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How This Blitz Team Installs 80%+ Of Their Deals - Sean Holmander
355 Plays1 year ago
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Introduction to Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
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 fail.
00:00:19
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.
Defining a Solopreneur
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
00:00:41
Speaker
Okay, what's up, everybody?
00:00:42
Speaker
I am stoked for today's podcast.
00:00:44
Speaker
We got a guy that is killing a ton of deals, has a really unique model, doing a ton of same-day walk-in deals, high retention rate, so you're not going to want to miss out on this podcast
Meet Sean Hallmander
00:00:55
Speaker
today.
00:00:55
Speaker
We got Sean Hallmander.
00:00:57
Speaker
Thanks for coming on with us today, Sean.
00:00:59
Speaker
What's up, man?
00:00:59
Speaker
I'm excited to be on.
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, no, appreciate you taking the time.
00:01:04
Speaker
And you guys are running a cool model.
00:01:07
Speaker
I know you're over there in Tampa, but you're just telling me that you got guys blitzing.
00:01:12
Speaker
This is like the first week out of the year.
00:01:14
Speaker
Sounds like that you haven't had a blitz house.
00:01:16
Speaker
We're recording this the week of Thanksgiving.
00:01:19
Speaker
So that's that's pretty cool model.
00:01:21
Speaker
And you started, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's you were the founder of Rise Solar Solutions.
00:01:27
Speaker
That's your company, right?
00:01:28
Speaker
Yep.
00:01:29
Speaker
Yep.
00:01:29
Speaker
Rise Solar.
00:01:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:32
Speaker
So Rise Solar, I know you guys are doing a ton of deals.
00:01:35
Speaker
So yeah, excited to dig into it, man.
00:01:37
Speaker
But do you want to give us just kind of your background, how you got into solar, why you decided to start Rise, all those details before we get in the meat and potatoes?
Sean's Journey into Solar Sales
00:01:48
Speaker
Yeah, no doubt.
00:01:49
Speaker
Yeah, I was in I was 19 years old.
00:01:51
Speaker
I had just dropped out of college and my friend had hit an Indeed ad for, you know, this solar sales job, make 90, 130,000 a year.
00:02:00
Speaker
I'm like, dude, we're not going to make that kind of money.
00:02:02
Speaker
Like we're
00:02:03
Speaker
We're living in our parents' houses and we've never made more.
00:02:07
Speaker
I'd never made more than 10K in a year because of school and all that.
00:02:10
Speaker
But he hits that Indeed ad.
00:02:12
Speaker
I'm his biggest doubter, to be honest with you.
00:02:15
Speaker
He sells my mom solar.
00:02:16
Speaker
I'm like, dude, obviously he sold my mom solar.
00:02:18
Speaker
You can sell her anything.
00:02:20
Speaker
She loves you.
00:02:21
Speaker
But then he sells a couple of strangers solar.
00:02:23
Speaker
I'm like, wait, how much did you make on that?
00:02:25
Speaker
He's like, 3K.
00:02:26
Speaker
I'm like, he's like, 3K each.
00:02:28
Speaker
I'm like, man, I got to get in that.
00:02:29
Speaker
I'm delivering pizzas for like $400 a week.
00:02:32
Speaker
So get into solar, I'm in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and that company was good.
00:02:38
Speaker
It was good to start at, but the culture and leadership wasn't exactly meant for me.
00:02:44
Speaker
So I had found a company called Simple Solar on Instagram.
00:02:47
Speaker
A lot of people might have heard of it.
00:02:49
Speaker
They've since been, they've since dissolved.
00:02:52
Speaker
Went and joined them.
00:02:52
Speaker
I became their top producer ever of installs.
00:02:56
Speaker
My teams also that I managed were the top teams that they've ever had.
00:03:00
Speaker
Did 115 installs in 2021.
00:03:03
Speaker
I moved to California to do that.
00:03:06
Speaker
Yeah, made like half a million dollars.
00:03:08
Speaker
I'm 21 years old.
00:03:10
Speaker
That was it for me for solar.
00:03:12
Speaker
They had moved me to Tampa to run a team out there.
00:03:16
Speaker
Six months into that, I was loving it.
00:03:19
Speaker
We grew a team from five to 30, 40 people.
00:03:24
Speaker
I could see the way that Simple was going.
00:03:26
Speaker
As much as I loved my time there, I talk about it all the time.
00:03:29
Speaker
I model a lot of things I do today based on that.
00:03:32
Speaker
I could see that it was dissolving and the vision was disappearing.
00:03:35
Speaker
We always had a really strong vision and that was disappearing.
00:03:39
Speaker
That forced me to start Rise Solar and that's been a crazy roller coaster ever since about three years ago, a little over three years ago.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:47
Speaker
Wow.
00:03:47
Speaker
So that was with Mo, right?
00:03:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:49
Speaker
The man.
00:03:51
Speaker
Good old days.
00:03:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:53
Speaker
I remember having him on the podcast when you guys were just cranking so many deals.
00:03:57
Speaker
And yeah, it's funny.
00:03:59
Speaker
He was telling me a lot of the same stuff that I think Simple was doing a lot of similar things that probably you took a lot of, I think, same days and kind of walking in and
Direct Sales Approach
00:04:10
Speaker
all that.
00:04:10
Speaker
Was a lot of that the same Simple that you kind of brought over to Rise?
00:04:15
Speaker
So, I mean...
00:04:16
Speaker
What's funny is when I was in Rhode Island, like I said, the leadership wasn't anything special or anything like that.
00:04:21
Speaker
I had a good manager.
00:04:23
Speaker
He was from New Zealand.
00:04:26
Speaker
What do they call those New Zealanders?
00:04:28
Speaker
Kiwi.
00:04:29
Speaker
And he had this funny way of managing where like,
00:04:33
Speaker
He told me he's like, man, why are you setting appointments?
00:04:35
Speaker
Just walk in the house.
00:04:36
Speaker
I'm like, what are you talking about?
00:04:38
Speaker
Like walk right in their house and sell them solar.
00:04:40
Speaker
Anyway, I ended up getting really, really good at that where I wouldn't even I would set appointments.
00:04:45
Speaker
And to be honest, I would skip them.
00:04:46
Speaker
I would tell them, like, hey, look, I'll try to be here at seven.
00:04:49
Speaker
And 80% of the time I wouldn't actually go back.
00:04:52
Speaker
I would end up just knocking it later at whenever I wanted to and try to walk in right away again.
00:04:56
Speaker
That was like all that I did.
00:04:58
Speaker
So when I came to simple, I started doing that.
00:05:01
Speaker
And
00:05:02
Speaker
At the time, I did struggle with cancels, but we've sorted that out since.
00:05:07
Speaker
I was selling three, four deals in a day.
00:05:09
Speaker
That wouldn't be an odd day to me.
00:05:11
Speaker
With 50% canceled, I'm still ending up with one, two install generated a day.
00:05:18
Speaker
Then the team really got on board with that as well.
00:05:22
Speaker
That became our main strategy, at least the teams that I ran at Simple.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:27
Speaker
Wow.
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:28
Speaker
It's kind of a controversial topic because I know lots of guys that sell lights out and some of them are like totally against same days.
Competitive Motivation at Simple Solar
00:05:38
Speaker
And just because they're like, oh, much higher cancellation, retention is low.
00:05:46
Speaker
And I don't know, just like you said, they got other appointments scheduled and everything.
00:05:51
Speaker
So I think it's kind of an alarm thing.
00:05:53
Speaker
You didn't come from like an alarm background either, right?
00:05:55
Speaker
It was just straight solar.
00:05:57
Speaker
Straight into solar.
00:05:59
Speaker
I was a closer right away.
00:06:00
Speaker
It wasn't a setter closer model.
00:06:02
Speaker
So self-gen closer right away.
00:06:04
Speaker
Yep.
00:06:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool.
00:06:07
Speaker
Well, so yeah, I want to get into that.
00:06:08
Speaker
But I guess before that, a few things.
00:06:11
Speaker
So you said you went over to California, you're the top producer.
00:06:15
Speaker
What do you think?
00:06:16
Speaker
Do you think it was just like natural ability?
00:06:17
Speaker
What do you think set you apart to become the top producer so quick?
00:06:20
Speaker
Because I know simple you guys had some killers over there.
00:06:23
Speaker
I know lots of guys throwing down tons of deals.
00:06:25
Speaker
That's really impressive being the top producer.
00:06:27
Speaker
What do you think set you apart?
