded by people that are trained to level up, people that are trying to improve and even more so you can get into our coaching, our inner circle coaching. If you want to be held ultra accountable, get one-on-one coaching from the best and really make that jump towards your goals that you've been waiting for. So consider that. But the point is, get yourself surrounded by people who are going to motivate you, who are going to inspire you, who are doing better than you and who are, uh, driving you to improve every day. Okay? And if anything, yeah, hits some doors together. Hey, I experienced that all the time. Where last thing I want to do is go knock on that door. But lately I've been getting people out with me. I say, Hey, I'm going to go knock with you.

Speaker 2 (05:14):

Come shadow me, Michael. Donald talks about this golden door award winner. He had to have someone knocking him. Even Mike O'Donnell gets lazy out there, not lazy, but he knows himself that he's not. It's going to be tough for him to go get out of his car and knock by himself hard as doors, that corridor. So if you're struggling with that, get someone to train, say, Hey, meet me at the Starbucks. We're hitting the doors, meet me at, uh, Kentucky avenue. We're hitting this street. Come shadow me for a little bit. Have someone go shadow you and go out, you know, go out with someone for a little bit, switch off doors for a little bit, if need to, but really just getting your groove. Okay. Get someone out, let them see what you're doing. And you're going to push harder when someone's shadowing you too.

Speaker 2 (06:06):

Okay. So there they're just a couple general things. Oh yeah. And last thing, get a segue. I've been posting a little bit about that on the Instagram, but on the gram, get yourself a mini segue. Trust me. It makes it way more fun to be on the doors. Especially if it's hot outside, you can get going. I dunno, 12 miles an hour on these things. Feel the wind in your hair. You feel like a dog sticking its head out of the window. You need one of these mini segues. If you're going to be out knocking doors too. Okay. So two things though, these are the top two things that helped me in a few of these weeks that I really struggled, that I felt like my numbers were down. That I felt like I wasn't having a good week at all. So number one, treat Saturdays as the holy grail of knocking.

Speaker 2 (06:56):

Okay. And a lot of people know this, I forgot it for a while. I was actually with a company where we took Saturdays off crazy as it sounds, but we took Saturdays off just mostly because our VP of sales wanted to, you know, be with his family that day. So he said, uh, I'm taking that day off. Everyone else should do. It was optional. So we, I took that day off for quite a while actually. But now I am being reminded of how big Saturdays can be this day can literally turn your terrible week into an, you know, a decent week and why it should go without saying, but obviously more people are home. People are in a better mood. Decision-makers are there most Saturdays, both husband and wife are there, right? Where during the week, most of the time, it's just one spouse, depending on when you knock, right?

Speaker 2 (07:48):

But this allows you to set more, same days. This allows you to get in the door and close them that same day. That's why in our team here in San Diego, we say, Saturdays are for same days. You need to get out on the weekends. Push will seem days. You're getting people in a great mood and it's giving you an opportunity to get some deals without even having an appointment set up. So this is what I did actually last week. This is where I'm doing this episode because last week it was a pretty average week. I had one close, I think on Thursday, I'm like, I need at least one more on the week, especially cause I mean, uh, the knock start coaching group and working with Taylor McCarthy and those guys and Taylor, he was really pushing me. He's like, dude, I need you to hit some bigger numbers.

Speaker 2 (08:41):

I'm going to this next month. I'm going to an event down in key west. Tiffany, you're going to hit me up, come say hi, but Taylor's saying, Hey man, I need your producing some big numbers. Cause you're coming to this event. You're taking days off. So I'm like, all right, I cannot have a week where I only hit one. I need minimum two this week. So I'm like, okay, God's Saturday coming Thursday, Friday, we're soup for tough days. I think I was out knocking, um, five or six hours. Both of those days. I think I only got three appointments and all of them fell through all three appointments. Um, so I'm like, okay, Saturday needs to be massive. Get out there. I set three same days. And I talked about this in my Instagram stories. So apologize if you've already heard it before, but I set, um, my first same day in the morning guy was pretty chill out the door, but I get it.

Speaker 2 (09:36):

Yeah. I go in, he says, Hey, we're not filling out any applications, but show me some numbers. And I'm like, okay. Yeah, no problem. Um, I wouldn't expect it or do anything if it didn't benefit you. And if didn't look like it was beneficial and something you guys needed, obviously thinking that, okay, I'm going to turn this guy around. I'm going to get them closed up. I'm going to get them making a decision today. And I almost did it, but I get to the end. We built some value. I told him why as neighbors are doing it right now. I said, we need to get this soon. So you can get grandfathered named in these net metering rates. And you can get your tax credits before it goes down eventually. And he seemed to be buying it. But then when we put pen to the paper, getting the last four of his social and all that, he just laid the clamp down.

Speaker 2 (10:27):

He's like, no, no, I'm not doing it. He hesitated. I had him hesitated and think about it for probably 15, 20 seconds. But then he went back to it and then it just started driving me crazy. I could not get the bottom of why he didn't want to, you know, at least see if his home would get approved. Right. You're doing the takeaways. I'm doing the pull back saying, Hey man, let's just see if it's even an option for you guys. We got to do the site survey. We gotta check the home, pull back like crazy. But he was not biting on these. And he was not giving me any reason why he didn't want to at least see if you could get approved for solar. So that first same day was a dud. Um, we ended up just, he was getting frustrated and I was getting nowhere.

Speaker 2 (11:13):

So finally I just stood up and said, okay, I got to go. And just walked out the door quick psycho. It gets the point where if you're running in circles, getting anywhere, just move on to the next door. Right. We had run in circles for probably 10, 15 minutes was not giving me any reasons, given me nothing to work with and was just getting frustrated. So kind of stormed out of there. Then the second, same day I went to Feld credits got in pretty interested. Yeah. And actually didn't even run it. She told me she had a bankruptcy, but yeah, just how it goes. So I was feeling pretty defeated. I'm like, man, maybe this is how it's going to end. Maybe I'm only going to get one on the week, but I busted out my calm app. If you guys don't have some sort of meditation app, I would highly recommend calm or there's.

Speaker 2 (12:06):

Um, there's one other one. I like I'm forgetting what it's called right now, but a couple of meditation apps. I think those are key. If you're having mindset issues on the door, do a quick meditation. Okay. Take five minutes. Um, yeah, I went and they see my car for five minutes, but the key is don't get stuck in your car or wherever you're at. Right? So take a five minute meditation, get your mindset. Right. Did some affirmations. And then I got back out there said, I'm going to, I'm going to get that one that one's out there. Not leads me to my next point. The second point, which is always knock one more door. Okay. If you haven't heard this concept, one more door, always live by that live by a standard. And it's what top producers talk about all the time. Um, going back to Mike O'Donnell he lived by this every time he closes a deal, he says, I'm going to go out.

Speaker 2 (13:08):

I need to get at least one. No, I'm not leaving the area till I get one. No. So can be that, but just do one more. It's amazing to me. How many times where again, I'm having a terrible week or I haven't gotten anything on the day and I do one more. It turns into a close deal. Turns into an appointment. Turns my day around. So whether it's one more door, whether it's knocking till 8 0 5, when you're going to knock till eight, just think of ways you can do one more gang. I'm not telling you go all night, but do one more than you're planning on doing. And that's what I did on Saturday. I had gotten two same days. So I was happy about that. Like sweet to same day appointments got inside both of them, but there's gotta be someone that's going to close.

Speaker 2 (13:58):

So I go, I go, I'm knocking. I'm getting no one home. After that Saturday, it's like three 30 at that point. Usually knock 10 to three on Saturdays. So I'm like, come on. I need, I need to find someone out here. So just about they give up and I said, okay, I'm not getting people home. I need to find at least just one person that's here. So at this point I'm not knocking every door. I'm just wandering the neighborhood now found someone outside. He was a renter like Dan, I go in the back, this one of those neighborhoods where they have like garages behind the homes. And so I see one garage door open might get that's it that's my cell. I go, he answers the door, get inside. He said he had just barely gotten two quotes for solar. He's looking to get solar soon.

Speaker 2 (14:50):

I said, well, we got what you're looking for. Did the presentation, buckled him up? Boom, let's go. So that's how you need to do it. This is how you turn your bad weeks into good ones. My Solarpreneurs, you push, you do big Saturdays, Saturdays or four-seam days. And then you go one more door. You do one more and then you're expecting you to do you get that one last? No. Even after you told yourself, you're going to quit. Excuse me, got allergies here. So that's my message for today. Go out, be great. This week, crush your summer goals and do not slow down whatever you do. If you need that extra accountability. If you need that extra push, go on to our website, excuse me again. Solciety.co hit the inner circle tab. Click apply. Book a call. We'll see if it's a good fit for the program. So we'll see you on the other side and we'll see you in the next episode.

Speaker 3 (15:52):

Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside.

Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!

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. All right,

Speaker 2 (02:01):

Welcome back everybody. If you guys are not familiar with me, my name is James Swiderski. I was one of the, uh, original co-hosts and guests of the Solarpreneur podcast. You guys are listening to. I helped Taylor build this up a few years back. Some of you may know me from my sales training program. I used to have called the Solar Spartan system, which is now uploaded for free, or my marketing agencies, Solarpreneur. I've been in the industry for about six years now at this point, I've owned and operated my own solar company, um, marketing as well, sales training, and, uh, Ben really an integral part of every aspect of this industry. And one thing has remained consistent throughout my career within solar. And that is training solar reps. I've trained over a thousand solar reps at this point directly, not just through videos or podcasts like this.

Speaker 2 (02:56):

I've actually been in the room training, sitting with reps, working with them through their mindset issues, their tactics, going out on the doors with them, listening to their calls and coaching them with over a thousand different reps. And the purpose of this series train to win is to put out some content for you. Business owners specifically, um, this podcast has primarily catered towards reps, right? And yes, we've thrown into marketing strategies and whatnot in here, but there has not been any, any specific content for how to actually train and scale a sales team, which is what I have been doing personally for the better part of six years. I've trained and scaled teams, upwards of eight figures per year. My own sales team. I'm managing over a hundred reps at one point, and I've got a couple of tactics and strategies I want to talk about over the next coming months, um, within this podcast format here.

Speaker 2 (03:53):

So if you like this type of content, keep tuning in, you're going to see train to win on each podcast episode. And it's going to be primarily for business owners, VPs, directors, anybody who's managing and growing a sales team. Now let's dive into today's topic and my case study and story I want to talk about here. This is stuff that I have really only taught with my personal clients. I'm working with some of the largest solar companies in the country. Um, this is stuff that I have not actually legally been able to share. I know this sounds like marketing hype and whatnot, but this is stuff I have not actually been able to share because of contract rule like obligations and, uh, privacy with clients and whatnot. And I couldn't share the exact case studies and things like that. And quite frankly, it's stuff that I wanted to keep for myself when I was operating a company a few years back, but the table is, have quite literally turned and things are different now.

Speaker 2 (04:52):

And I could come out and talk about some of these strategies for you to benefit and implement within your company. So the $3.2 million weekend sounds like a crazy outlandish promise. I'm just going to confront it right away. Right. Um, but if you break down the math on this 3.2 million in solar is not that crazy. And then we're going to talk about in this case study, we actually did battery sales with this. This is with the startup company called Evelar solar that it worked with back in Utah on the first part of my career, a couple of years into my career re really where I got my feet wet in the industry, um, and was able to really learn all of the aspects of the solar business to eventually start my own company. And, um, the promo that we did specifically over a weekend, um, with our 11 reps was we were introducing a new partnership with Sonnen.

