Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: 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 fell.
Speaker: I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solarpreneur you might ask?
Speaker: 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: What's going on solarpreneurs?
Speaker: Welcome back to another episode.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong, your host, and as usual we are here to take your solar sales to the next level by helping you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: Hope you're doing awesome.
Speaker: I just got back from SolarCon 2023 and today I'm going to be sharing with you some takeaways that I got from the event and just giving a little recap in case you missed it, which you're crazy if you missed out.
Speaker: It was a party, a blast.
Speaker: It's just like a family reunion with all our solar family.
Speaker: So great event.
Speaker: But before we jump into that, I wanted to give a quick thank you to our newest reviewer over on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker: This is from Energizing America.
Speaker: He says, best podcast ever.
Speaker: Five stars.
Speaker: Says, hey, Taylor, a few years ago, I did my first solar install while working as an electrician.
Speaker: That's when I learned that even here in northern Minnesota, there's plenty of sunshine to harvest.
Speaker: Wanting to learn more, I stumbled across your podcast and became hooked on the solar industry.
Speaker: You're crushing it on here, and I always look forward to the next episode.
Speaker: Thank you for all the nuggets, and I hope to see you at SolarCon.
Speaker: Corey Ailey, I think that's how you say his last name.
Speaker: Well, Corey, much appreciated, and I did see Corey at SolarCon.
Speaker: It was awesome, and Corey, you blew me away with your knowledge of all the panels.
Speaker: You can definitely tell he's an electrician.
Speaker: He was asking me some of the technicalities.
Speaker: I told him I just got solar on my place, and
Speaker: and he was asking me some specifics of it.
Speaker: And I said, hey, Corey, you know what?
Speaker: I don't even know the specifics of my own system.
Speaker: Some made me look kind of bad.
Speaker: But we just moved into the house here about a month ago, and they didn't leave me a user manual with the slur that was already on the house.
Speaker: How dare they?
Speaker: So not sure what panels I got or anything like that, but probably should go up on the house, see what's going on up there.
Speaker: But much appreciated for that review.
Speaker: And if you have not taken the time to leave a review or share the podcast, it would mean the world.
Speaker: And also just wanted to give a quick thank you to everybody who came and said what's up at SolarCon or if you've done that at other events.
Speaker: I always love hearing from our listeners, getting feedback.
Speaker: And one of the first questions I ask everybody is, hey, how did you hear about the podcast?
Speaker: How'd you hear about the show?
Speaker: It's always interesting to hear what they're
Speaker: You know, if you looked it up on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and that helps us really know how we can get it out to more people too.
Speaker: So if you're wondering, that's why I asked you that question.
Speaker: And so SolarCon 2023, let's get into a little recap.
Speaker: It was a great event, had an awesome time.
Speaker: I think it is the greatest event for Solar Pros right now.
Speaker: That is until we do a Solarpreneur live event that's going to be way better than SolarCon.
Speaker: Just kidding.
Speaker: SolarCon is awesome, but it would be cool to do a Solarpreneur event.
Speaker: Let me know if you would want to come to something like that.
Speaker: I'm going to give you a little day-by-day recap, just share my personal experiences, and I guess just to preface it before we get into sharing about the event.
Speaker: My purpose of SolarCon is probably a little bit different than some other people that go.
Speaker: If you saw me at SolarCon, I was doing podcasts for like half the event.
Speaker: So really...
Speaker: Solar Con for me is where I go get a bunch of content recorded and knocked out.
Speaker: It's useful to me to go to these events, network, get some podcasts done.
Speaker: Because when I do podcasts at the events, then I can focus on more selling.
Speaker: I don't have to be worrying constantly about who's my next guest.
Speaker: So I try to just knock out as many as I can.
Speaker: This SolarCon, I think we did six podcasts, not quite as many as last year.
Speaker: Last year, I was able to knock out eight podcasts at SolarCon, and it kept us, you know, super busy and kept the content calendar pretty full.
Speaker: It's not quite as many.
Speaker: Part of that is because I actually lost my voice at SolarCon and had a little cough going on.
Speaker: So I think that scared me away from doing it.
Speaker: as many pockets as I wanted to.
Speaker: And you probably hear still a little bit.
Speaker: My voice is a little messed up.
Speaker: So if I sound like the rock or something, I guess that's why I'm recovering from a little bit of a cold.
Speaker: That's what happens when you have kids.
Speaker: So day one, there was the Platinum Day, and that was, I think, Wednesday.
Speaker: It was Friday.
Speaker: Yeah, that was Wednesday.
Speaker: And unfortunately, I did not make it to most of that.
Speaker: I actually went and did an interview with Doug Robinson, CEO of Legacy Power.