00:06:29
Speaker
And that's what Mo told me.
00:06:30
Speaker
I was DMing him when I was at the other company.
00:06:32
Speaker
And he's like, I'm showing him my stats because I was the top at that company.
00:06:36
Speaker
And he's like, man, that looks good.
00:06:38
Speaker
But you've got a lot of competition here.
00:06:39
Speaker
I'm like, no way, dude.
00:06:42
Speaker
And that got me fired up.
00:06:43
Speaker
So when I got out there, he wasn't joking, man.
00:06:45
Speaker
These guys were killers.
00:06:47
Speaker
There's still guys that are in the industry to this day that are absolute beasts.
00:06:51
Speaker
And they were doing 15, 18 deals a month.
00:06:54
Speaker
I'm like, what the heck is this?
00:06:56
Speaker
But
00:06:57
Speaker
I think it all started with the reason why I decided to get into the solar industry, which was I was in college.
Commitment in Sales Success
00:07:05
Speaker
I failed every single class in my college.
00:07:07
Speaker
I didn't pass a single class.
00:07:09
Speaker
I had a 0.89 GPA.
00:07:11
Speaker
I was in a fraternity going down the wrong path.
00:07:14
Speaker
I got kicked out of that fraternity too, which is like that's crazy.
00:07:21
Speaker
I was just going down the wrong path.
00:07:22
Speaker
I remember
00:07:23
Speaker
going to classes and just being like, why am I here?
00:07:27
Speaker
And just really being at that point in life where you're super lost.
00:07:29
Speaker
I'm like, even if I get this degree, I don't want to do anything in finance.
00:07:34
Speaker
You know, I want to do entrepreneurship.
00:07:35
Speaker
I want to do whatever it is.
00:07:37
Speaker
And so I just had really deep sort of like time to reflect and just figure out what it is I wanted to do.
00:07:46
Speaker
And I realized I just wanted to, I wanted to, you know,
00:07:50
Speaker
make a lot be able to provide myself with a lot my future self with a lot invest and never really be in a spot of normal being normal i really just didn't want to be normal so moving on to cali i tell people that was a huge game changer it's like getting out of your hometown i know a lot of people in the industry have already done that but the more you can burn the boats have the broke mentality not in the bad way but in the meaning of like
00:08:16
Speaker
I'm broke, I can't just sit and chill.
00:08:18
Speaker
Complacency is the biggest thing in this industry.
00:08:21
Speaker
However much you can burn the boats, get the nice apartments that you have to have something to pay for, I'm a big believer in that stuff.
00:08:28
Speaker
A lot of people don't believe in it.
00:08:30
Speaker
I'm a big believer, man.
00:08:31
Speaker
I got this luxury apartment that was like $2,500 a month.
00:08:35
Speaker
I was terrified.
00:08:36
Speaker
Someone on the team convinced me to do it, but I was never there.
00:08:40
Speaker
It pushed me to make more and more money, so it all worked out.
00:08:45
Speaker
Yeah, I love that.
00:08:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:46
Speaker
And I know you've got some content and everything on your Instagram that talks a lot about that.
00:08:50
Speaker
Just going all in and burning the bridges.
00:08:54
Speaker
And I think so many people don't do that, especially when they're coming from like a local market.
00:08:58
Speaker
And I'm sure you've seen this too, but we'll try and get on.
00:09:00
Speaker
There's like the Indeed Zip Recruiter recruits and all that.
00:09:03
Speaker
And it's like sometimes they're still living at their parents' house, whatever.
00:09:06
Speaker
And some of these people, it's so hard to get them bought in and
00:09:10
Speaker
get them grinding just because they've got like this safety net and they're like, okay, if this doesn't go well, then just go back to working at a Walmart or whatever they're doing before.
The Blitz Strategy: Pros and Cons
00:09:22
Speaker
So I think it's good.
00:09:23
Speaker
And and I know you guys do a lot of blitzes.
00:09:26
Speaker
That's probably a way.
00:09:27
Speaker
Do you think that's a way that you're getting people to
00:09:30
Speaker
kind of like maybe replicate that whole idea of sending them out to a different market.
00:09:34
Speaker
And is that is that a big reason why you guys do so many blitzes at your company?
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, when first of all, you're absolutely right, like doing the Indeed recruiting, you learn that there is a million reasons why guys can't do this job.
00:09:47
Speaker
They just can't.
00:09:49
Speaker
Even though they have everything on paper that's required to be extremely successful, there's a million little things that it could be that make it so that guys can't.
00:09:57
Speaker
I've been listening to this podcast for a long time.
00:09:59
Speaker
You have some really beasts on here.
00:10:01
Speaker
Anyone that's in the solar industry that's been doing it for maybe more than six months, I was listening to your last podcast and it's like, you're only in the solar industry when you finally get paid or something like that.
00:10:12
Speaker
But if you've been in the industry for like six months or more, like hats off to you, you're going to go far if you can just stick with it.
00:10:20
Speaker
But yeah, the Blitz model over time, I've just learned that the at-home stuff doesn't work for me, at least
00:10:28
Speaker
It doesn't produce the kind of results that I want my guys to have.
00:10:31
Speaker
It can get results, obviously, but the Blitz model, I think, is just how door-to-door solar should be done.
00:10:38
Speaker
We've taken a whole different spin on that.
00:10:39
Speaker
We've doubled, tripled down on the Blitz model.
00:10:42
Speaker
It's all we do, and we do it all year round, all month round.
00:10:46
Speaker
It's been really working out.
00:10:48
Speaker
The numbers that new guys are putting up is pretty awesome to see.
00:10:52
Speaker
They can put in that environment where they have to succeed.
00:10:56
Speaker
Blitzing is huge for me.
00:10:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:59
Speaker
No, I think that's good.
00:11:00
Speaker
I see because I see some guys that try to do the hybrid thing.
00:11:03
Speaker
I just had another guy on James Wood.
00:11:05
Speaker
You might know him, but they I think they're pretty similar to you.
00:11:09
Speaker
Their company, they do mostly blitzes and yeah, not really guys just long term in the market.
00:11:17
Speaker
Because I've been with companies that try to do just like a few blitzes here and there and or like, you know, a blitz, maybe a few blitzes, a quarter or whatever.
00:11:29
Speaker
And sometimes what ends up happening is these sales reps, they'll go out and they'll grind during the blitz, but then they'll come back and they'll just like...
00:11:35
Speaker
Yeah, it'll just take it off until the next blitz.
00:11:40
Speaker
So it makes sense that you double down on that.
00:11:44
Speaker
Almost either go all in the blitzes or go all in on local market.
00:11:48
Speaker
But yeah, I don't think it works to do like the whole, especially what I've seen fells where teams are blitzed and they do like a blitz every month.
00:11:57
Speaker
Because then it's like guys, they just go out the blitz and then they take the rest of the month off.
00:12:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:02
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:12:03
Speaker
For me, I feel like you almost got to do...
00:12:05
Speaker
Maybe just do like one blitz a quarter or whatever, have guys grind and then go back and work or just do like you're doing and just blitz all the time.
00:12:13
Speaker
Because otherwise, if it's back and forth like that, there's so many people that just don't show up until the next time.
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:22
Speaker
It's like, and why would you go as hard as you did on your Blitz?
00:12:25
Speaker
It's so hard to get through the resistance of like, my house is 15 minutes away.
00:12:30
Speaker
All my friends are, they're all here.
00:12:33
Speaker
When you go on a Blitz and it's like, oh my God, this is how it should be.
00:12:37
Speaker
If that's how it should be, we should do it four weeks a month, not one week a month or one every two months.
00:12:42
Speaker
I think the Blitz model is the way to do it.
00:12:44
Speaker
If guys are trying to really hit their goals and potential, then
00:12:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's why we said let's double down on it and do it all the time.
00:12:52
Speaker
Let's keep blitzing.
00:12:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:54
Speaker
Yeah, I like it.
00:12:55
Speaker
So do you have, because I feel like people that run the blitz model, it's definitely more like younger guys and stuff like that.
00:13:02
Speaker
And as we get older, you know, I got wife, kids and stuff like that.
00:13:07
Speaker
I can kind of see from the viewpoint, like my wife, she's not going to let me go blitz for three weeks out of the month and just disappear.
00:13:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:16
Speaker
So how do you keep that?
00:13:17
Speaker
I don't know if you have a lot of like older guys with kids and stuff like that, but what's like your typical are guys going two weeks out of the month or how do you manage that with guys that maybe aren't just like young and single and college dudes and stuff?
