Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
How To Reach 1000 Personal Solar Installs - Mike Brand
978 Plays3 years ago
- goals.solarpreneurs.com
- https://solciety.co/ - JOIN SOLCIETY NOW!
- SIRO APP - LEARN MORE!
- Thanks to our sponsor Pi Syndicate for this episode!
- DOWNLOAD THE CHEAT SHEET HERE!: TOP 10 MOST DOWNLOADED EPISODES OF ALL TIME
Recommended
Transcript
Taylor's Solar Sales Journey
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 fell.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
Introducing Mike Brand
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.
00:00:43
Speaker
Okay, what's going on, solopreneurs?
00:00:44
Speaker
We are here in the studio, live with the one, the only, Mike Brand.
00:00:50
Speaker
Welcome to the show, Mr.
Mike's Apology and Gratitude
00:00:51
Speaker
Mike Brand.
00:00:51
Speaker
It's been a long time coming.
00:00:52
Speaker
Hey, thanks for having me, man.
00:00:54
Speaker
Taylor was telling everyone that he tells a story.
00:00:57
Speaker
He doesn't use my name, but he tells the story about how some a-hole roped him into a recruiting meeting a while back with the promise of delivering a great podcast and show.
00:01:12
Speaker
And then that individual did the recruiting meeting and then said, hey, I got to go, man.
00:01:18
Speaker
And you know what?
00:01:19
Speaker
That individual was me.
00:01:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:21
Speaker
And I just want to publicly apologize, number one.
00:01:24
Speaker
And number two, just say, hey, I'm grateful to be on the show.
00:01:27
Speaker
And hopefully it makes up for the time that I screwed you over, man.
Reflecting on Vivint Solar Experiences
00:01:31
Speaker
Okay, well, cat's out of the bag.
00:01:32
Speaker
I mean, I wasn't going to say names, but you said it.
00:01:36
Speaker
I want to own it, dude.
00:01:38
Speaker
I'm all about ownership, and I just want to own it.
00:01:40
Speaker
It was a big mistake, dude.
00:01:42
Speaker
I don't remember the circumstances.
00:01:43
Speaker
I'm sure I justified it somehow.
00:01:46
Speaker
But it was a dick move, man.
00:01:49
Speaker
Yeah, I walk into a room.
00:01:50
Speaker
He's like, oh, let me introduce you to the office.
00:01:53
Speaker
And then spend two hours talking.
00:01:55
Speaker
I'm like, all right, is it time for the podcast now?
00:01:57
Speaker
He's like, oh, let's go grab some food.
00:01:58
Speaker
We'll do it after.
00:01:59
Speaker
And then never got around to it.
00:02:01
Speaker
Hey, but I'm making promises right now.
00:02:05
Speaker
Like I'm fulfilling on promises right now.
00:02:07
Speaker
Just a few years later.
00:02:08
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we are doing it like two hours late because we got out of a deal.
00:02:12
Speaker
But we closed it.
00:02:14
Speaker
Okay, we closed it.
00:02:16
Speaker
So I guess it's justified.
00:02:17
Speaker
But no, I'm excited to finally have them on.
00:02:19
Speaker
And it's been, yeah, what, like, that was like probably two years ago now or something.
00:02:23
Speaker
Maybe a year ago.
00:02:24
Speaker
No, it might have been two or three, dude.
00:02:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:26
Speaker
It was back.
00:02:27
Speaker
I feel like it was Vivint Solar days even.
00:02:29
Speaker
Really?
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:30
Speaker
Maybe it was.
00:02:31
Speaker
Might have been three, four years ago.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:33
Speaker
We're getting old, though.
00:02:33
Speaker
Like, I'm pushing 40, you know?
00:02:35
Speaker
36, man.
00:02:37
Speaker
yeah well we're dinosaurs in this i mean you got 11 years doing this this is my 11th year selling solar and it's my 12 13 14th summer selling door-to-door 14 dude yeah that's a lot of summers man yeah that's insane so i've been been around the block seen a few things man um and what's crazy is there's never been a better time to sell solar like if you're listening to this podcast you're in the right industry and
00:03:04
Speaker
like keep improving keep growing because the industry is going to be really good for the next decade yeah i agree and yeah we're going to be talking about all that and much more we're here in california we've got some crazy changes that most of our listeners have heard about that net metering 3.0 that rolled out but uh some we're just jamming on that a little bit before this but uh before anything do you want to tell us like so mike brand he's not huge on social media and everything
Mike's Career Evolution
00:03:29
Speaker
i'm trying to tell him to get on uh you know the tiktok the instagram and all that but
00:03:34
Speaker
I got to get on, dude.
00:03:35
Speaker
He just turned 40, right?
00:03:36
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know how to use that stuff.
00:03:38
Speaker
Love to teach this guy how to open it up and everything.
00:03:41
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, you just had your one career install number 1,000, right?
00:03:46
Speaker
Pretty recently.
00:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, he just hit 1,000 career solar installs, which, you know, there's not a lot of milestones that I like have a lot of pride about.
00:03:55
Speaker
But I think the reason that I feel a little bit of pride about 1,000 is just the amount of consistency that that takes over time.
00:04:04
Speaker
It's not like a big week or a big month or a big quarter or even a big year.
00:04:08
Speaker
That's 10 years of blood, sweat, and tears on the doors and selling out to really put in the effort to go do that.
00:04:19
Speaker
And so just hit 1,000 career installs.
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:21
Speaker
Congrats.
00:04:22
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:04:23
Speaker
Yeah, just made some career changes for me, which I'm excited and we'll maybe talk about later.
00:04:27
Speaker
But yeah, man, it's been a fun journey so far.
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's crazy.
00:04:31
Speaker
Well, yeah, not too many people, like 11 years.
00:04:34
Speaker
I don't know too many people have been doing it that long.
00:04:36
Speaker
So I want to talk about, you know, longevity, all that.
00:04:39
Speaker
See how what your secret is to last that long, because it's a lot of a lot of time.
00:04:43
Speaker
So before we get into all that, do you want to give us just kind of like reader's digest of where you've been at?
00:04:48
Speaker
And I know you made, like you said, a little career switch and just pretty recently.
00:04:54
Speaker
So you want to tell our listeners just a little bit about all that?
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah, I started selling, well, I used to deliver pizza for Roundtable Pizza.
00:05:01
Speaker
I played semi-professionally, like poker, Texas Hold'em.
00:05:06
Speaker
Oh, I didn't know that.
00:05:07
Speaker
14, 15 years.
00:05:07
Speaker
Well, like I use that term loosely.
00:05:09
Speaker
Like I made enough money to like pay my bills.
00:05:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:13
Speaker
I delivered groceries and then I went to junior college and I was like, hey, this isn't for me.
00:05:17
Speaker
Like, I don't know.
00:05:18
Speaker
Like, I'm not just going to go to school and I don't even know what I want to do.
00:05:21
Speaker
And then one of my good buddies at the time, Oconee Berman, recruited me out to San Jose to go sell security for the summer.
00:05:28
Speaker
And I went out there and I remember the first two days knocking.
00:05:34
Speaker
I got dropped off at like 9 a.m.
00:05:36
Speaker
and knocked doors till 9 p.m.
00:05:39
Speaker
Didn't get in a freaking door.
00:05:41
Speaker
And in San Jose, California selling alarms, they have all the metal screen doors.
00:05:45
Speaker
And I was new.
00:05:46
Speaker
I didn't know what I was doing.
00:05:47
Speaker
But I knocked doors for like 24 hours in two days.
00:05:52
Speaker
12 hours a day.
00:05:52
Speaker
Just didn't get in anything.
00:05:53
Speaker
And I remember going home that night and looking at the scoreboard.
00:05:59
Speaker
It was APX at the time.
00:06:00
Speaker
It wasn't Vivint actually.
00:06:01
Speaker
It was APX Insider.
00:06:02
Speaker
And there was this guy on the scoreboard that had sold 18 alarms that week.
00:06:07
Speaker
Three a day.
00:06:07
Speaker
And I had just knocked two days straight and didn't get in a door.
00:06:12
Speaker
And so my first thought was like, bullshit, right?
00:06:16
Speaker
Like I think we all, especially early in sales, like we have that like victim mentality, right?
00:06:24
Speaker
And so I just doubted it.
00:06:26
Speaker
And the reason I'm bringing this up, this is a pivotal point in my career.
00:06:29
Speaker
And I want anyone that's listening.
00:06:30
Speaker
I think there's probably a lot of new guys in sales that are listening.
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:34
Speaker
I want you to take something from this and really listen and learn.
00:06:36
Speaker
What changed my career was the way that I decided to think about that.
00:06:41
Speaker
Because my first reaction was bullshit.
00:06:43
Speaker
He's cheating.
00:06:44
Speaker
There's no way that he could do that.
00:06:46
Speaker
I recognized really quickly that I was becoming the victim.
00:06:49
Speaker
And I don't ever want to be the victim.
00:06:51
Speaker
And so I looked at that and I said, wait a second.
00:06:53
Speaker
This guy, Jordan Williams, he's not smarter than I am.
00:06:57
Speaker
I can learn to say what he says and do what he does.
00:07:00
Speaker
And I can become him.
00:07:02
Speaker
And so what that means is there's three people every day.
00:07:05
Speaker
If he's selling three a day, that means there's three people every day that I'm talking to that Jordan Williams would have sold.
00:07:12
Speaker
And so that next Monday I went out and I said, who are those three people?
00:07:15
Speaker
And early in the day I'm like, oh man, that was one.
00:07:19
Speaker
Like that lady, I had her on the hook.
00:07:21
Speaker
She like slipped through my fingers.
00:07:23
Speaker
Jordan would have sold her for sure.
00:07:25
Speaker
I knocked all that Monday.
00:07:27
Speaker
And I'll never forget it.
00:07:28
Speaker
My very last door at 8.30 p.m.
00:07:30
Speaker
It's pitch black.
00:07:31
Speaker
I sold my first alarm ever.
00:07:33
Speaker
Got in the house, gave away 20 points of equipment.
00:07:36
Speaker
Probably didn't make any money on it.
00:07:37
Speaker
Just so happy to close the deal, you know?
00:07:40
Speaker
And from that day forward, every day for the next week, I sold one.
00:07:43
Speaker
And so the end of the week, I had like six accounts.
00:07:45
Speaker
That week was a pivotal point in my sales career because it taught me how to think.
