Transcript
Speaker: Look, in the solar business, there's really only two types of people.
Speaker: There's the ones that crush it, make six, seven, and eight figures, and then there's everyone else.
Speaker: The question is, which one will you be?
Speaker: Over the last four years, we've studied the sharpest solar sales and marketing professionals and how they build multi-million dollar incomes using only the best sales and marketing strategies.
Speaker: So how do these solarpreneurs do what they do and what makes them so successful?
Speaker: This podcast is your answer.
Speaker: Join us and thousands of sales pros, marketers, and entrepreneurs as we take the solar industry by storm and uncover what it takes to sell more solar with less effort.
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast.
Speaker: What's up, solarpreneurs?
Speaker: Today on another podcast, we are excited to have a guest that I've been thinking about having on for a long time now, and he's got his Go Solar mug there.
Speaker: So we're excited to present the one and only Michael O'Donnell.
Speaker: That's how you say your last name, right?
Speaker: It is O'Donnell.
Speaker: Yeah, not McDonald or O'Donnell.
Speaker: It's Michael O'Donnell.
Speaker: Yeah, great to be on with you.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: It was great to connect with you at D2D and I've been looking forward to doing this.
Speaker: Glad to have it be today.
Speaker: Yeah, appreciate having you on the show, Mike.
Speaker: And yeah, we ran into each other at Door to Door Con.
Speaker: And Michael, he's what I would consider a legend in the industry.
Speaker: He won his Golden Door Award there, which for anyone who doesn't know, what's a Golden Door Award?
Speaker: Well, there's a GOAT on it.
Speaker: I don't know if that means anything.
Speaker: Sam tells me that GOAT stands for greatest of all time.
Speaker: The funny story about my Golden Door Award is that I went to last year's D2D
Speaker: Because it sounded super interesting to me after Spadio had invited me, gave me a free ticket, whatever.
Speaker: So I said, yeah, that sounds awesome.
Speaker: I went with a couple of members of my team.
Speaker: And then Sam's like, hey, anybody who's done a megawatt, come up and we're doing a thing.
Speaker: And I go, hey, Sam, yeah, Mike Wadon, what's your name now?
Speaker: He goes, yeah, megawatt of solar, you're getting an award.
Speaker: I'm like, wow, I'm coming to this thing, I'm getting an award.
Speaker: I'm like, that's pretty cool, right?
Speaker: What did you sell last year?
Speaker: I said, 2.5 megawatts.
Speaker: oh my god i was like no no how much solar did you sell not the company i go well i i closed 2.5 megawatts that was me oh my god you know 30 sales guys that work for uh the company i'm a part owner but all i do is sell i just i'm one of the sales guys so i sold 2.5 million he's like that's that's okay 2.5 so anyway i come up to the stage that night and he has me two awards because the awards for a million he goes i don't know what to do we don't have a
Speaker: a 2 million award.
Speaker: So he handed me two awards.
Speaker: My goal this year was to have him need to give me three.
Speaker: I ended up at 2.8 million watts this year.
Speaker: Personally closed.
Speaker: And so he still handed me only two.
Speaker: I was kind of bummed out.
Speaker: I'll take the two.
Speaker: They're on my wall.
Speaker: I'm starting a collection.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, that's awesome.
Speaker: And yeah, I know Sam was blown away too, because he talks about it all the time, as far as he's concerned.
Speaker: From what I hear, you're the top dog of the solar.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I had no idea what the, maybe I should have not, maybe it was a good thing.
Speaker: I didn't know that a million was a thing or 2 million wasn't a thing.
Speaker: We've just been going at it, doing what we can do to, you know, to be in as many appointments a day and close as many of them.
Speaker: And that's, that's just happened to be the math.
Speaker: uh, 17.
Speaker: And of course I couldn't not try to make it a bigger number in 2018, which I did.
Speaker: And I was pretty happy that that worked out as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, that's incredible, man.
Speaker: What a, what a awesome accomplishment.
Speaker: I'm still working on my first one.
Speaker: So don't work on it.
Speaker: Just do it.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Must be because solar must be easier to sell in Arizona.
Speaker: That's the only way you use it.
Speaker: Well, we got plenty of inventory.