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:29
Speaker
And so that's one of the biggest things I've learned.
00:13:31
Speaker
It's a really good question of then some people aren't going to be a good fit for for rise and they may be a really great solar sales guy and they can really produce a lot for whatever team they end up with.
00:13:40
Speaker
But they may not be a good fit for us because if we bring on one person that we say, you know what, dude, do the part time thing and come when you want and this and that, what do you think other people are going to start thinking and seeing and wanting to do?
00:13:52
Speaker
So we hire we really embody like hire slow.
00:13:56
Speaker
I mean, we hire as quick as we can, but we make sure that these guys are able to commit to the schedule.
00:14:04
Speaker
And it's just a funnel.
00:14:05
Speaker
It's a really small funnel for guys that can do this kind of lifestyle.
Hiring for Intensity in Sales
00:14:09
Speaker
But I made this organization around who I am, which is I was willing to leave my home.
00:14:15
Speaker
I was in California.
00:14:16
Speaker
I was in Florida.
00:14:19
Speaker
No friends, not really.
00:14:20
Speaker
I was there to work.
00:14:21
Speaker
I was there to grind three to five years in the solar industry.
00:14:23
Speaker
That's what I always say.
00:14:24
Speaker
Invest that money and then go do whatever the heck you want.
00:14:29
Speaker
So I kind of designed this around people like that.
00:14:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:33
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's good in a way because you know exactly who you want.
00:14:36
Speaker
So I probably couldn't get hired at your company because you're like, hey, Taylor, if you're not willing to blitz all in this thing.
00:14:43
Speaker
Oh, no, you know, we would definitely have to hire you.
00:14:45
Speaker
We'd find something out.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:48
Speaker
Solarpreneur exception, but everyone else.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:50
Speaker
Nobody else.
00:14:53
Speaker
That's cool though.
00:14:54
Speaker
So, so yeah, what is like the typical schedule and everything is this?
00:14:58
Speaker
I know you say you got a blitz house every single week.
00:15:01
Speaker
What is it like different guys every week or same guy or how many guys are in your company, by the way?
00:15:07
Speaker
So we're at 14 full-time guys right now.
00:15:10
Speaker
Same guys every week.
00:15:11
Speaker
Obviously we bring on new people about every week or every other week, but yeah,
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah, the schedule is 10 a.m.
00:15:19
Speaker
Monday through Saturday.
00:15:21
Speaker
Most guys are in the gym in the morning.
00:15:22
Speaker
Like I say, we have a chef in the house that cooks.
00:15:25
Speaker
So 930 breakfast is ready.
00:15:26
Speaker
You got to be done eating breakfast.
00:15:28
Speaker
You got to be dressed, all that stuff by 10 a.m.
00:15:30
Speaker
because that's when the meeting is.
00:15:32
Speaker
We role play every single day and then we get after it until sundown, which has been getting a lot earlier lately, as we all know.
00:15:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:42
Speaker
Well, yeah.
00:15:42
Speaker
So catching our one up, we talked about this before we hit record, but this guy, they bring on a chef and someone that cleans their places, their Blitz houses.
00:15:51
Speaker
And I've never heard of this before.
00:15:53
Speaker
This is like, this is like a bougie Blitz.
00:15:56
Speaker
This is like Blitz everyone dreams of.
00:16:00
Speaker
So let's forget that.
00:16:02
Speaker
Talk to me about that.
00:16:03
Speaker
How did you guys end up with a chef?
00:16:05
Speaker
And I don't know, what's the idea behind that?
00:16:07
Speaker
It's funny that I can't believe it either when I still say it.
00:16:10
Speaker
But over time of running this model, it was really the guys I give credit to.
00:16:16
Speaker
They kind of came up with this idea.
00:16:18
Speaker
They said, dude, we're spending so much time cooking.
00:16:21
Speaker
And as we all know, when we cook, we have to clean.
00:16:23
Speaker
And that takes twice as long as actually cooking the thing.
00:16:26
Speaker
And
00:16:27
Speaker
We got to eat three meals a day.
00:16:28
Speaker
Man, the time crunch was insane.
00:16:31
Speaker
We had our sales manager, Adil, who's an absolute gangster.
00:16:35
Speaker
He has a spouse who was willing to come out and actually do the cooking and cleaning the house and just keeping things organized.
00:16:42
Speaker
We never let it be like, oh, just leave your stuff everywhere because Shauna's got it.
00:16:47
Speaker
No, we got to be extremely professional, but she's able to help out in little things like washing the dishes.
00:16:54
Speaker
You know, most of the time she does and stuff like that.
00:16:57
Speaker
But the cooking is really the biggest piece and cleaning and all that stuff.
00:17:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's good.
00:17:04
Speaker
And I assume it's like healthy stuff.
00:17:06
Speaker
It's not just throwing in frozen pizzas and stuff like that.
00:17:09
Speaker
Yeah, no, luckily it's not like lean cuisine or TV dinners.
00:17:14
Speaker
It's eggs every morning and some sort of protein for every meal.
00:17:18
Speaker
We're all trying to hit our protein goals every day because most of us are in the gym in the morning.
00:17:22
Speaker
So, yeah, we're all just trying to develop in every way possible.
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's fire, man.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, because I have a previous company I used to work out.
00:17:32
Speaker
I remember one time they did.
00:17:34
Speaker
I think the idea behind it was they were trying to kind of make it sound like that.
00:17:39
Speaker
They're like, oh, this is pay to play.
00:17:42
Speaker
And I like that because people are more bought in when they're like putting their money in.
00:17:47
Speaker
But they were like, oh, we're going to provide all the food.
00:17:50
Speaker
Everything's taken care of.
00:17:53
Speaker
And so we get there and I'm sleeping on the couch.
00:17:57
Speaker
It's whatever.
00:17:57
Speaker
I'm like, I paid and I still get the couch.
00:17:59
Speaker
But I'm like, OK, whatever.
00:18:01
Speaker
At least there's food.
00:18:02
Speaker
Right.
00:18:03
Speaker
But then we go to the fridge and we open it up and there's like six gallons of milk in there.
00:18:09
Speaker
A couple like apples, bananas.
00:18:11
Speaker
And then from there, it's just like pure sugar cereal and frozen pizzas.
00:18:16
Speaker
And I think that was it.
00:18:17
Speaker
So I'm thinking, I'm like, man, first of all, how am I going to survive?
00:18:21
Speaker
I'm not going to eat frozen pizzas for the next 10 days.
00:18:25
Speaker
So it's like, I've come thinking foods
Healthy Lifestyle and Sales Performance
00:18:28
Speaker
included.
00:18:28
Speaker
Because you know how it is on these blitzes, you're grinding.
00:18:31
Speaker
It's like, you got to be fully focused.
00:18:36
Speaker
And for me, I know if I'm eating frozen pizzas and Burger King every meal, it's going to be a terrible blitz.
00:18:42
Speaker
Probably I'm going to feel terrible.
00:18:43
Speaker
I'm not going to be focused.
00:18:45
Speaker
So yeah, I like that just because I'm sure you've seen so many guys, you know, you can only do so much fast food and there's not too many healthy fast food options.
00:18:57
Speaker
So yeah, I'm definitely going to look into that the next time.
00:19:00
Speaker
And it sounds like it's not necessarily like you're hiring some five-star mission chef coming.
00:19:05
Speaker
It sounds like it's just the wife of one of the reps that was willing to come out and help with it, right?
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we got lucky, though.
00:19:12
Speaker
She's a really good, like, chef.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah, not a five-star from a Michelin restaurant, but, you know, someone who knows their stuff and they study this kind of stuff and they're willing to do it.
00:19:22
Speaker
She uses all organic products.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's the biggest thing is staying away from processed foods.
00:19:30
Speaker
We all knew that.
00:19:31
Speaker
I knew that.
00:19:34
Speaker
That was the thing.
00:19:34
Speaker
I was going on blitzes in simple solar and stuff like that where I would get more out of shape than before the blitz.
00:19:41
Speaker
To me, I'm like, if I'm here to work and be 100% dialed in human being, I should be getting in better shape and making money.
00:19:49
Speaker
My denominator is like, when I come back on a blitz, am I in better or worse shape?
00:19:53
Speaker
than when I left.
00:19:54
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:19:55
Speaker
And I was like, I had, you know, I was skinny fat.
00:19:58
Speaker
It wasn't good back then.
00:20:00
Speaker
I had to fix that then.