00:07:50
Speaker
Like, it taught me that belief.
00:07:52
Speaker
And if you have belief and you have work ethic, success will come.
00:07:56
Speaker
Period.
00:07:57
Speaker
So fast forward.
Transition from Alarms to Solar
00:07:59
Speaker
Got off track a little bit, but fast forward.
00:08:02
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, listen.
00:08:04
Speaker
It's so important the way that you think about this job, and I'll talk about that a little bit later, but just to catch guys up on kind of my story, that office ended up, the very next week, the second week I was there, they ended up going to Virginia.
00:08:16
Speaker
And I was like, I don't know you guys.
00:08:18
Speaker
I'm not going to Virginia.
00:08:19
Speaker
Good try.
00:08:21
Speaker
And so I went back to Sacramento where I'm from and I hooked up with a Monotronics dealer there and started selling full-time like van program and started selling one a day, 30 account, 30 alarms a month, you know, making 15 grand a month.
00:08:33
Speaker
I thought I was like the richest person, the richest man in Babylon.
00:08:37
Speaker
I remember having like seven grand in my bank account.
00:08:39
Speaker
And I was like, dude,
00:08:40
Speaker
This is amazing.
00:08:42
Speaker
I know.
00:08:42
Speaker
Like, I'm going to make six figures this year, you know?
00:08:44
Speaker
That was like every door-to-door Intel solar, I think.
00:08:48
Speaker
When solar rails are on, but it's just okay.
00:08:50
Speaker
Hey, now if you have a commission that's like five grand in solar, you're like, this is it.
00:08:55
Speaker
Like, I'm not dealing with this customer bullshit.
00:08:58
Speaker
Five grand.
00:08:59
Speaker
I don't want to get out of bed for that.
00:09:01
Speaker
We're spoiled in the solar industry, right?
00:09:04
Speaker
But anyway, so I sold, that fall I sold Alarms for four months and then I got recruited back to APX and I went out for three summers with APX, funded 300 every summer, co-managed, like assistant managed my last two summers.
00:09:20
Speaker
At the end of the summer of 2012, I'd sold, you know, three summers now, I installed 1,000 alarms, whatever.
00:09:27
Speaker
I heard about Vivint doing solar.
00:09:31
Speaker
They were just starting the solar game.
00:09:33
Speaker
They had like four offices nationwide.
00:09:35
Speaker
And so from summer, I drove out from Chicago all the way to New Jersey.
00:09:39
Speaker
and to quote unquote try solar out.
00:09:42
Speaker
Like I told my wife, I'm like, let's just try it out for like a few weeks or a few months and see if we like like it.
00:09:48
Speaker
And so now I've been trying it out for 11 years.
00:09:51
Speaker
So I started selling solar in New Jersey late 2012, early 2013, I opened up the first New York market for Vivint Solar on Long Island.
00:10:01
Speaker
And it was the fifth office in the nation that they had opened up.
00:10:03
Speaker
No one had ever done solar door-to-door in New York.
00:10:07
Speaker
And it was cool because
Opening the New York Market
00:10:08
Speaker
when we were scouting Long Island, Long Island's like really densely populated.
00:10:12
Speaker
There's a lot of people that live on Long Island.
00:10:14
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:10:15
Speaker
We were driving the streets and there wasn't one house with solar on it.
00:10:21
Speaker
Really?
00:10:22
Speaker
There's literally not one house.
00:10:24
Speaker
Wow.
00:10:25
Speaker
Like, we're just like, this is a blank campus.
00:10:27
Speaker
This is crazy.
00:10:28
Speaker
Wow.
00:10:29
Speaker
And so it started really slow.
00:10:30
Speaker
It took us six months to get our first install on Long Island.
00:10:34
Speaker
Crazy.
00:10:34
Speaker
Just because people were, like, resistant to it or just take them forever?
00:10:38
Speaker
Dude, if you've never opened up a new market...
00:10:42
Speaker
For solar.
00:10:43
Speaker
It's a painful process.
00:10:45
Speaker
Now it's probably easy because it's like people understand how it works.
00:10:48
Speaker
Like companies understand what to do.
00:10:50
Speaker
Like no one, even the cities didn't know what to do back then.
00:10:53
Speaker
They're like, you want to do what?
00:10:55
Speaker
You got a permit.
00:10:56
Speaker
So like we had to go back to our customers three times, the first 500 customers we sold, to get like additional paperwork signed.
00:11:04
Speaker
And everything's a paper copy, right?
00:11:05
Speaker
It's like a carbon copy.
00:11:07
Speaker
Like the agreements, you had to fold up like origami to like fit in your paper, like to fit in your folder because you didn't want to pull out like, I wish I was on video right now, but like the agreements were like two feet long.
00:11:20
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:11:21
Speaker
So you fold them up, like put them in your folder and you like flip it through with the customer.
00:11:24
Speaker
We didn't go back four or five times.
00:11:26
Speaker
And then when we started submitting the permits, they were like, hey, these permits need to be notarized.
00:11:31
Speaker
Wow.
00:11:32
Speaker
And we were like, excuse me?
00:11:34
Speaker
What do you mean?
00:11:36
Speaker
Like what?
00:11:37
Speaker
Notarized for a building permit to do solar?
00:11:39
Speaker
They're like, yeah.
00:11:40
Speaker
And so we were like, what do we do?
00:11:42
Speaker
Do we have our customers go to the bank?
00:11:44
Speaker
Like, that's not good luck getting a customer to go to the bank to order their solar permit.
00:11:48
Speaker
The funny thing is, one of our first customers, her name's Margaret Dray, and I'll never forget her, happened to be a mobile notary.
00:11:55
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:11:56
Speaker
And so we created a system.
00:11:57
Speaker
When you close the account down, you schedule the mobile notary to come to the house and sign the permit.
00:12:02
Speaker
There you go.
00:12:03
Speaker
Margaret also happened to be our first install on Long Island.
00:12:06
Speaker
Wow.
00:12:07
Speaker
Wow.
00:12:08
Speaker
Couldn't have worked out more perfect.
00:12:09
Speaker
Well, think about it.
00:12:10
Speaker
No one has solar, right?
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:12
Speaker
So now you have this lady come in who's like the mobile notary after you, like, you probably have some buyer's remorse or you're like submitting the permit.
00:12:19
Speaker
And she's like, oh, yeah, I have it on my house.
00:12:21
Speaker
I'm the first one that got it here.
00:12:22
Speaker
It's great.
00:12:22
Speaker
Wow.
00:12:24
Speaker
Like, she was the most underpaid, undervalued employee.
00:12:27
Speaker
Like, can you imagine?
00:12:29
Speaker
So anyways, I opened up the first New York market on Long Island, and I was there from 2013 to 2016.
00:12:36
Speaker
Over those three years, we opened up six offices in New York.
00:12:39
Speaker
We did over 10,000 installations.
00:12:42
Speaker
Our personal office on Long Island was doing 600 solar installs a quarter for two years straight.
00:12:48
Speaker
And I was averaging 40 to 50 installs a quarter.
00:12:51
Speaker
Now that was the days when they paid like 200 bucks a kilowatt.
00:12:54
Speaker
So like, don't do the math.
00:12:55
Speaker
I'd be retired if they paid like what they pay now, you know?
00:12:59
Speaker
Pretty sure like we made those, the CEOs of Vivint Solar very, very rich for the value they're retaining from those 25 year PPA contracts or whatever.
00:13:09
Speaker
But anyways, 2016 came.
00:13:11
Speaker
My wife got pregnant with our third.
00:13:13
Speaker
My wife's amazing.
00:13:14
Speaker
She like, I married so far up.
00:13:16
Speaker
She's awesome.
00:13:17
Speaker
We have three kids now, nine, seven, and six.
00:13:19
Speaker
At the time, we had both of our boys in New York.
00:13:22
Speaker
They were both born in New York.
00:13:24
Speaker
And then in 2013, 2015, our first kids, obviously.
00:13:28
Speaker
And then we got pregnant with our third and she was due in January.
00:13:31
Speaker
I don't know if you've ever lived on the East Coast.
00:13:33
Speaker
I haven't lived out there, but that's, I know it's cold out there in January.
00:13:37
Speaker
Hey, quick disclaimer.
00:13:38
Speaker
If you're living on the East Coast right now.
00:13:41
Speaker
Move out.
00:13:41
Speaker
You have options.
00:13:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:45
Speaker
I will move you out to California.
00:13:47
Speaker
It is cold there.
00:13:48
Speaker
Get the hell out of there.
00:13:49
Speaker
It's too cold.
00:13:50
Speaker
So we knew we were going to.
00:13:51
Speaker
have our third in January and I was like let's get out of here like the business is going really good but we I'm from Sacramento she's from Utah we both want to be back west and so I called my boss and he was like hey we got we got an option in San Diego we're actually firing a couple guys in San Diego north and we need managers out there at the time I was the director over New York and I left everyone there
00:14:14
Speaker
It was just like, I'm going to start over in California.
00:14:16
Speaker
And so I moved out to San Diego in 2016 with Vivint Solar.
00:14:20
Speaker
And I've worked for Vivint Solar and then Sunrun Direct all the way up until late 2022.
00:14:26
Speaker
So for the last six years.
00:14:28
Speaker
And then I'm
Impact of Net Metering 3.0
00:14:29
Speaker
super excited.
00:14:29
Speaker
I just took a new opportunity with Legacy Power, who's amazing.
00:14:34
Speaker
Doug Robinson, Luke Toon, amazing leaders.
00:14:38
Speaker
John Soriano, who I partner with, he actually did a podcast with you.
00:14:41
Speaker
Stud, dude.
00:14:42
Speaker
Which you were supposed to be at that podcast.
00:14:44
Speaker
I was supposed to be.
00:14:45
Speaker
That was the second time I ghosted you.
00:14:49
Speaker
Hey, one for three.
00:14:50
Speaker
Our highest quality guests are hard to get in touch with, right?
00:14:52
Speaker
Hey, that's right, dude.
00:14:53
Speaker
Got to go through your management team and everything.
00:14:55
Speaker
That's right.
00:14:55
Speaker
You got to talk to my assistant.
00:14:56
Speaker
No, I don't have one.
00:14:58
Speaker
But anyway, so I just, I've been in San Diego since 2016.
00:15:01
Speaker
I just partnered with Legacy Power, which I think with NEM3, there's nothing more important right now than having optionality.