Speaker: If you're selling sunshine in Arizona, there's lots of inventory here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Well, cool.
Speaker: It's awesome to have you on the show.
Speaker: And yeah, we're definitely looking forward to hearing some of the things that have helped you progress into that.
Speaker: And my question is, I mean, you've been, I've talked to a lot of solar owners, solar companies, and you don't typically see that where one of the owners is actually like still selling themselves and actually out there in the grind and the hustle.
Speaker: So how is that?
Speaker: You want to know why that is?
Speaker: Yeah, why is that?
Speaker: I'll tell you why that is because I'm very thick, dense, and stupid in some ways.
Speaker: And I realized in 1984 that I could make just really obscene, sick, unbelievable money per hour, per day, per week, per month selling solar.
Speaker: I started selling solar in 1984.
Speaker: I'd been in the phone room setting appointments as an appointment setter.
Speaker: I happened to just kind of walk
Speaker: randomly wander into the conference room where the sales manager was given a little tabletop training demonstration to some new guys.
Speaker: And he walked them through the old school three-ring buying
Speaker: with your what would have to today be PowerPoint slides or whatever of how people would walk somebody through a solar presentation and at the end of it he did the clothes I said well I think I could do that in fact I know I could do it I happen to be in the phone room working I went in there got an appointment for that night drove out to it grabbed a three-ring binder sat down with someone and at the end of them put the clothes on it and they signed up and bought solar like I didn't even have permission to do that
Speaker: Called into the phone room and said, give me another one.
Speaker: That was at five.
Speaker: Give me another one at seven.
Speaker: And they gave me another appointment at seven.
Speaker: I went and closed that one.
Speaker: I said, wow, that's awesome.
Speaker: Is there anybody who'll see me at nine o'clock tonight?
Speaker: And I went to a nine o'clock appointment that night and sold it.
Speaker: So I sold three solar systems.
Speaker: The very first day I ever sold solar was in 1984.
Speaker: And then I got, you know, I made stupid money for the next whatever, worked at it for the next year and a half, two years selling solar.
Speaker: But I...
Speaker: I think the problem with lots of guys that are good at this is that they think they're smart and that thinking that they're smart ends up doing stupid things.
Speaker: So even though I was making a lot of money, I really felt like I needed a real job.
Speaker: We've talked about that at D2D.
Speaker: Your grandma says, this door-to-door thing is really nice, honey, but when are you going to get a real job?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: I was like, well, you've made a high six-figure income.
Speaker: Is that a real job, grandma?
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: Real jobs are things I can explain to the other people in my Marshawn game.
Speaker: And so, you know, I went to be in my mind, Taylor, a real job was a guy who wore a blue suit and worked for IBM.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I got a degree and, you know, I went to college for computer engineering and that was my thing.
Speaker: So I actually went to work and sold IBM mainframes because I thought that's what a real job was.
Speaker: And then as computing, you know, evolved, I went and sold AT&T communication systems and
Speaker: network communications i spent 25 years selling it communications and it infrastructure stuff okay and i got really good at that and i was able to sell that what i didn't understand is that when you work for a big corporation they employ mbas and their whole job is to run calculations for comp plans you never want a comp plan what you want is a deal
Speaker: Because when an MBA hands you a comp plan, the comp plan is designed to figure out how they can pay you a lot of money, but not too much money and how little of the money you're worth can they pay you before you leave.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're really good at it.
Speaker: They know that if you make $173,000, you're probably not going to quit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that if you made $173,000 selling $3 million worth of stuff, and the next year you sell $6 million worth of stuff, they want to pay you $175,000 for twice as much.
Speaker: And then they want to hand you a comp plan that says if you don't sell $9 million the year after, you're going to make less.
Speaker: So that's called a comp plan.
Speaker: It's what Fortune 500 companies do and what big companies do to make sure that great salespeople make just enough money to keep their golden handcuffs on.
Speaker: Stay around, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I had golden handcuffs on for 25 years making between, you know, somewhere between 125 and $250,000.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Cause I wouldn't quit.
Speaker: I couldn't support my family if I quit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Stuck around in jobs like that.
Speaker: And of course, if you're smart and you're talented, you're good.