Speaker 2 (05:43):

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the Sonnen-battery company. Um, we were introducing a new partnership with them, a new product launch and offer, and we put together a special promo over about two weeks that the very pinnacle point was a 72 hour period over. And I can't remember what holiday it was, but it was like Memorial day weekend or something like that. Um, so let's just dive into the meat here. What do we actually do? Okay. First of all, we warmed up our lists of homeowners who were current customers and past leads can at the time, I believe we had about 2,500 customers. So we had a lot of customers. Um, and then we had, I don't know, 10, 20,000 leads, right? So we had a lot of to work with, but these were dead leads that, um, most companies would consider dead stale.

Speaker 2 (06:37):

Right? They've been talked to a million times beat to death. Um, and nobody had called these guys in months or years. Right. Just rotting away in the CRM. Okay. So what we did is we took our list of customers, right? Couple of thousand, right? And we separated those from the other guys. And for two weeks, four to five times a week, we emailed these customers would just value content. Okay. How to save money on your electric bills, boom, walking them through an energy audit in the home, right. How to use a tax credit when you go solar, right? Whatever the content was. And I can't remember the very specifics of what it was. It was value-driven content to really just get the line of communication open. And then in the first week we introduced the offer. We said, Hey, we've got something very special coming up.

Speaker 2 (07:27):

We're going to call and announce it. Next weekend. One of our reps are going to call you, they're going to tell you about the new, special, our new partnership with Sonen. So you can, uh, go off the grid without your, uh, with electricity, blah, blah, blah, benefit on the battery. Just kind of hooking them and teasing them for that aspect of the promo. Right? So plain and simple. I think you guys get it warm up the list for two weeks prior, right? During this two weeks, you're also going to hype up your sales team. Step number two here. Right? And you're going to tell them, Hey, we've got a massive promo, massive drop sewn and batteries, whatever our, to whatever your offer is, Ken, we've got this massive thing dropping. You guys need to be prepared for this. We're going to have a specific contest for when this drops.

Speaker 2 (08:17):

Um, and you're going to involve every department, not just sales. We'll get into this in a moment, but make sure the entire company is onboard with what's going on here. Step number three is this is going to be a time sensitive promo for not just the homeowners, but it's also going to be a time sensitive promo for your reps. Okay. So what does this mean? The offer is going to be gone. It's a onetime 72 hour offer, and I believe it should be 72 hours. You could go a little longer and I've done it, but hasn't met as effective as that 72 hours. If it's one day, it's not quite long enough, give it three full days a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or a Thursday, Friday, Saturday. You want to give it that time? Okay. And what you're also going to do is you're going to put together a commission offer for your reps.

Speaker 2 (09:12):

This is what we did. So normally reps would make unbeliev as, uh, let's see, 200 kilowatt is what they were doing. This was in Utah as well. So not crazy California. Yeah. But 200 kilowatt was the commission. And, uh, for battery sales, I believe it was just a flat 1000 a piece. And what they did is they two X the battery commissions. So that was also 200 kilowatt for each battery. And then we also did, um, a 1.5 X commission multiplier on normal sales commissions, just for sales made within the 72 hour period. Right? So to review, we have a time sensitive offer and promo for the homeowner. This could be 12 months free power just for the three months. It could be anywhere from we've done 36 months free power before that could be whatever you want. New battery drop. I believe the promo we did at this point was, uh, 12 months, no payments for batteries and solar.

Speaker 2 (10:10):

So they got a battery free of payments for their first year. Um, and then it was like a $500 back or something like that. Um, whatever there's a lot of offers you could do, but put together a time-sensitive offer for the homeowner and then a commission offer to go with it. You need the commission offer because that's going to push your reps to engage with the contest. Many business owners and clients have worked with where they make a mistake. When it comes to contests, they don't get proper engagement. And this is a real easy way to fix that. Hyping the contest up. And then, um, actually having a commission multiplier, step number four. What this process we do is we had clear action items. All right. So everybody had two lists. Every single participant in the contest blitz had a list of customers. And we had a list of leads, old leads in the CRM aged leads, right?

Speaker 2 (11:04):

Um, so we split those lists up into two, divided them up, right? Top producers got a little bit higher quality warmer leads, obviously, and then everybody else got the other ones. Um, and then we made sure everybody's prepared for this. This wasn't like we're wasting time on day. One of the launch trying to figure out lists. This was prepared well in advance leads were well informed. What was coming. They had lots of value in the door, right? And it was time to take some action. And then number five here. The last thing we did is we called every lead and customer twice per day, once in the morning, once in the evening morning from nine to 12:00 PM, Ken, and then once in the evening from six to 9:00 PM. So twice per day and those two sessions for the three days back to back to back.

Speaker 2 (11:51):

So you're calling every lead right? Twice per day, three days in a row, you're going to leave a voice memo. The voice memo is going to be about the promo. Hey, this is James with X, Y, Z solar company. We've got a special promo going on where we are offering insert your offer. It's time sensitive. I need you to give me a call back before tomorrow at 12 o'clock. So you guys don't miss this, that's it right now. Some of you guys may be saying, don't leave voice memos is a waste of time. I totally disagree. I am a strong believer in voice memos and the effectiveness, and especially in a promotion type of setting, you want to be leaving voice memos with your customers. That's how you're going to get these callbacks. And then for every single one of these calls, you're going to shoot them a text.

Speaker 2 (12:44):

And it's going to be a simple text of first name, question, mark, shoot the text. And you're looking for a response, right? And you just want to get an established contact so they know who's calling. And then for every single call, you make double ring, double dials. They don't answer the first one, give it a double dial, right? If you want to go hyper, hyper aggressive, triple dial, okay. You have to hit the three days in a row though. That's the key here because a lot of them will not pick up on the first day. I'd say about a 20, 30% pickup rate on the first day, second day, that's where stuff's going to start to happen. The last day, 80% of your sales are going to happen on that last day. So what are the total numbers for when we did this, actually went back into the CRM and looked at the numbers from what we did.

Speaker 2 (13:32):

Um, there was 42 deals and they were about $75,000 a piece on an average contract. Now you might be say at 75, that's a freaking huge, this was a sewn in battery plus solar. Okay. Almost every deal that was sold on this weekend was with a battery and sown and batteries. If you're not familiar at the time, they were about 25, 30 5,000 a piece for the small ones. Some of the bigger ones were close to a hundred grand for a piece as well. So averaged out we did about 42 contracts, 75, a piece 11 reps, 3.2 mil in revenue. So guys, this is not rocket science. I'm not sharing anything that you guys probably have not taken a stab at before, or at least thought about doing this is just straight up execution and getting your team on board. The biggest problem, as I said, company owners have with doing contest blitzes promotions.

Speaker 2 (14:29):

Like this is participation and participation comes from the top. Okay? I want you to remember this participation starts with you. If you are not 100% sold on this with your partners, with your managers, with your VP, this thing's not going to work. You need to have management all of your stakeholders all in on this thing. I have never been able to get a company to adopt any sort of sales training, marketing plan, a strategy promotion, whatever it is. I've never been able to get a company in my career so far to implement something like this. If all of the stakeholders were not on board, you need to have your entire team on this. So whatever you got to do, sit down with them, hype them up, talk about it. You really have nothing to lose and doing a promotion like this. That's the other thing I want to leave you here.

Speaker 2 (15:21):

What do you have to lose here? Because you might be thinking that the incentives could be expensive, right? Oh, we can't do a two X commission or a 1.5 X commission. Right? We'll do the numbers. If your guys generated an extra 10 deals because of this contest, 15, 20, 40 deals like we did, right? What does that pay out? Do the numbers and look at how can you afford to do the contest? Because the reality is you can't afford to not be doing contests like this on a regular basis. The top companies and clients I've worked with, they do promotions all the time. Weekly contest challenges, monthly contest, quarterly yearly. They're doing them constantly because you have to keep things interesting for your reps. If you don't have interesting promotions for your reps to get them engaged, get them excited to show up in the office, go out on the doors, right?

Speaker 2 (16:16):

You're going to have a high turnover rate. If you're not throwing unique, interesting offers in front of your customers on a regular basis, calling them and upselling them additional products and services. You're just literally throwing money out in the trash, right? You are wasting opportunity wasting cash. The last takeaway I will give you here is you've got to follow up with your leads, this contest. This is the most amazing part of this contest. In my opinion, these were not new leads. These were old quote unquote dead leads. Think about it. Most reps will say, oh, that's dead opportunity. They'll never go solar. Every single rep in my office when we were doing this and every client I've implemented this with, guess what? Like all of the reps say, oh, they're not going to go solar because of this or this or this. We take that out of the equation by just mixing up the leads and passing them around the company.

Speaker 2 (17:14):

And all of a sudden you've got reps calling other reps leads and they don't know what the situation was. They don't know what the heck happened. And guess what happens? We start closing those deals. Okay? Do not let the limiting belief of your reps or the situation or interaction your reps had with leads, taint your conversion rates with your leads. Okay? Age, the leads and opportunities are still opportunities. Take advantage of them. My friends, it will pay, let us know, hit up. Taylor, head, hit them up with an email. Find me on social. Primarily I'm on LinkedIn. Hit me up and let me know what the results of this contest did for you guys. I promise you if you do this follow exactly what I just talked about. Warm up the leads for two weeks, have a unique compelling offer with your existing product or introducing a new product.

Speaker 2 (18:09):

Hype up your sales team, have a special promotion for them and then send them for them. Make it time sensitive, have clear prepared items. Have the list prepared the day before two days before, make sure everybody's ready to go and then call every lead and customer twice a day, three days in a row. Voicemails texts, double rings, guys. You're going to make some magic happen with this thing. All right. I hope you guys enjoyed the content onto the next one. I will talk to you guys real soon. It's been real. My name's James Swiderski and until next time

Speaker 1 (18:42):

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Speaker 2 (00:42):

Solarpreneurs. We have another exciting guest today. We're back with another episode. Hope you guys are doing well today. We have someone that's been a long time coming on the show. If you're on Facebook, you had to have heard of him by now. We've got the one, the only Solar Joe. Solar Joe, thanks for coming on

Speaker 3 (00:59):

Today, man. Thank you for having me, but I'm actually a good and bad cause. First of all, thank you for having me on the Solarpreneurs podcast. I've been a big fan of yours for years, man. And um, I just being invited on is, is a big honor. So thank you. But I did, I have to follow Jory Sullivan's story. I mean, how was anybody starting that one, then I'm going to do that to me.

Speaker 2 (01:23):

Well, we might have a few, we'll have a few between that. So don't worry. You're not going to be right after him.

Speaker 3 (01:30):

Some crazy stuff. That was a good one.

Speaker 2 (01:33):

Yeah, this is awesome. But no, we're excited to have you on. And um, I just said Solar Joe, cause I don't even, I don't even know how to say your last name. Like

Speaker 3 (01:42):

I'm still trying to figure it out myself, but uh, I think it's something like Mousakheel

Speaker 2 (01:47):

Mousakheel Okay. That's

Speaker 3 (01:50):

Really the number one reason why having a nickname, solar, Joe, I would go into, I would go into a home and you know, after I leave, I would write my name, Joe Mousakheel and my phone number. And they would save it in their cell phone as Joan was skill and my number. And they would never find me like, who was that guy? What was his name? So I decided to start doing solar Joe, whenever I left. I said, save that in your phone. That's Solar Joe. So when they look it up, they just remember solar started selling it and I come up. So that's literally how I got solar done.

Speaker 2 (02:21):

Okay. It makes sense. Yeah. No, I figured out, I figured that was part of the reason where's that last, where's that name from even what does that

Speaker 3 (02:28):

My family originally? My, both my parents are from Afghanistan.

Speaker 2 (02:33):

Oh, okay. Gotcha. That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (02:35):

So when I was a kid, I would say on propaganda, Stan, everybody, like, where's that place? What Afghanistan? What is that? Now? It's Afghanistan. Everybody knows that it's a different dynamic and I was a kid.