00:15:09
Speaker
Being able to use Sunrun, being able to use Sunova, being able to use Everbright.
00:15:14
Speaker
When the industry shifts and things change, if you're exclusive with someone, like if you're at Sunder right now and you're exclusive with Freedom, that could be a big problem.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:24
Speaker
If you're at Sunrun Direct and you're exclusive and you can only sell a shift and you can't do like a Sunova lease plus storage and an in-phase battery and you can't do an Eco, which is Sunova's shift.
00:15:40
Speaker
If you're stuck being exclusive right now with how fast things are changing, you could get stuck.
00:15:46
Speaker
It could be a big problem.
00:15:47
Speaker
Yeah, well, and we were just talking about that, you know, before we started the show here.
00:15:52
Speaker
But even if you are at a company, something I've always talked about for our listeners in the podcast is like at the very least, we're not saying you have to like always just go to a company that has a million options.
00:16:03
Speaker
But I think at the very least, like open your network, because if you can't get a deal because of XYZ, like I've had lots of times I've been able to pass it to.
00:16:12
Speaker
like a friend in the industry or just have access to other options.
00:16:16
Speaker
So, yeah, at the very least, I think it's good to have those things set up.
00:16:20
Speaker
So that's my story, man.
00:16:22
Speaker
Been in the industry 11 years, doing solar a long time, and it's never been better than it is right now.
00:16:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's crazy.
00:16:29
Speaker
Well, you've got a long career, and I'm sure a lot of good things to come.
00:16:32
Speaker
So it's cool talking to dinosaurs like yourself in the industry.
00:16:35
Speaker
I'm so old, dude.
00:16:37
Speaker
I'm pushing 40.
00:16:38
Speaker
11 years is like 100 years in solar years.
00:16:41
Speaker
That's so true.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's impressive.
00:16:44
Speaker
But yeah, I want to talk about, you know, net metering 3.0 a little bit.
00:16:47
Speaker
And I know not everyone is selling in California, but I think there's a lot of things that can apply.
00:16:51
Speaker
Because let's be honest, if net metering 3.0 happened in California, what do you think the odds are of it happening in other markets where they're reducing credits, changes going on?
00:17:00
Speaker
I think for whatever market you're selling in, there's a lot of lessons.
00:17:04
Speaker
Because California, it's like we're the greenest state pretty much, probably in the country.
00:17:08
Speaker
I don't know.
00:17:09
Speaker
I was surprised it passed.
00:17:11
Speaker
I was like actually pretty shocked.
00:17:13
Speaker
And for listeners that aren't in California, just like the 30-second version of Net Metering 3.0, with Net Metering 2.0, anytime your solar system produced power that you weren't using right away, you could send it to the grid and you just got equal credits for it.
00:17:26
Speaker
So throughout the day, if you sent three kilowatts to the grid, you could pull those three kilowatts back during the nighttime and use that power.
00:17:32
Speaker
So Net Metering, basically, you're using the grid as like a free battery.
00:17:37
Speaker
They just shifted April 13th, which is today, I think.
00:17:40
Speaker
Stopped taking applications last week.
00:17:42
Speaker
Is it the 13th?
00:17:43
Speaker
14 today.
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah, they just shifted to net billing.
00:17:45
Speaker
And so the way that works, what they did is they essentially reduced the value of credits that you send to the grid by about 75%, roughly.
00:17:54
Speaker
And so if your solar system's producing power that you're not using right away and you send it to the grid, you need to send four kilowatts for every one kilowatt hour credit, roughly.
00:18:05
Speaker
Right.
00:18:06
Speaker
I'm just simplifying it.
00:18:07
Speaker
They made it as confusing as possible, right?
00:18:10
Speaker
And so what it forces, essentially, is it forces customers and companies to do batteries or batteries with no backup, which is what we'll talk about a little bit.
00:18:22
Speaker
And so right now in the industry, there's this huge shift of batteries.
00:18:24
Speaker
Well, there's a few problems with batteries, right?
00:18:27
Speaker
There's a limited supply.
00:18:28
Speaker
We're going to run into supply chain issues, number one.
00:18:31
Speaker
Number two, batteries themselves aren't proven.
00:18:35
Speaker
So they've only been around really three, four years, and they only have a 10-year half-life.
00:18:40
Speaker
Number three, and this is the biggest problem, batteries are expensive.
00:18:44
Speaker
And so you can subsidize the battery as a rep, but with Sunrun's shift, you're taking an eight to 10 grand adder.
00:18:52
Speaker
It's a big adder for a battery.
00:18:54
Speaker
And you can price up, but now the savings for the customer are a lot smaller on a power purchase agreement if you're selling it at 38 cents in San Diego compared to 25 cents.
00:19:05
Speaker
Right?
00:19:06
Speaker
And so it creates a couple problems.
00:19:08
Speaker
The consumer, on the consumer side, it's not as big of a deal.
00:19:11
Speaker
I think the savings profile will be a little bit less, but long-term savings look really good, especially with the battery.
00:19:16
Speaker
Or if you did it without a battery, but you priced way down, and get a 16 or 18 cent PPA with no battery, the savings profile looks pretty good on that as well, compared to like a 32 to 35 cent with the battery.
00:19:28
Speaker
The real problem is how do reps make money?
00:19:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:31
Speaker
Right?
00:19:32
Speaker
Right?
00:19:33
Speaker
Because I just ran one and my commission was $3,500.
00:19:35
Speaker
And you know we don't get out of bed for that.
00:19:38
Speaker
Four kilowatt at $3,500 doesn't make sense.
00:19:41
Speaker
And so there's going to be this huge shift in California where you're going to need to be a very competent salesperson.
00:19:50
Speaker
The last five years in California, you could suck at sales.
00:19:54
Speaker
You didn't need to be good.
00:19:55
Speaker
You're saving people 30, 40, 50% off their power bill.
00:20:00
Speaker
Like you could just find low hanging fruit.
00:20:03
Speaker
Right?
00:20:03
Speaker
And there's a lot of people that made a lot of money that aren't great salespeople.
00:20:07
Speaker
The shift now, and this is why leadership is more important than ever in the industry in California.
00:20:13
Speaker
The shift now is you have to be able to sell value.
00:20:16
Speaker
You can't just rely on a 50% savings and be a crappy salesman.
00:20:20
Speaker
You have to be freaking dialed.
Effective Sales Strategies in California
00:20:22
Speaker
You have to be able to shift the frame of the customer and kind of set them up for the close in a way where they're excited for a bill swap.
00:20:30
Speaker
Right.
00:20:31
Speaker
Right?
00:20:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:32
Speaker
Which is like most other markets, by the way, that aren't California.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:35
Speaker
Right.
00:20:35
Speaker
If you've only sold solar in California, you're like, your ears are perked up right now.
00:20:39
Speaker
Everyone else is like, oh, it's no big deal.
00:20:40
Speaker
We sell bill swaps.
00:20:41
Speaker
You know?
00:20:42
Speaker
But in California, we've gotten so lazy and it's been so easy.
00:20:45
Speaker
And a lot of the reps in California, I mean, Lumio left California.
00:20:49
Speaker
They left.
00:20:49
Speaker
Harness went bankrupt.
00:20:51
Speaker
Right?
00:20:52
Speaker
And so a lot of these smaller companies are just really hurting right now.
00:20:55
Speaker
You have Sunrun Direct and you have Legacy.
00:20:58
Speaker
Those are kind of the two biggest players, in my opinion.
00:21:01
Speaker
And maybe like a sunder or whatever, you know.
00:21:04
Speaker
But a lot of the smaller dealers are either fleeing California or they're just paralyzed.
00:21:08
Speaker
They don't know what to do because there's not a ton of leadership there.
00:21:12
Speaker
With that being said, let's talk sales just a little bit.
00:21:15
Speaker
And let's add some value to the listeners right now.
00:21:17
Speaker
So what I'm going to teach you guys right now is going to make you a lot of money in California.
00:21:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:22
Speaker
Is this the stuff you're telling me about?
00:21:24
Speaker
This is the good stuff.
00:21:24
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah, this is some sauce right here.
00:21:27
Speaker
You're going to want to take notes for this part.
00:21:28
Speaker
This is some sauce.
00:21:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:29
Speaker
This is good.
00:21:30
Speaker
What you need to be able to do is you need to be able to really get the customer to identify the problem.
00:21:37
Speaker
Gone are the days where you can just show up and say, hey, it doesn't cost anything.
00:21:40
Speaker
We're going to save you 40%.
00:21:41
Speaker
Like you can make sales like that two years ago.
00:21:44
Speaker
Now you actually have to sell.
00:21:45
Speaker
The way that you sell is problem solution.
00:21:48
Speaker
If customers don't understand the problem, then the solution doesn't matter.
00:21:52
Speaker
So the first thing I'm going to do when I get into a home or I'm sitting down with homeowners is I'm going to ask them, hey, do you guys understand how you buy power now?
00:22:00
Speaker
You moved in how many years ago, Taylor?
00:22:03
Speaker
I just barely moved in.
00:22:04
Speaker
You're a terrible customer, dude.
00:22:06
Speaker
You're the worst role player I've ever had, man.
00:22:08
Speaker
Okay, three years ago.
00:22:09
Speaker
Three years, okay.
00:22:10
Speaker
When you moved in, why did you choose SDG&E as your power company?
00:22:13
Speaker
Well, I guess they were the only option.
00:22:15
Speaker
Right.
00:22:16
Speaker
So what do we call that?
00:22:17
Speaker
Monopoly.
00:22:18
Speaker
Right.
00:22:19
Speaker
And so there's like laws against monopolies.
00:22:22
Speaker
Right?
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah, true.
00:22:23
Speaker
Because when someone controls all of something, what tends to happen to the rates that they charge?
00:22:29
Speaker
Yeah, they go up.
00:22:31
Speaker
Yeah, do they go down or they go up?
00:22:32
Speaker
Go up for sure.
00:22:33
Speaker
Right.
00:22:34
Speaker
And so the problem with where we're at right now in San Diego or SCE or PG&E, whatever, whatever, whatever utility you sell in, right?
00:22:42
Speaker
The problem right now is the utility company.
00:22:45
Speaker
Are they a charity or are they a for-profit company?
00:22:48
Speaker
For-profit.
00:22:49
Speaker
Quick note, by the way, if, if you want someone, so people will only believe half of what you say as a salesperson.