Speaker: So that took up a lot of the day meeting with him and...
Speaker: hanging out at their headquarters.
Speaker: So I did not make it to the Platinum Day, but I heard it was awesome.
Speaker: There's some battery trainings.
Speaker: There's just some VIP stuff going on.
Speaker: And a great day.
Speaker: I did get to meet up, go to a little dinner that night at the event.
Speaker: But that's what I did on Wednesday.
Speaker: Thursday.
Speaker: Start with that.
Speaker: We got there and I did admit, I guess they had an acrobatic performance there.
Speaker: I missed that too.
Speaker: But I did get to see my boy, Michael O'Donnell.
Speaker: Always an awesome experience seeing Michael O'Donnell speak.
Speaker: If you have not heard about him, go get this guy's book.
Speaker: Listen to his podcast.
Speaker: He has been on the Solar Printer podcast three times now.
Speaker: I think is widely regarded as the top guy in solar, closes multiple megawatts a year.
Speaker: And he just talked about the road to a seven-figure income in solar cells.
Speaker: And he speaks about similar things.
Speaker: He has his mini habits.
Speaker: He has his getting your mindset right.
Speaker: You're not leaving the house until you get a yes, things like that.
Speaker: And so that was great hearing from him.
Speaker: After that, we had the VIP lunch.
Speaker: And if you do go to SolarCon next year or maybe if you've just got a general admission ticket, I definitely recommend getting a VIP ticket because who doesn't like a free lunch every day?
Speaker: And not only is it lunch, you go in there, you network with other people, you sit with someone new every day.
Speaker: They have like music going on in there.
Speaker: So I would definitely recommend getting one of these VIP lunches.
Speaker: Some days were better than others.
Speaker: The first day was a little bit questionable.
Speaker: I think it was tacos.
Speaker: They ran out of meat pretty quick.
Speaker: But all in all, some good food, good food.
Speaker: And then after the lunches every day, that was kind of the format.
Speaker: They had some main speakers in the morning.
Speaker: And then after lunch...
Speaker: They did these breakout sessions.
Speaker: And if you heard my SolarCon preview episode, I mentioned some of the ones that I wanted to check out.
Speaker: And of course, I was doing a lot of podcasts here and there between these.
Speaker: But one that I did mention that was really good the first day was my boy Ashton Buswell, who was one of our guests, first guests on the podcast.
Speaker: I went and saw him at five.
Speaker: He was in the breakout session.
Speaker: And this guy just continues to impress him.
Speaker: He's one of the dudes I respect most in the industry just because, I mean, I guess you never know for sure, but he has a great family life.
Speaker: He's always posting how he's putting his family first.
Speaker: And he just talked about how he can find balance in an unbalanced career.
Speaker: And spoiler alert, part of it was that there is no balance.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And this guy has insane work ethic.
Speaker: He's had a week where he's closed like 40 deals in a week.
Speaker: Just absolute insanity.
Speaker: But something that he talked about is just really being all in on whatever you are doing.
Speaker: You think about all the distractions we have.
Speaker: We are constantly hooked on our phones.
Speaker: We are distracted doing other things.
Speaker: A lot of us, when we're doing follow-ups with customers, we see a notification pop up.
Speaker: And I heard a stat.
Speaker: I think it's something like as you read a notification, read a text or whatever's going on, it takes you like two minutes to get back to full focus on whatever you're doing.
Speaker: Could even be more, but the stat was something like that.
Speaker: So what Ashton talked about is just going all in on whatever you're doing.
Speaker: Are you with your family?
Speaker: Be with your family 100%.
Speaker: Are you on the doors?
Speaker: Be on the doors 100%.
Speaker: Ashton said if two hours of focused knocking is equal to four or five of unfocused knocking.
Speaker: of being on ESPN, of being on Facebook.
Speaker: And something one of my mentors has said, actually learned this from the Noxstar group, is stop checking your Facebook and start facing your checkbook.
Speaker: Say that one more time.
Speaker: Stop checking your Facebook and start facing your checkbook.
Speaker: So Ashton talked about this, just being all in on whatever you're doing.
Speaker: And that's really how you can have balance.
Speaker: You're going to be unbalanced at times.
Speaker: There's going to be seasons where you're pushing hard and slower.
Speaker: Maybe you're on a blitz, but just go all in on whatever you're doing.
Speaker: So that was the gist of it.
Speaker: Okay, and then day two, jump around a little bit here.
Speaker: Day two, I did catch part of Andy Elliott's speech, heard great things about Andy, and he definitely has that bro vibe.
Speaker: It's funny, I was talking to one of my friends after, who he wasn't really super familiar with Andy Elliott's.
