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7 Secrets That Helped Me Hit 15 Self-Gen Sales In February
135 Plays2 years ago
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Introduction to Taylor Armstrong and the Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong and 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 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.
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.
Seven Strategies for Sales Success
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, what's up, Swarmpreneurs?
00:00:43
Speaker
Today, I'm going to be talking about the seven things that helped me close 15 self-generated deals in a month.
00:00:51
Speaker
Been my biggest self-gen month in a little bit, so I thought I'd share some tips, tricks, secrets.
00:00:58
Speaker
So stay tuned and make sure you listen till the end because I'm going to be dropping the one biggest thing that helped me more than anything else.
00:01:05
Speaker
But seven things that helped me.
00:01:07
Speaker
Welcome back to the podcast.
00:01:09
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:01:10
Speaker
We are here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:01:16
Speaker
And we are free and available on Apple, Spotify, iTunes, wherever you listen to podcasts every Tuesday and Friday.
00:01:24
Speaker
Be sure to share the show.
00:01:26
Speaker
Leave us a rating and a review if you have not already.
00:01:30
Speaker
It's much appreciated.
00:01:31
Speaker
And that is pretty much the only ask I have for the listeners.
00:01:36
Speaker
I'm not charging you money, but I'm giving you what I think is premium content.
00:01:41
Speaker
And the one thing you got to do is pay the small price of sharing the show and leaving your review.
00:01:48
Speaker
Much appreciated.
00:01:50
Speaker
And as usual, we are once again going to remind you, go register for our live event.
Upcoming Live Event and Its Focus
00:01:58
Speaker
We are doing the live event in Sandy, Utah, April 17th, the day before SolarCon.
00:02:05
Speaker
I would recommend going to both, but the registration page is up.
00:02:09
Speaker
It is bootcamp.solarpreneurs.com.
00:02:12
Speaker
Once again, bootcamp.solarpreneurs.com.
00:02:15
Speaker
This event is going to be off the chains.
00:02:17
Speaker
You are going to want to be there.
00:02:19
Speaker
It's going to be much focused on referrals, how to get referrals, and
00:02:24
Speaker
how to nurture them, and how to get leads on autopilot from these referrals and creating referral networks.
00:02:31
Speaker
So make sure you grab your tickets.
00:02:33
Speaker
And again, the two ways to get it are either you can use our discount code for SolarCon, grab your tickets, or
00:02:41
Speaker
Just solarcon.com.
00:02:43
Speaker
And then it's Taylor is the discount code.
00:02:45
Speaker
You're going to automatically get a free ticket to our event.
00:02:47
Speaker
Just got to send us the receipt, either a DM me or shoot me an email support at solarpreneur.com or the other way you can just go buy a ticket.
00:02:58
Speaker
So
Personal Growth vs. Comparison in Sales
00:03:00
Speaker
go grab one on the registration page.
00:03:03
Speaker
All right, so let's hop into the topic of the show, which is the seven things that helped me close 15 self-generated accounts.
00:03:11
Speaker
It has been probably the biggest, I think, maybe tied for the most self-gen deals I've done in a month.
00:03:20
Speaker
Okay, and I know there's people out there doing many more.
00:03:25
Speaker
But hey, that's the first bit of advice is don't compare yourself with others.
00:03:29
Speaker
Compare yourself with
00:03:31
Speaker
with your previous self.
00:03:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:34
Speaker
It's something that I've sometimes made the mistake of doing.
00:03:36
Speaker
It's like, okay, I'm the solopreneur.
00:03:38
Speaker
I run a podcast, but then I see guys throwing down insane amounts of deals and it's, it can be discouraging.
00:03:45
Speaker
I'm like, man, I've done all these awesome interviews.
00:03:48
Speaker
I've, I know a lot about sales.
00:03:50
Speaker
I can close deals.
00:03:52
Speaker
Why am I not having the same success as other people?
00:03:55
Speaker
But every time I start thinking that, I do worse.
00:03:58
Speaker
My numbers go down.
00:04:00
Speaker
It is not helpful.
00:04:01
Speaker
So compare yourself with your previous version.