00:22:56
Speaker
Okay, right?
00:22:57
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:57
Speaker
They'll believe 75% of what a neighbor says.
00:23:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:01
Speaker
So if you, that's why third-party stories are so powerful when you're overcoming objections.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:05
Speaker
Right?
00:23:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:06
Speaker
People are forced to believe 100% of what comes out of their mouth.
00:23:13
Speaker
Right.
00:23:13
Speaker
So notice like what I'm doing right now with Taylor as my customers, I'm getting him to tell me.
00:23:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:19
Speaker
And I'm using hand gestures.
00:23:21
Speaker
I'm throwing them softballs.
00:23:22
Speaker
You don't want to make people feel stupid.
00:23:23
Speaker
Like you want to make it really easy for them to like get the right answer, you know, but they're forced to believe a hundred percent of what comes out of their mouth.
00:23:30
Speaker
So Taylor is, is SDG a charity or are they a for-profit company?
00:23:34
Speaker
We're profit.
00:23:35
Speaker
Right.
00:23:35
Speaker
They're what we call an investor-owned utility company.
00:23:38
Speaker
Now, if you're an investor and you invest money into like a power company, what do you expect in return?
00:23:44
Speaker
What do you need?
00:23:45
Speaker
Profit.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah, you need money, right?
00:23:48
Speaker
And so...
00:23:50
Speaker
to shift gears really quick, so, and this is also important, like, you need to make sure sometimes we talk above our customers.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:56
Speaker
Like, we, we've been in the industry years, and we start talking about, like, net metering or net billing.
00:24:00
Speaker
They don't know what a kilowatt is, guys.
00:24:02
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
00:24:02
Speaker
Like, slow it down.
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:04
Speaker
So, Taylor, like, if you look on your bill, just to change gears really quick, have you seen that little, like, KWH, kilowatt hour?
00:24:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:11
Speaker
That's just how they measure power.
00:24:12
Speaker
It's a unit of measurements.
00:24:13
Speaker
Like when you turn on your lights or you use air conditioning, you're using kilowatt hours.
00:24:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:19
Speaker
Does that make sense?
00:24:20
Speaker
That's what that is.
00:24:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:22
Speaker
The more kilowatt hours you use, the more you pay for power.
00:24:26
Speaker
So like in San Diego, people pay between 45 and 80 cents.
00:24:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:31
Speaker
For every kilowatt hour.
00:24:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:32
Speaker
Don't say that too loud.
00:24:33
Speaker
We're going to get people flocking here when you say that.
00:24:35
Speaker
I know.
00:24:35
Speaker
I'm going to leave my number after this call, guys.
00:24:38
Speaker
Just text me, okay?
00:24:39
Speaker
It's the biggest secret.
00:24:41
Speaker
By the way, San Diego doesn't suck to live here, okay?
00:24:44
Speaker
Not bad.
00:24:46
Speaker
So people pay 45 to 80 cents for every kilowatt hour.
00:24:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:49
Speaker
And you've seen, like, the different colors on your graph.
00:24:52
Speaker
Have you heard the phrase time of use?
00:24:54
Speaker
I think I heard about that.
00:24:56
Speaker
That's like the four to nine.
00:24:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:58
Speaker
PM, the peak times.
00:25:00
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:25:00
Speaker
That's when they charge the most.
00:25:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:01
Speaker
So you're on time of use.
00:25:02
Speaker
You buy your power by the kilowatt hour.
00:25:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:05
Speaker
Looks like your last bill was about 200 bucks.
00:25:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:08
Speaker
Now, did you see what happened in January with the rates?
00:25:12
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:25:13
Speaker
They like doubled or something.
00:25:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:15
Speaker
They went up 15%.
00:25:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:17
Speaker
And the reason they were able to go up 15%, what kind of agreement do you have with SDG&E?
00:25:23
Speaker
What kind of guarantees do they give you about their rates?
00:25:26
Speaker
I guess none.
00:25:27
Speaker
I don't know.
00:25:28
Speaker
I don't think I have an agreement.
00:25:29
Speaker
Right.
00:25:30
Speaker
And so the reason we're doing so many of these right now is right now you have no protection.
00:25:37
Speaker
You have no safety and you're not protected against rate inflation.
00:25:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:42
Speaker
The rates just went up 15%.
00:25:44
Speaker
They've averaged an 8% to 10% increase the last decade.
00:25:48
Speaker
Isn't that crazy?
00:25:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's crazy.
00:25:49
Speaker
Do you remember seeing your bill in January with your natural gas?
00:25:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:54
Speaker
And that was what doubled?
00:25:55
Speaker
So this is a good thing for San Diego.
00:25:56
Speaker
Maybe it doesn't apply to the rest of the country, but it's worth the rest of the state, but it's worth saying.
00:26:00
Speaker
In January, what happened to your natural gas?
00:26:02
Speaker
Doubled.
00:26:03
Speaker
It tripled.
00:26:04
Speaker
Oh, it tripled.
00:26:05
Speaker
And when you got that natural gas bill in January from SDG&E, what did you do?
00:26:09
Speaker
Threw it in the trash.
00:26:11
Speaker
I paid it, yeah.
00:26:12
Speaker
I paid it, yeah.
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah, and you paid it.
00:26:14
Speaker
Why?
00:26:14
Speaker
Oh, because I guess I didn't want my gas to shut off still.
00:26:17
Speaker
You had to.
00:26:17
Speaker
Still was using it, yeah.
00:26:19
Speaker
So if they double or triple your power rate tomorrow, are you going to run your house by candlelight?
00:26:25
Speaker
Probably not.
00:26:26
Speaker
Right?
00:26:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:26
Speaker
You have to pay it.
00:26:27
Speaker
And the problem right now is you have no protections.
00:26:30
Speaker
You have no agreements.
00:26:32
Speaker
And so you can agree with me on this probably that agreements or contracts or agreements, they're a benefit to the consumer as long as they protect you.
00:26:42
Speaker
Yeah, I guess that's true.
00:26:43
Speaker
Does that make sense?
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:44
Speaker
So agreements are actually a good thing, right?
00:26:46
Speaker
So what am I setting them up for?
00:26:47
Speaker
I'm setting them up like, hey, when I'm going over the agreement with Sunro or the agreement with Sunrun, I'm not like scared to dance around it.
00:26:53
Speaker
I'm like, no, this is the agreement.
00:26:55
Speaker
This is the best part.
00:26:56
Speaker
This is what protects you as a homeowner.
00:26:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:59
Speaker
Remember we talked about this right now.
00:27:01
Speaker
What agreement do you have with SDG?
00:27:02
Speaker
Well, none.
00:27:03
Speaker
How's that working for you?
00:27:04
Speaker
Not great.
00:27:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:05
Speaker
Right.
00:27:05
Speaker
Because you have no safety, no protection, no guarantees.
00:27:09
Speaker
Now, Taylor, you guys, you live in a nice house.
00:27:11
Speaker
You can afford San Diego.
00:27:13
Speaker
You're obviously really good with money.
00:27:15
Speaker
And this is maybe a silly question, but like I'm assuming you guys like to be in control of your money and know where your money's going, right?
00:27:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:22
Speaker
You like to be able to like budget and plan ahead.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:25
Speaker
Do you know what you're going to pay for power the next five years?
00:27:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:27
Speaker
No, not really, no.
00:27:28
Speaker
No idea, right?
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah, you can't know because there's no guarantees on SDGs rates.
00:27:33
Speaker
So the best part about solar, the whole reason we're doing so many of these right now and all your neighbors are getting solar is they have a protection on the rate and they actually protect your rate for the next 25 years.
00:27:48
Speaker
and it's all written out in the agreement.
00:27:50
Speaker
It's all spelled out, and they put it all in writing.
00:27:54
Speaker
Wow.
00:27:54
Speaker
Isn't that cool?
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:56
Speaker
That's why we do so many of these.
00:27:58
Speaker
Now the home has to qualify.
00:27:59
Speaker
We can't do every home.
00:28:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:00
Speaker
Okay,
Advanced Sales Strategies
00:28:02
Speaker
so it took me, what, maybe five minutes, ten minutes?
00:28:05
Speaker
Yeah, so anyone listen to that?
00:28:07
Speaker
I think you've got to rewind that stuff because a thousand installs using those lines, right?
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:13
Speaker
I mean, that's –
00:28:15
Speaker
I think too, like that's selling, right?
00:28:17
Speaker
In California, we haven't had to like sell.
00:28:20
Speaker
We just show up and it's like, yeah, you save 50%.
00:28:23
Speaker
And you like connect with the homeowner.
00:28:26
Speaker
With batteries, you're going to have to raise the rates you charge to make money, to make good commissions.
00:28:32
Speaker
You can't show people big savings.
00:28:34
Speaker
So you're selling a 27, 30, 35 cent, 38 cent PPA.
00:28:39
Speaker
If you don't sell the problem, they're going to look at that.
00:28:43
Speaker
They're going to say, that's about what I pay now.
00:28:45
Speaker
I'm not interested.
00:28:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:47
Speaker
Now to transition away from that.
00:28:49
Speaker
Now check this out when I'm going through the program.
00:28:51
Speaker
So I go through the problem.
00:28:52
Speaker
Now I'm going to go through like the solution and benefit a couple of quick lines and let's move on and talk about something else.
00:28:58
Speaker
You need to set your customer up for a bill swap because you want to charge the highest rate possible because you deserve it.
00:29:05
Speaker
Like you deserve to have a lucrative life and like get paid for the value that you're bringing to Snova or Sunrun or whoever you're running a PPA through, right?
00:29:14
Speaker
And so you should sell profitably.
00:29:16
Speaker
To do that in an NEM3 world, you have to be able to sell value and long-term rate protection.
00:29:23
Speaker
And you have to find different value streams.
00:29:25
Speaker
You can't lean on selling 40, 50% savings.
00:29:26
Speaker
Right.
00:29:28
Speaker
So I taught you a little bit how to set your customer up.
00:29:31
Speaker
One quick note and one thing that I always go over with the problem, I forgot this and then we'll move on.
00:29:36
Speaker
The way that I wrap up the problem, when I'm telling all that to the customer, I say, listen, the cycle that's happening right now, and you've seen this happen, I'll write this out like a circle.
00:29:46
Speaker
A lot of your neighbors right now are switching to solar.
00:29:48
Speaker
You've noticed that, right?
