Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong 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.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: Hey, what's up, Swarmpreneurs?
Speaker: Today, I'm going to be talking about the seven things that helped me close 15 self-generated deals in a month.
Speaker: Been my biggest self-gen month in a little bit, so I thought I'd share some tips, tricks, secrets.
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.
Speaker: But seven things that helped me.
Speaker: Welcome back to the podcast.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
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.
Speaker: And we are free and available on Apple, Spotify, iTunes, wherever you listen to podcasts every Tuesday and Friday.
Speaker: Be sure to share the show.
Speaker: Leave us a rating and a review if you have not already.
Speaker: It's much appreciated.
Speaker: And that is pretty much the only ask I have for the listeners.
Speaker: I'm not charging you money, but I'm giving you what I think is premium content.
Speaker: And the one thing you got to do is pay the small price of sharing the show and leaving your review.
Speaker: Much appreciated.
Speaker: And as usual, we are once again going to remind you, go register for our live event.
Speaker: We are doing the live event in Sandy, Utah, April 17th, the day before SolarCon.
Speaker: I would recommend going to both, but the registration page is up.
Speaker: It is bootcamp.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Once again, bootcamp.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: This event is going to be off the chains.
Speaker: You are going to want to be there.
Speaker: It's going to be much focused on referrals, how to get referrals, and
Speaker: how to nurture them, and how to get leads on autopilot from these referrals and creating referral networks.
Speaker: So make sure you grab your tickets.
Speaker: And again, the two ways to get it are either you can use our discount code for SolarCon, grab your tickets, or
Speaker: Just solarcon.com.
Speaker: And then it's Taylor is the discount code.
Speaker: You're going to automatically get a free ticket to our event.
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.
Speaker: So go grab one on the registration page.
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.
Speaker: It has been probably the biggest, I think, maybe tied for the most self-gen deals I've done in a month.
Speaker: Okay, and I know there's people out there doing many more.
Speaker: But hey, that's the first bit of advice is don't compare yourself with others.
Speaker: Compare yourself with
Speaker: with your previous self.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's something that I've sometimes made the mistake of doing.
Speaker: It's like, okay, I'm the solopreneur.
Speaker: I run a podcast, but then I see guys throwing down insane amounts of deals and it's, it can be discouraging.
Speaker: I'm like, man, I've done all these awesome interviews.
Speaker: I've, I know a lot about sales.
Speaker: I can close deals.
Speaker: Why am I not having the same success as other people?
Speaker: But every time I start thinking that, I do worse.
Speaker: My numbers go down.
Speaker: It is not helpful.
Speaker: So compare yourself with your previous version.
Speaker: How can you be better this week, this month, this day?
Speaker: And that's the thing you should focus on.
Speaker: Of course, have competition.
Speaker: Be pushing yourself.
Speaker: Look for someone to compete with in your company or join a training program.
Speaker: You can join our programs or there's other great programs, D2D, you, Noxar, etc.
Speaker: They do great competitions and all that.
Speaker: So those are helpful, but compare yourself to your previous version.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: But yeah, let's jump into the seven things.
Speaker: A lot of people have asked me like, hey, Taylor, what are you doing different this month?
Speaker: What's been helping you?
Speaker: So this is my response to that.
Speaker: I'm going to give you guys seven things that I think I did a little bit different this month.
Speaker: And that helped me more than other months where I did not close as many deals.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And these are all self-genered accounts, except for one.
Speaker: I did get one referral.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But the rest, all self-gen accounts.
Speaker: I do not have setter leads this month, unfortunately.
Speaker: I'm trying to get my setters going too.
Speaker: I always like to have a combination of setter leads and self-gen accounts.
Speaker: And that's my recommendation.
Speaker: You should always be out knocking some doors.
Speaker: You should always be out grinding.
Speaker: You want to be able to teach your setters.
Speaker: And we're all setters.
Speaker: The person that can get the lead is the most valuable, in my opinion.
Speaker: So make sure you're not depriving yourself of self-generating some accounts.
Speaker: and getting out there knocking doors, hitting the phone, however you get your leads.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So here's the seven things I did.
Speaker: And the one that helped me in the waltz is going to come at the end.
Speaker: So make sure you listen till the end.
Speaker: But number one is I was really diligent on just tracking my conversations and hitting those numbers no matter what.
Speaker: And if you are not using some type of habit tracking app, I would definitely recommend it.