Speaker 2 (02:47):

That's awesome. Hello name? Can't say I've had, uh, anyone of Afghanistan descent here on the show. So you're the first to say that anymore. Well, cool man. Um, no excited to have you on. And um, yeah, for those that don't, everyone should know Joe at this point, but yeah, he has probably the best, uh, Facebook group for solar. He runs a solar objections group. Um, and they do a lot of like live streams in that, on how to overcome objections and really just some awesome content. So definitely if you're not in that group, I would suggest go and join it today because you're not going to want to miss the fire he has on that.

Speaker 3 (03:24):

Thank you so much. And I feel like I'm just like the host, right? I'm just like, yeah, let me get the best soul pros in the country to do interview. They give trainings and try to organize it. Yeah. So that the page is clean and it's really like, we're getting good value content as opposed to like recruiting and kind of spanning stuff. So I think prior to making sure it's clean and try to get as much value as possible, but thank you so much for that.

Speaker 2 (03:47):

Yeah, for sure, man. No, I'm trying to, we, I have Facebook group as well, so we're preneurs, but all I know I don't do as a near as good of a job at managing it in bringing on quality stuff on that. So I'm trying to learn from your Facebook group as well, but no, thank you. Yeah, we appreciate everything you've done, you know, bringing value and um, you know, teach other solar pros. So Joe, do you want to tell us kinda how you got into the solar industry and how you, uh, I don't know, decided to start the Facebook group and everything like that?

Speaker 3 (04:18):

Well, it started a long time ago. Well, before I even moved to California, which is 2004, I was in Manhattan. And um, back in the day, like late nineties, early two thousands, everybody was a computer specialist, right. Everybody was at, and that's where the money was. I was working and making good money, but it was like, I wasn't passionate about it. It was like a ceiling. And you were like, this is all you're gonna make. This can do for the rest of your life was like, it wasn't. I was excited about it. So when I came to California, which has its own story, I decided to switch things up and I really was excited about sales even in Manhattan because I would see the guys that sales department like happy, excited, running around energized, and our department be like boring another day, you know? So I was always like interested in the sales.

Speaker 3 (05:06):

So I came up to California. I was like, all right, this is my opportunity to try something different. And I just excelled. It just came naturally to me on day one. Um, whatever it was will become the number one salesperson in the company, um, top salesperson for the year. And it wasn't because I was special gift in a sales. It was like that competitive spirit and people like when you want to win and you want to figure it out, like you're going to be creative. You can think of things that people are doing. So that's when I got my, I was like, all right, I got something I'm pretty good at sales. I'm pretty good at getting people excited, getting marketing. Um, and then I got into insurance for like seven years because it was one of those jobs. You actually work nine to five and still being sales.

Speaker 3 (05:54):

There's not many sales jobs. You could be working nine to five and still be it's like, oh, sales jobs are like, you have to work nights and weekends cars, you know, stuff like that. So I had opportunities to get a nine to five sales job. I was like, let's go. I did that for years salesman of the year. But same thing happened though. It was like, it was just a job. Right. I was just doing it to get by and get a paycheck. I was never passionate about it. One day a customer came in and he was like frustrated. He was like, man, I got this solar job. And people are looking amazing people aren't buying it. And I had to we'll talk to me coming through what it is. And he wasteland to me, I was like, this is too good to be true.

Speaker 3 (06:36):

You're making money. You're saving money has been in their environment. Like what are the negatives? And it was just like, just people who don't get it. I was like, Ooh. So I started like Googling and researching and figuring this out. And I was like, I have something here, you know? So I started getting really excited. Um, and my wife at the same time, I was helping her start her own insurance company. So about after three years I felt like she was good or the world oil is running a machine. I said, all right, my opportunity jumped into solar. So I was fully aware of what solar was and how it works. I thought, right. So at the beginning of 2016, I said, you know what, let me work at the company where Elon Musk is putting his time and effort. Like he's, he's running solar city pretty much as I thought. Right. Um, and then when I worked there, I found out that's not the case. It was just not what I thought. Um, one of the, it was great though. Cause I got great training. They flew me out to Vegas. Uh, I mean I got, I read every word of his lease and PPA, you know, so I knew exactly what it said, what, what they were on. I won a couple of poker tournaments while I was out there, which is nice.

Speaker 3 (07:44):

I came back all this knowledge, but the thing was, this is the manager told me, he said, you know, I was like, Hey, there's no ownership options. It's just like, how am I going to almost don't want to own the solution. That's going to come later in the year, like end of the year, I was like, well, what am I going to do? You know, like, that's not an option for me. I said, you guys, I know it's not, you it's me. You know, I got to go find some other opportunities. So I was really into like ownership. Um, so I said, let me look for a place that does only ownership. Uh, so I worked at a place, I don't want to name names, but I was there for like two years and salesman of the year. Um, the great, it was just also was, it was like kind of felt like I wasn't doing what's best for the home.

Speaker 3 (08:26):

I was kind of like forcing whatever the company had. You know, I don't talk to the owner. I was like, you don't have to have these issues about like, I'm feeling a force-feeding thing, two chefs, more options, and they're made different finance options. You would say just shove it down. Their throat, exact words to me. I said, I just can never forget him saying that to me. And I was like, no, it is not the energy. I felt like I needed to find something that was going to be helping the homeowner as opposed to helping to sell the company. So I decided to go on my own and figure that out. So I started working with companies that are installers. Um, and I started doing solar, a seminar tour of California, which was amazing. Um, worked with set and city to city county all over California, full of restaurants of homeowners, the week full of appointments. Like it was just like killer. I like all 2020 books, but guess what happened? I've been struck down. I wouldn't from a high to zero, so I really had to start figuring stuff out. And that's what I was my, my, my first virtual was right after the app and I'd never did a virtual before that ever. Um, and I said, you know what, when I do something, I'm all in. I'm not like, oh, you just try it out.

Speaker 3 (09:49):

I'm not going to, when I do something, I'm let me pivot. This is a good time to pay that. So I started just trying to focus on like training, giving value content. Um, so about a year ago I decided to start the Facebook page, uh, Solar Objections now first book group. I mean, it wasn't like, I was just like, oh, let me figure it out. Let me do something. It was like from years of experience using Facebook groups, I figured what is going to be the most engaging value content. Like I feel like you're going to start a Facebook group. You should be the best person in that group. Right. So that's, that's what I did. Like, I would be a big banner of engagement. I would give you comments, whatever, you know, whatever it is. Um, there was this one time I remember a bill Murphy.

Speaker 3 (10:34):

I'm sure he knows. So he did a contest. Um, it was, um, whoever had the best objection handling for, I think it was, um, not right now or something like that. I answered it came up and uh, you are for $250 to sit a winner. It was crazy content, crazy engagement I won. And after that, every objection I would handle, I feel like I kept getting the highest end gate. I kept getting high comments, like highlights, high reactions. I said, you know what? This has something here. Right? So I felt like, objection, handling is a big deal. But also the word objection means more than that, right. It just means like what's going on in these homeowner's minds that had this option and they're not doing it right. That's insane. And that's what I feel like our job as a solar community is to get past like, let's figure out why then I go and sell it.

Speaker 3 (11:28):

So we got all the industry help them. Um, and so I was doing that engaging content and just having fun with that. Um, and it was on fire from the beginning, just a hundred to 200 people every week, just joining on their own. And then one day, um, Brett Williams, who I'm gonna have on my one year anniversary show said, he said, uh, one day he was just like, you know what? We should do a, you know, a live action role play. I always say that we should do a role play. You're on live stream. I said, okay. I'm like, okay. And I went to that Wednesday, that Wednesday, I just went to my first live stream. I had a modest album out. I'm not sure if you know who he is, he's a solar feast. And he decided to get on there and I did terrible.

Speaker 3 (12:13):

I was awkward. I just jumped into it. And it was like, it was terrible. Right. It was amazing. I mean, he was like tremendous like tone and overcoming objections. Closing me. It was like, I was amazing. I was like, there's something here. I was like, this is awesome. So then I got next to him. I liked Johnny Kinzer and then Glenn Meyers. And it was just like, this is fun. Right. It was just like, it wasn't even work. It was like, I'm talking to people, we're doing role-plays or having a training, you know? So it just got addicted to me. And it wasn't even like a job. It was like golfing on the weekends. It's fun. And it was the best part. It was, everybody was enjoying it too.

Speaker 3 (12:58):

And then, and then more people hear about it. The more people get on the show, then you'll get Michael Donald, or they get Jake has this, like it's bigger, big on his son. And so it was just like, my biggest thing was I always do is two things. I do it. Okay. I just do it. There's no, don't be scared. Just do it. And the second thing is I tried to be as creative and different as possible. And those two things is taken to me where I've gotten so far. I'm not saying I'm anywhere yet, but I definitely Excel from what I've started from this, this year. I never, before a year ago I do a live stream that I do a virtual, this all started one year ago today. Wow.

Speaker 2 (13:35):

That's awesome. Well, congrats on hitting almost the one year anniversary. That's a big accomplishment and I'm yeah. I can tell you just have that excitement. I mean, I can't help just like smiling and getting excited about solar when I hear you talk, let's go, go. And so I love that. Love that. And yeah, I think it's for sure as you know, um, I mean you're in LA or something, is that where you're at Sacramento SAC. Okay. Okay. Well I'm yeah, I'm in San Diego. So obviously all of California is pretty competitive. Um, you know, with the solar. And I think that San

Speaker 3 (14:06):

Diego, San Diego I'll tell you right now, most solar beasts I've ever seen in my life. So many solo monsters. And so Cal it's crazy. I like every time I can name like probably 10 right now, but I mean, how did you guys do it because of SPG and a

Speaker 2 (14:27):

Everyone wants to be down here. He got the best weather and beaches and stuff like that. True. I guess

Speaker 3 (14:34):

If you are the best solar pro, you can choose any of her to live. You might as well as San Diego.

Speaker 2 (14:40):

Yeah. But no, that's really what it comes down to though is just be indifference and, you know, just having your own spin on things. Cause especially in competitive markets, I think that's the only way that you're getting cells is if you're different. Cause every door we go through, every homeowner we doctor, I mean, they've usually got multiple quotes. They've talked to multiple people. So if you don't know how to crush these objections, overcome them and be a true professional like you and you know, other guys are teaching. Um, I think it's going to really going to be really tough to succeed for sure. So I also, yeah, I would

Speaker 3 (15:11):

Add one more thing is caring about the audience and caring about the homeowner. It goes hand in hand, like you can go ahead and like a lot of people I noticed like love training and they give awesome value, but then you don't, they don't get the engagement. And sometimes it's not because they don't have awesome training or some values because people don't like to be talked to or don't be like to be like, um, I don't know. I feel like you're in college and he's sitting at a place where he's just giving a training deal, like engagement, people care about what they care about. So that's why I feel like I really work because I listen to the audience. I really try to figure out what they want, what they're, what they're leading. And I even asked him, I'd be like, Hey guys, you know, give me some feedback. What do you like? What don't you like? And I would take that and I would really use that because at the end of the day, that's what I'm doing this for is the audience. Right. And that's where they gave his from. So really caring about the audience and that homo wonder solar is to me is like something that's so crucial. I don't think people really underrated individually how much we should really care about. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (16:13):

For sure. No, I love that too. And it's something I'm trying to do on the podcast is just ask people like what, what day would you like about the podcast? What don't you like can get feedback? And I know you try to do that in a group too. Um, I heard John Lee Dumas, you heard it, the entrepreneurs on fire podcast. It's one of the biggest like entrepreneurial business podcasts out there. And he still to this day, hops on phone calls with just like, you know, random listers and says, Hey, can I call you and just say, Hey, what do you like? What, what needs improvement on the show? So I think that's a key factor. Anyone that's trained to build an audience since even, you know, as you're trained to sell your homeowners. I think it's something we can do as solar salespeople. Hey, what did you like about the process? What didn't you like? And uh, yeah, that's something super important in just making improvements in our sales process. And as we're trained, both trying to build audiences to, um, add value to, for people we, I want to ask yes too. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (17:08):