00:04:04
Speaker
How can you be better this week, this month, this day?
00:04:07
Speaker
And that's the thing you should focus on.
00:04:09
Speaker
Of course, have competition.
00:04:10
Speaker
Be pushing yourself.
00:04:11
Speaker
Look for someone to compete with in your company or join a training program.
00:04:17
Speaker
You can join our programs or there's other great programs, D2D, you, Noxar, etc.
00:04:24
Speaker
They do great competitions and all that.
00:04:26
Speaker
So those are helpful, but compare yourself to your previous version.
00:04:30
Speaker
All right.
00:04:30
Speaker
But yeah, let's jump into the seven things.
00:04:32
Speaker
A lot of people have asked me like, hey, Taylor, what are you doing different this month?
00:04:35
Speaker
What's been helping you?
00:04:36
Speaker
So this is my response to that.
00:04:38
Speaker
I'm going to give you guys seven things that I think I did a little bit different this month.
00:04:43
Speaker
And that helped me more than other months where I did not close as many deals.
00:04:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:49
Speaker
And these are all self-genered accounts, except for one.
00:04:52
Speaker
I did get one referral.
00:04:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:54
Speaker
But the rest, all self-gen accounts.
00:04:56
Speaker
I do not have setter leads this month, unfortunately.
00:04:59
Speaker
I'm trying to get my setters going too.
00:05:01
Speaker
I always like to have a combination of setter leads and self-gen accounts.
00:05:06
Speaker
And that's my recommendation.
00:05:07
Speaker
You should always be out knocking some doors.
00:05:10
Speaker
You should always be out grinding.
00:05:11
Speaker
You want to be able to teach your setters.
00:05:13
Speaker
And we're all setters.
00:05:15
Speaker
The person that can get the lead is the most valuable, in my opinion.
00:05:18
Speaker
So make sure you're not depriving yourself of self-generating some accounts.
00:05:23
Speaker
and getting out there knocking doors, hitting the phone, however you get your leads.
00:05:27
Speaker
All
The Importance of Tracking and Planning
00:05:28
Speaker
right.
00:05:28
Speaker
So here's the seven things I did.
00:05:31
Speaker
And the one that helped me in the waltz is going to come at the end.
00:05:34
Speaker
So make sure you listen till the end.
00:05:37
Speaker
But number one is I was really diligent on just tracking my conversations and hitting those numbers no matter what.
00:05:46
Speaker
And if you are not using some type of habit tracking app, I would definitely recommend it.
00:05:52
Speaker
the one that I use, I think it's called Street.
00:05:56
Speaker
But there's a bunch of different apps you can use to track your numbers.
00:06:00
Speaker
And I would recommend tracking conversations, appointment sets, sits in a week, closed deals, and then installs are the ones I track personally.
00:06:09
Speaker
Some people track doors, hours, those are good too.
00:06:13
Speaker
But in my opinion, it's most important to track your conversations.
00:06:16
Speaker
Because you can knock 100 doors, but maybe only talk to 10 people.
00:06:20
Speaker
Not very good numbers.
00:06:22
Speaker
So I think you should be focusing on the conversations.
00:06:24
Speaker
But this is one of the most important things.
00:06:28
Speaker
And one of the things that helped me the most is just being really diligent about hitting those conversations above all else.
00:06:35
Speaker
It's like I didn't care how many hours I was putting in.
00:06:38
Speaker
Really, it was just all about, okay, today I'm going to go hit six conversations minimum.
00:06:42
Speaker
It doesn't matter if I have...
00:06:44
Speaker
three appointments that day, that means I'm starting early.
00:06:46
Speaker
I got to hit my six conversations minimum.
00:06:49
Speaker
And some of you, that's probably really low.
00:06:51
Speaker
Okay, maybe.
00:06:52
Speaker
But for me, it was like six minimum.
00:06:54
Speaker
I was aiming for 10 conversations a day.
00:06:57
Speaker
And yeah, keep in mind, you're going to be going on appointments.
00:06:59
Speaker
I was having appointments and all that.
00:07:01
Speaker
So I was just making sure I got those six appointments or six conversations rather, no matter what.