Speaker: You,
Speaker: get promoted to sales manager, you get promoted to a VP of sales.
Speaker: And I've been the VP of sales for several big companies and stuff.
Speaker: But what I didn't realize I was still making, you know, one 50 to two 50 and maybe some breakout years would get me into say three fifties and stuff like that.
Speaker: But there were MBAs whose whole job was to make sure I didn't make more money that regardless of what outcomes were.
Speaker: So I have,
Speaker: been lucky in that I was able to take the outcome of that and turn it into wisdom that says salespeople who have a deal can make lots of money.
Speaker: Being a sales manager or a VP of sales is always like an 80% cut and pay.
Speaker: And if you're in solar trying to get promoted, you're trying to get a cut and pay.
Speaker: There isn't a job in the whole world that
Speaker: And there's no job in the solar world, including being an owner that pays more than being an outstanding salesman in the solar world.
Speaker: There just isn't a job.
Speaker: So why would I want to get promoted into that job?
Speaker: And now as one of the three owners of the company Sun Solar Solutions, why would I be trying to get myself promoted to a job that pays 80% less?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So anyway, that's the long answer to a short question of why the heck am I out being a sales guy?
Speaker: I'm a sales guy because there isn't another job at my company in any way that pays more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker: I never thought about it that way.
Speaker: And I'm sure it helps in the company.
Speaker: I can only imagine that it's helping the company culture out a ton because they're seeing, okay, our own, one of the owners of the company is out there with us.
Speaker: It's not just him talking.
Speaker: Well, it's not only the culture.
Speaker: I'm a, you know, I'm a double-digit.
Speaker: right absolutely i think that's part of it i you know i i like to be a leader and not a manager and i think i am a leader in that regard people look at and say well you know if i put this kind of time into it if i knock this many doors uh if i get into this many presentations if i pay attention to what works and doesn't work in closing uh i maybe i could make that kind of money as well but in in addition to that you know i mean as an owner of the company
Speaker: Um, I also am, you know, looking for, you know, people that are going to make a difference.
Speaker: I'm a double digit percentage of the total sales of the company.
Speaker: I mean, why, why would I make that not happen so that I can, uh, herd cats and manage people that aren't any good at this, you know?
Speaker: Uh, and that's kind of what a manager's job is.
Speaker: He spends all of his time trying to prop up and, uh, improve and help people that are nowhere near as good as this, as the,
Speaker: The rock stars don't need a manager's time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you end up spending your time with the guys that aren't moving the line.
Speaker: So at any rate, that's what I learned over a long, long, long, long time.
Speaker: And I'm lucky to have kind of figured that out a little bit and said, you know, I'm just going to actually spend my time doing the stuff that actually pays really well.
Speaker: Yeah, and that's crazy.
Speaker: I mean, it's a lot of interesting things because, I mean, number one, you're still out there knocking.
Speaker: You're still out there generating leads, closing the deals.
Speaker: Then number two, a lot of things I hear, I mean, you saw at Door-to-DoorCon, you don't see too many guys that have the gray in their beard that –
Speaker: that you know yeah no thanks for pointing that out i hadn't noticed i feel like i have a massive advantage when i'm at somebody's door when somebody peeks out the people on their door yes a guy out there in a blue blazer and a dress shirt and a gray beard and gray hair they're like i must be like this guy's not selling i better i better find out what this is about you know yeah as opposed to and and there's there's days when i put on the polo shirt and cargo pants and
Speaker: And, you know, go knock for four hours with guys in that getup.
Speaker: But at the end of the day, when you look out that peephole and you see a guy in that stuff, and I'm not downing that because it works.
Speaker: There's a different impression.
Speaker: I might look out that peephole and go, I don't really need to see what this is about.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so and then when I walk into a door and sit down with somebody at their kitchen table, they don't.
Speaker: know that my time is valuable their time is valuable we're going to sit down and talk about doing business i'm not here to do a commercial yeah i could have sent you a youtube video if you needed a commercial about why all your customers why your neighbors are going solar i'm here because we're going to talk about doing business yeah we're i'm here because we're going to be getting the process started
Speaker: for solar being on your house in 60 days.
Speaker: That's why I'm here.
Speaker: And I, I, I feel like I look that hard.
