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 how 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 solopreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: What is going on solopreneurs?
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong, your host, and thanks for making the Solopreneur podcast the first listen of every Tuesday and Friday.
Speaker: As usual, we are here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: Before we jump into today's topic, just wanted to give a reminder, SolarCon is coming up.
Speaker: It's April 21st through the 23rd.
Speaker: I would love to see every one of you there.
Speaker: If you haven't already gotten your ticket, please
Speaker: We're going to post the link in the show notes.
Speaker: And if you haven't heard, we have a 25% discount that we are given.
Speaker: And if you're connected in the industry, you've probably seen there's quite a few people that are doing this 25% discount.
Speaker: So to be blunt, that is nothing special.
Speaker: A lot of people have these discount coupon codes floating around.
Speaker: But here's the reason why you should go through our solopreneur discount code.
Speaker: Because if you do...
Speaker: We will give you exclusive access to our Soul Society platform.
Speaker: Normally it is the package on that normally is a hundred bucks.
Speaker: We are giving you free exclusive access for a month.
Speaker: If you want to take advantage of the coupon code and join us at SolarCon.
Speaker: So again, click the link in the show notes.
Speaker: It's going to take you straight to the page, punch in the solarpreneur code and
Speaker: All you got to do once you purchase your ticket is send an email, a screenshot of the receipt, and that email you can either do support at solarpreneurs.com or taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: So go grab your tickets.
Speaker: We want to see you all there.
Speaker: I'm going to be there.
Speaker: I'm going to be jamming on the stage.
Speaker: A lot of other people on the podcast that we've had on quite recently are going to be up there.
Speaker: So if you feel like you need something to freshen yourself up, a great way to kick off the summer and really jumpstart your results.
Speaker: So that's the first thing.
Speaker: And then speaking of SoulCiety, a few of you have downloaded the app.
Speaker: We had an app for our platform.
Speaker: The big announcement with that is we're actually moving it off of the app and going to a web-based platform.
Speaker: It's called Skool.
Speaker: And the reason we decided to make that change is just because there wasn't an easy way we found for the users to be able to interact with each other.
Speaker: So this platform is taking the same stuff, the same content from the app, but it's just adding kind of a community aspect and much easier to manage.
Speaker: So people will be able to connect with others and just a lot easier to make adjustments with it.
Speaker: So we are moving to that.
Speaker: We'd love to see you on the platform and that you can also see in the show notes.
Speaker: I feel like I never look at show notes, so I always have to remind people to look at show notes.
Speaker: So let's jump into the topic of the day.
Speaker: Today we're going to be talking about the presentation.
Speaker: And specifically, we're talking about the presentation on the doors.
Speaker: And you know that I'm trying to work on saying instead of pitch presentation, a lot of our, well, specifically these, Knox, Star, Danny, Pesce, Taylor McCarthy,
Speaker: They got me in that habit.
Speaker: They were making us do push-ups whenever we said the word pitch at a lot of these events we were attending.
Speaker: So I'm trying to get pitch out of my vocabulary because it does sell.
Speaker: It does sound a little salesy, right?
Speaker: So let me ask you a question.
Speaker: Have you truly, truly mastered your presentation on the doors or in the home or on the phone, wherever you are doing your presentations to potential prospects?
Speaker: If you can't say with 100% certainty that you have mastered it, that you know it forward, backwards, that you can jump in on any portion of the presentation and get to where you're supposed to go, then you probably could use some work on it.
Speaker: So today we're going to be talking about a little game that you can use for yourself and in your teams and a way you can truly master it because a lot of people think they have it down.
Speaker: But when we're out there on the doors or we're in live situations, most of the time it's different than just doing a role play.
Speaker: You're coming up with different objections.
Speaker: Hopefully you all have an objection journal.
Speaker: You're recording all those.
Speaker: But you can't really replicate a dog or a kid just screaming in the background.
Speaker: Which you'll probably hear my kids screaming in the background here.
Speaker: But those are the things that you really need to replicate.
Speaker: Okay, and so just think about that, first of all.
Speaker: How good do you actually have your presentation?
Speaker: Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10.
Speaker: And if it's not a 10, then this podcast is for you.
Speaker: Okay, something that reminds me of this, well, when I first started in pest control, and probably like anyone, no one has the presentation down perfect, especially when they first start.
Speaker: So I remember I started my first day just this giant knot in my stomach,
Speaker: Just so scared to go to that first door.
Speaker: And I was sitting on the porch.
Speaker: We didn't have smartphones back then.
Speaker: This was back in 2012.
Speaker: I'm old, right?
Speaker: So I didn't even have a smartphone at that time.