00:07:07
Speaker
So that's number one.
00:07:09
Speaker
Number two, I was really diligent about planning my days and my weeks.
00:07:15
Speaker
We've done episodes on this, but I think it's important to just have a plan in place.
00:07:19
Speaker
And the night before, I would make sure I knew what area I was going to, what my plan of attack was,
00:07:27
Speaker
what hours I was going to be on the doors, what time my appointments were, because on days I didn't have this planned, in previous months where I wasn't as good about this, sometimes I would waste time figuring out, okay, where am I knocking?
00:07:40
Speaker
What area am I planning on hitting?
00:07:42
Speaker
What appointments do I have?
00:07:44
Speaker
Oh, is this one confirmed?
00:07:45
Speaker
All these different things we think about, but it helps to have the day just set in stone the night before, and then also the weekly planning session.
00:07:53
Speaker
Okay, right now, the...
00:07:55
Speaker
planner that I'm liking a lot is called the full focus planner actually got it in my hand for those of you watching the video this dude Michael Hyatt he has some really good videos and a really good system I think just pretty simple on how to plan the day in the week yeah basically it's just you set your big three tasks for the day the main three things you want to accomplish above all else is
00:08:18
Speaker
And then, yeah, you just write out like your schedule, your successes for the day.
00:08:22
Speaker
And that's basically it.
00:08:23
Speaker
So for me, it helps to have just like three things I'm going to focus on.
00:08:26
Speaker
And almost every day, one of the biggest was hitting those conversations.
00:08:31
Speaker
And then number three, moving on, I would knock alone a lot of times, but also a lot of days,
00:08:37
Speaker
We all know there's going to be days where we don't feel like getting out there, unless you're superhuman, unless you're guys like Brandon Forrester.
00:08:47
Speaker
I've had him on the podcast.
00:08:48
Speaker
This guy is just a workhorse out there.
00:08:51
Speaker
There's people out there that just work so much.
00:08:54
Speaker
I'm not one of those guys.
00:08:55
Speaker
I'm not naturally just an insane workhorse type of guy.
00:08:59
Speaker
I feel like I work hard, but I see other guys.
00:09:02
Speaker
I'm like, wow, there's levels to this, right?
00:09:05
Speaker
So for me, I'm always going to have feelings of, I don't want to get out there today.
00:09:09
Speaker
This came up.
00:09:11
Speaker
My kid has his first baseball game, things like that that came up.
00:09:16
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, am I going to make excuses or am I going to figure out a way to have someone else hold me accountable and still get out there?
00:09:24
Speaker
So for me, on the days where I wasn't feeling like getting out there, I would always team up with someone.
00:09:30
Speaker
I would shoot a text to one of my setters out there, another guy on our team, say, hey, let's link up today.
00:09:36
Speaker
Meet me in this hood.
00:09:38
Speaker
Maybe we'd knock together for the first hour or two.
00:09:41
Speaker
And then we'd go our separate ways, knock across the street from one another.
00:09:46
Speaker
And so that really helped me to just make sure I was still getting out there, even on days when I didn't feel like it.
00:09:52
Speaker
Okay, because if you're out there with someone, yeah, it is more fun.
00:09:55
Speaker
But then also, you got someone to hold you accountable.
00:09:58
Speaker
Like you're going out with someone, you're not going to not show up when you're the one that might not go out there.
00:10:04
Speaker
So make sure you know, when those potential moments of laziness are going to come and
Teamwork and Accountability
00:10:11
Speaker
get someone out there with you.
00:10:12
Speaker
Okay, so that's tip number three.
00:10:15
Speaker
Number four,
00:10:17
Speaker
I would use paper appointment cards that I would leave behind with people.
00:10:22
Speaker
This is something that I was trained to do when I first started in solar is have a little just qualification card.
00:10:30
Speaker
And basically what it is, is as you're setting appointments with people out there in the neighborhood, which don't say appointment.
00:10:37
Speaker
But when you're setting up the appointments, you say, hey, I just have to fill out this quick form with all the people out here.
00:10:43
Speaker
I'll leave you a copy to you.