Speaker: I feel like that's really an advantage.
Speaker: I don't feel like that's, Oh gee, what's the old guy doing selling solar?
Speaker: I feel like I bring a little bit of weight to that conversation that I think might be a little harder to construct as a, as a young guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's cool that you're kind of breaking those misconceptions.
Speaker: At least I've had them.
Speaker: Is it, Oh, you shouldn't knock on doors when you're, I don't know, past 30.
Speaker: Cause I've talked to guys that think, okay, door to door is just should be a summer thing doing like a sales job.
Speaker: Like this should be a summer thing.
Speaker: Maybe you do it through college, but it's cool to see guys that have made it into a career.
Speaker: And I mean, it gives me hope because yeah, I'm the same way.
Speaker: Like you said, my mom's telling me when are you going to get a real job?
Speaker: When are you going to go finish your degree?
Speaker: When are you going to do all that?
Speaker: You know, the problem that we all have is that our brain is absolutely broken.
Speaker: There's a severe disconnect between what we're doing and what creates money.
Speaker: Last night I came out of my appointment at 9 o'clock.
Speaker: I had four self-generated appointments yesterday.
Speaker: My daughter happened to be with me because she's a closer working with me in my group.
Speaker: And the customer gave me the names of two of his neighbors.
Speaker: It was 9.30 at night.
Speaker: And my daughter really had to kind of tackle me to keep me from knocking on the door across the street at 9.30 at night.
Speaker: So I had four appointments yesterday.
Speaker: I closed all four of them.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: It was 65 kilowatts, and they were all self-generated.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: But let me ask you a question.
Speaker: How in the world could I talk myself out of not knocking on a door at 9.30 at night
Speaker: when it leads to part of the day where you sold 65,000 Watts solar, $250,000 worth of sales and a five figure commission day.
Speaker: I mean, if my brain was operating properly, what would stop me from walking across the door at 930 at night and knocking on that guy's door?
Speaker: Like you would have to like literally tackle somebody if their mind was functioning properly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: really understand what was the value of walking across the street and do that.
Speaker: The problem is, is that our brain doesn't do that.
Speaker: Our brains are broken.
Speaker: Part of what, you know, you heard me talk about at D2DCon and what I'll be talking about at the sales summit in the D2D sales summit in Vegas on March 28th is,
Speaker: recognizing how our brain is broken and then what are the hacks to overcome a broken brain so that it's perceiving the situation correctly and then putting yourself into the kind of action that's appropriate to the situation that's really difficult to do but once you understand it and you do it you literally would have to tackle you you would have to tackle somebody to have them not knock on a door at 9 30 if they're perceiving the opportunity properly
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause yeah, I mean, it's like, if we know that's, especially when you're on a roll like that, before we close deals, who's going to not keep going, but it's like, what am I going to do tomorrow?
Speaker: Are you going to talk me out of not doing that tomorrow?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Talk me into taking an hour out of my day to do a podcast.
Speaker: I'm like, I, okay, I'm going to block this hour out because what am I going to do?
Speaker: Say no to making a four figure amount in the next couple of hours.
Speaker: How do you talk yourself into that?
Speaker: I know people only knew it's behind that door.
Speaker: You got 10 grand in commissions waiting.
Speaker: I mean, it doesn't matter.
Speaker: I'll go knock on a door at two in the morning.
Speaker: If I know there's going to be a sale, there's going to be commissions.
Speaker: So we don't see a door and perceive that if you and I were in a truck and you know, uh, I drive around in a Ford F-150 that's in a go solar and
Speaker: you know, in a, in a ghost solar wrap, the billboard, you know, my thing, I like to pull up, uh, in front of somebody's pods with an open door, you know, circle around a neighborhood until I see a guy in a garage door, I pull up my truck, but one we on the sidewalk or leave it open and leave my truck and appear guys driveway where he's, you know,
Speaker: on a motor or whatever, I'm nearly out of breath because I have a reason for being here.