00:20:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:03
Speaker
I love that.
00:20:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:03
Speaker
And it's kind of, I don't know if you read the book, Buy Back Your Time.
00:20:06
Speaker
You read that book.
00:20:07
Speaker
Dan Martell.
00:20:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:09
Speaker
That's a great book.
00:20:10
Speaker
Great book.
00:20:11
Speaker
And he talks a lot about that, those same concepts.
00:20:14
Speaker
Because, yeah, so many reps, they're spending their time on the cooking, on all these things that potentially other people could do, right?
00:20:21
Speaker
Doing laundry.
00:20:23
Speaker
So, yeah, it's the book I recommend to all my guys is buy back your time because he talks about that same concept.
00:20:30
Speaker
It's like all the time you're spending cooking, doing the dishes.
00:20:33
Speaker
I even saw on this last Blitz, we just got done with the Blitz actually.
00:20:36
Speaker
And yeah, I was kind of getting on my guys because they were in the morning.
00:20:42
Speaker
They're getting out a little late because they're still finishing up their breakfast, washing their dishes.
00:20:46
Speaker
So I'm like, guys, we got to figure out a way to get out there.
00:20:49
Speaker
We got to be out.
00:20:50
Speaker
We paid good money for the Blitz house.
00:20:52
Speaker
Let's make sure we're out there.
00:20:53
Speaker
930, 10 a.m.
00:20:54
Speaker
at the latest.
00:20:56
Speaker
And that definitely was a little bit of a problem.
00:20:59
Speaker
So I think that's a good recommendation for anyone listening to this that is running Blitzes.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yeah, maybe see if you can get, I don't know, the wife of one of your reps or whatever.
00:21:10
Speaker
And that solves the problem because I'm just thinking for me too, like my wife, she's the one that's like, oh, I hate that you're always gone.
00:21:17
Speaker
So I'm already thinking, man, what if I just invite my wife to come and say, hey, you come cook.
00:21:22
Speaker
And then that solves the problem of me not seeing you for 10 days.
00:21:26
Speaker
Man, that's it.
00:21:27
Speaker
I've done the same thing.
00:21:28
Speaker
I've had a girlfriend in the past that would just come on Blitzes with me.
00:21:31
Speaker
She started just working with the company.
00:21:34
Speaker
Why not?
00:21:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:37
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's good though.
00:21:40
Speaker
Cool.
00:21:40
Speaker
And, um, so 14 guys.
00:21:43
Speaker
And so you said you're blitzing, you're getting, you're going to
Geographical Focus and Retention Strategies
00:21:46
Speaker
different areas.
00:21:46
Speaker
You're not just in Florida.
00:21:48
Speaker
So you guys are like all over the country or do you have like typical spots you're blitzing?
00:21:52
Speaker
So all in Florida right now, there's nothing stopping us from going to other markets and we may do that soon.
00:21:59
Speaker
But yeah, we're all pretty much on the West Coast of Florida.
00:22:01
Speaker
So anywhere from basically Alabama to Naples, Florida, we're on that whole West Coast.
00:22:07
Speaker
As a lot of people know, the East Coast isn't too friendly with permitting the South, you know, Southeast Florida.
00:22:13
Speaker
So we stay on that West Coast.
00:22:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:16
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:22:18
Speaker
So yeah, I want to, uh, two things you talked about how you guys have been able to maintain a pretty high, um, retention with your, uh, same day appointments and stuff like that.
00:22:29
Speaker
So I want to get into that and then, um, yeah, just figure out how you guys are able to do the whole same day walk-in concept.
00:22:36
Speaker
So, um, yeah, I guess, I guess let's hear about that first.
00:22:40
Speaker
How do you guys go?
00:22:41
Speaker
What's your, uh, concept same day walk-in?
00:22:44
Speaker
Do you have any like ways you're framing it to like get in the house right then?
00:22:50
Speaker
Or how do you like kind of overcome?
00:22:51
Speaker
Oh, I don't know if I have time right now.
00:22:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:53
Speaker
What's your, I don't know, maybe some word tracks.
00:22:55
Speaker
What's your strategies to do this whole same day walk-in thing?
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah, so the whole mentality is, you know, I'm going to go to the door.
00:23:03
Speaker
I'm going to do my pitch.
00:23:05
Speaker
Obviously, if I get a form of interest, I'm either going to identify whether that other homeowner is there or I'm going to ask them, hey, do you live here with a spouse as well?
00:23:14
Speaker
Yes.
00:23:15
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:23:15
Speaker
Is she here?
00:23:16
Speaker
Great.
00:23:16
Speaker
And then I know which way I'm heading with it.
00:23:18
Speaker
I have to have both decision makers present.
00:23:20
Speaker
Obviously, we don't sit with one-leggers ever.
00:23:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:24
Speaker
As you know, for anyone who doesn't know, that's either going to not close or it's probably going to cancel if you do close it.
00:23:30
Speaker
Spouse comes home and they're like, dude, what did you sign?
00:23:33
Speaker
$50,000.
00:23:33
Speaker
And they have no idea what the thing does.
00:23:35
Speaker
They just know it's $50,000 and their husband's an idiot.
00:23:36
Speaker
So like,
00:23:43
Speaker
The whole mentality is if I know that they're both home, hey, I do my whole pitch and the only thing that changes, the only thing is, hey, do you have a small place I can sit while we show you that?
00:23:52
Speaker
If you're a setter, because most of our deals actually, 95% of our deals are set by an appointment setter.
00:23:59
Speaker
They're saying, hey, do you have a small place I can sit while we wait for our technician?
00:24:02
Speaker
He's right down the road.
00:24:03
Speaker
While we wait for our manager, he's right down the road.
00:24:07
Speaker
It's all about transitioning.
00:24:09
Speaker
You know, you guys all have your own pitch.
00:24:11
Speaker
I like doing multiple transitions.
00:24:13
Speaker
It's kind of keeping them off balance, keeping them on their back foot.
00:24:16
Speaker
As we know, when we go up to a door, what everyone is thinking in their head is, how do I get this person off my doorstep?
00:24:22
Speaker
So I'm doing things to kind of get their mind off of that, break their preoccupation, but continue to keep it broken.
00:24:28
Speaker
So
00:24:29
Speaker
I'll do my whole presentation and then, hey, is your meter on the left or the right side of the house?
00:24:33
Speaker
Okay, right side, you might be able to check that out real quick and we bring them over to there.
00:24:37
Speaker
Boom, their preoccupation is so broken.
00:24:40
Speaker
Once you show them the meter and all that stuff, hey, do you guys get your bills by mail or online?
00:24:43
Speaker
Okay, great.
00:24:44
Speaker
Can you pull that up for me real quick?
00:24:45
Speaker
The more things I can get them to do for me, it's keeping their mind off of how do I get this guy off my porch.
00:24:50
Speaker
Then by the end of all of those transitions, the final transition is, I just use this graph here on the bill to design the report.
00:24:57
Speaker
My technicians right down the street is finishing up with Miss Lacey.
00:25:00
Speaker
Do you have a small place I can sit while we wait for him and I build that up real quick?
00:25:03
Speaker
Then once the setter's in the house, they're just chopping it up, talking about anything other than solar.
00:25:09
Speaker
Don't talk anything solar, talk anything other than solar.
00:25:12
Speaker
I see your golf clubs, man.
00:25:13
Speaker
What's your favorite course?
00:25:15
Speaker
You know, whatnot.
00:25:15
Speaker
Build a rapport because that rapport is going to rub immediately off onto the closer since we represent each other.
00:25:21
Speaker
And that's another key is our closers are always within five minutes of the setters.
00:25:28
Speaker
So they're able to get there in five to 15 minutes, walk right in, rapport rubs off, and that rep acts as an anchor in the house.
00:25:34
Speaker
I've never had a problem where if my rep's in the house, I can't get in the house.
00:25:38
Speaker
I'm always going to be let in, and that's how we get most of our deals.
00:25:42
Speaker
Yeah, nice.
00:25:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:25:45
Speaker
And so if they don't have, yeah, if it's just one layer, then you're just pushing to book it for next day.
00:25:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:54
Speaker
And usually we turn those into go backs because my experience is appointments are disappointments and we can get more deals by focusing on staying in turf and just next door, next door, next door, rather than running around all these appointments and just sort of wasting time.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:11
Speaker
That's a good, that's a good, uh, appointments or disappointments.
00:26:15
Speaker
Never heard that before.
00:26:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:19
Speaker
That's a good one.
