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 fail.
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: Okay, what's up, everybody?
Speaker: I am stoked for today's podcast.
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 today.
Speaker: We got Sean Hallmander.
Speaker: Thanks for coming on with us today, Sean.
Speaker: What's up, man?
Speaker: I'm excited to be on.
Speaker: Yeah, no, appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker: And you guys are running a cool model.
Speaker: I know you're over there in Tampa, but you're just telling me that you got guys blitzing.
Speaker: This is like the first week out of the year.
Speaker: Sounds like that you haven't had a blitz house.
Speaker: We're recording this the week of Thanksgiving.
Speaker: So that's that's pretty cool model.
Speaker: And you started, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's you were the founder of Rise Solar Solutions.
Speaker: That's your company, right?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Rise Solar.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So Rise Solar, I know you guys are doing a ton of deals.
Speaker: So yeah, excited to dig into it, man.
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?
Speaker: Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker: Yeah, I was in I was 19 years old.
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.
Speaker: I'm like, dude, we're not going to make that kind of money.
Speaker: Like we're
Speaker: We're living in our parents' houses and we've never made more.
Speaker: I'd never made more than 10K in a year because of school and all that.
Speaker: But he hits that Indeed ad.
Speaker: I'm his biggest doubter, to be honest with you.
Speaker: He sells my mom solar.
Speaker: I'm like, dude, obviously he sold my mom solar.
Speaker: You can sell her anything.
Speaker: She loves you.
Speaker: But then he sells a couple of strangers solar.
Speaker: I'm like, wait, how much did you make on that?
Speaker: He's like, 3K.
Speaker: I'm like, he's like, 3K each.
Speaker: I'm like, man, I got to get in that.
Speaker: I'm delivering pizzas for like $400 a week.
Speaker: So get into solar, I'm in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and that company was good.
Speaker: It was good to start at, but the culture and leadership wasn't exactly meant for me.
Speaker: So I had found a company called Simple Solar on Instagram.
Speaker: A lot of people might have heard of it.
Speaker: They've since been, they've since dissolved.
Speaker: Went and joined them.
Speaker: I became their top producer ever of installs.
Speaker: My teams also that I managed were the top teams that they've ever had.
Speaker: Did 115 installs in 2021.
Speaker: I moved to California to do that.
Speaker: Yeah, made like half a million dollars.
Speaker: I'm 21 years old.
Speaker: That was it for me for solar.
Speaker: They had moved me to Tampa to run a team out there.
Speaker: Six months into that, I was loving it.
Speaker: We grew a team from five to 30, 40 people.
Speaker: I could see the way that Simple was going.
Speaker: As much as I loved my time there, I talk about it all the time.
Speaker: I model a lot of things I do today based on that.
Speaker: I could see that it was dissolving and the vision was disappearing.
Speaker: We always had a really strong vision and that was disappearing.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So that was with Mo, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The man.
Speaker: Good old days.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I remember having him on the podcast when you guys were just cranking so many deals.
Speaker: And yeah, it's funny.
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 all that.
Speaker: Was a lot of that the same Simple that you kind of brought over to Rise?
Speaker: So, I mean...
Speaker: What's funny is when I was in Rhode Island, like I said, the leadership wasn't anything special or anything like that.
Speaker: I had a good manager.
Speaker: He was from New Zealand.
Speaker: What do they call those New Zealanders?
Speaker: Kiwi.
Speaker: And he had this funny way of managing where like,
Speaker: He told me he's like, man, why are you setting appointments?
Speaker: Just walk in the house.
Speaker: I'm like, what are you talking about?
Speaker: Like walk right in their house and sell them solar.
Speaker: Anyway, I ended up getting really, really good at that where I wouldn't even I would set appointments.
Speaker: And to be honest, I would skip them.
Speaker: I would tell them, like, hey, look, I'll try to be here at seven.
Speaker: And 80% of the time I wouldn't actually go back.
Speaker: I would end up just knocking it later at whenever I wanted to and try to walk in right away again.
Speaker: That was like all that I did.
Speaker: So when I came to simple, I started doing that.
Speaker: And
Speaker: At the time, I did struggle with cancels, but we've sorted that out since.
Speaker: I was selling three, four deals in a day.
Speaker: That wouldn't be an odd day to me.
Speaker: With 50% canceled, I'm still ending up with one, two install generated a day.
Speaker: Then the team really got on board with that as well.
Speaker: That became our main strategy, at least the teams that I ran at Simple.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: And just because they're like, oh, much higher cancellation, retention is low.
Speaker: And I don't know, just like you said, they got other appointments scheduled and everything.
Speaker: So I think it's kind of an alarm thing.
Speaker: You didn't come from like an alarm background either, right?
Speaker: It was just straight solar.
Speaker: Straight into solar.
Speaker: I was a closer right away.