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:50
Speaker
I've seen it going up a lot last year.
00:29:52
Speaker
Every time someone switches to solar, SDG&E loses that customer forever.
00:29:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:58
Speaker
So when they lose a customer, what are they losing?
00:30:01
Speaker
Money.
00:30:01
Speaker
They're losing revenue.
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:30:03
Speaker
So I'll draw a little arrow and say losing revenue.
00:30:07
Speaker
Now, is SDG a charity or a for-profit company?
00:30:10
Speaker
For-profit.
00:30:10
Speaker
They have to make what?
00:30:11
Speaker
Money.
00:30:12
Speaker
Right.
00:30:13
Speaker
And so every time they lose revenue, which by the way, in California, all the new construction, all the new homes being built are actually required to have solar.
00:30:20
Speaker
So now SDG is not getting any new homes and...
00:30:23
Speaker
They're losing revenue every time someone switches to solar.
00:30:26
Speaker
If you're a for-profit company and you're owned by investors, what's the only way to make up for that loss of revenue?
00:30:31
Speaker
Charge more.
00:30:32
Speaker
You raise rates.
00:30:34
Speaker
That's it.
00:30:34
Speaker
That's the only thing they can do.
00:30:37
Speaker
And then I'll draw an arrow, say raise rates.
00:30:40
Speaker
And guess what happens, Taylor, when they raise their rates 15%.
00:30:43
Speaker
Do you think less people go solar or more people switch to solar?
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah, probably more.
00:30:47
Speaker
You get it.
00:30:48
Speaker
And then I'll finish the circle, draw an arrow, and I'll just circle it over and over and say, okay, this cycle is happening right now.
00:30:53
Speaker
People are switching to solar.
00:30:55
Speaker
SDGs lose revenue.
00:30:56
Speaker
They're going to raise their rates.
00:30:57
Speaker
More people are switching to solar.
00:30:59
Speaker
What do you think, based on like what I just went over, what do you think is going to happen to the utility rates the next five years?
00:31:05
Speaker
Probably keep going up.
00:31:06
Speaker
You get it.
00:31:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:07
Speaker
Because sometimes people ask me silly questions like, what if the power company lowers their rates 30, 40, 50 percent?
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:15
Speaker
And it's hard to not laugh because they just don't understand this cycle, but you get it.
00:31:20
Speaker
Right?
00:31:21
Speaker
So what am I doing, guys?
00:31:22
Speaker
That's good.
00:31:22
Speaker
He's telling me that the rates are going up.
00:31:25
Speaker
I'm just telling him what's happening.
00:31:26
Speaker
And he's saying, based on that, the rates are going to skyrocket.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:30
Speaker
Cool.
00:31:31
Speaker
Hopefully we can help you out.
00:31:32
Speaker
I don't know if the home would qualify or not, but the cool thing about this program is it's fully funded.
00:31:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:37
Speaker
So for the homes that qualify, we put the panels up at no cost and then those homes just get a cheaper rate for power.
00:31:42
Speaker
It's the last thing that we'll move on.
00:31:43
Speaker
Those homes just get a cheaper rate for power.
00:31:46
Speaker
And you probably know this, but no one saves money going solar the first year.
00:31:50
Speaker
Oh, really?
00:31:51
Speaker
Yeah, your bill is fine anyways.
00:31:54
Speaker
Like, you're not worried.
00:31:54
Speaker
Like, no matter what they pay, I'll be like, your bill's fine.
00:31:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:58
Speaker
You pay, oh, you pay $200 a month.
00:31:59
Speaker
Like, that's nothing.
00:32:00
Speaker
And then off the time the bank, oh, no, it's actually a crazy high.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's called anti-selling, right?
00:32:05
Speaker
What you don't want to do is be like, your bill's so high, the rates have gone up so much.
00:32:09
Speaker
And they'll be like, no, our rates haven't gone up.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:12
Speaker
But if you're like, yeah, you're, I mean, this bill's not high.
00:32:15
Speaker
You guys, you only pay 500 bucks a month for power.
00:32:18
Speaker
It's not high.
00:32:18
Speaker
Like, you're not losing sleep at night.
00:32:20
Speaker
You guys do really, really well.
00:32:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:22
Speaker
You know?
00:32:22
Speaker
You're not worried about a four or $500 power bill.
00:32:25
Speaker
That's not why I'm here.
00:32:26
Speaker
No one that does solar saves like a ton of money the first year.
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:29
Speaker
No one's usually doing it.
00:32:31
Speaker
But if you could go back 10 years, do you remember what gas prices were 10 years ago?
00:32:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:35
Speaker
Crazy cheap.
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:36
Speaker
Two dollars or something.
00:32:36
Speaker
Two bucks.
00:32:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:38
Speaker
If there was a program 10 years ago where you could get all your gas at $2.40 instead of $2, and they put a yearly cap, a very small cap on how that gas price could increase over time, at the time, there's probably a lot of people that wouldn't have done it.
00:32:55
Speaker
They're like, I'm not paying more for my gas.
00:32:57
Speaker
Like, it's $2.
00:32:58
Speaker
I'm not paying $2.40.
00:32:58
Speaker
Right.
00:33:01
Speaker
But knowing what you know now, what are gas prices nowadays?
00:33:03
Speaker
Yeah, like five bucks.
00:33:05
Speaker
Five, six bucks a gallon.
00:33:07
Speaker
So knowing what you know now, if you could go back and lock in your gas prices at $2.40, would you have done it?
00:33:12
Speaker
Yeah, no doubt.
00:33:13
Speaker
Duh.
00:33:13
Speaker
That's what solar is.
00:33:14
Speaker
So if we can lock in your current power price a little bit more or about the same as what you're paying now and give you protection over 25 years, it's a no-brainer.
00:33:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:25
Speaker
If your home qualifies like exceptionally well and you get a lot of sun, I mean, this is rare, but it can even come back a little bit less than what you're paying now.
00:33:35
Speaker
And if it comes back like, you know, more than what you're paying, that happens a lot.
00:33:40
Speaker
And most of my customers still opt into the program.
00:33:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:44
Speaker
Because we protect the rate and it can only go up a very small amount each year for the next 25 years.
00:33:49
Speaker
Like you have rate stability.
00:33:51
Speaker
You know exactly what you'll pay the next two and a half decades.
00:33:53
Speaker
If it comes back the same, like take me to a steak dinner because you're swapping to a protected rate and doesn't cost you any more a month.
00:34:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:02
Speaker
Like, duh.
00:34:03
Speaker
If it comes back less than what you're paying now,
00:34:06
Speaker
Like, it's a no-brainer because it costs you nothing to switch.
00:34:11
Speaker
It lowers your bill and gives you rate protection for as long as you're here.
00:34:16
Speaker
So when I pull up the design, I haven't looked at it yet, but when I pull up the design, they'll show me how much sun you guys get, and it'll show me what rate the home qualified for and then what your monthly cost would be for solar and to be able to get ready your power bill.
00:34:31
Speaker
Okay, so now, okay, they're paying 200 bucks.
00:34:33
Speaker
You show them a $190 PPA, and you're like, high five, dude.
00:34:40
Speaker
You're not going to believe this.
00:34:41
Speaker
You guys must get really good sun.
00:34:44
Speaker
Like, do you guys get a lot of sun?
00:34:47
Speaker
And they're like, oh, yeah, DR roost in the sun all day.
00:34:50
Speaker
I'm like, this came back.
00:34:51
Speaker
Like, I can't believe this.
00:34:54
Speaker
It came back.
00:34:54
Speaker
You guys are paying an average of 200, and now your average is 195.
00:34:58
Speaker
It's less than what you're paying now.
00:35:01
Speaker
Wow.
00:35:02
Speaker
They just feel like they hit the jackpot.
00:35:03
Speaker
Would you say that?
00:35:04
Speaker
They just won the jackpot, dude.
00:35:06
Speaker
Right?
00:35:07
Speaker
Because it's all about framing, guys.
00:35:09
Speaker
It's all about framing.
00:35:10
Speaker
It's all about managing expectations.
00:35:12
Speaker
People want to feel good.
00:35:14
Speaker
It's not about the deal.
00:35:15
Speaker
It's about how they feel.
00:35:17
Speaker
It's not about the deal.
00:35:18
Speaker
It's about how they feel.
00:35:20
Speaker
Do they feel confident in you?
00:35:21
Speaker
Are you a 10 out of 10?
00:35:22
Speaker
Do they like you?
00:35:23
Speaker
Do they feel confident about the company that you're setting them up with?
00:35:26
Speaker
Nova, Sunrun, Everbright.
00:35:28
Speaker
Like, have you built up the company?
00:35:29
Speaker
Right?
00:35:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:30
Speaker
And then do they feel confident about the deal?
00:35:34
Speaker
Do they, and notice how I said, do they feel confident about the deal?
00:35:39
Speaker
Not is the deal a 10 out of 10, but do they feel confident about the deal?
00:35:45
Speaker
And if you are a good salesperson and you have a good process and you're framing things the right way, they're gonna feel like the deal is a million dollar deal.
00:35:54
Speaker
They're gonna be freaking stoked.
00:35:56
Speaker
Anyways, I can talk about it all day.
00:35:58
Speaker
You know, we only have so much time.
00:35:59
Speaker
Hopefully that added some value to some of you guys.
00:36:02
Speaker
If you guys have questions about NEM3, you can text me.
00:36:06
Speaker
I'm going to give you the same number my wife calls me on.
00:36:10
Speaker
Okay?
00:36:11
Speaker
You can text me.
00:36:12
Speaker
It's area code 530-306-7948.
00:36:13
Speaker
Text my personal cell.
00:36:14
Speaker
It's 530-306-7948.
00:36:21
Speaker
Text me, call me, whatever.
00:36:22
Speaker
I love making connections in the industry.
00:36:24
Speaker
That's how me and Taylor became good friends is we made a connection five years ago, and we're still friends.
00:36:29
Speaker
We work for different companies, but, dude, we're friends.
00:36:32
Speaker
And so, anyways, if you guys have questions about NEM3 or anything, feel free to hit me up.
00:36:38
Speaker
If you're in San Diego, we can grab lunch or something.
00:36:40
Speaker
Love it.
00:36:41
Speaker
Yeah, well, you might have to call them a few times to get a hold of them.
00:36:43
Speaker
This guy's a busy man.
00:36:45
Speaker
Cool.