Speaker: If you understand what's happening and what the value of that opportunity is, if you and I were in that truck, Taylor, and I pulled $100 out of my wallet and I said, Taylor, if you will go into that garage and save me
Speaker: there's no world would like a solar quote is there and then as no because he's going to I'm gonna do $100 bill would you be able to not do that could you talk yourself I don't think so I don't think anyone would talk themselves out of doing it if you understood that I was gonna get out of the truck walk into a driveway
Speaker: confront this man working on his vehicle and ask him, there's no chance you want a solar quote, is there?
Speaker: Get the truck and get $100.
Speaker: I'd be like, you couldn't make me not do it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But the problem is that's not how we perceive knocking on a door.
Speaker: But if you get into reality and figure out exactly what's going on, that's what you understand.
Speaker: So when I understand that I talk to about maybe seven or eight people before I get an appointment,
Speaker: And that, you know, if I suck on any given day, if I suck, I close one out of three of those.
Speaker: But on my rock star day, close four out of four in a day.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And that out by the seven people that I talked to to get one appointment.
Speaker: I understood that I make $500 every time I knocked on the door.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And if I were to perceive that, how the hell could I stay in my truck?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The problem is that it's difficult for me to perceive that.
Speaker: I have to do certain things every single day so that I perceive that correctly.
Speaker: I cannot stay in the truck when I'm perceiving that correctly.
Speaker: But I have to do two things.
Speaker: I have to overcome that.
Speaker: the negative emotions that are putting me into the neighborhood in my truck where I can knock on a door.
Speaker: I have to overcome things that happen to me all the time.
Speaker: And then B, I need to perceive that opportunity correctly.
Speaker: So I get out of my truck and go knock on the door.
Speaker: Those are very good things to do.
Speaker: Yeah, and that's huge.
Speaker: I think that's one of the biggest things I had to realize is once you actually start tracking your numbers, I started up in Corona, California.
Speaker: At first, it was just knocking mindlessly.
Speaker: And I think that's why reps get discouraged.
Speaker: I'm sure you've seen it.
Speaker: Because if they're thinking, oh, I just got to drag myself out of the car.
Speaker: I got to pull myself to a door.
Speaker: Maybe I make a sale today.
Speaker: Maybe not.
Speaker: Maybe I book an appointment.
Speaker: Then, of course, it's going to be much harder to...
Speaker: get out there and actually work.
Speaker: So that was one of the biggest secrets that I had to learn is just tracking those numbers and getting out.
Speaker: And I think you've got to even work that out.
Speaker: That's exactly right.
Speaker: And you have to understand that the perception and the reality don't match.
Speaker: And so you have to find ways to get yourself to understand and perceive the reality.
Speaker: Have you ever played Texas Holden?
Speaker: Have you ever played poker where you get, you know, two cards and they put out a flop and all that abuse of that game?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, so when you're in that game, they deal you two cards and you look at them, almost invariably, it's two crappy cards.
Speaker: You get a jack and a six and you're like, how am I supposed to play poker with a jack and a six?
Speaker: And you go, well, the answer to that is you're not supposed to play poker with a jack and a six.
Speaker: You're supposed to fold that hand.
Speaker: Take that as a no.
Speaker: You're supposed to receive and understand that's a no.
Speaker: I'm not playing that hand.
Speaker: And then you're supposed to wait until they deal the next can and you look at it and it's a queen and a three.
Speaker: And you're like, how am I supposed to play poker with a queen and a three?
Speaker: You can't.
Speaker: So you throw it away.
Speaker: That's a no.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: And that the problem is, is that can be 20 times in a row that you look down at two crappy cards.
Speaker: Your brain starts to perceive that good cards are never coming ever again.
Speaker: Yeah, that you're never going to look down and see an ace and an ace.
Speaker: It's over.
Speaker: Whatever you were doing the days before when that used to happen once in a while, it's over.
Speaker: Your brain perceives it incorrectly.
Speaker: The reality is every 20, 221 times that they deal you two cards, you're going to look down and see one of them is an ace.
Speaker: And then you're going to look at the other one and see that it's an ace.
Speaker: When that happens, you're going to perceive that to be something to be really lucky, like weirdly lucky, like, oh my God, both of these cards are an ace.
Speaker: It's at that point, you're going to need to employ your poker face, right?
Speaker: Hopefully you don't look like a guy who just looked at two aces, right?