Speaker: The first time I heard him speak was at this event.
Speaker: But Andy Elliott, he had this booth set up at Solarcon and all these jack dudes were just over there doing push ups, pull ups.
Speaker: He had these like fitness videos playing.
Speaker: And after he spoke at the events, I asked one of my buddies is there.
Speaker: I'm like, hey, did you see Andy speak?
Speaker: And he's like, no, I saw his booth and I instantly decided that I don't want to go check him out.
Speaker: I don't want to be one of those bro dudes that just is always working out.
Speaker: So I'm like, nah, it's not for me.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: Like, okay, makes sense.
Speaker: He did definitely have that bro vibe.
Speaker: All these dudes just working out and, you know, seemed like he had to be jacked to be on his team, which is cool.
Speaker: I'm all about that.
Speaker: But I can see how maybe that's not for everybody.
Speaker: Andy, he did speak on just being, basically, getting your team to the point where they're unrecruitable.
Speaker: And he...
Speaker: Talked to his guy and he had his whole team up behind him.
Speaker: They're all dressed in the same uniform.
Speaker: And he just was like, hey, you couldn't offer my guys 10 million bucks.
Speaker: They're not going to leave me.
Speaker: That's how bought in there.
Speaker: He did a role play with him and just was like, hey, I'll give you 10 million bucks to leave Andy's team.
Speaker: His own guy was like...
Speaker: I'll consider it.
Speaker: Actually, you know what?
Speaker: F no.
Speaker: And he just like shoves them, something like that, and just mic drop.
Speaker: So apparently we all got to get our guys fully bought in, make them unrecruitable.
Speaker: That was his message on his speech.
Speaker: Didn't hear all of it, but that's what I got.
Speaker: Out of it.
Speaker: And then another highlight, we had some solar objection championships.
Speaker: And of course, the person that always wins all these things, if you have not heard Melissa Ramiza, she's been on the show, but top female rep in solar right now.
Speaker: She literally wins every single one of these competitions going on.
Speaker: So naturally, she won the solar objection championship.
Speaker: But what was cool about this is Solar Joe was up there.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: who is known as the Solar Objections guy, has this Facebook group and everything.
Speaker: And he was just running through these objections.
Speaker: Everyone on the panel just gave their one-liners exactly what they would say to overcome these objections.
Speaker: And Melissa has some fire one-liners for solar.
Speaker: If you're not following her, go shoot her follow because she shares exactly what she says, which is great.
Speaker: I wish I had it recorded because a lot of lines that you can use in your closes, in your selling.
Speaker: But that was absolute fire to hear what these top producers say for certain objections.
Speaker: And then from there, I think that's kind of the highlights of that day.
Speaker: We had Danny Pesci, who, as always, is awesome.
Speaker: And, you know, something I've learned from Danny that I hear as he speaks more and more is just really we need to be asking better questions because people believe what they say themselves.
Speaker: OK, but they're not always going to believe what we tell them.
Speaker: So how do you get people to say things themselves?
Speaker: It's by asking good questions.
Speaker: So something Danny that's talked about multiple times now that I've heard him talk about is just evaluate your questions.
Speaker: Are you getting people to basically admit that electricity prices are going up, that solar is the way of the future?
Speaker: They say it themselves, then they have to believe it.
Speaker: But if you say it, they don't have to believe it.
Speaker: So that was a highlight I got from Danny Pesce.
Speaker: Hey, and then on to Saturday, which was Earth Day.
Speaker: Saturday was the day where I woke up, especially lost my voice and was just actually didn't go to the after party on Friday, which is like the first time I missed it.
Speaker: So they had people at the club and everything.
Speaker: I'm like, you know what?
Speaker: I still want to get some more podcasts in.
Speaker: I don't want to go to the club with all these people and trying to be screaming at the top of my lungs with a hoarse voice.
Speaker: I'm going to sit out on it.
Speaker: So I went back, called night a little bit early and yeah, just kind of recovered a little bit Saturday.
Speaker: So got there a little bit later, unfortunately, but do want to apologize to my friend Brent Attaway, who is the marketing guy who is, you know, creator of the I love FU money shirts.
Speaker: Okay, my good friend Brent Attaway, he spoke on the secret stability of solar cells, Empire Mastering the Marketing Game, and I actually missed his speech.
Speaker: And apparently he called me up on stage and gave me a shout out.
Speaker: So Brent, if you're listening to this, I apologize.
Speaker: Okay, but of course, I'm not going to miss out on free food.
Speaker: So I got there for the VIP lunch, at least.
Speaker: Did some chatting.
Speaker: And after that, it was kind of just off to the races.