00:36:46
Speaker
But I'm sure he'll answer.
00:36:47
Speaker
I deserve that.
00:36:48
Speaker
Just say you heard on the Solarpreneur podcast and you promise you're going to answer the people that come to you from the podcast, right, Mike?
00:36:54
Speaker
That's right.
00:36:55
Speaker
Okay, good.
00:36:56
Speaker
But no, guys, so for our listeners, this dude literally just gave us the formula he's used to close over 1,000 deals.
00:37:03
Speaker
I don't think we've ever had anyone that can come on the podcast and say, I've closed 1,000 deals and this is how I've done it.
00:37:09
Speaker
So if you've closed less than 1,000 deals, you probably would be wise to take a few questions
00:37:15
Speaker
you know, a few lines from what this guy just said.
00:37:18
Speaker
So appreciate you sharing because not many people give like the exact word for word track they use.
00:37:23
Speaker
What I love about it, it's like we were just doing a role play and I felt like emotionally like involved in what you're saying.
00:37:30
Speaker
I was like getting into it and I'm not even like playing around.
00:37:34
Speaker
It's so good to get the customers involved, you know, like get them to tell you.
00:37:40
Speaker
why the rates are going to go up.
00:37:42
Speaker
If you do that, guys, selling so easy.
00:37:45
Speaker
I had a little old lady, Linda K. Van Buren or something.
00:37:50
Speaker
She was telling me, like at the end of my presentation, she was like, yeah, this is just so simple and easy.
00:37:58
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, Linda, I've said simple and easy 10 times, right?
00:38:04
Speaker
Everything I talk about with customers, I'm like, yeah, this is just so simple.
00:38:07
Speaker
Like, it's so simple.
00:38:09
Speaker
It's really easy.
00:38:09
Speaker
The whole process, I just make it really simple for you guys.
00:38:12
Speaker
And solar used to be confusing, and now it's really simple and easy.
00:38:16
Speaker
Costs you nothing, and you just get a cheaper rate for power.
00:38:19
Speaker
You know?
00:38:20
Speaker
So anyways.
00:38:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's just like, if you qualify, though.
00:38:23
Speaker
That's the question.
00:38:24
Speaker
The hard takeaway.
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:25
Speaker
I love it.
00:38:27
Speaker
So, yeah, I'm going to go back and listen to that.
00:38:29
Speaker
I think everyone that's listening to this, you should go back and listen to the words, the tracks you just gave us.
00:38:34
Speaker
I appreciate that, Mike.
00:38:35
Speaker
And so, yeah, just to transition a little bit, that was some deep selling that I didn't think we were going to jump into that soon.
00:38:41
Speaker
But, yeah, we brought the heat early on here.
00:38:44
Speaker
You never know with me, dude.
00:38:45
Speaker
I'll just go off on tangents, man.
00:38:47
Speaker
So we'll have to keep the reins on this guy.
00:38:50
Speaker
Could have been worse.
00:38:52
Speaker
Wild Mustang taking off here, but no, it was nuggets right there.
00:38:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:12
Speaker
But 11 years, so what's your secret?
00:39:14
Speaker
Do you have any tips for our listeners?
00:39:15
Speaker
Because a lot of people get burned out of this, and they're like, I know there's good money in solar, but especially where you've seen changes, most people, like the thing you were saying in the beginning where you had to get stuff notarized, most people would be like, oh, screw it, I'm done.
00:39:27
Speaker
I'm not going to deal with this.
00:39:29
Speaker
Now, same thing's happening
Mindset for Sales Longevity
00:39:30
Speaker
now.
00:39:30
Speaker
We got net metering and I know lots of people that are like, I'm either going to go to a different market or just get out of solar.
00:39:36
Speaker
So how do you, even with changes going on, what's your secret?
00:39:39
Speaker
How do you keep such a good attitude?
00:39:41
Speaker
How do you keep the longevity?
00:39:42
Speaker
Do you have any tips on that?
00:39:43
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad you asked.
00:39:45
Speaker
The first thing is understanding that challenge is opportunity.
00:39:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:50
Speaker
Problems to be solved is opportunity to add value and get paid.
00:39:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:55
Speaker
So if there's never any problem, like when NEM3 came out, I said, good.
00:40:00
Speaker
I know people are going to leave California.
00:40:03
Speaker
I know people aren't going to have a good strategy.
00:40:05
Speaker
I know people aren't going to be able to handle it.
00:40:07
Speaker
Well, guess what?
00:40:08
Speaker
I am.
00:40:09
Speaker
And I'm going to recruit everyone that needs good leadership.
00:40:13
Speaker
So the first thing to understand is any challenge you come to in life, if you view that challenge as an opportunity to learn, to grow, to stand out, to be the best version of yourself, you'll watch your whole life change, period.
00:40:28
Speaker
So challenge is opportunity.
00:40:30
Speaker
If you look at The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, read that book.
00:40:34
Speaker
There's a lot of good stuff out there, but it's a mentality.
00:40:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:37
Speaker
Guys, burnout doesn't exist.
00:40:41
Speaker
That's not a real thing.
00:40:43
Speaker
What's happening in your brain is this.
00:40:44
Speaker
Okay, it's psychological.
00:40:46
Speaker
What's happening is you're eating your broccoli so that you can have your ice cream.
00:40:52
Speaker
If you're only eating your broccoli so that you can have your ice cream, you hate your broccoli.
00:40:57
Speaker
Okay?
00:40:58
Speaker
You follow me so far?
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:00
Speaker
If you're like, I'm going to knock doors.
00:41:03
Speaker
I just want to get off the doors.
00:41:05
Speaker
I'm going to knock doors for two years so that I can do X, Y, and Z. Or I'm going to knock really hard this quarter so that I can make X amount of money.
00:41:15
Speaker
The problem with that mentality is you're doing, it actually makes you hate knocking doors.
00:41:23
Speaker
Because you're doing it for a reward or a goal.
00:41:26
Speaker
I want you to stop what you're doing right now and listen to me.
00:41:28
Speaker
Google or YouTube, Andrew Huberman, talking about friction, leaning into friction to create dopamine.
00:41:37
Speaker
So what's cool is when I heard this podcast, like within the last year, I was like, holy shit.
00:41:43
Speaker
This is the mentality I adopted 10 years ago without understanding the psychology behind it.
00:41:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:41:50
Speaker
I just lucked into it.
00:41:51
Speaker
Nice.
00:41:51
Speaker
But what I told myself from the day that I started knocking doors, I would repeat the mantra and I'd really believe like, I love doing hard things.
00:42:01
Speaker
It's just who I am.
00:42:04
Speaker
I do hard things.
00:42:06
Speaker
I'll tell you a quick story not to get sidetracked.
00:42:08
Speaker
I was in St.
00:42:09
Speaker
George.
00:42:10
Speaker
You know St.
00:42:10
Speaker
George well, southern Utah.
00:42:12
Speaker
There's a place called Dixie Rock.
00:42:15
Speaker
At Dixie Rock, there's a little narrow gap that you can walk up.
00:42:18
Speaker
And if you're an adult, you have to suck in your belly and squeeze through.
00:42:22
Speaker
And if you're a fat adult, you can't fit.
00:42:25
Speaker
My six-year-old daughter was walking up by herself.
00:42:28
Speaker
I was up top.
00:42:29
Speaker
She didn't know I was up top.
00:42:31
Speaker
I was videoing her, and no one else was around, and she was repeating.
00:42:35
Speaker
She was saying, brands do hard things.
00:42:39
Speaker
Brands do hard things.
00:42:41
Speaker
Six years old.
00:42:42
Speaker
Brands do hard things.
00:42:45
Speaker
Wow.
00:42:46
Speaker
With a big smile, right?
00:42:47
Speaker
Yeah, proud dad moment right there.
00:42:49
Speaker
And so listen to me, guys.
00:42:50
Speaker
The mentality that you adopt will affect everyone that you're around.
00:42:54
Speaker
Right.
00:42:55
Speaker
It'll affect your kids, but most importantly, it'll change your life.
00:42:59
Speaker
And so two things, if you adopt the mentality that you're the type of person that does hard things, what'll happen is as you lean into friction, as you do hard things and you tell yourself, I love doing hard things.
00:43:12
Speaker
This is who I am.
00:43:13
Speaker
This is what I live for.
00:43:15
Speaker
You can actually create in your body and in your mind, you can create the release of dopamine.
00:43:21
Speaker
Hmm.
00:43:21
Speaker
So that actually physiologically your body creates dopamine and you feel good when you're doing hard things.
00:43:30
Speaker
Think of David Goggins.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:32
Speaker
Right?
00:43:32
Speaker
He has this mentality.
00:43:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's true.
00:43:35
Speaker
Right?
00:43:35
Speaker
He does really hard things and he tells himself that's who he is and that's what he lives for.
00:43:40
Speaker
And so he loves it.
00:43:41
Speaker
Right?
00:43:42
Speaker
And so now instead of eating your broccoli to get your ice cream, you love your broccoli.
00:43:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:47
Speaker
You do that like, dude, that broccoli with some butter on it, it's freaking delicious.
00:43:51
Speaker
And I love it.
00:43:52
Speaker
Right.
00:43:53
Speaker
And so from the beginning of my career, to answer your question, how do you maintain longevity?
00:43:57
Speaker
How do you avoid burnout?
00:43:58
Speaker
Well, burnout doesn't exist, guys.
00:44:00
Speaker
It's just between your ears.
00:44:02
Speaker
Right.
00:44:02
Speaker
And so if you shift your mentality and from the beginning, I told myself, I love knocking doors.
00:44:09
Speaker
Love the autonomy that this brings my family.
00:44:11
Speaker
I love the income opportunity that I can create.
00:44:14
Speaker
I love being outside I love not working for someone I love interacting with new people every day and having different experiences and making cool connections I love helping my customers and I love the fact that it's hard Because if it weren't hard they wouldn't pay us what they pay us.
00:44:31
Speaker
Yeah, right.
00:44:32
Speaker
Yeah
00:44:33
Speaker
So check it out.
00:44:34
Speaker
If you adopt that mentality and watch the video, Andrew Huberman, Leaning into Friction, that'll change your life.
00:44:41
Speaker
If you adopt that mentality, no matter what you do in this life, whether you're knocking doors or you're pursuing some other career, if you lean into friction and you tell yourself that you really love doing hard things, you'll watch your whole life change.