Definitely. Yes. Like these guests are amazing and it's like, they give so much value. It's it got to be about them, what they can offer in one thing I want to make sure I add is like there's value from the most, the least experience for the most experienced, there is value to get from them. And I'm telling you like, even somebody who's like six months in a solo, like a Joelle gossip. I don't know if you know him from, uh, Miami. I mean, this guy is a beast and he's only six months, but he, because he's different. He's funny. He's outgoing, like, right. So like, to me, it's not always about like, oh, you're seven years experienced. I mean, you got to learn from you. Like, no, it's like, there's some people kind of right off the bat, like myself. I first month with a new company I worked at after solar city, I was a salesman of the month, the first month. Right. But I'd have to knock on any doors. I just walked into a closing always to be a lot easier. Right. So anyway, I don't know I was getting onto it. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (18:06):

That's good. No, that's a good point that, I mean, I've, I've been doing this five years. I, I know you've been in it forever. It happens all the time where I get people coming from alarms or other industries that like outsell me their first month. And I'm like, what the heck? I got five years. These guys are coming in, out selling me. But

Speaker 3 (18:24):

I think the solar industry is unique that way. And it really is because how many Indians you can, the person coming on the first day make as much money as the most experienced solar professional. There's not many cars out there called know nothing about solar and just be the best hustler and power bill getter and appointment setter. And not knowing anything about solar and make a hundred, $200,000 easily in today's platforms. Right. And like, you don't even need to know sellers to make money and sell the industry. And that's what I started to figure out. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (18:58):

No, that's super unique. Yeah. I mean, I'm on, I'm on a team right now where we have probably 30 ads on our team that just came from alarms like months ago. And they're used to being on the doors, you know, like 12 o'clock and knock until nine o'clock at night. So they're coming and they're like, oh, that's that same thing we do in solar. Right? Like they don't know any better. And here I am knocking mighty now like three, four hours a day thinking I'm going hard. These guys I'm going go on all day. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:24):

But then it is a numbers game, more doors. You're going to get more.

Speaker 2 (19:29):

Oh no. So it's like, no wonder these guys are out selling me so a hundred percent. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, I wanted to ask you, Joe. Um, I know you've as you're coming up on your year anniversary with the group and everything, like what, what was the goal was you started the group initially. Did you like envision it growing to this point? Or what was your goal starting up the Facebook group?

Speaker 3 (19:48):

Well, zero expectancy. I don't expect anything. I hope for the best, but I always try to be genuine. I will always try to offer value, try to help. Um, a big influence on me is Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary V um, not so much that I'm following him, but he gives me good feelings that I'm doing it. Right. Right. Like you don't have to make a thousand dollars on each person. You talk to, you just give value and things work out in the end. It's proven that that right there, because I'm not making money out of Facebook or I'm not, it's not like I'm monetizing it. Just try and get value. But I talked to like, I mean, so many people every day, right. I'm able to give advice and that's always comes with it. So give me, give me, give it value. Uh, be able to, um, I just feel like I'm able to do it.

Speaker 3 (20:38):

It's not, it's just hard to do that. So if you're in Facebook groups and you feel like you're the most engaging person and you have some good creative posts and you're out there doing it, you may be able to do your own Facebook group too. Right. So it's not hard. It's just about wanting to do it, making it like a hobby, doing it every weekend, taking a real, like making sure you're you care about the audience. Um, give value, give, be funny, be creative. Um, you know, being gay to get people down there, like it's not, it's not somebody gets a brain surgery. It's somebody you really want to believe you believe and to do it, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:11):

No, that's, what's cool. I think we both know like the money in solar is like selling solar. Like I don't think you're gonna make more money anywhere. You can make someone waiting to be made. So it's like people that think we're making big money by me doing this podcast. Are you doing the Facebook groups? Like, no, we're not. I mean, that's not where the money is at and we're making the money in solar and solar ourselves. That's what I appreciate what we're doing. And what I'm trying to do too, is like, we're just trying to spread the value and um, you know, help others. And I've gotten, like you were saying earlier, I've gotten probably more value than anything. Like, I don't care necessarily if tons of people are listening to podcasts, but just by talking to guys like you, like, uh, you know, Mike, O'Donnell all the other high level people we've had on like Gary or Bible.

Speaker 3 (21:59):

I feel like if it was no audience at all, I could do that once a week and talk to these amazing solar pros alone. I'm getting value out of that. Right. I'm learning so much and I'm like a sponge, so I try to pick up and learn as much from everybody. So that's a great point. That's another thing why I value it too. I'm learning each week too.

Speaker 2 (22:16):

Yeah, I know. So it's so awesome to be able to do that, but yeah, I mean, with that being said, do you have any future plans for the Facebook group or, um, I don't know any, any exciting stuff coming up with that or what's your plan for the future with the Solar Objections group?

Speaker 3 (22:31):

I mean, it's kinda like, uh, you know, I guess I golfing on the weekend, what's your goal with golf in the weekend? Our goal is just to get better and better, have fun doing it and get more people that want to do. And with me, um, you know, like that's how I look at it. It's not, I'll look at it as like, oh, I'm going to take over the world. I'm like, I I'm having fun doing it. You guys want to join me too. Let's go. Um, but I also like the interactions, um, personally, like people don't know who I am, but now they feel like they know me better because they see me on video talking every day. So they feel like they message me. Hey, Joe, I got a question about this. Like I really do value that, uh, part of it too.

Speaker 3 (23:06):

So, um, I will just try to make sure people know more about that. We can do strategy sessions. We can talk, give advice, um, besides that not much, um, uh, I'm part owner and the solar academy now and, uh, awesome chief for there. So a big part of it is too is making sure that the training is out there in the industry. Um, I think you are a big believer in the same thing, right? Like third-party training is so important and that's what, I'm really a big believer. I'm not a big believer of recruiting for like a platform, like, uh, tools like EPC or solar company. Because I feel like just going to recruited you, you can be good at it, but you might just waste your time. And I do anything. I can't make you be good at solar. Right. But I can know that at all, for education training that you will not lose it, that that's going to be something you can take with you no matter where you go. And I know you can get the value out of it. Right. So that's why I feel like the recruiting, the training is where my natural instinct is towards. That's not to say that, but it's really about giving value, but also making sure that there's the people know there's another training there's trainings out there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:13):

No, I love that. And yeah, I'm sure you would agree. But when we first started in the industry, it's like, it was so tough to get training from outside sources. It's like, do you learn from your manager? And that was about it. Right? So now it's so cool. What you're doing while other people are doing the current?

Speaker 3 (24:26):

Well, my first training was, uh, when I worked at that, you know what my first set of restraining was at the first company, um, one right alone, one, right. To run along. That was my, that was my solar training should not be happening. I think that's a good point to bring up. Um, is that like a lot of people want to go from doorknocker to closer, right? That's the natural instinct. You don't want to just go for, you know, you want to do it all. If you can do it and make more money. But at the end of the day, what's going to happen is that you're going to not have the right information, help that home monitor. And you're just trying to make more money. And that's where I think initially is missing, is a solar training, a closure training, right? Like that extra level of knowing what you're talking about, knowing how to explain things, not a design things, knowing what the roof looks like, knowing the different parts of the roof, knowing the electrical nine, a breaker box like this doesn't come naturally people to know that.

Speaker 3 (25:23):

And a lot of people would rely on the company to give a true training. But no matter what company you work out, it's not gonna be, it's gonna be their training, right. It's gonna be what's best for the company. What's best for the product. It's not gonna be what's best for them. And that's, to me, it's like, yes, no matter where you work, the reason why they don't want to train you then best possible is because you'll go, cause you have all this training and knowledge. Now you can just go use that, but I didn't want to train, like you ever heard them say like, I want you to know as little as possible. I want to keep, I know as little as possible. Right? I want you to be brainwashed. So what I do cause that's, that's how we're going to make the most money together. Right. And that's why I feel like I don't want personally, that was the little as possible. That's ridiculous. Right? Like why would you want somebody doesn't know anything? I want the person that as much as possible, I'm gonna help them level that off. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:10):

No, I love that. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Joe, I wanted to jump in, obviously you're the Solar Objection guy and that's what people know you as, and I know you've had, you know, tons of the best on your live streams. Um, just hearing what they say to overcome specific, specific objections. So I wanted to jump into a few of that. Give our listeners just some, uh, actionable things. They can do some, uh, you know, maybe some one-liners things like that. So, um, yeah. Is that okay with you? If we do some, uh, I don't know, a few objections, you can give us some highlights of what the best are out there to overcome some objections.

Speaker 3 (26:45):

Let's go, baby. I will. Well, you're not a homeowner, so I might not treat you like, just like a homeowner, but I'll do my best to answer the objection. Give them the lines that you

Speaker 2 (26:53):

Okay. Cool. So yeah, let's, let's just do a few objections. Um, you know, let's, let's act like we're in the home and everything over overcome these objections. So, uh, Joe, um, yeah, you know, we've been looking into solar for awhile. Um, but yeah, we're moving probably in like three, four years. So we just don't think it's, you know, it might make sense for us. So that's, what's been holding us back.

Speaker 3 (27:16):

I totally understand. And you know, moving in three, four years, like people don't know exactly when they're going to move and if you're gonna move three, four years, they feel like you want to have this big star and then you have to change things. Let me ask you a question though. And the next three, four years, how much money do you think you're going to spend, but Tricity?

Speaker 2 (27:35):

Um, I dunno. I mean, I guess we're like 150 bucks a month right now. So, uh, what does that mean? It was

Speaker 3 (27:42):

About 1800, 1800 a year, right? Yeah. Um, and then over the next four years, you're looking about what $7,000 maybe increase rates. It could be eight to 10. Maybe if you got some crazier rate spikes, right. That money is being spent no matter what would you agree? So instead of throwing that money away, we can put it towards the solar system that you're going to be getting your money back. When you do sell your home. Now, the goal is to make sure you have the right advisor to make sure you get the right system at the right price to know that set up for you. So you don't have these crazy extra costs that should be associated with it. And also getting a real estate agent who's green certified to make sure they understand how to help you sell that solar system to have you have that, those two things you can be in. Good shape.

Speaker 2 (28:29):

Boom. There you go. Love it. Love it.

Speaker 3 (28:34):

Yeah. I don't understand is that they're spending money on electricity anyway, you know, and that's that's yeah,

Speaker 2 (28:40):

No, that's huge. Yeah. I love the, you know, renting versus owning comparison. And I think once people understand that it's like clicks in their head, for sure.

Speaker 3 (28:49):

Well, whenever they give me numbers specifically, I like to use that against them. And that's why you said that, like, if you said different words, I would've made, they'd done a different objection, but when they see numbers like that, then they had those numbers stuck in their head. And now you can really put that money in there. Cause they said it to you. They said four years. Right? So now you say, well, four years, that's $10,000. Do you want to throw that money away? Do you want to pay yourself? Right. So I try to use the what they're saying again. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:15):

Love it. Love it. Yeah. Powerful. Um, all right, let's do another one. How about um, yeah. You know what, Joe, I love this, but I just don't really want to have another loan. Like I dunno, we're trying to keep debt down. So we might just want to like save up until we can like buy a system and not have to like do alone.