Speaker: So you're going to hopefully have your poker face on because your emotion is going to be, holy Toledo, man, both of these cards are aces.
Speaker: Something really bizarre just happened.
Speaker: That's not.
Speaker: Every 221 times you're dealt two cards, you will see
Speaker: In fact, every 16 times that you're dealt a cards, you'll pick up one and it'll be an eight, and then you'll pick up the other one, and it's also an eight.
Speaker: That means you have a pair.
Speaker: That's a pretty good way to start a poker hand is if you're starting with two cards and they both match.
Speaker: It's a pair.
Speaker: It feels kind of weird that they both match, but if you do the match, you'll realize that happens every 16 times they deal you two cards.
Speaker: You're probably not going to win money with two eights in your hand.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Texas told them after the two cards are dealt, they put out three new cards that everybody gets to look at and play.
Speaker: And when you're playing cards and you have three of a kind, you know, you have a great hand.
Speaker: I'm probably going to win a lot of money.
Speaker: So you're praying secretly, a poker prayer.
Speaker: God, I hope one of those cards is also an eight.
Speaker: Three cards come out.
Speaker: There's no eight.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the next time you have a pair, the three cards come out.
Speaker: There's no third card.
Speaker: And again, and again, and again, and again.
Speaker: And your brain starts to perceive that as if this doesn't ever really happen much.
Speaker: In fact, probably it may never happen at all.
Speaker: And your brain starts to like say, well, maybe I should play this queen in a six because I'm never going to get a good hand again.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You start having bad judgment because your brain is perceiving something incorrectly.
Speaker: If you understand the math and know that every eight times that you start with a pair,
Speaker: that there will be a third card that matches the other two in your hand.
Speaker: And if you're a poker player, the poker player parlance of that is I just flopped a set.
Speaker: And people in a poker game that just flop a set and hopefully don't look like they just flopped a set, they've just put their poker face on because on the inside they're going, oh my God, I just flopped a set.
Speaker: They got their poker face and they go,
Speaker: the world sucks.
Speaker: Nothing ever good ever happens to me.
Speaker: So they're going to
Speaker: almost always win that hand.
Speaker: They're going to win that hand like eight, nine, 10 out of 10.
Speaker: They have a monster and they're going to do a lot.
Speaker: But when you see someone at the table that has a set, they look to you to be really lucky or to be like a magical good poker player.
Speaker: When it happens to you and you're like, oh my God, I just swapped the set.
Speaker: You don't understand that happens every seven or eight times you have a matching pair in your hand.
Speaker: You're going to have a set and you're probably going to win a big pot.
Speaker: a good poker player understands that math and he brings that math to the situation so that he makes judgments based on that math.
Speaker: And as a salesperson, what we need to understand and you need to do your math.
Speaker: I've done mine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Four or five or six conversations I have.
Speaker: But I've been doing this a long time.
Speaker: I'm, I'm pretty good at it.
Speaker: I may be better at it than other people.
Speaker: So that's my math.
Speaker: But if your math is every 10 conversations or 11, you know,
Speaker: 18 conversations that you have with a homeowner at the door, you end up with an appointment.
Speaker: You have just flopped a set.
Speaker: When a homeowner says to you and you've said, how about, you know, have our engineer do this and I'll come and show you your proposal and they go and you say, you know, does that sound good?
Speaker: Like, oh, that sounds pretty good.
Speaker: Bam.
Speaker: You just flopped a set.
Speaker: When they answer the door, you have a pair.
Speaker: And when they say that sounds good and they make an appointment, you just flopped the set.
Speaker: When they say that sounds good, it feels weird.
Speaker: It feels weirdly lucky, kind of strange, but it's not.
Speaker: Every seven or eight times I talk to someone at their door.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If my brain perceives that, you can't get me to stop jumping out of my truck and going knocking on the next door.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: But most of the time, my brain is not in the process of perceiving that.
Speaker: So I have to construct ways to have my brain in the middle of perceiving that to get me to the door.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a great comparison.
Speaker: I never thought of it like the poker.
Speaker: Not only you're a solar expert, you're a poker expert too.
Speaker: You bring it up into every situation, right?