Speaker: It wasn't a setter closer model.
Speaker: So self-gen closer right away.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: Well, so yeah, I want to get into that.
Speaker: But I guess before that, a few things.
Speaker: So you said you went over to California, you're the top producer.
Speaker: What do you think?
Speaker: Do you think it was just like natural ability?
Speaker: What do you think set you apart to become the top producer so quick?
Speaker: Because I know simple you guys had some killers over there.
Speaker: I know lots of guys throwing down tons of deals.
Speaker: That's really impressive being the top producer.
Speaker: What do you think set you apart?
Speaker: And that's what Mo told me.
Speaker: I was DMing him when I was at the other company.
Speaker: And he's like, I'm showing him my stats because I was the top at that company.
Speaker: And he's like, man, that looks good.
Speaker: But you've got a lot of competition here.
Speaker: I'm like, no way, dude.
Speaker: And that got me fired up.
Speaker: So when I got out there, he wasn't joking, man.
Speaker: These guys were killers.
Speaker: There's still guys that are in the industry to this day that are absolute beasts.
Speaker: And they were doing 15, 18 deals a month.
Speaker: I'm like, what the heck is this?
Speaker: But
Speaker: I think it all started with the reason why I decided to get into the solar industry, which was I was in college.
Speaker: I failed every single class in my college.
Speaker: I didn't pass a single class.
Speaker: I had a 0.89 GPA.
Speaker: I was in a fraternity going down the wrong path.
Speaker: I got kicked out of that fraternity too, which is like that's crazy.
Speaker: I was just going down the wrong path.
Speaker: I remember
Speaker: going to classes and just being like, why am I here?
Speaker: And just really being at that point in life where you're super lost.
Speaker: I'm like, even if I get this degree, I don't want to do anything in finance.
Speaker: You know, I want to do entrepreneurship.
Speaker: I want to do whatever it is.
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.
Speaker: And I realized I just wanted to, I wanted to, you know,
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
Speaker: I'm broke, I can't just sit and chill.
Speaker: Complacency is the biggest thing in this industry.
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.
Speaker: A lot of people don't believe in it.
Speaker: I'm a big believer, man.
Speaker: I got this luxury apartment that was like $2,500 a month.
Speaker: I was terrified.
Speaker: Someone on the team convinced me to do it, but I was never there.
Speaker: It pushed me to make more and more money, so it all worked out.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I know you've got some content and everything on your Instagram that talks a lot about that.
Speaker: Just going all in and burning the bridges.
Speaker: And I think so many people don't do that, especially when they're coming from like a local market.
Speaker: And I'm sure you've seen this too, but we'll try and get on.
Speaker: There's like the Indeed Zip Recruiter recruits and all that.
Speaker: And it's like sometimes they're still living at their parents' house, whatever.
Speaker: And some of these people, it's so hard to get them bought in and
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.
Speaker: So I think it's good.
Speaker: And and I know you guys do a lot of blitzes.
Speaker: That's probably a way.
Speaker: Do you think that's a way that you're getting people to
Speaker: kind of like maybe replicate that whole idea of sending them out to a different market.
Speaker: And is that is that a big reason why you guys do so many blitzes at your company?
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.
Speaker: They just can't.
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.
Speaker: I've been listening to this podcast for a long time.
Speaker: You have some really beasts on here.
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.
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.
Speaker: But yeah, the Blitz model over time, I've just learned that the at-home stuff doesn't work for me, at least
Speaker: It doesn't produce the kind of results that I want my guys to have.
Speaker: It can get results, obviously, but the Blitz model, I think, is just how door-to-door solar should be done.
Speaker: We've taken a whole different spin on that.
Speaker: We've doubled, tripled down on the Blitz model.
Speaker: It's all we do, and we do it all year round, all month round.
Speaker: It's been really working out.
Speaker: The numbers that new guys are putting up is pretty awesome to see.
Speaker: They can put in that environment where they have to succeed.
Speaker: Blitzing is huge for me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I think that's good.
Speaker: I see because I see some guys that try to do the hybrid thing.
Speaker: I just had another guy on James Wood.
Speaker: You might know him, but they I think they're pretty similar to you.
Speaker: Their company, they do mostly blitzes and yeah, not really guys just long term in the market.
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.
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...
Speaker: Yeah, it'll just take it off until the next blitz.
Speaker: So it makes sense that you double down on that.
Speaker: Almost either go all in the blitzes or go all in on local market.
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.
Speaker: Because then it's like guys, they just go out the blitz and then they take the rest of the month off.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: For me, I feel like you almost got to do...
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.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, and why would you go as hard as you did on your Blitz?
Speaker: It's so hard to get through the resistance of like, my house is 15 minutes away.
Speaker: All my friends are, they're all here.
Speaker: When you go on a Blitz and it's like, oh my God, this is how it should be.
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.