Speaker: Did some more podcasts, networked with some people, and I'm super excited to
Speaker: for the podcast we got coming up, they blew me away.
Speaker: And sometimes that's why I justify doing so many podcasts versus missing out on some of these speakers, because it's really cool to be able to ask people, you know, personal questions and things that are relating to what's going on in my solar career at the moment.
Speaker: So yeah, I really didn't see too many speakers after this.
Speaker: I did see Jonathan Budd, who is CEO of Power, P-O-W-U-R.
Speaker: Shout out to all my Power peeps out there.
Speaker: And it was cool.
Speaker: The dude's got some vision for the future and really interesting.
Speaker: Their model, he, they call it like a vertically integrated.
Speaker: Um, they call themselves like the Uber for solar.
Speaker: And he just talked about how there's a lot of risk when you start your own EPC, when you start your own solar company, if you're doing the construction.
Speaker: There is risk in that, right?
Speaker: Because we're in an industry where we don't get paid until glass hits the roof.
Speaker: And so it creates cash flow issues.
Speaker: So power, the reason it is what it is, is because they're not doing the construction aspect of it.
Speaker: So they don't have that risk.
Speaker: And they're all pretty much, you know, virtual.
Speaker: They don't have physical offices except for the main headquarters they got.
Speaker: So just talked about the power in that, which he's right on a lot of things.
Speaker: And dude's got vision.
Speaker: So shout out to that guy.
Speaker: Got a lot of buddies over at Power, so they dragged me to see Jonathan Budd.
Speaker: It was good.
Speaker: Hey, and then after that, if you follow me on Instagram, you probably saw my flight dilemma.
Speaker: What happened was I was supposed to fly out Saturday night, and long story short, my flight got canceled, and because my flight was Saturday night, I actually missed some of the main speakers.
Speaker: John Frampton, Bradley, would have loved to have seen them speak, but had to catch a flight.
Speaker: Turns out my flight was canceled, so I should have just stayed at the event.
Speaker: But the lesson I learned, number one, if you're flying, maybe don't fly cheap airlines.
Speaker: I was flying Spirit.
Speaker: And ever since I post on social media, I've gotten like 50 messages saying that's why I don't fly Spirit.
Speaker: So maybe I shouldn't get these cheap airline tickets.
Speaker: But what had happened is I actually booked a different flight out there.
Speaker: I flew Delta on the way out because I ended up needing to be there earlier to do this podcast with Doug Robinson.
Speaker: He's a busy guy.
Speaker: So kind of work on his timeline.
Speaker: Um, and since I didn't make the departing flight for spirits, turns out they cancel your whole itinerary essentially if you miss the departing flight.
Speaker: So, um, that's why I didn't get in the system notified that flight had been canceled.
Speaker: I didn't get an email communication and just a bit huge headache.
Speaker: Um, my brother dropped me off the airport, had to get him to turn around, pick me back up.
Speaker: It was all for nothing.
Speaker: Then I call him.
Speaker: I had to call Spirit customer service, went on hold like an hour, get on the line with some Indian dude.
Speaker: And he's like, hey, you missed flight.
Speaker: You don't have a ticket with us.
Speaker: And then I had to buy a whole new flight.
Speaker: I'm like, are you kidding me?
Speaker: At least give me a different flight.
Speaker: Give me credit for it.
Speaker: They gave me like a $50 credit.
Speaker: So not the best experience, but finally made it back 24 hours later.
Speaker: Luckily, my parents live in Utah, so crashed at their place and shipped out the next day.
Speaker: But that was my SolarCon experience.
Speaker: So overall, an awesome event.
Speaker: Keeps getting bigger and better and more fun each time.
Speaker: Loved seeing everybody there.
Speaker: So make sure you get your ticket for next year.
Speaker: And if you did get a ticket with our link, hit me up.
Speaker: We still got
Speaker: a little something for you.
Speaker: So shoot me an email, taylor at solarpreneur.com or shoot me a DM if you didn't get access to the little goodie we got for you.
Speaker: So excited for you guys to hear the upcoming episodes that we shot at SolarCon.
Speaker: They're going to be absolute fire.
Speaker: You're not going to want to miss out.
Speaker: So keep crushing this week.
Speaker: Always be learning.
Speaker: Always be going to events like this so you can uplevel your game and we'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker: Peace out.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker: Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
Speaker: One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
Speaker: What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
Speaker: You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
Speaker: So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and I would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solopreneur.
Speaker: We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new and you do not want to not have this sheet.
Speaker: So go download it right now.
Speaker: It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We will have that in the show notes.
Speaker: Go download it right now.
Speaker: And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
Speaker: That's going to show you how.
Speaker: So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.