00:26:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:21
Speaker
Well, yeah.
00:26:21
Speaker
And then I guess if your book, if you're knocking in the morning, if you guys are knocking in the morning, then they can probably do, you know, like appointments later in the evening.
00:26:29
Speaker
Right.
00:26:30
Speaker
Like five or six, whenever the spouse is home.
00:26:33
Speaker
Yeah, we try to keep our closers out as late as possible into the night.
00:26:37
Speaker
You know, that's what we're there to do is make money.
00:26:39
Speaker
So you give me an appointment at 10 p.m., I'm ecstatic.
00:26:41
Speaker
I'm hyped about it.
00:26:42
Speaker
I'm not worried about it.
00:26:43
Speaker
So the setters can book our closers as late as possible.
00:26:47
Speaker
That's best case scenario and as early as possible, too.
00:26:50
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
00:26:54
Speaker
And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
00:27:01
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
00:27:05
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app.
00:27:10
Speaker
It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:27:15
Speaker
It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
00:27:24
Speaker
It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
00:27:29
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
00:27:33
Speaker
But I told them, hey, if I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need to give my listeners a great deal.
00:27:38
Speaker
And they did.
00:27:39
Speaker
So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up.
00:27:48
Speaker
That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
00:27:52
Speaker
Okay, back to the show.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:55
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:27:57
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:57
Speaker
And then the other big thing is, um, yeah, like we were talking about before is just the whole retention on it.
Importance of Completed Installs
00:28:04
Speaker
Cause, um, I struggle with it too is, um, I try to push for same days when I, when I can, but I still noticed that my, uh, retention is definitely lower on same day closes.
00:28:15
Speaker
So I'm curious, I'm definitely curious and learn what you guys have done or tweaked to like increase that retention.
00:28:22
Speaker
So yeah, what's your secrets on that?
00:28:24
Speaker
What are you guys doing to get these things sticky and not cancel or not like have the whole buyer's remorse thing being closed same day like that?
00:28:32
Speaker
For sure.
00:28:33
Speaker
I think it's really mainly the biggest switch came down to a mentality thing because
00:28:38
Speaker
Every company that's out there, if they're doing things right, for the most part, they're really highly digging into total FCs, total contracts signed by the end of the month, which is great.
00:28:49
Speaker
It's obviously correlated to how many installs you get, but that was the key word that I just said was installs.
00:28:56
Speaker
So we could go ahead and never even promote...
00:29:00
Speaker
contract signed and only promote installs, we probably have a really, really high retention rate.
00:29:05
Speaker
But obviously, we don't want to do that.
00:29:07
Speaker
We want to have wins every single day and installs can take time.
00:29:10
Speaker
So we don't want to only, but I think people just kind of overemphasize the contract sign because man, there's companies out there that you and I both know that put up these crazy numbers.
00:29:22
Speaker
And I would love to see their install rate.
00:29:25
Speaker
I would love to see it.
00:29:26
Speaker
I think industry-wide, it's 50%.
00:29:28
Speaker
People say it's 70.
00:29:29
Speaker
I think it's 50%.
00:29:30
Speaker
So when you guys are on Instagram and seeing these companies doing 100 deals in a day, it's like, great.
00:29:35
Speaker
But how many are you guys actually installing?
00:29:39
Speaker
So it was mainly a mentality switch.
00:29:40
Speaker
So if you come into a company where it's like, dude, we don't care about how many contracts you sign.
00:29:45
Speaker
We care about how many installs you did.
00:29:47
Speaker
That's going to change the whole way you approach the situation.
00:29:50
Speaker
I remember when I was at Simple, I had a pretty bad cancellation rate because I was looking at total contracts signed.
00:29:56
Speaker
That was all I cared about.
00:29:57
Speaker
I wanted to get out of the house, post it on the group me, everyone shouting me out like, yeah, go Sean, go Sean.
00:30:02
Speaker
I was addicted to that dopamine.
00:30:04
Speaker
When we switched it over to like, dude, this is about how much commission is sitting in my bank account.
00:30:09
Speaker
then you're in that house and you're like, I don't even want this contract signed if I don't think they're gonna stick with it.
00:30:15
Speaker
I think that's how you get to an 80% plus retention rate is when you don't even let people that you don't think are gonna go through with it sign.
00:30:22
Speaker
And then the 20%, it's just gonna happen.
00:30:25
Speaker
If you can get it under 20%, great, great on you.
00:30:28
Speaker
But some people are just gonna get cold feet.
00:30:30
Speaker
But if you do that, if you have that mentality of like, I don't want them to sign this if they're not gonna go through with it.
00:30:35
Speaker
I don't get paid, that does nothing for me.
00:30:38
Speaker
it's a vanity metric, then you'll have a higher retention rate automatically.
00:30:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's really good.
00:30:45
Speaker
And yeah, I like what you're saying about celebrating the money hitting the account.
00:30:49
Speaker
And just because I heard I've heard from some guys, too, that they don't even celebrate like appointments being sets.
00:30:57
Speaker
Right.
00:30:58
Speaker
Because it's kind of that same concept is I remember when I first started, I would get that dopamine hit, like booking all these appointments that I knew most weren't even going to sit.
00:31:07
Speaker
But I felt so good posting.
00:31:08
Speaker
Oh, this is the fifth appointment on the day, sixth appointment on the day.
00:31:12
Speaker
And then the next day, none of them would sit.
00:31:13
Speaker
But I was like, well, at least my team thinks I'm awesome.
00:31:20
Speaker
I booked five appointments that day.
00:31:23
Speaker
So, yeah, I think that is a mindset shift that a lot of guys need to make.
00:31:27
Speaker
And probably a lot of like managers and company owners listen to this too that need to kind of switch that whole, I don't know, celebration, switch the whole thing.
00:31:36
Speaker
uh praise of those different metrics because yeah you're totally right there's so many and guys that i've had on this podcast by the way where um you know i think they've like i think they're like the world's greatest closer and then um there's been a few there's been a few people not not shouting out names here but where i later heard after i had them on the podcast
00:31:56
Speaker
that like, you know, less than 20% of the deals they talked about on the podcast went to install.
00:32:02
Speaker
I'm like, man, I don't know if I, maybe I shouldn't have had that guy on the podcast.
00:32:10
Speaker
So yeah, it happens a lot.
00:32:11
Speaker
And they're like, they're on stages too.
00:32:13
Speaker
And it's like, man, if only, you know, it's,
00:32:17
Speaker
Yeah, if we could just switch to just talking about install numbers, that would be great.
00:32:24
Speaker
That's all that really matters.
00:32:25
Speaker
So there's companies that do 200 deals a month and you may be at a team that's only doing 50 or whatever, but they're only installing, they're installing the same amount you are.
00:32:35
Speaker
And by the way, how much time is wasted and how many more reps do they have to get to 200 contracts?
00:32:41
Speaker
And you guys are installing the same amount, less reps, less time wasted.
00:32:45
Speaker
See, with just these contracts being signed for no reason, hour long presentations for nothing.
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's good.
00:32:53
Speaker
So I'm guessing you guys don't do the whole like soft close thing.
00:32:56
Speaker
So if you see people, they're like, oh, yeah, like they're not totally sure.
00:33:00
Speaker
Then are you calling them out and just saying, hey, if you're not 100% on this, then I don't even want them coming out here site surveying or what's like your...
00:33:09
Speaker
And that's exactly it.
00:33:10
Speaker
That's where the team culture, if you make it about like cancels are a bad thing, like you're kind of embarrassed.
00:33:15
Speaker
You are embarrassed when you get a cancel.
00:33:17
Speaker
Like we don't want to bring people down.
00:33:18
Speaker
Right.
00:33:18
Speaker
But there's a lot of like it's simple.
00:33:21
Speaker
When we were over there, I think I can say it because they're kind of not there anymore.
00:33:24
Speaker
But, you know, we wouldn't really nobody knew if someone's deals canceled or not.
00:33:29
Speaker
Nobody knew.
00:33:29
Speaker
But over here, it's like you have a setter attached to every deal.
00:33:32
Speaker
We're a tight knit team.
00:33:33
Speaker
If a deal cancels, it's like everyone hears about it.
00:33:36
Speaker
And it's like, oh, that customer that they signed.
00:33:38
Speaker
And that's, in my opinion, a good, healthy culture where it's like, you're kind of like, oh, man, that canceled.
00:33:44
Speaker
And nobody's rude to each other or like, man, why did you let that deal cancel or not?