Speaker: I think the Blitz model is the way to do it.
Speaker: If guys are trying to really hit their goals and potential, then
Speaker: Yeah, that's why we said let's double down on it and do it all the time.
Speaker: Let's keep blitzing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I like it.
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.
Speaker: And as we get older, you know, I got wife, kids and stuff like that.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So how do you keep that?
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?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so that's one of the biggest things I've learned.
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.
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?
Speaker: So we hire we really embody like hire slow.
Speaker: I mean, we hire as quick as we can, but we make sure that these guys are able to commit to the schedule.
Speaker: And it's just a funnel.
Speaker: It's a really small funnel for guys that can do this kind of lifestyle.
Speaker: But I made this organization around who I am, which is I was willing to leave my home.
Speaker: I was in California.
Speaker: I was in Florida.
Speaker: No friends, not really.
Speaker: I was there to work.
Speaker: I was there to grind three to five years in the solar industry.
Speaker: That's what I always say.
Speaker: Invest that money and then go do whatever the heck you want.
Speaker: So I kind of designed this around people like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, yeah, that's good in a way because you know exactly who you want.
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.
Speaker: Oh, no, you know, we would definitely have to hire you.
Speaker: We'd find something out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Solarpreneur exception, but everyone else.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nobody else.
Speaker: That's cool though.
Speaker: So, so yeah, what is like the typical schedule and everything is this?
Speaker: I know you say you got a blitz house every single week.
Speaker: What is it like different guys every week or same guy or how many guys are in your company, by the way?
Speaker: So we're at 14 full-time guys right now.
Speaker: Same guys every week.
Speaker: Obviously we bring on new people about every week or every other week, but yeah,
Speaker: Yeah, the schedule is 10 a.m.
Speaker: Monday through Saturday.
Speaker: Most guys are in the gym in the morning.
Speaker: Like I say, we have a chef in the house that cooks.
Speaker: So 930 breakfast is ready.
Speaker: You got to be done eating breakfast.
Speaker: You got to be dressed, all that stuff by 10 a.m.
Speaker: because that's when the meeting is.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
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.
Speaker: And I've never heard of this before.
Speaker: This is like, this is like a bougie Blitz.
Speaker: This is like Blitz everyone dreams of.
Speaker: So let's forget that.
Speaker: Talk to me about that.
Speaker: How did you guys end up with a chef?
Speaker: And I don't know, what's the idea behind that?
Speaker: It's funny that I can't believe it either when I still say it.
Speaker: But over time of running this model, it was really the guys I give credit to.
Speaker: They kind of came up with this idea.
Speaker: They said, dude, we're spending so much time cooking.
Speaker: And as we all know, when we cook, we have to clean.
Speaker: And that takes twice as long as actually cooking the thing.
Speaker: And
Speaker: We got to eat three meals a day.
Speaker: Man, the time crunch was insane.
Speaker: We had our sales manager, Adil, who's an absolute gangster.
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.
Speaker: We never let it be like, oh, just leave your stuff everywhere because Shauna's got it.
Speaker: No, we got to be extremely professional, but she's able to help out in little things like washing the dishes.
Speaker: You know, most of the time she does and stuff like that.
Speaker: But the cooking is really the biggest piece and cleaning and all that stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker: And I assume it's like healthy stuff.
Speaker: It's not just throwing in frozen pizzas and stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah, no, luckily it's not like lean cuisine or TV dinners.
Speaker: It's eggs every morning and some sort of protein for every meal.
Speaker: We're all trying to hit our protein goals every day because most of us are in the gym in the morning.
Speaker: So, yeah, we're all just trying to develop in every way possible.
Speaker: Yeah, that's fire, man.
Speaker: Yeah, because I have a previous company I used to work out.
Speaker: I remember one time they did.
Speaker: I think the idea behind it was they were trying to kind of make it sound like that.
Speaker: They're like, oh, this is pay to play.
Speaker: And I like that because people are more bought in when they're like putting their money in.
Speaker: But they were like, oh, we're going to provide all the food.
Speaker: Everything's taken care of.
Speaker: And so we get there and I'm sleeping on the couch.
Speaker: It's whatever.
Speaker: I'm like, I paid and I still get the couch.
Speaker: But I'm like, OK, whatever.
Speaker: At least there's food.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But then we go to the fridge and we open it up and there's like six gallons of milk in there.
Speaker: A couple like apples, bananas.
Speaker: And then from there, it's just like pure sugar cereal and frozen pizzas.
Speaker: And I think that was it.
Speaker: So I'm thinking, I'm like, man, first of all, how am I going to survive?
Speaker: I'm not going to eat frozen pizzas for the next 10 days.
Speaker: So it's like, I've come thinking foods included.
Speaker: Because you know how it is on these blitzes, you're grinding.
Speaker: It's like, you got to be fully focused.
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.