Speaker 3 (29:35):

Well, you sound just like my wife. She said the same exact that's amazing. She's like, I would tell you she got two car loans. We got a mortgage and we have, she does not want any more loans such told me. But what I told her was that they were spending money either way. And if we're going to get alone, why don't we get the best loan possible? What's the best thing possible. But the loan that you make the most money on, right? So you can get more loans. That's making you a lot of money or would you stop getting load? Which keep getting more of those loans. More of them, I guess let's go, right? Like bones aren't bad. If you make money on loan, that's amazing. How many times can you borrow money and make money guaranteed? Yeah,

Speaker 2 (30:15):

That's true. That's true. Boom. We're done

Speaker 3 (30:17):

A car loan and then we'll fix it with a solar loan. How's that sound?

Speaker 2 (30:21):

That's dude. That's so funny. I know if people have like, you know, loans on their cars and RV outside and it's like on, at one another loan, it's like, are you kidding me? You have like three loans and now you don't want a loan. That's actually good. And kind of be like saving

Speaker 3 (30:36):

You money. This is the thing. Sometimes I miss the wind or solar pro hill here, this the automatically go to PPA or leaves. I don't like allowing you can do that. I'm not seeing anything wrong with that. And I don't want to go with it. But sometimes the homeowner just doesn't understand how good the Sloan is. And then once they realize a good loan is then maybe PIP is not the best option for them. So I think we should really make sure Homeland knows how amazing these loans are. For sure. Especially if we do it right. Because if you do it wrong, it could be bad. Right. But I'm talking about the right advisor, give them the right option.

Speaker 2 (31:07):

Yeah, definitely. And so as you're getting so many objections and what you're hearing from other people, how do you recognize Joe? If people like have true objections or just, you know, just treat it as kind of an excuse. What do you look for as you're hearing homeowners to be able to kind of identify if this is okay, this is just kind of excuse, or this is like legit, objection, anything you look

Speaker 3 (31:27):

For, always listened to the homeowner. And I even tell him a joke. Like I have these big ears for a reason, it's to listen to you better. Right? Like I really, I really focused on trying to listen to them what they do. Um, but sometimes there is conditions and the more experienced you get as a solar pro, the more you find those conditions and tell the homeowner. No, but that's powerful. You want to be able to hold on, to know in a lot of situations and then maybe this would be able to towards the ambassador program or referral program. Um, but if they're in the right, uh, if they're not a condition, right. Everybody knows what condition is that there's no way to overcome that objection. Right? There's no, there's not objection. Right. But most of the cases are objections. So I feel like it's, to me, it's like, I'm going to a homeowner and offering them a $10,000 check that we get the split.

Speaker 3 (32:13):

As long as we both sign. Like, it's ridiculous for you to say, no, I understand. Right? Like you don't know me. You don't know whom, what you're signing. It's a lot of money like that feelings, you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, it sounds great, but what's the catch what's going on. So I always try and make them feel like, yeah, I totally get it. I've been there. I don't, I'm not here to like sell you something. I'm here to give you options that you may not know. You're better aware that you're not, not be aware of. Great. If you don't want to do it. That's awesome. That's no problem. But at least you should know all your options. So you make the best decision for yourself and your family. Does that make sense? Yeah. Awkward silence is good too.

Speaker 2 (32:55):

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, no, it's true. And yeah, I mean just straighten objections down and really listen to people. I think everyone appreciates that. And I mean, I, what I do is I write every objection down, you know, ask them do the fact-finding this beginning of the stage. And just the fact that you're writing it down and checking them off as you actually answer their concerns and objections. I see almost just like a weight lifted from people's shoulders as you're like overcoming the things that they told you and, you know, getting close to the cell. I think it's super powerful. Um,

Speaker 3 (33:24):

Okay. Right. Like they want to, they don't want to feel like this is the first around crazy question. Like this is normal. Like my wife just had the same thing I talked to her about. Like that's, that's makes no feel like, um, this is really happening in my own world and they can relate more. And like when they hear their wife complaining about the lungs, like, oh, that's a normal thing that people have to know. Talk about supposed to, based on that, like my conversation with my wife about going solar. And it was just based on that, just having that car was cause it does a real story. Right? Like I didn't make that up, but by my wife with a loan, that's a real story. And that's what really helps me have real genuine stories you can use to convey to the homeowners. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:02):

So powerful. They hear it from someone else's perspective. Okay. How about this one, Joe? Um, here, here's one we hear in California probably more than, than other states. Uh, yeah. You know what I like this seems like it makes sense, but um, yeah. You know, I should probably go, I know there's like a bunch of other companies out there, so can you leave that? Do you have a card? And then, um, I want to go get a few other quotes and then I'll get back to you, Joe.

Speaker 3 (34:27):

Yeah, of course. This is like what I do. Like I don't actually work for a company. I actually worked for the homeowner because I want to make sure that you're getting exactly what you need. So what I can do is help you with that. But if you want to do your own, of course, I'll let you do that. So what we can do is set up another appointment after you're done with your quotes. And what we're going to do is I'll show you my best option. So you know, all the options and you choose the one that makes the most sense. So when you think your last score you're going to get next week or maybe 10 days from now?

Speaker 2 (34:54):

Um, yeah, probably. Yeah. I mean, we want to get it done kind of quick. So maybe like two weeks

Speaker 3 (35:00):

To me. It's no problem. So do you think you'd get all your quotes done within two weeks?

Speaker 2 (35:04):

Uh, yeah. That's yeah. That's fair.

Speaker 3 (35:06):

Okay. So can you do me one favor? Um, just don't sign with anyone yet just to make sure I can give you that last option before you make any final decision. Would that be fair? That's fair. Okay. So today is the ninth. I actually have the 15th or 16th available, which better for you?

Speaker 2 (35:24):

Um, let's go the 15th, I guess.

Speaker 3 (35:27):

Perfect morning. Afternoon, afternoon works. All right. 12 or two, a two o'clock boom. So what I did there was really focused on not trying to sell you right now anymore. Right? Like you don't want to tell the person, no, don't get caught right now. You can do that. Just doesn't work for me. Like everybody's personalities are different and you can do whatever is better for your personnel works for me, but that it would work for me in the past. And what works for you today? I tried to really listen to them and get their quotes. And when they do talk to me, I let them know why, what my option is and how it's different than theirs or they like it. Great. If not they chose the other one. I did everything I could to help close that one. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:08):

Got it. So yeah, something that I've seen too, Joe, I mean, obviously in California, what's annoying is sometimes people are just cutting margins, cutting margins, and then left with nothing. And then just that's what drives me nuts about people competing. Is they just to get the sell? They dropped their commission. I don't know, a hundred bucks a kilowatt maybe, or something basically make nothing to get the cell. So it's like, come on bill value and actually add some values that are just competing on price all the time. But, um, what do you do when you have, if you're, if you're, you know, closing like that, going back, like let's say you come back to the home and um, you know, they dropped their price a ton, like, okay, Joe, um, we got another quote. It's like 10 grand cheaper than you. So what do you do at that point? Do you, um, try to like build the value and do you have any stories of where you've still gotten this sell? Like, you know, selling a lot higher than other quotes that people have

Speaker 3 (36:59):

Gotten? Well, I'll not be $10,000. I to get 10,000, no, it always comes down to every boat is different and it's really conducted educating the homeowner. Right? Like if you don't let the homeowner know that saying I'm getting 18 panels, it doesn't mean anything. How many times have you heard that Taylor? Like, oh, I'm getting 18 panels. Yeah. That means nothing. It doesn't mean anything. So like, but solar post-talk talk like that with the homeowners. Yeah. You got 17 panels here. So they think that's normal talk and it's not right. And so educating the hallmarks and know why they're making their decisions on what financing option to choose, what solar panel choose, what inverter, the choosing, what, um, uh, other upgrades they may not know about like Mr. Homeowner. Um, I notice your roof, you're gonna have different parts of your roof. I think it'd be good to have Heidi conduit in the attic.

Speaker 3 (37:58):

Oh, you can do that. You know that it can really separate you from the competition and making sure they know the differences and just really educating, but also like before educating listening, a lot of times when we're solo consultants, we're so focused on selling what we have and I'm just like naturally against that. I'm always like trying to figure out what the homeowner wants. Um, and sometimes you can be missing a crucial part of the game. Um, so if somebody okay. For me, I'm a little different, I try to be different. And there's so many kinds of homeowners out there. So let's think of the worst kind of homeowner we can think of. Okay. We've a homeowner. He was on the phone. He's like, Hey, I don't want to deal with you. I don't want you to come over. Just send me your quote over the phone.

Speaker 3 (38:41):

I got 10 other folks. I know exactly what I want. I know how it works. I know everything it takes. Um, and I asked him, if you do go solar, do you have like friends and family neighbors? Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm a guy. Everybody knows. I'm the reason searcher. I'm a solo guy. You know everything about solar once. I guess everybody's gonna follow me now in that situation, a lot of people would just drop their drawers, give it everything well or say, I can't help you see you later. Right. We, I don't want to waste my time with you. Right. It's going to be one of the other. So what I do, I think approach as well. Do you want, I ask them a question like, so tell me, why do you want to buy solar? And they'll go over all the reasons why.

Speaker 3 (39:25):

And so then I asked him, why don't you want to sell solar? And then add that, then they'll try to give me the reason I like, well, that's not true. That's I start over and go me objectives for them to be a solar pro. Okay. Okay. Then I'm recruiting that homeowner to actually sell solar. Now we sell the objection to have like, oh, I don't know anything about solar. Well, I'm asking you to be very experienced advisor. I build to walk you through the whole process. Oh, I, I it's, I, I'm not gonna be able to get on a platform and take too long. Actually it takes one to two hours. You'd be ready to go. So it goes from like, what? I didn't know that now I'm completely different than everybody else. They talked to their siding on my team and they give them six or seven referrals. We're about to sign up. Well, that's crazy. Let's start by talking about the different people are going one direction, go the opposite direction. And that's where I really strive, like my, what my sales game. That's

Speaker 2 (40:22):

So powerful. And yeah, that's something I've learned from, uh, well you J solar academy for sure is just, um, you know, having a basic knowledge of actually like the technology and like panel upgrades, those things. Cause guess what? 99% probably of other salespeople don't know the technology. They don't know, uh, how to recognize if people are going to need it panel upgrade or not. They don't know how to, um, you know, tell if the roof is going to need work. So things like that, if you can take the homeowner out or Hey, Mr. Homeowner, did you actually see this on your panel? Do you see this about your roof? He recognized those things and the other people that are coming, uh, didn't recognize it. Guess who they're going to want to go with. They're going to want to go with the expert and the person that actually, you know, told them the truth about these things and recognize it before that happens.

Speaker 3 (41:08):

Yeah. Yeah. There's like two different kinds of sales grow. Right? There's going to be the one that's sales. So just focus on excitement, getting the soul, get the next stage. And then you had the techie guys who were just like, want to explain everything thoroughly, you know, the electricity and all the roofing, all that stuff. Right. What the, what the key part that's missing is the in-between connecting those two things. The solar academy to bring it to the table, brings to the industry. It's not one or the other, it's not having the knowledge sales savvy or combined with a tech savviness. And that's where you get a monster silver on the next level,

Speaker 2 (41:44):

A hundred percent. And so yeah, for our listeners, um, take the time to really, um, you know, learn the objections, go in Joe's group, listen to what other experts are saying. And then also learn the technology piece of it's learning how to be an expert, learn how to explain those things. And I like what you're saying about actually like, you know, recruiting homeowners to, um, sell for you and get your referrals.

Speaker 3 (42:07):

Um, that's something that think about this, right? Like the biggest players in the game, millionaires and solar have one thing in common to me, I've talked to all of them and I was looking at as many as I can. I mean, and one thing that all in common is that the referral masters, they are, the referral came to have homeowners lined up referrals. So I was thinking, wait, why not? Instead of making the homeowner sell a solar, why not get be a solar pro? And then, so I actually bought the domain that'll yourself, solar.com just because it was available. And I was like, that's perfect.