00:44:54
Speaker
Wow, that's powerful.
00:44:55
Speaker
Cool, right?
00:44:56
Speaker
That's fire.
00:44:56
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:44:57
Speaker
Yeah, well, we've all heard, you know, little mantras we tell ourselves on the doors.
00:45:02
Speaker
But I love what you're saying about just, like, becoming those things because it's like, you know, I got the old trick.
00:45:08
Speaker
It's like, oh, I like myself.
00:45:09
Speaker
I love my job between doors.
00:45:11
Speaker
But I think a lot of times, I've been doing this almost seven years now, and it's true.
00:45:16
Speaker
A lot of times I get in that mindset where, oh, I'm going to push hard this month, and then I'll relax for a little bit or whatever.
00:45:22
Speaker
But it's just like...
00:45:23
Speaker
Yeah, becoming a different person, I guess, right?
00:45:27
Speaker
If you just learn to love it, yeah, if you just love it and you love sales and you love closing people and you love meeting new people, then it's not a chore.
00:45:35
Speaker
Then it's like I'm choosing to be here.
00:45:38
Speaker
And as soon as you step into choice, now you're empowered.
00:45:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:42
Speaker
Now you're operating from a point of empowerment and choice rather than obligation and duty.
00:45:49
Speaker
No one wants to be obligated and duty to go knock doors.
00:45:54
Speaker
I'm choosing that.
00:45:56
Speaker
And everyone that's listening to this podcast, you chose to work where you work.
00:46:01
Speaker
And you chose this career to go sell solar.
00:46:03
Speaker
So go make it happen.
00:46:05
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:46:06
Speaker
And I'll say one other thing.
00:46:08
Speaker
They did a study.
00:46:09
Speaker
And people that quit smoking are like 100x more likely to quit smoking when they identify as someone who doesn't smoke anymore.
00:46:19
Speaker
They're like, no, I'm not the type of person that smokes.
00:46:22
Speaker
Does that make sense?
00:46:24
Speaker
Instead of being like, yeah, I quit smoking or I'm trying to give it up.
00:46:28
Speaker
It's like, no, I'm not the type of person that smokes cigarettes.
00:46:32
Speaker
It's not my character.
00:46:33
Speaker
I'm not the type of person that quits.
00:46:35
Speaker
I'm not the type of person that goes home at 5 p.m.
00:46:38
Speaker
because I had a hard day.
00:46:39
Speaker
Like someone slammed the door on me.
00:46:40
Speaker
I'm the type of person that like works until I say I was going to work.
00:46:44
Speaker
That's just who I am.
00:46:46
Speaker
And so I don't go home early.
00:46:48
Speaker
Right?
00:46:49
Speaker
And so, yeah, those mental like, they're not even mental tricks.
00:46:53
Speaker
These, what's the word I'm looking for?
00:46:56
Speaker
Like...
00:46:57
Speaker
The way that you think about it and the way that you train yourself to think about it can change your whole life and like your perception.
00:47:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:05
Speaker
And you really will feel fulfilled and be happy in whatever you're doing.
00:47:09
Speaker
And that's what I hope for for everyone that's listening to this podcast.
00:47:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:12
Speaker
Like we want you guys like feel fulfilled to be happy to have amazing careers in whatever you end up doing.
00:47:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:20
Speaker
So hopefully it's helpful.
00:47:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:21
Speaker
And I think just in life in general, like you can apply that to anything.
00:47:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:25
Speaker
Like you said, just quitting smoking, knocking doors, like anything.
00:47:28
Speaker
So that's powerful.
00:47:30
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:47:31
Speaker
Well, Mike, we could be here all day, man.
00:47:33
Speaker
This is like pure gold right here.
00:47:35
Speaker
But I think the last big thing, big to do that I wanted to ask you, and then we'll probably start wrapping up here, is you ran a massive team.
00:47:44
Speaker
You were over, I believe, like four offices when you were at Sunrun.
00:47:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:48
Speaker
And then I know you're over a ton of people now, too.
00:47:50
Speaker
And so, like, being someone that's led just, like, big organizations, big teams, I definitely haven't been able to do that yet to this point in my career.
00:47:59
Speaker
And so I'm curious, like, what are some of the biggest lessons you learned?
00:48:03
Speaker
Or, I don't know, like someone like myself, I've ran lots of smaller teams.
00:48:08
Speaker
But, like, what would you say is the difference between running, like, a small team and, like, a massive organization?
Building Large Sales Teams
00:48:14
Speaker
Or what are some lessons you learned in all those years?
00:48:17
Speaker
Well, I think the way that you make the jump from running like a really smaller team, like seven to 10 guys, even 20 guys, I would consider like a small team to running 80, 100 man teams is you have to learn to grow by multiplication and not addition.
00:48:37
Speaker
And so the only way that you can do that is you have to develop other leaders.
00:48:42
Speaker
And so I really practice the 80-20 rule when I'm trying to build teams.
00:48:47
Speaker
And I'll give 80% of my time, effort, and attention to the top 20% of the guys that have the most potential.
00:48:55
Speaker
And then I'll really paint the vision for them.
00:48:59
Speaker
because if it's just me trying to go to grow the team, right?
00:49:03
Speaker
And no one else has bought into that vision.
00:49:05
Speaker
No one else knows what their path is to grow financially and within the industry and within the office.
00:49:11
Speaker
If I'm doing it by myself, that's arduous work.
00:49:15
Speaker
It's going to take a long time to like recruit individuals.
00:49:18
Speaker
If I have a team of 10 people and three of those people, two to three of those people have leadership potential, I'm going to pull those people into the room and say, Hey guys,
00:49:28
Speaker
Here's the vision.
00:49:29
Speaker
We're going to take this team to a hundred reps.
00:49:32
Speaker
You guys are the top three reps right now.
00:49:34
Speaker
I want you guys to help me run this office.
00:49:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:49:37
Speaker
And here's how we're going to do it.
00:49:39
Speaker
Here's what we need to do.
00:49:40
Speaker
Here's the game plan.
00:49:41
Speaker
And I want you guys, and here's the opportunity financially.
00:49:44
Speaker
This is actually what it looks like for you.
00:49:46
Speaker
And this is exactly what's going to happen.
00:49:48
Speaker
That's called giving vision.
00:49:50
Speaker
And so good leaders are visionary.
00:49:52
Speaker
I'm far from perfect.
00:49:53
Speaker
And I don't think I'm like the best leader ever.
00:49:56
Speaker
What I try to do is I try to really give vision to the top 20 to 30% of the people that I'm leading so that they're also helping me build.
00:50:07
Speaker
And it's not, it doesn't have to be, it's not an exchange.
00:50:10
Speaker
It's not like, hey, I'm going to give you money to help me.
00:50:13
Speaker
It's like, no, no, no.
00:50:14
Speaker
Let's go build this together.
00:50:15
Speaker
We're going to build something really special and you're going to be a part of it.
00:50:19
Speaker
And we're going to work together forever.
00:50:20
Speaker
Right.
00:50:21
Speaker
And I like genuinely feel that way.
00:50:23
Speaker
Right.
00:50:24
Speaker
So I think that's one lesson I've learned is too many leaders try to grow individually and by addition rather than by multiplication.
00:50:33
Speaker
If I have three or four leaders that are doing the same thing that I'm doing, I'm going to grow 300% to 400% faster.
00:50:38
Speaker
Does that make sense?
00:50:40
Speaker
Yeah, I like that.
00:50:41
Speaker
And so that's the number one thing and the number one mistake I see people make.
00:50:44
Speaker
The second thing is really be sincere with people.
00:50:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:50:50
Speaker
I think too many leaders try to put on like this front that they're perfect, you know?
00:50:56
Speaker
And it really limits like the ability to connect with people.
00:51:00
Speaker
And so for me, I try to be really genuine with my people.
00:51:03
Speaker
Like I'm far from perfect.
00:51:05
Speaker
When I make mistakes, I'll apologize and just own up to them, you know?
00:51:09
Speaker
And I make a lot of mistakes that I have in my career.
00:51:11
Speaker
Like no show on podcast.
00:51:13
Speaker
No show on podcast.
00:51:14
Speaker
No, dude, I'm just, I'm so far from perfect, guys.
00:51:17
Speaker
Like,
00:51:18
Speaker
You know, maybe you listen to the podcast and you're like, oh, this guy has a thousand installs.
00:51:20
Speaker
It's like, man, I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, not just in business, but in my personal life.
00:51:25
Speaker
And, you know, all that we can do, you know, I don't know if people are religious in this podcast or whatever.
00:51:30
Speaker
For me, I am religious and I have faith in Jesus Christ.
00:51:33
Speaker
And all that we can do is like repent and do our best to like get back on track to be the person that we want to become.
00:51:41
Speaker
The way that relates to leadership is people see that humility.
00:51:45
Speaker
When you make mistakes and you own them and say, hey, dude, I screwed up.
00:51:50
Speaker
Like I just made a mistake.
00:51:51
Speaker
The way I treated you or the way I handled that pay situation or the fact that I didn't get back to you or the way that I handled that situation with you in a rep, like I dropped the ball on that.
00:52:01
Speaker
I'm really sorry for that, man.
00:52:03
Speaker
I'm far from perfect.
00:52:04
Speaker
I'm going to make it up to you.
00:52:05
Speaker
Let's go out on the doors all day tomorrow and go knock together.
00:52:09
Speaker
You know, so I think that sincerity from a leader, I think people really appreciate sincerity.
00:52:15
Speaker
And I think they really appreciate empathy.
00:52:17
Speaker
And that's the last thing I'll touch on.
00:52:19
Speaker
I think as I've gotten older, I've developed a lot more empathy.
00:52:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:24
Speaker
as you go through hard things in your life, and if you're in your early 20s, you probably don't have as much empathy as people in their late 30s have, because what happens is you see people go through really hard things.
00:52:37
Speaker
You see people struggle with addiction.
00:52:39
Speaker
You see people go through divorces.
00:52:41
Speaker
You see people like have, their parents have health issues or they have serious health issues.
00:52:46
Speaker
And you really develop empathy, which is the ability to see it from someone, see it and feel it from someone else's point of view.
00:52:54
Speaker
And so now one thing I wasn't very good at early on in my leadership career was having empathy for other people and really connecting with them.
00:53:02
Speaker
And I think 10 years later, that's one of my greatest strengths is being able to like have a chat with someone and talk about life.