Speaker: the one that I use, I think it's called Street.
Speaker: But there's a bunch of different apps you can use to track your numbers.
Speaker: And I would recommend tracking conversations, appointment sets, sits in a week, closed deals, and then installs are the ones I track personally.
Speaker: Some people track doors, hours, those are good too.
Speaker: But in my opinion, it's most important to track your conversations.
Speaker: Because you can knock 100 doors, but maybe only talk to 10 people.
Speaker: Not very good numbers.
Speaker: So I think you should be focusing on the conversations.
Speaker: But this is one of the most important things.
Speaker: And one of the things that helped me the most is just being really diligent about hitting those conversations above all else.
Speaker: It's like I didn't care how many hours I was putting in.
Speaker: Really, it was just all about, okay, today I'm going to go hit six conversations minimum.
Speaker: It doesn't matter if I have...
Speaker: three appointments that day, that means I'm starting early.
Speaker: I got to hit my six conversations minimum.
Speaker: And some of you, that's probably really low.
Speaker: Okay, maybe.
Speaker: But for me, it was like six minimum.
Speaker: I was aiming for 10 conversations a day.
Speaker: And yeah, keep in mind, you're going to be going on appointments.
Speaker: I was having appointments and all that.
Speaker: So I was just making sure I got those six appointments or six conversations rather, no matter what.
Speaker: So that's number one.
Speaker: Number two, I was really diligent about planning my days and my weeks.
Speaker: We've done episodes on this, but I think it's important to just have a plan in place.
Speaker: And the night before, I would make sure I knew what area I was going to, what my plan of attack was,
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?
Speaker: What area am I planning on hitting?
Speaker: What appointments do I have?
Speaker: Oh, is this one confirmed?
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.
Speaker: Okay, right now, the...
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
Speaker: And then, yeah, you just write out like your schedule, your successes for the day.
Speaker: And that's basically it.
Speaker: So for me, it helps to have just like three things I'm going to focus on.
Speaker: And almost every day, one of the biggest was hitting those conversations.
Speaker: And then number three, moving on, I would knock alone a lot of times, but also a lot of days,
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.
Speaker: I've had him on the podcast.
Speaker: This guy is just a workhorse out there.
Speaker: There's people out there that just work so much.
Speaker: I'm not one of those guys.
Speaker: I'm not naturally just an insane workhorse type of guy.
Speaker: I feel like I work hard, but I see other guys.
Speaker: I'm like, wow, there's levels to this, right?
Speaker: So for me, I'm always going to have feelings of, I don't want to get out there today.
Speaker: This came up.
Speaker: My kid has his first baseball game, things like that that came up.
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?
Speaker: So for me, on the days where I wasn't feeling like getting out there, I would always team up with someone.
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.
Speaker: Meet me in this hood.
Speaker: Maybe we'd knock together for the first hour or two.
Speaker: And then we'd go our separate ways, knock across the street from one another.
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.
Speaker: Okay, because if you're out there with someone, yeah, it is more fun.
Speaker: But then also, you got someone to hold you accountable.
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.
Speaker: So make sure you know, when those potential moments of laziness are going to come and get someone out there with you.
Speaker: Okay, so that's tip number three.
Speaker: Number four,
Speaker: I would use paper appointment cards that I would leave behind with people.
Speaker: This is something that I was trained to do when I first started in solar is have a little just qualification card.
Speaker: And basically what it is, is as you're setting appointments with people out there in the neighborhood, which don't say appointment.
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.
Speaker: I'll leave you a copy to you.
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.
Speaker: Do you have a corner of the table you can borrow?
Speaker: So it does two things.
Speaker: Number one, it allows you to push to get inside the home because you got it right.
Speaker: Like you need something to write on, right?
Speaker: And then number two, it's something that they're physically seeing and you leave behind with them.
Speaker: I think it serves as a great reminder for the appointment on the back.
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.
Speaker: Hey, and going along with that tip number, I think we're on five is this month.
Speaker: Um, I did not really confirm appointments instead of like texting, confirming, like I have done a lot in the past.
Speaker: I just, I'm like, you know what?
Speaker: I'm just going to leave this appointment card and,
Speaker: Maybe I'll send them a text the day I meet with them, but I'm not going to text and confirm appointments.
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.
Speaker: So I'm like, you know what?
Speaker: Screw that.