Speaker: Probably I'm going to feel terrible.
Speaker: I'm not going to be focused.
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.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm definitely going to look into that the next time.
Speaker: And it sounds like it's not necessarily like you're hiring some five-star mission chef coming.
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?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, we got lucky, though.
Speaker: She's a really good, like, chef.
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.
Speaker: She uses all organic products.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's the biggest thing is staying away from processed foods.
Speaker: We all knew that.
Speaker: I knew that.
Speaker: That was the thing.
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.
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.
Speaker: My denominator is like, when I come back on a blitz, am I in better or worse shape?
Speaker: than when I left.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: And I was like, I had, you know, I was skinny fat.
Speaker: It wasn't good back then.
Speaker: I had to fix that then.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's kind of, I don't know if you read the book, Buy Back Your Time.
Speaker: You read that book.
Speaker: Dan Martell.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a great book.
Speaker: Great book.
Speaker: And he talks a lot about that, those same concepts.
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?
Speaker: Doing laundry.
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.
Speaker: It's like all the time you're spending cooking, doing the dishes.
Speaker: I even saw on this last Blitz, we just got done with the Blitz actually.
Speaker: And yeah, I was kind of getting on my guys because they were in the morning.
Speaker: They're getting out a little late because they're still finishing up their breakfast, washing their dishes.
Speaker: So I'm like, guys, we got to figure out a way to get out there.
Speaker: We got to be out.
Speaker: We paid good money for the Blitz house.
Speaker: Let's make sure we're out there.
Speaker: 930, 10 a.m.
Speaker: at the latest.
Speaker: And that definitely was a little bit of a problem.
Speaker: So I think that's a good recommendation for anyone listening to this that is running Blitzes.
Speaker: Yeah, maybe see if you can get, I don't know, the wife of one of your reps or whatever.
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.
Speaker: So I'm already thinking, man, what if I just invite my wife to come and say, hey, you come cook.
Speaker: And then that solves the problem of me not seeing you for 10 days.
Speaker: Man, that's it.
Speaker: I've done the same thing.
Speaker: I've had a girlfriend in the past that would just come on Blitzes with me.
Speaker: She started just working with the company.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's good though.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: And, um, so 14 guys.
Speaker: And so you said you're blitzing, you're getting, you're going to different areas.
Speaker: You're not just in Florida.
Speaker: So you guys are like all over the country or do you have like typical spots you're blitzing?
Speaker: So all in Florida right now, there's nothing stopping us from going to other markets and we may do that soon.
Speaker: But yeah, we're all pretty much on the West Coast of Florida.
Speaker: So anywhere from basically Alabama to Naples, Florida, we're on that whole West Coast.
Speaker: As a lot of people know, the East Coast isn't too friendly with permitting the South, you know, Southeast Florida.
Speaker: So we stay on that West Coast.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
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.
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.
Speaker: So, um, yeah, I guess, I guess let's hear about that first.
Speaker: How do you guys go?
Speaker: What's your, uh, concept same day walk-in?
Speaker: Do you have any like ways you're framing it to like get in the house right then?
Speaker: Or how do you like kind of overcome?
Speaker: Oh, I don't know if I have time right now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What's your, I don't know, maybe some word tracks.
Speaker: What's your strategies to do this whole same day walk-in thing?
Speaker: Yeah, so the whole mentality is, you know, I'm going to go to the door.
Speaker: I'm going to do my pitch.
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?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Is she here?
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: And then I know which way I'm heading with it.
Speaker: I have to have both decision makers present.
Speaker: Obviously, we don't sit with one-leggers ever.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: Spouse comes home and they're like, dude, what did you sign?
Speaker: $50,000.
Speaker: And they have no idea what the thing does.
Speaker: They just know it's $50,000 and their husband's an idiot.
Speaker: So like,
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 h ave a small place I can sit while we show you that?
Speaker: If you're a setter, because most of our deals actually, 95% of our deals are set by an appointment setter.
Speaker: They're saying, hey, do you h ave a small place I can sit while we wait for our technician?
Speaker: He's right down the road.
Speaker: While we wait for our manager, he's right down the road.
Speaker: It's all about transitioning.
Speaker: You know, you guys all have your own pitch.
Speaker: I like doing multiple transitions.
Speaker: It's kind of keeping them off balance, keeping them on their back foot.
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?
Speaker: So I'm doing things to kind of get their mind off of that, break their preoccupation, but continue to keep it broken.
Speaker: So
Speaker: I'll do my whole presentation and then, hey, is your meter on the left or the right side of the house?
Speaker: Okay, right side, you might be able to check that out real quick and we bring them over to there.
Speaker: Boom, their preoccupation is so broken.
Speaker: Once you show them the meter and all that stuff, hey, do you guys get your bills by mail or online?
Speaker: Okay, great.
Speaker: Can you pull that up for me real quick?