00:33:48
Speaker
But it is kind of like not cool.
00:33:51
Speaker
Whereas a lot of companies I know, they could care less how many cancels you get.
00:33:55
Speaker
It's just it's only about how many contracts you sign.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:59
Speaker
So again, when you have that culture, your closers are not going to be soft closing.
00:34:04
Speaker
They're just because they don't want to be the guy who got it.
00:34:07
Speaker
It's almost worse to get the deal to have it canceled rather than just not get the deal.
00:34:12
Speaker
Right.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:14
Speaker
So they're for sure not going to be like, yeah, man, you got plenty of time to think this over.
00:34:17
Speaker
If you need to cancel, just call me.
00:34:19
Speaker
You got three days.
00:34:19
Speaker
Yeah, we definitely don't do that because of the culture of install.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:26
Speaker
That's so good.
00:34:27
Speaker
I love that.
00:34:28
Speaker
So what about with same day closes, do you guys do any like follow up the
Follow-up Strategies to Reduce Cancellations
00:34:32
Speaker
next day?
00:34:32
Speaker
Like, I don't know, pop them by on day of site survey or like drop them by to make sure they don't have any questions that have come up.
00:34:39
Speaker
Anything like that you guys do?
00:34:42
Speaker
so i found a lot of success with the thank you cards and the gift card in uh california when i was when i did 115 installs a year the first six months um i was getting a lot of cancels i was at the top of the leaderboard i was crushing it but i would see guys paychecks and i was like man mine don't even look like that and i'm at the top of the leaderboard and that's when that mindset mindset shifted of like
00:35:04
Speaker
yeah, I think I'm a beast and I think I'm the best, but I'm not even making the most because these guys are just installing more deals.
00:35:12
Speaker
So I started switching to the gift card thing and that's when I ended up actually installing the most amount of deals as well.
00:35:18
Speaker
But that worked really well for me.
00:35:20
Speaker
I think it may be a supplement for maybe not doing the full job in the home of answering all the questions, making sure rapport is strong, expectations are set properly.
00:35:30
Speaker
Look, if it's going to take four or five weeks to install, you better let them know it could take six to eight weeks, not two to three or three to four.
00:35:38
Speaker
You got to set those expectations properly.
00:35:40
Speaker
That's huge.
00:35:41
Speaker
If you're not going to be in communication with them,
00:35:43
Speaker
don't tell them you're going to be right.
00:35:45
Speaker
Be like, hey, no news is good news.
00:35:48
Speaker
We're probably just waiting for permits if you don't hear from us, but we'll be in contact soon with your install date.
00:35:53
Speaker
Or if you're going not, I've made this mistake where I've told people I'm going to bring them a thank you card, but I got busy and didn't do it.
00:36:01
Speaker
Don't do that.
00:36:01
Speaker
Like, if you're not sure you're going to bring one, don't tell them you're going to.
00:36:05
Speaker
Because as soon as you don't, they're like, oh, this guy was a liar, this and that.
00:36:09
Speaker
He fell off the face of the earth.
00:36:10
Speaker
Cancel it, right?
00:36:12
Speaker
So, yeah, I think it's mainly just about
00:36:17
Speaker
I did a good job with gift cards that helped out, but now it's more about just making sure all questions are answered, expectations are set really well.
00:36:25
Speaker
We did a good job selling it, didn't leave any questions on the table.
00:36:29
Speaker
Just being a better sales guy.
00:36:32
Speaker
When you get a cancel, it's a good opportunity to look at yourself and be like, okay, how can I just be a better sales guy?
00:36:36
Speaker
I don't need to supplement it with thank you cards.
00:36:39
Speaker
Those things can help, but how do I just be a better sales guy and get that customer to be sticky?
00:36:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's good.
00:36:48
Speaker
Because, yeah, I know a lot of our, a lot of people at our company, when they do same days, most of them, like, pop by the next day to kind of, like, I know one of our top guys over here in San Diego, they'll have the setter go by and, like, drop off a gift at the site survey and,
00:37:06
Speaker
I think things like that can help.
00:37:08
Speaker
But yeah, I think more than anything, though, I like what you're saying, just getting in that different mindset because I think that's more of an issue than anything else.
00:37:17
Speaker
Yeah, you can do the thank you cards, you can drop off gifts and all that.
Contract Challenges and Upfront Commitment
00:37:21
Speaker
But if you're just like slapping mud at the wall or like super soft closing, like down here in...
00:37:28
Speaker
In California, we do a lot of sunrun PPAs.
00:37:31
Speaker
And I don't know if you've heard about their contract, but it'll literally say on the contract that they can cancel up until the day of install.
00:37:38
Speaker
Ooh, that stinks.
00:37:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:41
Speaker
So I hate it.
00:37:41
Speaker
I like it.
00:37:43
Speaker
So when I'm doing sunrun PPAs, I try to like, you know, not let anyone see that.
00:37:48
Speaker
Yeah, just say, hey, page 14 and 15 don't matter.
00:37:51
Speaker
Just tell us.
00:37:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:54
Speaker
Yeah, because it says up there, it says like five-day writing cancellation, but then beneath that, it says, you know, cancel until, it says our policies, you can cancel until the day of the install.
00:38:06
Speaker
So I'll try to kind of brush over that.
00:38:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's like just getting out of that mindset because if you're closing on that based off of that, it's like that's the worst thing you could do and for sure going to have way more cancellations.
00:38:21
Speaker
So that's good stuff, man.
00:38:24
Speaker
So it sounds like you guys are pretty lean and mean 14 guys.
00:38:28
Speaker
What's like your typical results?
00:38:29
Speaker
So guys are out there grinding on the blitz.
00:38:33
Speaker
What's the typical result that they can expect?
00:38:36
Speaker
Yeah, so I like to look at the brand new guys.
00:38:38
Speaker
We found that most of the time our guys get a deal within their first two days and no less than two deals in their first week.
00:38:45
Speaker
I think just because of the time and attention that we put into them.
00:38:48
Speaker
So that's our goal is to get them a deal within their first three days and then no less than one, I mean, no less than two in their first week.
Performance and Culture Fit at Rise Solar
00:38:57
Speaker
If you look at metrics, that's the number one way to retain guys as well is to get them, the faster they get a deal from their first day,
00:39:06
Speaker
is the longer they'll stick around, the better that they'll do with you, the more commission that they will make over time.
00:39:12
Speaker
So that's our goal, that's our metric, but our standards are high.
00:39:19
Speaker
We don't let people fall below like five deals a month, that's absolutely no way.
00:39:25
Speaker
And, you know, it's from a management perspective, it's just making sure that like the guy at the bottom of the leaderboard is getting the most attention.
00:39:34
Speaker
And then the second, third, fourth, middle, your top guys, you can actually ask them, hey, can you guys also help with the guys that are not at the top of the leaderboard and bring them up?
00:39:43
Speaker
So when you have a good culture,
00:39:45
Speaker
Everyone is kind of helping everyone, but I like to just look at it from who's at the bottom of the leaderboard.
00:39:50
Speaker
Okay, let's get this guy to the middle, to the top, and then we'll go back.
00:39:53
Speaker
Who's at the bottom?
00:39:54
Speaker
Bring them up, bring them up.
00:39:55
Speaker
And sometimes you have guys that just continue to just keep going down to the bottom and bottom and bottom.
00:39:59
Speaker
And, you know, you've got to have a tough conversation with them, or maybe it's just not a good fit.
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:07
Speaker
So how do you bring, when you're hiring new people, how do you bring these people into the culture and get them used to blitzing and everything and not bring down the team?
00:40:15
Speaker
Because 14 guys, you're pretty tight knit.
00:40:18
Speaker
You just, I don't know, condition them beforehand.
00:40:22
Speaker
What do you do to get them bought into the whole culture of you guys blitzing?
00:40:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:25
Speaker
That's a great question.
00:40:25
Speaker
We had five people join last Monday or two Mondays ago.
00:40:31
Speaker
Just yesterday, I got a call.
00:40:32
Speaker
They're heading home for Thanksgiving.
00:40:34
Speaker
They're calling me.
00:40:35
Speaker
They're saying, man, it feels like a family already.
00:40:37
Speaker
It's weird how I just met these guys, but two weeks later, it literally feels like they're family and I've known them forever.
00:40:45
Speaker
I think that's on a part to the Blitz house.
00:40:47
Speaker
The proximity is great.
00:40:49
Speaker
Biggest thing is just hiring only people that you would want to hang out with in your free time outside of work.