Speaker: I just had my little sheet of the pitch of the presentation.
Speaker: I'm still seeing it.
Speaker: And I was just reviewing it.
Speaker: I reviewed it for an entire hour before I finally was like, all right, it doesn't matter how many times I review this.
Speaker: I just got to get out there and fall on my face.
Speaker: And so really at the end of the day, you got to get out there.
Speaker: You're never going to know a hundred percent.
Speaker: But the other thing is the more fear you have, if you still have lots of fear in your presentations, if you still have lots of fear as you're out going up to people and presenting, then it could be that you don't know enough about what you're presenting and
Speaker: Grant Cardone, Encloser Survival Guide, he says, fear is an indicator that you don't know something.
Speaker: And he talks about in his book that when he first started selling, he says, when I had an opportunity to close the deal, it was mostly heart beating, scared to death, fingers crossed, hoping and praying.
Speaker: I was experiencing more fear than my prospects were, and that is not a good sign.
Speaker: And a lot of times, even as I started in solar, I
Speaker: A lot of times this is exactly the explanation for what was going on in my head too.
Speaker: I had so much finger crossing going on.
Speaker: My heart was beating.
Speaker: I came out of appointments just sweating.
Speaker: My pits had these huge sweat stains in them.
Speaker: And so that is not a good sign.
Speaker: That is an indicator that I did not know enough about what I was doing.
Speaker: I did not have enough closing techniques.
Speaker: I didn't know where I needed to direct the conversation when a homeowner brought up a specific objection.
Speaker: So especially if you are having that fear, then we need to increase your knowledge.
Speaker: We need to increase your closing techniques.
Speaker: We need to get to the point where you know exactly what you're doing.
Speaker: Because Grant Cardone talks about it.
Speaker: If you think about it, the more you know about something, the less fearful you're going to be.
Speaker: If you got put out on an NBA court playing with LeBron, you're going to be scared to death because you don't know how to dunk the basketball.
Speaker: Pretty extreme comparison.
Speaker: But anything you do in life, the more times you've done it, the less you're going to fear it.
Speaker: But anyone that has a lack of experience, a lack of knowledge, there's going to be some level of fear there.
Speaker: So how can you get your presentation to a level where you know it forwards and backwards, where you don't have that fear?
Speaker: where you feel like you mastered it.
Speaker: That's what I'm going to share with you today.
Speaker: And if you're managing a team, this is a great exercise you can do in your meetings or just maybe have like a retreat coming up.
Speaker: Any type of training you're doing, a great exercise.
Speaker: And I actually learned this.
Speaker: I did this for the first time at one of the Noxstar events.
Speaker: So thank you to Danny Pesci and Taylor McCarthy for introducing this to me.
Speaker: But the way it works is you have everyone line up.
Speaker: Okay, so get a line and then you have a presenter and then you have a homeowner.
Speaker: Role play, right?
Speaker: Just get everyone doing it in a straight line.
Speaker: And then you or whoever's running the exercise, this is what you're going to do.
Speaker: You're going to have everyone do their presentation, the role play.
Speaker: As they're doing it, you're going to go down the line and you're going to give them math problems.
Speaker: And I know I'm not the greatest at math.
Speaker: We're not, we're sales people.
Speaker: We're not.
Speaker: Most of us are probably not math geniuses, right?
Speaker: So you don't want to get insane with it.
Speaker: Know what's the x prime of z squared, whatever.
Speaker: You're not doing those type of math problems.
Speaker: But you're doing math that is just complex enough to make you think a little bit.
Speaker: Okay, maybe you're reviewing the times tables, maybe you're doing some additions that are a little trickier than normal.
Speaker: And you can kind of up the difficulty as time goes on.
Speaker: But the purpose of this is, is as people are doing their presentations, you're distracting them with something that they have to solve at the same time.
Speaker: And then they have to jump right back in to the spot where they were interrupted.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So if they're trying to set the appointment or if they're trying to overcome the objection, they have to stop in that exact section that you gave them the math problem, answer the math problem, and then jump right back in.
Speaker: And the goal of this is that you can get people distracted from what they're doing, but jump right back into your presentation wherever you were.
Speaker: And what this is supposed to replicate is just whenever you're on the doors or whenever you are presenting in a live situation, this is actually what's happening typically, right?
Speaker: It's very rare, I've noticed, to actually get a clean presentation exactly how it's scripted, exactly how you're giving it.
Speaker: How many times, think back to when you're knocking on doors or whenever you're in, you know, sales calls, how many times you actually get a clean two minutes or whatever without any distractions with the homeowner's full attention and not have to divert from your actual presentation.