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.
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.
Speaker: My technicians right down the street is finishing up with Miss Lacey.
Speaker: Do you h ave a small place I can sit while we wait for him and I build that up real quick?
Speaker: Then once the setter's in the house, they're just chopping it up, talking about anything other than solar.
Speaker: Don't talk anything solar, talk anything other than solar.
Speaker: I see your golf clubs, man.
Speaker: What's your favorite course?
Speaker: You know, whatnot.
Speaker: Build a rapport because that rapport is going to rub immediately off onto the closer since we represent each other.
Speaker: And that's another key is our closers are always within five minutes of the setters.
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.
Speaker: I've never had a problem where if my rep's in the house, I can't get in the house.
Speaker: I'm always going to be let in, and that's how we get most of our deals.
Speaker: Yeah, nice.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
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.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a good, that's a good, uh, appointments or disappointments.
Speaker: Never heard that before.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a good one.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like five or six, whenever the spouse is home.
Speaker: Yeah, we try to keep our closers out as late as possible into the night.
Speaker: You know, that's what we're there to do is make money.
Speaker: So you give me an appointment at 10 p.m., I'm ecstatic.
Speaker: I'm hyped about it.
Speaker: I'm not worried about it.
Speaker: So the setters can book our closers as late as possible.
Speaker: That's best case scenario and as early as possible, too.
Speaker: So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
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.
Speaker: But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Speaker: Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app.
Speaker: It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
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.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
Speaker: I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
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.
Speaker: And they did.
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.
Speaker: That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then the other big thing is, um, yeah, like we were talking about before is just the whole retention on it.
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.
Speaker: So I'm curious, I'm definitely curious and learn what you guys have done or tweaked to like increase that retention.
Speaker: So yeah, what's your secrets on that?
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?
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: I think it's really mainly the biggest switch came down to a mentality thing because
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.
Speaker: It's obviously correlated to how many installs you get, but that was the key word that I just said was installs.
Speaker: So we could go ahead and never even promote...
Speaker: contract signed and only promote installs, we probably have a really, really high retention rate.
Speaker: But obviously, we don't want to do that.
Speaker: We want to have wins every single day and installs can take time.
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.
Speaker: And I would love to see their install rate.
Speaker: I would love to see it.
Speaker: I think industry-wide, it's 50%.
Speaker: People say it's 70.
Speaker: I think it's 50%.
Speaker: So when you guys are on Instagram and seeing these companies doing 100 deals in a day, it's like, great.
Speaker: But how many are you guys actually installing?
Speaker: So it was mainly a mentality switch.
Speaker: So if you come into a company where it's like, dude, we don't care about how many contracts you sign.
Speaker: We care about how many installs you did.
Speaker: That's going to change the whole way you approach the situation.
Speaker: I remember when I was at Simple, I had a pretty bad cancellation rate because I was looking at total contracts signed.
Speaker: That was all I cared about.
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.
Speaker: I was addicted to that dopamine.
Speaker: When we switched it over to like, dude, this is about how much commission is sitting in my bank account.
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.
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.
Speaker: And then the 20%, it's just gonna happen.
Speaker: If you can get it under 20%, great, great on you.
Speaker: But some people are just gonna get cold feet.
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.
Speaker: I don't get paid, that does nothing for me.
Speaker: it's a vanity metric, then you'll have a higher retention rate automatically.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, that's really good.
Speaker: And yeah, I like what you're saying about celebrating the money hitting the account.
Speaker: And just because I heard I've heard from some guys, too, that they don't even celebrate like appointments being sets.
Speaker: Right.
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.
Speaker: But I felt so good posting.
Speaker: Oh, this is the fifth appointment on the day, sixth appointment on the day.
Speaker: And then the next day, none of them would sit.
Speaker: But I was like, well, at least my team thinks I'm awesome.
Speaker: I booked five appointments that day.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think that is a mindset shift that a lot of guys need to make.
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.
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
Speaker: that like, you know, less than 20% of the deals they talked about on the podcast went to install.
Speaker: I'm like, man, I don't know if I, maybe I shouldn't have had that guy on the podcast.
Speaker: So yeah, it happens a lot.
Speaker: And they're like, they're on stages too.
Speaker: And it's like, man, if only, you know, it's,
Speaker: Yeah, if we could just switch to just talking about install numbers, that would be great.
Speaker: That's all that really matters.
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.
Speaker: And by the way, how much time is wasted and how many more reps do they have to get to 200 contracts?
Speaker: And you guys are installing the same amount, less reps, less time wasted.
Speaker: See, with just these contracts being signed for no reason, hour long presentations for nothing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker: So I'm guessing you guys don't do the whole like soft close thing.
Speaker: So if you see people, they're like, oh, yeah, like they're not totally sure.
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...
Speaker: And that's exactly it.