00:40:57
Speaker
We've all been in offices where we see someone that we're like, should that guy really be here?
00:41:03
Speaker
I don't see why that even happens.
00:41:05
Speaker
I think the culture fit is more important than the sales skill set fit and for that reason.
00:41:12
Speaker
If you have all those guys, that culture mixes pretty easily, without much effort at all, really.
00:41:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:20
Speaker
Especially if you're just doing blitzes.
00:41:23
Speaker
That's the last thing you want is blitzing with guys that you don't like and aren't the right fit for the culture.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's nothing worse.
00:41:33
Speaker
My first summer, pest control.
00:41:35
Speaker
You know, it's basically a blitz for the full four months, four and a half months or whatever you're doing pest control.
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, I remember I had this, I had one of those iPod classic things at the time.
00:41:47
Speaker
This was back in like 2012, 2011.
00:41:50
Speaker
And this dude, he bailed on this summer and then he had jacked my iPod when he went home for the summer.
00:41:58
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:41:59
Speaker
Like I'm living with these people that just steal your stuff and it's like nothing worse than not being able to trust people you're living in the same place with and, you know, guys not working on top of them, not working or being bad fit for the culture.
00:42:13
Speaker
So, uh, yeah, that's super important.
00:42:16
Speaker
Do you guys do a lot of just, is it just internal hiring?
00:42:18
Speaker
Do you guys do the whole zip recruiter indeed stuff or is it just kind of like a word of mouth and all that?
00:42:23
Speaker
Yeah, so we're on Indeed, but word of mouth way bigger.
00:42:27
Speaker
And social media is number one.
00:42:29
Speaker
Social media is number one.
00:42:30
Speaker
And then close second is just friends, word of mouth referrals.
00:42:36
Speaker
But we have Indeed where...
00:42:39
Speaker
If we get a guy from Indeed that happens to be solid, then he can just be another branch of his referrals and whatnot.
00:42:45
Speaker
I like to keep those cold markets open.
00:42:49
Speaker
Instagram's number, social media, and then warm network, people's friends, their family, whatnot, and then stuff like Indeed, job boards.
00:43:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:43:02
Speaker
Well, cool, man.
00:43:03
Speaker
So last couple of questions before we start wrapping up here, Sean.
Installer Relationships and Operations
00:43:07
Speaker
So another thing that I know people struggle with when it comes to cancels is just maybe dealing with the installer for communication with installers, installers making mistakes, stuff like that.
00:43:18
Speaker
So do you have any tips?
00:43:20
Speaker
Because I know that definitely plays a part in the retention, too, is knowing how to manage those relationships and everything and set the expectations of that.
00:43:28
Speaker
You talked a little bit about setting those expectations.
00:43:31
Speaker
So what do you guys do with that?
00:43:33
Speaker
How do you manage your installer relationships and get good communication?
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's...
00:43:39
Speaker
That's a really, really good question.
00:43:42
Speaker
That's like the number one complaint I'm hearing from people in the industry is their relationship to their installer.
00:43:48
Speaker
Oddly enough, or funnily enough, I'm in my installer's office right now.
00:43:52
Speaker
This is their studio that they built in their office.
00:43:57
Speaker
They're the coolest guys and I have a really good relationship with them.
00:44:00
Speaker
They're friends inside of work and outside of work.
00:44:03
Speaker
I've been lucky with that.
00:44:06
Speaker
Because that is the biggest complaint I've been hearing from other people.
00:44:08
Speaker
And I'm just like, what do you mean your installer doesn't pay you?
00:44:10
Speaker
Like, why don't they just pay you?
00:44:12
Speaker
What do you mean the installer is not putting glass on the roof?
00:44:14
Speaker
Don't they want to?
00:44:15
Speaker
You know, so you've got to have a strong relationship.
00:44:18
Speaker
And some I've had definitely bad situations.
00:44:20
Speaker
I'm having to, you know, work with an attorney right now to deal with a situation I have with a past installer.
00:44:27
Speaker
You have to.
00:44:28
Speaker
Have a close relationship.
00:44:30
Speaker
And the problem is, too, if you're a small fish, as they say, it's harder to have a good relationship with that, you know, big boss who works with these dealers that do 200, 300 deals, whatever, and you're only doing 25, 30, 40.
00:44:42
Speaker
It can be hard, but, man, you've got to get in there and, you know, meet with the owner, meet with the people upstairs and really judge their intentions and judge what are they trying to do?
00:44:52
Speaker
Are they trying to make fast cash or are they trying to build something that's long lasting?
00:44:58
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, we got lucky with some really great guys that I'm close with.
00:45:04
Speaker
But that is the biggest, yeah, it's a great question.
00:45:07
Speaker
And our past installer, I think the way we could have maybe prevented this from happening is just, yeah, having closer communication with them.
00:45:15
Speaker
Someone has to be the, what's the word for that?
00:45:19
Speaker
Like,
00:45:20
Speaker
the diplomat or the guy or something, the liaison, someone has to be in there.
00:45:25
Speaker
If you're Taylor Solar, you have to have a liaison that's constantly in communication with that installer.
00:45:32
Speaker
Dude, that is where all your money is.
00:45:34
Speaker
It can be easy to forget because we've all worked for these companies that deal with all of our stuff.
00:45:39
Speaker
They install it, they pay us.
00:45:40
Speaker
We don't think about anything other than sell, sell, sell.
00:45:42
Speaker
But when you are in charge of that,
00:45:47
Speaker
All your money could potentially be locked up.
00:45:49
Speaker
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars could be locked up with that installer.
00:45:54
Speaker
It's happened before where that rug can just get pulled right underneath you.
00:45:59
Speaker
It's not only you that's getting screwed, you're screwing all these people that are under you.
00:46:04
Speaker
That's the worst part.
00:46:06
Speaker
That's your responsibility to have that connection with the installer.
00:46:11
Speaker
For sure.
00:46:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:12
Speaker
Well, for me, I feel like that's earlier this year, I was struggling a little bit more with retention on my deals.
00:46:19
Speaker
And I feel like I was doing most of the stuff right.
00:46:22
Speaker
I was trying not to soft close too much.
00:46:25
Speaker
I was doing the whole customer gifting thing.
00:46:27
Speaker
But my retention was still not great.
00:46:30
Speaker
It was, I don't know, probably sitting around 60 to 70% maybe.
00:46:35
Speaker
Not great.
00:46:36
Speaker
And so the one thing I changed was just like doing exactly what you're saying, just being super on top of the installer communication.
00:46:44
Speaker
And speaking of buying back time, it's like, yeah, I actually hired my wife to like basically check in with the installer every single day on these accounts.
00:46:55
Speaker
Just be like, hey, what's the update?
00:46:57
Speaker
What's the update?
00:46:58
Speaker
And just blog them like crazy.
00:46:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:59
Speaker
Because I was actually getting customers just because they hadn't heard or some of the installs were taking longer than expected.
00:47:08
Speaker
I was getting cancellations further into the process.
00:47:11
Speaker
And that's one of the downsides of having these PPA options where the customer really can almost cancel at any time.
00:47:19
Speaker
And so they were just falling off or stopped responding, whatever the reason.
00:47:23
Speaker
And so I changed that thing and that actually took my retention.
00:47:27
Speaker
I would say up another 10% or so just by doing that one thing.
00:47:31
Speaker
So I think on top of all the stuff you're talking about with, um, getting in the right mindsets, doing customer gifts maybe, but yeah, guys need to either be on top of themselves, checking in with the installer or, uh, you know, like you said, get some type of liaison, get someone that's checking in.
00:47:48
Speaker
Um, I would say like pretty much daily and on top of these accounts.
00:47:51
Speaker
Um,
00:47:52
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, squeaky wheel really, really gets the grease.
00:47:55
Speaker
Like you can be the installer that I mean, the org that does 50 deals a month, and then there's one that does 200.
00:48:01
Speaker
But if they're constantly seeing your name, like bugging them like, hey, what's up with this project?
00:48:04
Speaker
What's up with this?
00:48:05
Speaker
You may feel like you're being annoying, which is probably why you might want to hire someone else to do it other than yourself like you did.
00:48:11
Speaker
You don't have to be the one.
00:48:13
Speaker
But yeah,
00:48:14
Speaker
When they see your name coming across the desk every single day, they're saying, okay, these guys are serious about their jobs.
00:48:20
Speaker
They know that they're solid and they know they're going to go to install, which means we're going to get paid and they're going to get paid.