Speaker 2 (42:43):

That's sweet. Yeah. Cause I can imagine like sometimes, you know, you're pulling teeth to get people, to give you referrals. But if people are like, you know, if they're coming more from the mindset, oh, I want to sell solar. I want to actually be on the team. Then they're actually, they're going to be much more effective. I would imagining getting referrals,

Speaker 3 (42:59):

Right. This is the best part. Even the ones who were like, you know, I'm just going to do it, get my own solar system. That's it even they're like, this has happened to sweet email me. Like I know I wasn't going to sell, but I have a neighbor I was talking to about it. He wants to go sell their stuff. I might as well make the commission on it. So now he's actually sending another customer that not a referral because he's actually the solo pro on the deal that I get to split the commission with him.

Speaker 3 (43:25):

That's the thing, that's the thing I feel like what's missing is not, it's not like, oh, we need both two things. And then the stream is tools, which is like power or tighten or, you know, any price you can sell. So it from everybody use the tools, right. But you also need the training. Right. And then sometimes we'll get the order wrong. And I would say, it's like this, I know solar is not like being a doctor, but there is some similarities to it just because you're fixing things, helping homeowner out yet, you really have somebody in your hands that you're taking care of. So imagine a doctor who a person wants to become a doctor. Okay. Now they have a choice. They can either get all the best tools in the world and just right off the bat, or they could start with all the best training in the world. Now what you want is the doctor. The one who wants to be a doctor should go towards,

Speaker 2 (44:17):

Uh, the best training because you, can't not

Speaker 3 (44:23):

Opposite in the solar industry. The tools we'll figure out how to use it later. Let's switch that let's reverse. Let's get the training out there. And then you will get the tool that

Speaker 2 (44:34):

It's like, I've got this drill. Not sure how to use it, but, uh, but it's the best one on the market.

Speaker 3 (44:39):

Open your mouth. It looks amazing though. That's awesome. That's a good point. How many people started working at a company? I started blasting that company. Oh, it starts. They can do on, and this is not going on. This is problem. And they started, they have one installed. They're working out the whole time and that's their experience. Maybe it wasn't the company's fault. It might've been the solar pro there. I know.

Speaker 2 (45:04):

I know. That's why. Yeah. Sometimes what drives me nuts sometimes in the industry is people just hunting for like the best read, buying the best pay. And they've only got like one install under their belt and they're already hunting for better pay. It's like, come on, man. You're going to go look for better pay. That has zero training. When you have zero install,

Speaker 3 (45:24):

This I've always been. Even when people are trying to run through the bottom of the red lines, I would always still be like, well, are they getting adequate? Like to me, everybody should get out of run. Or what happens is the breaker box. What happens if there's like, you have to ask, it's not just red lines and red lines. Plus does everything else work too? I know

Speaker 2 (45:44):

A hundred percent. Yeah. People forget about that. So yeah. Um, super good points, Joe. And I wanted to ask you as we're wrapping up here, how, uh, what's the craziest objections you've heard in your group? Any, any stand out over the past year? Crazy ones.

Speaker 3 (46:01):

I mean, there's so many like, um, crazy objections when the one that's like to me, there's two of them. That's really like, just mind blowing is real estate agents. Just to me, that's the, one of the biggest things hurting this whole industry is that misinformation and real estate agents and mortgage professionals are giving out to the industry and they think they know more than everybody else. Um, so that's the most, yeah. Most frustrating objection. And I get a little, the most amped up with because they act like they're so like nonchalant about it too. They're like, yeah, no, it doesn't add value. Just cause the other house wasn't worth the same. It's like now people are getting so that's to me is like the most frustrating. But also when, um, people call it solar, a scam, it's like, okay, that means you just like, you just no talking to you anymore. Right? Like I can't even have a conversation with you to me. That's the problem with like, when you have somebody, you came out conversation with like that's to me, like my goal, like this day in my life, it's just a good conversations all day long, like this one every day, all day. But I'm begging people. I'm not convincing people. I'm just like, if you're here to listen, I'm here to help. I'm here to talk to each other. So that's why I like respect. I get the respect that can have the conversation. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:20):

I know. That's a huge pet peeve of mine is when, like a third party, like a real estate agent. The other day I had someone's financial advisor, like all my financial advisor told me soar doesn't make sense. Okay. Do they even know what this is? They have solar themselves. Like, no,

Speaker 3 (47:36):

But maybe a lot of money. Yeah, no, no, no. They know what it is. They know exactly what it is. And that's what the problem is. Because if they take the money out to pay for the solar system, that's less money. They have to play with it. So why would they tell him, oh yeah, he has money. They're saying no, no, not at all. It's like asking a taxi company. How do I buy a car? No buying cars, bad idea. You shouldn't do that you should just call us tomorrow when you can get up, you know, like, well you ask me for advice.

Speaker 2 (48:05):

I know. So yeah, those guys. Yeah. They gotta be silenced somehow. I dunno if we got, gotta start a strike against them, but it's like stop losing those deals. If you're know financial advisor, real estate.

Speaker 3 (48:17):

Oh, we just need to teach them. We need to just educate them. I'm like, guys, I've been trying this for years. It's not working. I don't know what else we got to do. The problem is that people don't listen or don't want to listen. Aren't going to get trained. They're not going to learn. The first key to being a good student is to be coachable, to be ready to learn. If you're not ready to learn, you're not gonna learn anything. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (48:39):

I would agree for sure. Um, so Joe, um, I know we got to wrap up pretty soon here. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what you're doing with soar academy? I know you mentioned your, um, yeah. Working with them more now. You're this SI chief revenue officer. Is that right? Yes, sir. Okay. Let's go. And yeah, they're doing some pretty incredible things. I know you guys just had a little retreat in Vegas. Um, yeah, I was sad. I missed out on that. Looked like that. Freaking awesome. With good time out there.

Speaker 3 (49:07):

Um, yeah. Connections, great people. I learned a lot. I mean, lifelong connections. It's just crazy. How, when you spend time with somebody in person for a few days, you get to know that person completely different than just from clubhouse or from Facebook, you know?

Speaker 2 (49:23):

I know. Yeah. It looked fun. Did you guys end up doing the skydive and stuff? I saw that was part of it or something.

Speaker 3 (49:29):

Yeah. So skydiving is one of those things you have to pay plan for how much you gonna pay me to do that? Nothing. No, like why would I jump out of planes? Actually, it's a funny story. A homeowner was talking about side diving and he was like, oh, I love skydiver. I skydive all the time. I was like, I might be skydive, you know, in a few weeks. Um, and he was like, well, if you skydive, I'll make sure I'll definitely buy your deal from you. But like, okay, that's an occasion where I'm going to go scratch out because at least I'm getting something like that's where my mind was shifted. I was like, well, I can get paid to do this. Let me just read on this now.

Speaker 2 (50:09):

Nice. So when did you send him the picture of you in there then? And then he signed the next day?

Speaker 3 (50:14):

Yeah, no, he definitely goes to me after that, but still, well, you know what I would do is that in house skydiving? I don't know what that's called. Oh, the

Speaker 2 (50:24):

Indoor skydiving. Yeah. That's yeah. That's fun.

Speaker 3 (50:28):

As long as my life is not at a risk, I'll definitely

Speaker 2 (50:31):

For sure. Oh, cool. And so yeah, with solar academy, do you guys have a, I don't know anything exciting coming up with that or what's uh, what's your role with those

Speaker 3 (50:39):

Guys now? It's been amazing. It's like, they haven't even launched before I joined and now we're actually launching and I'm getting so many people like asking me about it and how, how can I get, oh, what is it? What is this other guy to me? I was word. And I just explained it very simply. It's two really main things. We're going to have an awesome solar closer training. Okay. I'm going to be able to help companies add solar to the game or they can installer and add the sales part of their game. Like if you need help adding solar or getting to the next level, solar, get on a zoom with me, I'll be able to get you in the right direction.

Speaker 2 (51:16):

Yeah. So guys check out Solar academy, JKS solar, Joe, and they're doing awesome things with that. And then go join the group. Any anywhere else people can connect with you, uh, Joe or anywhere else. You want to point our listeners to

Speaker 3 (51:28):

Everybody get on the Solar Objections, Facebook group. If you're in solar capacity, like at all, and you want to know what's going on in solar, who's talking to solar. You want them to see the solar trainees? You want to get valued content? Not just for me. Like I said, I tried to host it. Awesome. Solar froze like a lot of posts. I don't even say anything. And you get a 50, 60 golden nuggets. And these posts go through the Solar Objections group. And in that group, we have an awesome live stream every Wednesday at 4:00 PM, PST 7:00 PM EST. This week, we have an awesome solar pro. His name is Jake Wilson. I'm not sure if he gonna, is he going to be going into the future, but go back and check that one out. We'll give you about a solar refinance, but every Wednesday, 4:00 PM, PST check us out. We're going to be live with the different, new, awesome solar pro. And we're going to have our one year anniversary show on August 11th. Um, hopefully will be out by then August 11th, Brett Williams. The one that sparked the idea in the first place will be our one year anniversary guests. So definitely check out that live stream for sure. Let's

Speaker 2 (52:33):

Go. So guys go hop on the group. Um, yeah. Tell Solar Joe, you appreciate them for coming on the show today and then go join the yeah. Get on the live streams too. Um, what I've been starting to do is, you know, make a note in your phone or something, keep track of these one-liners. So you heard Solar, Joe overcome a ton of, you know, objections today, and then you're going to hear even more when you get in this group, keep track of the ones you like and start using them because I think that's what happens guys, get on these trainings and things like that. But if you're not actually, you know, writing down the ones you're going to use the one-liners the, um, you know, overcoming the objections, then you just forget about it. So that's the thing for hopping on these trainings, make sure you're actually utilizing and implementing the content that you're hearing. So Joey, appreciate you coming on. Um, any final words of advice or anything else that's helped you, you want to leave with our Solarpreneurs before we say goodbye here?

Speaker 3 (53:25):

Two things, man, like first thing I wanna really excited about Peru. Um, I mean, that's going to be skin some of the excitement over the silver academy and knock star, uh, uh, daddy pesty putting it together, man. And I'm so excited about going down there. Awesome. Solar pros are going to be taking, trying to build some, uh, orphanages or buildings for young youth, uh, any help out there. So that's really amazing and that's going to be later in the year. Um,

Speaker 2 (53:51):

That's the website for that? So do you know the websites?

Speaker 3 (53:55):

Um, solar back I think is one of them stood back. Um, so it goes back.com https://knockstargivesback.com/give-back I believe too. Um, but I'll make sure what that, you know, for sure

Speaker 2 (54:08):

In the notes. Yeah, I think it's, yeah, https://knockstargivesback.com/give-back, but yeah, we'll put it in the show notes. You guys can go check that out.

Speaker 3 (54:14):

Awesome. And the last thing I say, guys, you know, I am open. I am here for advice. I'm here to help. I'm here to give value anything you need. Um, I offer a free strategy session. Uh, it's a zoom or a phone call and make a nice, easy to get, to just go to thesolar.academy. Can I get easier than that? Right. You get a free zoom with me and we get to talk shop. Uh, I'm not going to be salesy push in any direction they want to help you out. See what I can do to give you value. Just check it out, go to thesolar.academy, thesolar.academy.