Speaker: That's where the team culture, if you make it about like cancels are a bad thing, like you're kind of embarrassed.
Speaker: You are embarrassed when you get a cancel.
Speaker: Like we don't want to bring people down.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But there's a lot of like it's simple.
Speaker: When we were over there, I think I can say it because they're kind of not there anymore.
Speaker: But, you know, we wouldn't really nobody knew if someone's deals canceled or not.
Speaker: Nobody knew.
Speaker: But over here, it's like you have a setter attached to every deal.
Speaker: We're a tight knit team.
Speaker: If a deal cancels, it's like everyone hears about it.
Speaker: And it's like, oh, that customer that they signed.
Speaker: And that's, in my opinion, a good, healthy culture where it's like, you're kind of like, oh, man, that canceled.
Speaker: And nobody's rude to each other or like, man, why did you let that deal cancel or not?
Speaker: But it is kind of like not cool.
Speaker: Whereas a lot of companies I know, they could care less how many cancels you get.
Speaker: It's just it's only about how many contracts you sign.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So again, when you have that culture, your closers are not going to be soft closing.
Speaker: They're just because they don't want to be the guy who got it.
Speaker: It's almost worse to get the deal to have it canceled rather than just not get the deal.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they're for sure not going to be like, yeah, man, you got plenty of time to think this over.
Speaker: If you need to cancel, just call me.
Speaker: You got three days.
Speaker: Yeah, we definitely don't do that because of the culture of install.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's so good.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: So what about with same day closes, do you guys do any like follow up the next day?
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.
Speaker: Anything like that you guys do?
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
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.
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.
Speaker: But that worked really well for me.
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.
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.
Speaker: You got to set those expectations properly.
Speaker: That's huge.
Speaker: If you're not going to be in communication with them,
Speaker: don't tell them you're going to be right.
Speaker: Be like, hey, no news is good news.
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.
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.
Speaker: Don't do that.
Speaker: Like, if you're not sure you're going to bring one, don't tell them you're going to.
Speaker: Because as soon as you don't, they're like, oh, this guy was a liar, this and that.
Speaker: He fell off the face of the earth.
Speaker: Cancel it, right?
Speaker: So, yeah, I think it's mainly just about
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.
Speaker: We did a good job selling it, didn't leave any questions on the table.
Speaker: Just being a better sales guy.
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?
Speaker: I don't need to supplement it with thank you cards.
Speaker: Those things can help, but how do I just be a better sales guy and get that customer to be sticky?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, that's good.
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,
Speaker: I think things like that can help.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, you can do the thank you cards, you can drop off gifts and all that.
Speaker: But if you're just like slapping mud at the wall or like super soft closing, like down here in...
Speaker: In California, we do a lot of sunrun PPAs.
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.
Speaker: Ooh, that stinks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I hate it.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: So when I'm doing sunrun PPAs, I try to like, you know, not let anyone see that.
Speaker: Yeah, just say, hey, page 14 and 15 don't matter.
Speaker: Just tell us.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: So I'll try to kind of brush over that.
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.
Speaker: So that's good stuff, man.
Speaker: So it sounds like you guys are pretty lean and mean 14 guys.
Speaker: What's like your typical results?
Speaker: So guys are out there grinding on the blitz.
Speaker: What's the typical result that they can expect?
Speaker: Yeah, so I like to look at the brand new guys.
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.
Speaker: I think just because of the time and attention that we put into them.
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.
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,
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.
Speaker: So that's our goal, that's our metric, but our standards are high.
Speaker: We don't let people fall below like five deals a month, that's absolutely no way.
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.
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?
Speaker: So when you have a good culture,
Speaker: Everyone is kind of helping everyone, but I like to just look at it from who's at the bottom of the leaderboard.
Speaker: Okay, let's get this guy to the middle, to the top, and then we'll go back.
Speaker: Who's at the bottom?
Speaker: Bring them up, bring them up.
Speaker: And sometimes you have guys that just continue to just keep going down to the bottom and bottom and bottom.
Speaker: And, you know, you've got to have a tough conversation with them, or maybe it's just not a good fit.
Speaker: Yeah.
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?
Speaker: Because 14 guys, you're pretty tight knit.
Speaker: You just, I don't know, condition them beforehand.
Speaker: What do you do to get them bought into the whole culture of you guys blitzing?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a great question.
Speaker: We had five people join last Monday or two Mondays ago.
Speaker: Just yesterday, I got a call.
Speaker: They're heading home for Thanksgiving.
Speaker: They're calling me.
Speaker: They're saying, man, it feels like a family already.
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.
Speaker: I think that's on a part to the Blitz house.
Speaker: The proximity is great.
Speaker: Biggest thing is just hiring only people that you would want to hang out with in your free time outside of work.
Speaker: We've all been in offices where we see someone that we're like, should that guy really be here?