00:48:25
Speaker
It's not a bad thing to get on their case, even if you're not doing as many deals as maybe the big titan in your area.
00:48:35
Speaker
It shows that you're more serious.
00:48:36
Speaker
You probably have a higher retention rate because you know these jobs are going to install when you're deliberate about it.
00:48:42
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
00:48:45
Speaker
So, yeah, hopefully you guys have taken some notes on
Future Expansion Plans
00:48:47
Speaker
all this.
00:48:47
Speaker
We've gone over a ton of awesome stuff.
00:48:49
Speaker
And so, yeah, I want to ask you, Sean, what's next for Rise?
00:48:52
Speaker
Are you guys trying to expand the company?
00:48:54
Speaker
Keep blitzing with a lot of people?
00:48:55
Speaker
Or what do you guys got in plan for the future of your company?
00:48:59
Speaker
Yeah, man.
00:48:59
Speaker
Our goal is to be at 100 people by the end of 2025, and that means multiple markets probably heading out to Cali again, which will be cool, maybe Texas and Arizona, try to stick near the Sunbelt for now.
00:49:12
Speaker
But yeah, we just want to keep expanding and growing and duplicating this Bliss model that we have into different markets because it works exceptionally well.
00:49:21
Speaker
I think that
00:49:22
Speaker
The lifestyle is able to actually stay high up.
00:49:26
Speaker
While you're making a lot of money, you're actually having a great lifestyle too.
00:49:30
Speaker
I think it's something that we can replicate throughout the whole country.
00:49:33
Speaker
That's the goal.
00:49:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:49:35
Speaker
And I forgot to ask you, so if you've got your 14 guys blitzing, do they do, like, I don't know, three weeks on, a week off?
00:49:43
Speaker
Or is it just, like, straight blitzing almost the entire year?
00:49:46
Speaker
It's straight blitzing.
00:49:48
Speaker
Wow.
00:49:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:49:49
Speaker
It's straight blitzing, yeah.
00:49:51
Speaker
That's what I did, like, so...
00:49:55
Speaker
that's yeah again we're looking for people that want to get in here do really really well for themselves and yeah they're out there yeah man it's no wonder guys are getting results because you know you get most most guys in solar it's like they do a blitz and like oh i gotta take two weeks off i'm i'm gassed it's like i think once you build up that uh just endurance that that becomes like the normal yeah my guys get conditioned to doing that um
00:50:23
Speaker
So, yeah, and I think it's probably just a mindset shift if they know that's how it is at your company.
00:50:27
Speaker
It's like, this is normal.
00:50:29
Speaker
This isn't like we're going hard for 10 days and then taking 10 days off.
00:50:34
Speaker
And it's funny because we say Blitz, but this is like us working at Blitz.
00:50:40
Speaker
That's basically like us working a normal job, right?
00:50:42
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:50:43
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:50:45
Speaker
Yeah, I'd say it's Blitz model, but this is what we do every week.
00:50:50
Speaker
It's like we should almost just call it this is normal work.
00:50:52
Speaker
This is like a job.
00:50:54
Speaker
Yeah, we just we run a model.
00:50:56
Speaker
It's like normal model.
00:50:59
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:51:00
Speaker
Oh, cool, man.
00:51:00
Speaker
So if guys want to connect more with you, look into maybe joining you on a Blitz or something like that.
00:51:05
Speaker
What's the best way to connect with this, Sean?
00:51:07
Speaker
Yeah, I'm on everything, but Instagram's the best.
00:51:09
Speaker
It's at Sean Hallmander, S-E-A-N-H-O-L-M-A-N-D-E-R.
00:51:14
Speaker
Yeah, hit me up, DM me.
00:51:15
Speaker
I have a link in my bio to apply to Rise Solar.
00:51:18
Speaker
You hop on a phone call with me and yeah, it's the best way to find me.
00:51:23
Speaker
Sweet brother.
00:51:23
Speaker
We appreciate you coming on.
00:51:24
Speaker
And then last question, if you have a rep that's maybe struggling or maybe they come to you and like, man, Sean, I'm burned out from, from this blitz in, um, I didn't get the results I wanted the past couple of weeks.
00:51:36
Speaker
What do you like telling these guys or any like advice you'd have for a struggling rep?
One-on-One Support and Motivation
00:51:41
Speaker
Yeah, well, instantly it's a call for a one-on-one.
00:51:44
Speaker
I love one-on-ones.
00:51:45
Speaker
I think they're game-changing, potentially life-changing.
00:51:47
Speaker
Some of these guys have never had someone sit them down and say, dude, what are you looking for?
00:51:51
Speaker
What are you trying to do?
00:51:52
Speaker
And how can I help you get there?
00:51:54
Speaker
No one has ever done that except maybe their guidance counselor who was trying to get them into some college, right?
00:52:00
Speaker
So I love doing those.
00:52:02
Speaker
If you can do one with each of your guys, like at least once a month, it's huge.
00:52:05
Speaker
And how those go down is I'm just, I'm basically like selling them.
00:52:09
Speaker
I'm like asking them discovery questions.
00:52:10
Speaker
Like, what is it that you're looking for?
00:52:12
Speaker
How can I actually help you?
00:52:14
Speaker
So just like in a sale, you're asking discovery questions, you know,
00:52:19
Speaker
It usually starts with the biggest macro thing you can think of.
00:52:22
Speaker
What do you see yourself like?
00:52:24
Speaker
Where do you see yourself in five years, 10 years, three years, whatever?
00:52:27
Speaker
And then working your way down from there.
00:52:30
Speaker
And then usually their problems start to make, they start to
00:52:34
Speaker
make light like oh it's just a mindset issue or it was actually if you know some issue that was going on with turf or whatnot okay boom easy solution usually it's like a mindset thing and you've got to you've got to do a good job of figuring out what their why is and selling them on that why like hitting them on that why until it's dug even deeper into their brain giving them confidence i love doing that like you know tom brady was a big guy of uh
00:52:57
Speaker
positive reinforcement of like, yeah, man, you killed it on that play.
00:53:00
Speaker
You killed it.
00:53:01
Speaker
He was always saying that.
00:53:02
Speaker
Not so much, man, that sucks.
00:53:04
Speaker
Why'd you do that?
00:53:05
Speaker
So I love the positive reinforced guys.
00:53:07
Speaker
Give them confidence, figure out what their why is and just kind of sell them on it.
00:53:11
Speaker
Hit them on that hot button.
00:53:12
Speaker
Like when the homeowner really likes the savings, I'm going to hit them on the savings hot button.
00:53:17
Speaker
Same thing with the rep.
00:53:19
Speaker
And you can change a lot of stuff with a 20, 30 minute one-on-one, maybe even shorter.
00:53:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:26
Speaker
Love that.
00:53:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:27
Speaker
It's so important.
00:53:28
Speaker
We did that with our guys too.
00:53:29
Speaker
And yeah, I noticed a huge difference and just, and then what they tell you, you can actually hold them accountable on it.
00:53:35
Speaker
It was like, Hey, look, you told me that you wanted this, but your actions are matching, like not even close to that.
00:53:40
Speaker
What's going on here.
00:53:42
Speaker
So yeah, I think that's massive once a month.
00:53:45
Speaker
Um, yeah, I think minimum quarterly doing it with your guys.
00:53:48
Speaker
Um, and for sure a game changer.
00:53:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:51
Speaker
So cool, cool, bro.
00:53:52
Speaker
Well, Hey, appreciate you coming on.
00:53:54
Speaker
And yeah, we'll have to do one in the future.
00:53:56
Speaker
It's good stuff, man.
00:53:57
Speaker
So guys reach out to Sean, let him know you appreciate it.
00:54:00
Speaker
I'm coming on the show today and can't wait to see you guys growing.
00:54:04
Speaker
Just stay out of our turf in California.
00:54:07
Speaker
All right.
00:54:07
Speaker
I will.
00:54:07
Speaker
It's San Diego, right?
00:54:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:10
Speaker
We're good.
00:54:11
Speaker
I'm just getting plenty of doors, plenty of doors.
00:54:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:15
Speaker
I appreciate you, brother.
00:54:16
Speaker
Thanks for having me on, man.
00:54:18
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
00:54:19
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:54:21
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.
00:54:31
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:54:39
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:54:41
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:54:46
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.
00:54:59
Speaker
We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet.
00:55:08
Speaker
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00:55:10
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:55:14
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:55:19
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:55:21
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:55:23
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:55:25
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:55:30
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:55:32
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.