Speaker: I'm not going to do that anymore.
Speaker: I'm just going to leave you the card and I'm going to show up.
Speaker: I'm going to be here.
Speaker: Unless I'm in the hospital or dead, I'm going to be here this time.
Speaker: Okay, so there's no reason you guys wouldn't be here, right, Mr. Homeowner?
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: I'll leave you this card and you hang it on the fridge.
Speaker: So that's four and five is use some little paper qualification cards.
Speaker: you know, stop, consider maybe not confirming your appointments if you're in an area where you're getting a lot of cancels.
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.
Speaker: I don't want to like drive a ton to show up to no show appointments.
Speaker: But if I'm planning on going there, hey, I'm just going to show up.
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.
Speaker: Okay, so that's something that I changed this month.
Speaker: All right, and then the last two things.
Speaker: Hey, I would say the two biggest things that helped me more than anything else.
Speaker: Second to last, number six, is I just would stick in a single area.
Speaker: Hey, I built a ton of momentum in one area.
Speaker: Those that follow me side close, quite a few Spanish deals.
Speaker: So I was in this just little duplex neighborhood here close to my house.
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.
Speaker: So I think that's what helps.
Speaker: What's very useful is just, you know, once you get to know people,
Speaker: You just see a huge difference in your interactions.
Speaker: You have so many different names to drop.
Speaker: People have probably seen you walking around the neighborhood.
Speaker: You got more credibility.
Speaker: Even better, maybe you're in the neighborhood watch group, hopefully for positive reasons.
Speaker: That's the best case scenario.
Speaker: See if you can have someone post positive things about you in the Nextdoor app or whatever.
Speaker: But yeah, just this duplex area.
Speaker: Just milked it as much as possible.
Speaker: Stayed in there.
Speaker: And that's where I got most of my deals this month.
Speaker: I think like over half in this one area, probably like six streets, just milked as much as possible.
Speaker: Okay, so that's number six.
Speaker: And then last, the biggest thing that helped me this month, more than anything else,
Speaker: is just when I schedule my appointments.
Speaker: Hey, and this actually came from a conversation I had with my friend Ryan.
Speaker: Shout out to Ryan if you listen to this.
Speaker: But he reminded me of the importance of just setting your appointments outside of your knocking hours.
Speaker: I think a mistake I made a lot of times in the past is I would just set my appointments for whenever.
Speaker: Hey, you're going to be here tomorrow.
Speaker: four or five o'clock.
Speaker: All right, done.
Speaker: I was setting an appointment for like a prime time when I could be knocking.
Speaker: And then I would go to that appointment.
Speaker: Then it's seven, eight o'clock sometimes.
Speaker: Well, that's the day.
Speaker: No more knocking after that, right?
Speaker: So what I did, I shifted that and I said, you know what?
Speaker: No matter what, I'm going to try as much as possible to not set appointments between the hours of four to seven.
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.
Speaker: And then I was able to hit more doors, more conversations.
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.
Speaker: Then it's like the next day would come around.
Speaker: I didn't have a single appointment.
Speaker: It's like, okay, I guess I'm prospecting all day.
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.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: setting appointments for after those time slots.
Speaker: Okay, so hope those helped.
Speaker: Those are the seven things that made a difference for me.
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,
Speaker: And last two are building momentum in a single area and setting appointments for your non-knocking hours.
Speaker: So try those things this month.
Speaker: I hope you can hit 15 self-gens or more this month.
Speaker: Whenever you're listening to this, thank you so much for listening to the podcast.
Speaker: We'll see you at our live event, April 17th.
Speaker: And make sure you tune in to next podcast because we have a guest that has been in the industry for...
Speaker: I think 10 years now, ton of experience.
Speaker: His name is Jeremy Rose.
Speaker: He's doing some cool things in commercial solar, ran companies, ran his own dealer, just has a ton of experience.
Speaker: He's a wealth of knowledge.
Speaker: So make sure you tune into it.
Speaker: He's got some cool stories he's going to share on the next podcast.
Speaker: So peace out.
Speaker: Go crush it this week.
Speaker: We'll see you on the next one.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
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.
Speaker: One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
Speaker: What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
Speaker: You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
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.
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.
Speaker: So go download it right now.
Speaker: It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We will have that in the show notes.
Speaker: Go download it right now.
Speaker: And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
Speaker: That's going to show you how.
Speaker: So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.