Speaker: I don't see why that even happens.
Speaker: I think the culture fit is more important than the sales skill set fit and for that reason.
Speaker: If you have all those guys, that culture mixes pretty easily, without much effort at all, really.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Especially if you're just doing blitzes.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, it's nothing worse.
Speaker: My first summer, pest control.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember I had this, I had one of those iPod classic things at the time.
Speaker: This was back in like 2012, 2011.
Speaker: And this dude, he bailed on this summer and then he had jacked my iPod when he went home for the summer.
Speaker: Oh, no.
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.
Speaker: So, uh, yeah, that's super important.
Speaker: Do you guys do a lot of just, is it just internal hiring?
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?
Speaker: Yeah, so we're on Indeed, but word of mouth way bigger.
Speaker: And social media is number one.
Speaker: Social media is number one.
Speaker: And then close second is just friends, word of mouth referrals.
Speaker: But we have Indeed where...
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.
Speaker: I like to keep those cold markets open.
Speaker: Instagram's number, social media, and then warm network, people's friends, their family, whatnot, and then stuff like Indeed, job boards.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, cool, man.
Speaker: So last couple of questions before we start wrapping up here, Sean.
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.
Speaker: So do you have any tips?
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.
Speaker: You talked a little bit about setting those expectations.
Speaker: So what do you guys do with that?
Speaker: How do you manage your installer relationships and get good communication?
Speaker: Yeah, that's...
Speaker: That's a really, really good question.
Speaker: That's like the number one complaint I'm hearing from people in the industry is their relationship to their installer.
Speaker: Oddly enough, or funnily enough, I'm in my installer's office right now.
Speaker: This is their studio that they built in their office.
Speaker: They're the coolest guys and I have a really good relationship with them.
Speaker: They're friends inside of work and outside of work.
Speaker: I've been lucky with that.
Speaker: Because that is the biggest complaint I've been hearing from other people.
Speaker: And I'm just like, what do you mean your installer doesn't pay you?
Speaker: Like, why don't they just pay you?
Speaker: What do you mean the installer is not putting glass on the roof?
Speaker: Don't they want to?
Speaker: You know, so you've got to have a strong relationship.
Speaker: And some I've had definitely bad situations.
Speaker: I'm having to, you know, work with an attorney right now to deal with a situation I have with a past installer.
Speaker: You have to.
Speaker: Have a close relationship.
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.
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?
Speaker: Are they trying to make fast cash or are they trying to build something that's long lasting?
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, we got lucky with some really great guys that I'm close with.
Speaker: But that is the biggest, yeah, it's a great question.
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.
Speaker: Someone has to be the, what's the word for that?
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: the diplomat or the guy or something, the liaison, someone has to be in there.
Speaker: If you're Taylor Solar, you have to have a liaison that's constantly in communication with that installer.
Speaker: Dude, that is where all your money is.
Speaker: It can be easy to forget because we've all worked for these companies that deal with all of our stuff.
Speaker: They install it, they pay us.
Speaker: We don't think about anything other than sell, sell, sell.
Speaker: But when you are in charge of that,
Speaker: All your money could potentially be locked up.
Speaker: Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars could be locked up with that installer.
Speaker: It's happened before where that rug can just get pulled right underneath you.
Speaker: It's not only you that's getting screwed, you're screwing all these people that are under you.
Speaker: That's the worst part.
Speaker: That's your responsibility to have that connection with the installer.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, for me, I feel like that's earlier this year, I was struggling a little bit more with retention on my deals.
Speaker: And I feel like I was doing most of the stuff right.
Speaker: I was trying not to soft close too much.
Speaker: I was doing the whole customer gifting thing.
Speaker: But my retention was still not great.
Speaker: It was, I don't know, probably sitting around 60 to 70% maybe.
Speaker: Not great.
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.
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.
Speaker: Just be like, hey, what's the update?
Speaker: What's the update?
Speaker: And just blog them like crazy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I was actually getting customers just because they hadn't heard or some of the installs were taking longer than expected.
Speaker: I was getting cancellations further into the process.
Speaker: And that's one of the downsides of having these PPA options where the customer really can almost cancel at any time.
Speaker: And so they were just falling off or stopped responding, whatever the reason.
Speaker: And so I changed that thing and that actually took my retention.
Speaker: I would say up another 10% or so just by doing that one thing.
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.
Speaker: Um, I would say like pretty much daily and on top of these accounts.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, squeaky wheel really, really gets the grease.
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.
Speaker: But if they're constantly seeing your name, like bugging them like, hey, what's up with this project?
Speaker: What's up with this?
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.
Speaker: You don't have to be the one.
Speaker: But yeah,
Speaker: When they see your name coming across the desk every single day, they're saying, okay, these guys are serious about their jobs.
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.
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.
Speaker: It shows that you're more serious.