00:10:45
Speaker
And then it's just going to get, yeah, make sure we have all your basic info so they know which house they're even looking at.
00:10:51
Speaker
Do you have a corner of the table you can borrow?
00:10:53
Speaker
So it does two things.
00:10:54
Speaker
Number one, it allows you to push to get inside the home because you got it right.
00:10:58
Speaker
Like you need something to write on, right?
00:11:00
Speaker
And then number two, it's something that they're physically seeing and you leave behind with them.
00:11:08
Speaker
I think it serves as a great reminder for the appointment on the back.
00:11:11
Speaker
I put what we're going to go over in the appointment when I come back for the pop by and just a cool, I think, thing to leave behind that helps, especially old school people.
00:11:23
Speaker
Hey, and going along with that tip number, I think we're on five is this month.
00:11:30
Speaker
Um, I did not really confirm appointments instead of like texting, confirming, like I have done a lot in the past.
00:11:38
Speaker
I just, I'm like, you know what?
00:11:40
Speaker
I'm just going to leave this appointment card and,
00:11:42
Speaker
Maybe I'll send them a text the day I meet with them, but I'm not going to text and confirm appointments.
00:11:47
Speaker
And I decided to make this change just because the month of January, I think it was January, I had like, I think it was something crazy, like nine or 10 appointments in a row cancel when I text them.
00:12:00
Speaker
So I'm like, you know what?
00:12:01
Speaker
Screw that.
00:12:02
Speaker
I'm not going to do that anymore.
00:12:03
Speaker
I'm just going to leave you the card and I'm going to show up.
00:12:05
Speaker
I'm going to be here.
00:12:07
Speaker
Unless I'm in the hospital or dead, I'm going to be here this time.
00:12:10
Speaker
Okay, so there's no reason you guys wouldn't be here, right, Mr. Homeowner?
00:12:15
Speaker
Great.
00:12:16
Speaker
I'll leave you this card and you hang it on the fridge.
00:12:18
Speaker
So that's four and five is use some little paper qualification cards.
00:12:26
Speaker
you know, stop, consider maybe not confirming your appointments if you're in an area where you're getting a lot of cancels.
00:12:32
Speaker
And my personal rule is if an appointment is more than 20, 30 minutes outside of where I'm going, then yes, I will confirm it.
00:12:41
Speaker
I don't want to like drive a ton to show up to no show appointments.
00:12:45
Speaker
But if I'm planning on going there, hey, I'm just going to show up.
00:12:48
Speaker
And then worst case scenario, if that appointment isn't there, then I'm out there ready to roll, ready to hit the doors in my area.
00:12:56
Speaker
Okay, so that's something that I changed this month.
Strategies for Efficient Sales Appointments
00:13:00
Speaker
All right, and then the last two things.
00:13:03
Speaker
Hey, I would say the two biggest things that helped me more than anything else.
00:13:08
Speaker
Second to last, number six, is I just would stick in a single area.
00:13:12
Speaker
Hey, I built a ton of momentum in one area.
00:13:16
Speaker
Those that follow me side close, quite a few Spanish deals.
00:13:19
Speaker
So I was in this just little duplex neighborhood here close to my house.
00:13:24
Speaker
And I just went there every day, made sure to milk it as much as possible, built a ton of trust in that area, got a ton of names and just built the momentum.
00:13:38
Speaker
So I think that's what helps.
00:13:40
Speaker
What's very useful is just, you know, once you get to know people,
00:13:44
Speaker
You just see a huge difference in your interactions.
00:13:47
Speaker
You have so many different names to drop.
00:13:49
Speaker
People have probably seen you walking around the neighborhood.
00:13:52
Speaker
You got more credibility.
00:13:54
Speaker
Even better, maybe you're in the neighborhood watch group, hopefully for positive reasons.
00:14:02
Speaker
That's the best case scenario.
00:14:03
Speaker
See if you can have someone post positive things about you in the Nextdoor app or whatever.
00:14:07
Speaker
But yeah, just this duplex area.
00:14:10
Speaker
Just milked it as much as possible.