Speaker: It's probably pretty rare, pretty rare for me.
Speaker: Those people are more a dime a dozen that actually do let you give a full presentation.
Speaker: But more than likely, they're going to interrupt you, ask a question.
Speaker: More than likely, they're going to have a kid that comes and screams.
Speaker: More than likely, they're going to have, I don't know, a phone ring.
Speaker: It could be any number of things.
Speaker: Or maybe they're just not paying attention, so you have to throw in an extra question there to grab their attention.
Speaker: But that is the purpose of the game, is to get a diversion, get a distraction, and jump right back in to where you were.
Speaker: So do this with your teams.
Speaker: Even if you don't have it on a team, get your spouse, husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, roommate, get someone to do this exercise with you.
Speaker: Guarantee it's going to help solidify your presentation.
Speaker: It's going to help you master it.
Speaker: And then besides that, if you haven't already, just write out your presentation.
Speaker: I learned this from one of our guests, Suli.
Speaker: She has our Suli's Inc.
Speaker: Great podcast.
Speaker: She has her teams pretty often, from what it sounded like, just write out on a pad of paper their entire presentation.
Speaker: Script it out.
Speaker: And you know the drill.
Speaker: The more you can...
Speaker: You know, read it, write it, listen to it.
Speaker: The more you can involve those senses, the more you're going to truly master whatever you're doing.
Speaker: So this is a great way to do two exercises you can do right there.
Speaker: And then on top of that, just think, how well do you know it again?
Speaker: Could you start from the end, from the very last section?
Speaker: So don't always start your presentation from the beginning.
Speaker: Maybe you do a drill where you start your presentation two minutes in and how are you going to start it?
Speaker: Okay, in your meetings for you as sales managers,
Speaker: You team leaders, you company owners, this is a great exercise to do as well.
Speaker: Do not just always start at the beginning of the presentation.
Speaker: Put it in different scenarios, in different sections of your presentation, and that's going to help.
Speaker: So hopefully everyone goes and tries that.
Speaker: And whether you feel like you have it mastered or not, I guarantee these things are going to help you improve what you're actually saying.
Speaker: It takes me back.
Speaker: Many of you know I did music in my university.
Speaker: This is what I was doing before I started solar.
Speaker: And I played this instrument called the marimba.
Speaker: It's like a giant xylophone.
Speaker: You play it with four mallets.
Speaker: You're memorizing songs.
Speaker: I did the whole, you know, you have to do recitals on them, memorize all these, these five to 10 minute songs that you learn.
Speaker: And something our professor would tell us, she'd be like, Taylor, how well do you know this?
Speaker: Start in this section.
Speaker: She would do the exact same thing with us.
Speaker: It wasn't cells.
Speaker: It was music.
Speaker: She would start on major 17 on the third beat.
Speaker: I was like, what?
Speaker: When she first told me that, I was like, I have no idea where that is.
Speaker: But she would start making us do crazy things like that.
Speaker: Or another thing, she would make us just stop.
Speaker: She'd yell, stop.
Speaker: And then she'd wait like 10 seconds.
Speaker: And then in our heads, we're supposed to be continuing playing the song for the 10 seconds and then jump back in in the exact spot that we should have been playing after the 10 seconds of silence.
Speaker: Some crazy stuff.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And maybe I lost you on some of that.
Speaker: If you don't know music.
Speaker: as good.
Speaker: But the point with all this, you should treat cells just like any other skill you're trying to learn.
Speaker: Some of us think we can just get out there, have cells come to us just through experience, never practice it, never improve our craft.
Speaker: But the key to having success in this industry and really pretty much anything in life is
Speaker: is you got to treat it like something you truly want to improve.
Speaker: You got to treat it like something that you're going to drill, that you're going to practice, that you're going to rehearse, and you're going to do whatever it takes to really achieve success.
Speaker: And unless you're one of those rare people that I envy, that can just start things and have, that's a natural sales guy, has success, which I never have been, this is really how you're going to master it.
Speaker: This is how you're going to make the improvements.
Speaker: So hope that helps.
Speaker: Try these exercises with your teams.
Speaker: Try these exercises as you're drilling the presentation yourself.
Speaker: Guarantee it's going to help.
Speaker: Guarantee you're going to see improvements and send this to someone that needs help today improving their presentation out there in their sales calls.
Speaker: Hope that helped and we'll see you on the next podcast.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
Speaker: 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?
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: And it's called Solciety.
Speaker: This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors who
Speaker: who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day.
Speaker: Currently, Soul Society is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
Speaker: So go to soulcidity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to soulcidity.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