Speaker 2 (54:45):

All right. So yeah, take advantage of that. I mean, how cool is that you get solar Joe himself offering to do a call and help you take yourself to the next level in the solar business. Taylor

Speaker 3 (54:55):

Is the man. Everybody's awesome. Pretty such great guests. Uh, check it out. All the show is the one or Sullivan was amazing. I just, I just listened to Alan. Those are off the hook. You do great at these LGS. Great question. I really appreciate being on your man. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (55:09):

No, I love it. Yeah. And thanks for coming on. That's all we're trying to do is, you know, up-level ourselves hear from experts like yourself. So thanks again, Joe, we'll be connecting with you more and guys tell Joe, thanks for coming on today. And with that being said, and we'll talk to you soon, Mr. Solar, Joe,

Speaker 1 (55:27):

Hey Solarpreneurs. Quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new solar learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with the top performers in the industry. And it's called Solciety. This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and to help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds. For, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety's closed the public and membership is by invitation only, but Solarpreneurs can go to solciety.co to learn more and have the option to join a wait list. When a membership becomes available in your area. Again, this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you again in the next episode.

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one. What's up Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong here. Hope you're doing and

Speaker 2 (00:45):

Well, hope you are crushing it this summer. Can you believe we are already almost through this summer? So crazy. If you were behind in your goals, make sure you push even harder than you think. Cause I can't believe we're sitting at the end of July. As I record this episode here, I'm like, how did it get to be already more than halfway through the year? We got a bunch of summer reps that I'm working with here and they're going home and like two weeks now, like how did time go so quickly? So let that serve as a wake up call to you. If you were behind on your goals, light some fire under yourself and let's get rolling because summer months they're the best time. And depending on where you're at, it's probably, I guess, unless you're selling in, you know, Australia or other side of the world these summer months, that's when people are getting their high bills, they're running their AC and they're feeling the pain of the electricity.

Speaker 2 (01:45):

So make sure you use that to your advantage. So today's topic is going to be a little bit different. Yeah. I'm going to tell you right up front, we're going to be talking about Solciety. If you've been listened to the end of the episodes lately, you've likely heard about our program that actually just released, it's called Solciety. I'm going to be dropping you all the details about it, giving you all the scoop, all the information and hopefully getting you fired up to get on the platform. Because in my opinion, it's the best in the industry. You're going to want to be on it for sure. So tune in to the episode, if you want to hear about it, if you hate training, if you hate hearing how to get better. Well, first of all, probably don't even listen to. So we're pretty we're podcasts in general, but if you hate that stuff and you hate investing yourself, then don't listen to this episode because we're going to talk about why I think you should invest in yourself through Solciety.

Speaker 2 (02:44):

Before we get to that though, just wanted to thank everyone who has shared the episode, who is tagged me on social media, who has given us shout outs here at Solarpreneur. That is the best way that helps us reach more people is just by you guys, me and sharing it on social media, sending it to people who can benefit from the episodes we have. So want to thank you from the bottom of my heart that has helped us grow the podcast and let's launch it even further. And again, let me know if there's anything I can do to help you guys. I love my listeners, love the audience and I always want to be delivering content that is valuable. So if you hate it, let me know if things aren't helping, let me know. And let me know if you have suggestions for guests or for topics that we can discuss here on the show.

Speaker 2 (03:39):

So with that being said, let's dive right into this. So I'm going to tell you a little bit, the backstory behind Solciety, why we created it, what the goal is with it. And then I'll tell you all the features and why you should be getting in on it. It's a little backstory here. You've probably heard kind of when I got into the industry, it's been about little over five years, 2016. I started in Corona, California got recruited by Dalen Pan Kerry. He's been on the show here, one of my good friends. And when I first got in the industry, it was cool. I had a Dell and train in me, but at the same time, there are few things that I wish I would've had when I first started. And this is going to tie into Solciety here. So hear me out when I first started, um, we were in a house we had like, I dunno, 10 guys in that house, close to 10 guys, I think.

Speaker 2 (04:36):

And a lot of the guys, you know, typical partying, typical staying up late, just a bunch of dudes in the house. So that was my first problem. I was around people that maybe weren't the most focused on selling the environment. Wasn't the greatest cause yeah, there were two or three guys that were producing good numbers that were inspiring motivating, but there were a lot of guys that weren't doing very well. They're missing around, they're smoking their weed, drinking, all that stuff, and weren't getting that many cells. So I started to notice it brought me down as we're going to meetings. I saw guys weren't producing, weren't hitting numbers that they said they wanted to hit, like what is going on? I came from pest control. And so it was a little bit different pest control guys where they're grinding in super hard for the summer.

Speaker 2 (05:30):

So I started to notice my production went down as I was around people that weren't working as much. I let it affect me. And we've all heard that you're the average of the five people you surround yourself with. I definitely could attest to that because I saw my numbers go down. Every time I went in car groups with people that weren't working as hard, any time I started hanging out with them more than I should have. And I remember the first course I bought in door to door training at this time 2016 that I know of. There is basically no door-to-door training at all. So I bought a course. It was, uh, from Paul Shakuri. Maybe you guys have been in the door to door space awhile now might know this cat, but Paul Shakuri, he had a podcast called, um, what was it? Door to door mastery.

Speaker 2 (06:22):

I think it was called. And he talked about, he was in alarms. So I would go on, it lists this guy who would get all fired up and just talk about alarms. He wasn't even selling anymore, but he would just get on and you know, basically get everyone stoked. Actually may have him come on the show here. I hit him up one time. So let me know if you want to get him on the show. But, um, he hasn't done too much lately in the door to door space. I know, I don't think he keeps his podcasts going or anything, but I bought his course. It was called door-to-door mastery. And I started going through it. I think it was like 400 bucks. And I'm like, man, this is cool. A course that teaches out to sell more to door, to door and all that guys in my house, they kind of make fun of me.

Speaker 2 (07:05):

They're like, dude, you're paying money just to like, like just go out and knock. It's not that hard. We have training here. So a couple of guys were like ragging on me, thought it was funny that in the mornings I was just listening to this guy on this course. But bottom line is I felt like I wasn't getting the environment that I needed when I started. Okay. There were guys that were working as hard. And then the other thing was my managers at the time. Yeah, I was great. But a manager can only help you so much, right? Depending on how many guys are in the office, depending on how big your office is, you can only get so much help from the manager. Cause they've got gotta be helping a ton of different guys. So this brings me to what we've done with Solciety.

Speaker 2 (07:51):

This is basically the training platform I wish I had when I started out in solar because I talked about my problems and my big problem was is number one. I wasn't surrounded by people. I felt were bringing me up. Okay. I'm not saying that's everyone's problem, but to a degree, depending on which company you're in, what in your environment, and there's always going to be lazier people, there's going to be guys not producing. There's going to be guys that bring you down to a great degree, say, so it helps get around people that can bring you up. But this is what we're trying to do with Solciety is surround guys with the best of the best with people that do have that growth mindset with people that do want to improve with people that want to go out, role-play just pick each other's brain. And I know there's Facebook groups, things like this, but what we've done, um, we have access to a training app on Solciety.

Speaker 2 (08:44):

So it's an app where you can send direct video messages. Um, you can send screen recordings. Um, chat basically does it all. So it's an app. We have exclusive the Solciety members and the goal is that everyone can be on their training together, competing against each other and just really surrounding yourself with the best with the people that do actually want to improve. And so that way, if you are maybe in an environment where it's not the greatest or actually talk to, um, one of our future coach clients today, um, he was just riding completely solo. So some guys are doing that too. So even more if you are alone or if you're in an environment where maybe it's not the greatest, you need to get on Solciety, okay. Cause this is what we're going to do. You're competing. It's other people you're interacting. We have video chat, we have people in there, um, talking and brainstorming, how can we improve?

Speaker 2 (09:43):

This is the first thing that I felt was super important. I looked back and I said, what the guys need? What did I not have when I started? And this was, I think one of the best features that we could think of as we were planning out the training platform Solciety. So that's the first thing. The second thing is just the training in general. A the other problem I had, um, even further along as I was selling solar more is I would buy these courses. There's always another course, right? Always someone else to learn from. And um, if you haven't heard the thought process be saying Solciety, we actually [email protected]. A lot of you have heard of it. It's where they take the best of the best and get them in the pot form. Right? So masterclass, it has like Steph Curry teach him basketball.

Speaker 2 (10:34):

It has, um, I'd have to go look, but I dunno, Serena Williams on there. I don't know, be the best in the business though. Some of the best they're teaching their specific skill skill and they're condensing it so you can learn it from that person. Who's the very best. So that's the goal of Solciety is you can get on there and you can learn from the best. Okay. So we have guys like Earl Kapule who is gratitude mindset, and we feel has really mastered the, the mindset you need to have as you're knocking doors. And as you're closing deals that we have Taylor McCarthy Knock Star himself, who is on their teaching, um, just his process to getting more leads and closing more deals, who, in my opinion is one of the best trainers for sure, in the solar space right now. And we have guys like Jay KES, who is w I've I can credit a lot of the technical technical side of soar.

Speaker 2 (11:30):

I've learned from him. He does great sales trainees too. And he hates it when I call him just the technical solar guy. But we have him on there with this content about roofs and kind of more of the technical aspect. And then as you've heard in some of the previous episodes, we have James who has come on, James sorter, ski, who, um, isn't selling actively in solar, but he is, um, really great around Dawn, my marketing and the follow-up, the Legion, and then just the cells in general. So, and then we're constantly adding more coaches in there, more trainings. So it's what I wish I had is because we can take all these people that are super great at their one individual skill. And we can have them all in one platform. And the other side of this is it's not a training course where you go log in and you sit through videos and you have to remember your logging and you have to, you know, get yourself to logging in every day.

Speaker 2 (12:28):

The key thing we want to with Solciety is we thought, how can we make it most likely, so guys are going to actually log in. So guys don't forget their log-ins. So they're motivated to log in at the end of the day, they're still going to require you to, you know, go click a button, take action. But what we did with this, we just put it all in out format. Okay. So it's an actual mobile app. You download no more remembering. Log-ins no more needing to go to a specific, you know, website on your computer, on your iPad, on your phone. It's just all on an app. Okay. So what that means for you is you can be sitting on the toilet. You can be driving in a car, okay, don't do it probably while you're driving, but you can be literally anywhere where there is service and you can be taken in that content without needing to remember your log-in.

Speaker 2 (13:18):

Cause you just click the app and boom, it's right in front of you. And instead of having it be the typical course where you need to watch the videos and do all those shenanigans, what we've done is we've gave him a fight it. So the app is game-based more than anything. So you log in there, you play the games and the videos, the course videos, that's just kind of the side content. Hey, what if you hate watching videos? What if that's boring? Just go through the quizzes and the games. This is what we've done on Solciety. So we've made it more game focused because that is how people learn. Okay. I go back to my college days. I know a lot of our, a lot of us, solar salespeople, a lot of us didn't go to college. Maybe, maybe some of us only went to some college, but the best way to learn.

Speaker 2 (14:05):

I remember this is one of the first things they taught in Southern new dire university. I was required to take basically a how to succeed in college course. This is probably the one thing I remember from that class is that the best way to learn is from quizzing yourself. It's not from reading textbooks. It's not from, um, I don't know, listening things is from quizzing yourself. It's called active learning. So we've taken that same concept. We're applying it to solar because solar skills, they need active learning. All these courses, watching videos. That's only going to do so much, but how are you actually taking in the material? How are you learning it yourself? Okay. And these podcasts are great too, and appreciate people for listening, but really to take the content, taking the material the best possible way you need to be quizzing yourself. You need to be interacting with others and you need to have this gamification because that is how you actually take in the content.

Speaker 2 (15:02):

And that's going to give you the best shot at applying it. So that's just a little preview Solciety. That's what we're doing with the app. Okay. But we, what we really want you to do, if you feel you can benefit from this, go check it out on the website, book a call. The thing about it. It's guys it's ridiculously cheap. We didn't want price to hold back. Anyone, whether you're a beginner or advanced in the industry, we're talking 97 bucks a month. Okay. And this is at the time I'm recording this. So it is for sure growing up. Okay. But we just launched it. We want to get as many people in, in benefiting as possible. So everyone that gets in they're going to be grandfathered in at this 97 bucks a month. But bottom line is it is going to increase in price. As we get more people on.