00:53:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:12
Speaker
And really communicate with them and connect with them on a genuine, sincere level.
00:53:17
Speaker
Be able to just listen to their story.
00:53:20
Speaker
Feel empathy for them and tell them that.
00:53:23
Speaker
And then give some advice based on the mistakes that I've made and what I've learned from those mistakes.
00:53:30
Speaker
That's the one benefit of screwing up a ton.
00:53:33
Speaker
Because you learn a lot, man.
00:53:35
Speaker
And I've learned a hell of a lot.
00:53:37
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:53:38
Speaker
So those three things, man.
00:53:39
Speaker
Grow by multiplication.
00:53:42
Speaker
Develop empathy.
00:53:44
Speaker
And be genuine and sincere.
00:53:47
Speaker
And really connect with your people.
00:53:48
Speaker
I love that.
00:53:49
Speaker
Yeah, and it's cool.
00:53:50
Speaker
Like, yeah, you know, we go to the same church and everything, and, like, I've known you kind of on a church background too.
00:53:55
Speaker
And I remember you telling stories just, like, helping guys and, like, their, you know, personalized family stuff going on.
00:54:01
Speaker
I remember one time you talked about a guy that sells numbers were going down, and you went and, like, helped him out with some family stuff or whatever.
00:54:08
Speaker
So, yeah, it's cool to see that, like, seems like you're really a person that's helping you guys grow just not only in their cells but in their personal lives and having their back.
00:54:17
Speaker
You talk about empathy and everything.
00:54:19
Speaker
So
Community and Leadership in Solar
00:54:20
Speaker
that's cool.
00:54:20
Speaker
And I think that's what true leaders are doing is they're having their guys' backs and helping them grow in multiple areas of their lives, not just sales and everything.
00:54:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think if you're an aspiring leader or a leader on this podcast listening in, you know, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, you won't remember how much money you made this year.
00:54:39
Speaker
yeah but you will remember like taylor and i will be friends for life dude yeah you know what i mean like that's a lot more important than a paycheck yeah and so it's not always about the red line yeah you know like stop chasing red lines and go partner up
00:54:57
Speaker
with really good people.
00:54:59
Speaker
The reason I didn't start my own company in January when I left Sunrun, I was like hell bent.
00:55:05
Speaker
I was like, of course I'm gonna start my own company.
00:55:07
Speaker
It's by far the most money in that.
00:55:10
Speaker
I can structure it this way and that way.
00:55:12
Speaker
I'm gonna make a lot of money.
00:55:14
Speaker
And then I met with John Soriano.
00:55:17
Speaker
I met with Legacy.
00:55:18
Speaker
And there's a lot of really good people there, man.
00:55:21
Speaker
And I was so impressed with John and he had his seven values laid out for his valor region in Southern California.
00:55:28
Speaker
And I thought to myself, what do I really want?
00:55:30
Speaker
It's not money, dude.
00:55:31
Speaker
I'm not going to miss a meal.
00:55:32
Speaker
Either are you.
00:55:33
Speaker
Either is most people on this podcast.
00:55:35
Speaker
It's not about the red line.
00:55:37
Speaker
What I recognize is really for me, the most fulfilling thing is working with people that I love.
00:55:44
Speaker
and that like I want to go to battle with and that I want to help grow and that I can learn from and that I can learn from me and so dude I got really lucky to partner with John and the guys at Legacy and just help kind of run that division and a lot of really really good people and I'm really happy where I'm at and yeah
00:56:01
Speaker
I would suggest anyone listening to this podcast, if you're one of those lone wolf kind of guys or you're at a small dealer, think about partnering up with someone bigger just for that community, just for that culture, because that's what life's about.
00:56:14
Speaker
It's not just about the red line.
00:56:16
Speaker
It's not just about a paycheck.
00:56:18
Speaker
You should show up to an office of 80 people and feel that community and feel that culture and be excited to go into the office and rub shoulders with different people and learn from different people, especially...
00:56:30
Speaker
during NEM3 and some of the changes in California, it's more important than ever that you're like really partnered up with someone that has good leadership and has experience and has good culture right now.
00:56:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:42
Speaker
So I'll just leave it at that.
00:56:43
Speaker
I love it.
00:56:44
Speaker
Boom.
00:56:44
Speaker
Plug.
00:56:44
Speaker
Hashtag legacy.
00:56:46
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
00:56:47
Speaker
yeah well and i've heard from a lot of heavy hitters that like dealers you know they're becoming less and less and i think it's going to get the point like that's why yeah currently i'm with a company that's doing their own installs because yeah i was just um you know you know about some of my issues i was having at dealers but like i'm a lot of money unfortunately and a lot of people likes to work at companies that may or may not have
00:57:10
Speaker
And I told them, I said, my number one criteria when I look for a company is does payroll hit every Friday?
00:57:17
Speaker
If it's a yes, then I'll think about working.
00:57:19
Speaker
So I worked at Sunrun Direct, never missed a paycheck there.
00:57:23
Speaker
Legacy, huge company, haven't missed a paycheck yet.
00:57:25
Speaker
So I'm happy for that.
00:57:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:57:27
Speaker
Yeah, learn from my mistake.
00:57:28
Speaker
Make sure you're getting paid.
00:57:32
Speaker
It happens, and that's the dark side of the industry, unfortunately.
00:57:35
Speaker
A lot of dealers go through stuff like that.
00:57:38
Speaker
Well, Mike, it's been awesome having you on.
00:57:40
Speaker
I mean, next time we'll have to.
00:57:42
Speaker
I mean, I almost just handcuffed you to this room, and I kept you here all day just because, like, you never know when you're going to get this guy in a room.
00:57:48
Speaker
It's been a long time.
00:57:49
Speaker
We coordinated.
00:57:50
Speaker
We finally did it, dude.
00:57:51
Speaker
You had to wait two hours, but, hey, we got some sushi out of it.
00:57:54
Speaker
It was worth it.
00:57:55
Speaker
It was a great night, man.
00:57:56
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
00:57:57
Speaker
For sure.
00:57:57
Speaker
Well, you delivered.
00:57:58
Speaker
So, guys, go reach out to Mike.
00:57:59
Speaker
Do you want to give your phone number one more time?
00:58:01
Speaker
Yeah, I'll give it one more time, man.
00:58:02
Speaker
Just text me.
00:58:03
Speaker
This is the same number my wife calls me on, guys.
00:58:05
Speaker
Just hit me up.
00:58:06
Speaker
It's my personal cell.
00:58:07
Speaker
It's 530-306-7948.
00:58:10
Speaker
530-306-7948.
00:58:10
Speaker
Hit me up.
00:58:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:58:14
Speaker
So, guys, shoot them a text.
00:58:16
Speaker
Not too many people give their phone numbers on the podcast.
00:58:18
Speaker
I don't blow them up, but make sure you let them know you heard about them on the Sorepreneur podcasts.
00:58:23
Speaker
Hey, I know someone out there is going to add me to like a hundred like spam numbers.
00:58:28
Speaker
I'm just going to get blown.
00:58:29
Speaker
I'll have to change my number because of this.
00:58:31
Speaker
They're going to put you in some text.
00:58:33
Speaker
It'll probably be Danny Pesci, dude.
00:58:35
Speaker
That's probably who it'll be, dude.
00:58:37
Speaker
Honestly.
00:58:39
Speaker
So maybe don't do that.
00:58:40
Speaker
But Mike, it's been awesome having you on.
00:58:42
Speaker
We'll have to do it in the future when I can track you down again.
00:58:46
Speaker
But I appreciate you for bringing the heat today.
00:58:48
Speaker
You definitely delivered and looking forward to seeing what you'll do next.
00:58:51
Speaker
Hey, can I give one last quote?
00:58:53
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:58:54
Speaker
This is like one of my favorite quotes that I just heard recently.
00:58:58
Speaker
And it really, really, really resonated with me.
00:59:01
Speaker
So I just want to share it really quick.
00:59:03
Speaker
And then we'll end this thing.
00:59:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:59:06
Speaker
So guys, we all have two lives.
00:59:09
Speaker
Okay?
00:59:10
Speaker
This is from Confucius.
00:59:11
Speaker
We all have two lives.
00:59:13
Speaker
And the second life begins when we realize that we only have one life to live.
00:59:18
Speaker
We all have two lives.
00:59:19
Speaker
And the second life begins the day that we realize we only have one life to live.
00:59:25
Speaker
And so like go out today and like live life to a hundred percent If you're at work if you're on doors be on doors and like go hard Give it a hundred percent as soon as you walk into your house with your family give your family a hundred percent Be there be present with your kids.
00:59:44
Speaker
You know what I'm saying?
00:59:45
Speaker
Call someone from your family that you haven't talked to in a few years
00:59:49
Speaker
Like bury the hatchet with someone.
00:59:51
Speaker
Like today, right now, think of someone that you have resentments towards, someone that has resentment towards you, and like call them right now.
00:59:59
Speaker
Like as soon as you're done with this podcast, call them and bury the hatchet, dude.
01:00:02
Speaker
Like life's too short.
01:00:03
Speaker
You only have one life to live, guys.
01:00:05
Speaker
So that's it.
01:00:06
Speaker
Let's get out of here.
01:00:07
Speaker
Boom.
01:00:07
Speaker
Love it.
01:00:08
Speaker
So guys, thanks for listening to the podcast.
01:00:10
Speaker
Do everything that Mike said.
01:00:11
Speaker
Go listen to his lines on selling.
01:00:14
Speaker
Live life to the fullest.
01:00:16
Speaker
And keep crushing it.
01:00:18
Speaker
So thanks again for coming, Mike.
01:00:19
Speaker
Let's go.
01:00:21
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs.
01:00:22
Speaker
Are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your sales increase?
01:00:27
Speaker
Well, so was I. And the truth is I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going wrong.
01:00:34
Speaker
So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time.
01:00:36
Speaker
We are doing a free sales diagnostic.
01:00:39
Speaker
We'll break down your sales process, figure out the holes in your business and see how we can help you improve.
01:00:46
Speaker
So at now, we have six bucks for this month.
01:00:49
Speaker
So book a call now.
01:00:51
Speaker
Don't miss out.
01:00:52
Speaker
What you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
01:00:57
Speaker
That's taylor at solarpreneurs with an S dot com.
01:01:01
Speaker
I'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out the time that works best.
01:01:06
Speaker
So shoot that email and let's increase your sales.