Speaker: You probably have a higher retention rate because you know these jobs are going to install when you're deliberate about it.
Speaker: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker: So, yeah, hopefully you guys have taken some notes on all this.
Speaker: We've gone over a ton of awesome stuff.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I want to ask you, Sean, what's next for Rise?
Speaker: Are you guys trying to expand the company?
Speaker: Keep blitzing with a lot of people?
Speaker: Or what do you guys got in plan for the future of your company?
Speaker: Yeah, man.
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.
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.
Speaker: I think that
Speaker: The lifestyle is able to actually stay high up.
Speaker: While you're making a lot of money, you're actually having a great lifestyle too.
Speaker: I think it's something that we can replicate throughout the whole country.
Speaker: That's the goal.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
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?
Speaker: Or is it just, like, straight blitzing almost the entire year?
Speaker: It's straight blitzing.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's straight blitzing, yeah.
Speaker: That's what I did, like, so...
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
Speaker: So, yeah, and I think it's probably just a mindset shift if they know that's how it is at your company.
Speaker: It's like, this is normal.
Speaker: This isn't like we're going hard for 10 days and then taking 10 days off.
Speaker: And it's funny because we say Blitz, but this is like us working at Blitz.
Speaker: That's basically like us working a normal job, right?
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, I'd say it's Blitz model, but this is what we do every week.
Speaker: It's like we should almost just call it this is normal work.
Speaker: This is like a job.
Speaker: Yeah, we just we run a model.
Speaker: It's like normal model.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Oh, cool, man.
Speaker: So if guys want to connect more with you, look into maybe joining you on a Blitz or something like that.
Speaker: What's the best way to connect with this, Sean?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm on everything, but Instagram's the best.
Speaker: It's at Sean Hallmander, S-E-A-N-H-O-L-M-A-N-D-E-R.
Speaker: Yeah, hit me up, DM me.
Speaker: I have a link in my bio to apply to Rise Solar.
Speaker: You hop on a phone call with me and yeah, it's the best way to find me.
Speaker: Sweet brother.
Speaker: We appreciate you coming on.
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.
Speaker: What do you like telling these guys or any like advice you'd have for a struggling rep?
Speaker: Yeah, well, instantly it's a call for a one-on-one.
Speaker: I love one-on-ones.
Speaker: I think they're game-changing, potentially life-changing.
Speaker: Some of these guys have never had someone sit them down and say, dude, what are you looking for?
Speaker: What are you trying to do?
Speaker: And how can I help you get there?
Speaker: No one has ever done that except maybe their guidance counselor who was trying to get them into some college, right?
Speaker: So I love doing those.
Speaker: If you can do one with each of your guys, like at least once a month, it's huge.
Speaker: And how those go down is I'm just, I'm basically like selling them.
Speaker: I'm like asking them discovery questions.
Speaker: Like, what is it that you're looking for?
Speaker: How can I actually help you?
Speaker: So just like in a sale, you're asking discovery questions, you know,
Speaker: It usually starts with the biggest macro thing you can think of.
Speaker: What do you see yourself like?
Speaker: Where do you see yourself in five years, 10 years, three years, whatever?
Speaker: And then working your way down from there.
Speaker: And then usually their problems start to make, they start to
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
Speaker: positive reinforcement of like, yeah, man, you killed it on that play.
Speaker: You killed it.
Speaker: He was always saying that.
Speaker: Not so much, man, that sucks.
Speaker: Why'd you do that?
Speaker: So I love the positive reinforced guys.
Speaker: Give them confidence, figure out what their why is and just kind of sell them on it.
Speaker: Hit them on that hot button.
Speaker: Like when the homeowner really likes the savings, I'm going to hit them on the savings hot button.
Speaker: Same thing with the rep.
Speaker: And you can change a lot of stuff with a 20, 30 minute one-on-one, maybe even shorter.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's so important.
Speaker: We did that with our guys too.
Speaker: And yeah, I noticed a huge difference and just, and then what they tell you, you can actually hold them accountable on it.
Speaker: It was like, Hey, look, you told me that you wanted this, but your actions are matching, like not even close to that.
Speaker: What's going on here.
Speaker: So yeah, I think that's massive once a month.
Speaker: Um, yeah, I think minimum quarterly doing it with your guys.
Speaker: Um, and for sure a game changer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So cool, cool, bro.
Speaker: Well, Hey, appreciate you coming on.
Speaker: And yeah, we'll have to do one in the future.
Speaker: It's good stuff, man.
Speaker: So guys reach out to Sean, let him know you appreciate it.
Speaker: I'm coming on the show today and can't wait to see you guys growing.
Speaker: Just stay out of our turf in California.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I will.
Speaker: It's San Diego, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're good.
Speaker: I'm just getting plenty of doors, plenty of doors.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I appreciate you, brother.
Speaker: Thanks for having me on, man.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
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