Speaker 2 (15:49):

This is our founding member. We call it the George Washington, founding father, special Solarpreneur discount. That's what we're giving you. So go get on it, get on that price before it goes up. Hey, and that is just the base Solciety membership. Okay. We're not even talking about the other tiers of Solciety that we have, but if you're hesitating, get on that. Okay. Try it out guarantee. It's gonna, they help you. If you go in there and apply the material and interact with people in the video chat, exclusive app we're using. Hmm. Then the second tier of it, we'll probably do another episode, but it's just the actual coaching piece. Okay. We have it's called Solciety, inner circle coaching. You're going to get access to the training app, of course. But then you're also going to get one-on-one access, coaching with myself. You're going to get direct access to the community.

Speaker 2 (16:47):

Um, you're going to get put, it's called a Solciety pod to where we place you in a group where everyone's holding each other super accountable. So it's basically just another level of accountability and another level of exclusivity where you're going to get direct access to me 24 7 access video chats. You can, don't be sending me anything appropriate, but we are going to get you. Crane can deals and it comes with a performance guarantee. Okay. So let's just a little preview. Wanted to make sure people knew what's going on with Solciety. So guys go check it out. If anything, let me know what you think of it. Okay. Um, and go check it out. Get on there. Tell your team about it. We also have enterprise packages. So if you want a Solciety for your team where we can potentially out on your content, um, in your trainings on the app, hit us up, we've got calls.

Speaker 2 (17:42):

You can go schedule a call and we can, um, get your team access. So again, go to solciety.com that's S O L C I E T Y. For all those that struggle with spelling, go check it out, let us know what you think. And really we, we just want people to up level. Okay. And I believe, I truly believe that this is how we can all Uplevel. It's what I was missing when I started in solar. So hope to see you on there. Hope you enjoy it. And with that said, we will see you on the next show. The next show, we have an awesome interview, actually coming up with Mr. Uh, Solar Objections, Solar Joe. Um, if you're in solar, you're probably already in this Facebook group called Solar Objections, but that's going to be next episode. So don't miss out. Let us know what your thought and we'll see you on Solciety. Peace.

Speaker 3 (18:37):

Hey Solarpreneurs. Quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new solar learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with the top performers in the industry. And it's called Solciety. This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and to help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds. For, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety's closed the public and membership is by invitation only, but Solarpreneurs can go to solciety.co to learn more and have the option to join a wait list. When a membership becomes available in your area. Again, this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you again in the next episode.

Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!

Speaker 1 (00:01):

Hey, Solarpreneurs. What's up. Taylor here just wanted to give you a quick intro to this episode. It's going to be James Swidersky on, and he's doing a little series on how we're implementing trainings for companies that would like to uplevel their sales trainings. As many of you may know, we launched our new Solciety training app were already getting great results with it. So James is going to talk about a few things that we're able to implement within the app and ways we're getting great results, whether you're on Solciety or not. You can go and implement these things today, but you can also go and book a demo at Solciety.co. So hope you enjoy the episode and we'll see you on the inside.

Speaker 2 (00:45):

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 3 (01:25):

Solarpreneurs. What is going on? My name is James Swidersky. And for those of you guys who don't know me, go back a few episodes for the intro. I don't want to bore you guys to death. I just want to dive right into the content today here. And I want to talk about how to hold your reps accountable. Now this is going to be primarily forward business owners, VPs directors, managers, on how to hold your reps accountable, get them motivated, and specifically my four step formula on how to do this. Just an absolutely killer formula on how to cut through the BS. Cut through excuses of, oh, I'm working 60 hours a week. I don't know. What's not working. Uh, oh, I swear. I'm putting a numbers. I'm working really hard. It's going to cut through all of that crap and just get straight transparency on the performance of each rep.

Speaker 3 (02:10):

So you can make critical training and hiring decisions on a regular basis to scale your company. Have you enjoyed that type of content? You know exactly what to do. So let's go ahead and dive right into it. What is the formula to hold reps accountable? First thing I like to do is identify my activities. That reps are supposed to be performing on a daily basis. You'd be very surprised how many companies don't have this clearly communicated within their organization. The best way I used to do this and currently do this with my team at epic as well. Although not solar, it's the same thing. And I learned how to do this in solar is I actually have flat screen monitors up in the office where we are projecting everybody's metrics. It is just a naked organization with metrics and metrics. I see every single as it's scrolling through how many appointments they've set, leads, calls, call time presentations, their close rate, everything transparent.

Speaker 3 (03:08):

The entire company can see what's going on. The entire company could see what kind of numbers we're doing as an organization. What's our revenue look like, right? What's our deal, uh, install rate. They see everything. Transparency is absolutely key here. Now that's just kind of a bonus, but we want to identify the activities that reps perform. So it's probably going to be a nine times out of 10 door knocking appointment setting, right? Presentations, okay. Follow up activities. And usually some type of referral activity, right? These are going to be customized for your business, map out your entire process, what activities they should do on a regular basis. We're going to play out an example, an amendment a minute. So you'll get some ideas from that step. Number two in this formula, identify how long it actually takes to do the activity. Okay. Again, this is, this is where it starts getting real spicy.

Speaker 3 (04:03):

Cause nobody does this and knows how long it takes. Go ask your reps individually. How long does it take to do an appointment? You're going to hear 40 minutes. You're going to hear two hours. You're going to hear it. Hour and half, right? You need to come to a conclusion what that average time is. All right. So you're going to ask all of your reps, do a survey, do whatever you got to do. Get the numbers, average amount, how long it actually takes to do what they do. Right? Sending out a proposal, adjusting a bid, right? How long does it take to adjust in a bid? 20 minutes, 30 minutes. How long does it take to send out a follow-up email? You got to get every activity on the board, mapped out. Okay. Step number two, three, take your results from last month for each rep.

Speaker 3 (04:49):

So you're going to actually go through this process with your reps on a one-on-one meeting. And you're going to take the results from their previous month, not like the previous week or days, cause that's not enough and more than a month too much. One month is going to give you a real good grasp of a rep's performance. This is also going to cut out all of those guys who were top producers a year ago and they haven't sold anything in three or four months. This is going to shine the light on that. Here's the deal. If you're a guys and you're hanging on and paying out payroll or uh, whatever, some kind of base salary or something rewarding guys and incentivizing guys who are not producing, you gotta cut that out ASAP. Okay? Only incentivize guys who produce results. Period. Cut the base commissions, cut the salaries, cut all that crap fire the lot, get rid of the old veterans who have been in the industry and who are just riding comfortable for 10 years.

Speaker 3 (05:48):

They are ruining your culture. They are bad apples in the barrel. Cut them out, get some fresh new young blood boom, rock and roll. Right. Again. I don't expect many of you guys to apply that because again, you've got to be willing to take a few steps back to go forward over the next several years. There's very few companies who are willing to do that. I know I'm sounding aggressive with this straight forward. I just really sick of seeing it. It's a super common thing in the industry. Any industry for that matter, you have to be willing to make some temporary sacrifices. If you want to grow okay. If you don't want to grow, I respect it. Right? Don't complain about your situation. If that's the case. All right. I'm off my soap box now. So take your results from last month for each rep.

Speaker 3 (06:32):

Hey Taylor, you close 10 deals. Last month you did 20 appointments. You did 500 doors knocked, whatever it is, right. Make sure they agree with their results when you're talking to them. Okay. And then next and the last part here is simply calculate how long they actually worked. All right. So let's play out an example. Let's say that a rep closed 10 accounts last month. And for math purposes, I know this is a small commission, math purposes. He made a thousand dollars per deal. He made 10 grand in commissions, right? Awesome. 10 grand. What activities made up those 10 accounts? Well, he had to go prospect and knock doors. It takes him about 30 minutes of knocking doors to get an appointment. We know how long it takes. Cool. 30 minutes equal and appointment. All right. Let's say he has a 50% close rate. He's just like on the ball.

Speaker 3 (07:25):

Okay. And it takes him 90 minutes driving to the appointment, having the appointment, following up at the appointment, it takes them 90 minutes to do a presentation. Okay. And he closes 50% of his presentations. And then let's say it takes him about half an hour to send out a proposal on a bid. All right. It takes 30 minutes to do a proposal, a bid. Um, that's not just the deals he closed the followup deals. And then let's say he takes about 40 minutes per account, total to close a deal. So 40 minutes of following up with calls, emails, texts, that is about what it takes to close one deal. All right. So after you map out each activity, how long it takes all of that jazz, right? You're going to come to the conclusion of the monthly results. You're going to find evicts example. Now he spent 30 hours running appointments for the month.

Speaker 3 (08:17):

He spent 10 hours setting appointments in the month, right? 10 hours sending proposals for the month and 6.6 hours following up for a grand total of 56.6 hours of work for the month. All right. Monthly, not weekly. And what you're going to find is most of your guys who say they're working their tail off, they're working like 15, 20 hours a month. When you do this math, I just did math for a guy who closes 10 deals a month. How many of your reps close 10? Right. Super rare. Right? You're doing pretty well. If you have a lot of 10 rep 10 deal reps, right? Most of your guys are going to be working like 15, 20 deals. I'm at 20 hours a month. Right. And what happens is for the first time with these guys, they're going to realize that they're full of.

Speaker 3 (09:09):

Pardon? My French. Right? They're just full of it. Right? They've been lying to themselves and you're going to find, your guys are just like, oh crap, you can't argue this. You can not argue this. And the way you make sure your reps are on page with this is you just make sure they agree with every number. So if they say it takes 90 minutes, do the math with them in front of them. For the 90 minutes. If they say they take 30 minutes to close an appointment or a 60 hours or whatever, it doesn't matter. The close rate is a hundred percent. Do the math with them on their level. Trust me. It doesn't matter how you do the math. It's always going to highlight and expose how little they actually work. And you can have a Frank conversation at this point. Now that the numbers are out in thin air, it could say, John, you wonder why you're making seven grand a month.

Speaker 3 (09:59):

Closing two deals a month. You're working 15 hours a month, right? What are we going to do about that? What can I help you with as your manager, your VP, or director, your CEO, whoever, what can I help you with to increase those numbers, right? What do you need help with? Do we need to hold these kinds of meetings on a weekly basis? What do we need? And have those conversations and make real decisions. The problem is it's difficult to make hiring recruiting or firing decisions or training decisions or whatever. If you don't have proper data. Okay? I preach a lot about data. The last couple of episodes, data's king, it's everything tracking is everything. That's the only reason I had two failed solar companies before starting my first successful one was purely because of tracking. All right? I had to learn the hard way.

Speaker 3 (10:49):

Do not do the same mistake that I did. And many others do start tracking. These things. Use this formula with each one of your reps, use this formula with yourself, with your activities, your daily pipeline, right? Whatever you're doing, this is the magic formula. So guys, that is it. That's how hold your reps accountable. It's a no BS straightforward way. It's how to hold yourself accountable. And I hope it serves you guys. Well, if you like that type of content, keep tuning in to, uh, this series I'm doing, I'm going to be dropping to fire for company owners. I know I'm calling my own stuff, my, my own stuff, fire, but I don't see anybody talking about it. So I gotta, I gotta call what it is. Right? All right. Well, it's been real guys. My name's James Swidersky and I'll see you in the next video.

Speaker 4 (11:38):

Hey Solarpreneurs. Quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new solar learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with the top performers in the industry. And it's called Solciety. This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and to help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds. For, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety's closed the public and membership is by invitation only, but Solarpreneurs can go to solciety.co to learn more and have the option to join a wait list. When a membership becomes available in your area. Again, this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you again in the next episode.