00:14:12
Speaker
Stayed in there.
00:14:13
Speaker
And that's where I got most of my deals this month.
00:14:15
Speaker
I think like over half in this one area, probably like six streets, just milked as much as possible.
00:14:22
Speaker
Okay, so that's number six.
00:14:24
Speaker
And then last, the biggest thing that helped me this month, more than anything else,
00:14:31
Speaker
is just when I schedule my appointments.
00:14:34
Speaker
Hey, and this actually came from a conversation I had with my friend Ryan.
00:14:40
Speaker
Shout out to Ryan if you listen to this.
00:14:42
Speaker
But he reminded me of the importance of just setting your appointments outside of your knocking hours.
00:14:50
Speaker
I think a mistake I made a lot of times in the past is I would just set my appointments for whenever.
00:14:56
Speaker
Hey, you're going to be here tomorrow.
00:14:57
Speaker
four or five o'clock.
00:14:59
Speaker
All right, done.
00:15:00
Speaker
I was setting an appointment for like a prime time when I could be knocking.
00:15:04
Speaker
And then I would go to that appointment.
00:15:06
Speaker
Then it's seven, eight o'clock sometimes.
00:15:09
Speaker
Well, that's the day.
00:15:10
Speaker
No more knocking after that, right?
00:15:11
Speaker
So what I did, I shifted that and I said, you know what?
00:15:14
Speaker
No matter what, I'm going to try as much as possible to not set appointments between the hours of four to seven.
00:15:21
Speaker
And I'm going to make sure I'm hitting doors as much as possible, prospecting for sure during those hours, hitting my conversations.
00:15:29
Speaker
And then I was able to hit more doors, more conversations.
00:15:32
Speaker
And then I had my evening appointments and it just allowed me to set myself up for more appointments rather than going to those appointments for the day.
00:15:40
Speaker
Then it's like the next day would come around.
00:15:42
Speaker
I didn't have a single appointment.
00:15:44
Speaker
It's like, okay, I guess I'm prospecting all day.
00:15:46
Speaker
So I think that was the biggest difference maker for me this month is just making sure I was diligent about keeping those knocking hours sacred as much as possible.
00:15:55
Speaker
And...
00:15:57
Speaker
setting appointments for after those time slots.
00:15:59
Speaker
Okay, so hope those helped.
00:16:00
Speaker
Those are the seven things that made a difference for me.
00:16:03
Speaker
One more time, it was tracking and hitting my conversations, planning my days and weeks, combination of knocking doors alone and knocking with others, leaving behind paper, qualification cards, not texting my appointments before to confirm,
00:16:21
Speaker
And last two are building momentum in a single area and setting appointments for your non-knocking hours.
00:16:29
Speaker
So try those things this month.
00:16:31
Speaker
I hope you can hit 15 self-gens or more this month.
00:16:35
Speaker
Whenever you're listening to this, thank you so much for listening to the podcast.
00:16:38
Speaker
We'll see you at our live event, April 17th.
00:16:41
Speaker
And make sure you tune in to next podcast because we have a guest that has been in the industry for...
00:16:48
Speaker
I think 10 years now, ton of experience.
00:16:51
Speaker
His name is Jeremy Rose.
00:16:53
Speaker
He's doing some cool things in commercial solar, ran companies, ran his own dealer, just has a ton of experience.
00:17:01
Speaker
He's a wealth of knowledge.
00:17:02
Speaker
So make sure you tune into it.
00:17:03
Speaker
He's got some cool stories he's going to share on the next podcast.
00:17:06
Speaker
So peace out.
00:17:07
Speaker
Go crush it this week.
00:17:08
Speaker
We'll see you on the next one.
00:17:11
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
00:17:12
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:17:13
Speaker
Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
00:17:24
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:17:31
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:17:34
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:17:39
Speaker
So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and I would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solarpreneur.
00:17:52
Speaker
We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet.
Cheat Sheet Announcement for New Listeners
00:18:01
Speaker
So go download it right now.
00:18:02
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:18:06
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:18:11
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:18:14
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:18:16
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:18:18
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:18:23
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:18:24
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.