Speaker: If you understand what the odds are or the probability of things,
Speaker: and you start dealing with the app instead of the way your brain perceives the situation, you're going to behave differently, and that's the idea.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I definitely agree.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest things.
Speaker: Took me a long time to learn, track the numbers, and I think that's how you improve it.
Speaker: You just got to be tracking, measuring, and then, of course, learn the little steps you need to take to improve it.
Speaker: And it's funny that even after –
Speaker: I mean, reps know this, I think.
Speaker: I think a lot of people do know that we should be tracking, but they still struggle with demotivation.
Speaker: They still struggle to get out on the doors.
Speaker: They still struggle to do the prospecting piece, stuff like that.
Speaker: Though, I mean, that's the big question.
Speaker: How have you?
Speaker: You've been in this industry forever.
Speaker: You've been in sales forever.
Speaker: So you know all this, but why do you think it is that reps still get discouraged even maybe knowing this?
Speaker: Why is there discouragement in this?
Speaker: the door-to-door industry, would you say?
Speaker: So number one is the thing that I just said.
Speaker: They're out there trying it and they're perceiving it incorrectly when you have, by the way, when I say one out of eight times you flop a set, in reality, you could go 20 or 30 times without flopping a set.
Speaker: But if you did it a thousand times and divided it the sets by hand, you'd see it happened every eight times.
Speaker: But that's not going to stop you from going 20 or 30 times without flopping a set.
Speaker: And now you're feeling like it's never going to happen again actually has evidence.
Speaker: It's wrong.
Speaker: The conclusion is wrong, but you actually have a good reason for thinking that.
Speaker: And so I think that causes discouragement.
Speaker: When you knock on doors for three hours without making an appointment, discouragement is going to set in.
Speaker: But I don't think that's the bulk of the problem.
Speaker: I think the bulk of the problem is that the real magic isn't happening.
Speaker: The real magic is someone actually being at the door.
Speaker: I think for most people in straight commission sales that don't have somebody cracking a whip behind them, watching them walk up to the door, because they're being paid by the hour or something like that, if it's truly on you, I think most solar sales reps are not on a door right now.
Speaker: I'm not.
Speaker: You're not.
Speaker: We had a couple of guys here and me that we just finished a sales meeting.
Speaker: We're not on doors right now.
Speaker: Why is that?
Speaker: Well, maybe we have a good reason, but I'll tell you what, every reason on the planet sounds like a really good reason to not be on a door right now because you know what?
Speaker: It's dark outside.
Speaker: It's cold outside.
Speaker: I have to call this guy.
Speaker: back who I've talked to three or four or five or six times should have thrown that name in the trash after he told me no the first time.
Speaker: We all have excellent reasons why we're not on a door right now.
Speaker: And that's the problem.
Speaker: The problem is, and you know what, the better we get at this, the worse it is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The better salesperson you are, the less you think you should be prospecting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The better closer you are, the less you're going to find yourself on a door.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Because we can get away with it.
Speaker: A great closer can have a good week with only three appointments because he's a great closer.
Speaker: He's going to sell two out of three.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How do you look yourself in the mirror and say, if I can close two out of three, how the hell was I not in 12 appointments this week?
Speaker: What happened?
Speaker: True.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And what happens is, is that we'll do anything in the world to avoid and have a good reason to not be on the next door.
Speaker: And, and there's two reasons for that.
Speaker: One of them is in our head and one of them is just out of the universe.
Speaker: We can't overcome it.
Speaker: What's in our head is we've been programmed to feel like rejection is a tragedy.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: We think rejection is an epic, unbelievable, overcomable problem.
Speaker: We are wired.
Speaker: Our DNA is wired to avoid rejection.
Speaker: And when you're in the process of knocking on doors, I'm sorry, six out of seven people are going to say, no, you're going to suffer their rejection.
Speaker: Worse than that.
Speaker: One of those guys might be a complete a-hole.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm out knocking on doors with,
Speaker: with Joseph the other day, and I'm across the street from a guy I sold a $90,000 solar system to.
Speaker: The guy's a big guy and sold him a solar.
Speaker: I'm across the street, his neighbors walking across his yard to go from the RV gate to the garage.
Speaker: And I said, excuse me, sir, do you know...
Speaker: Brian across the street and he looks at me like what I said excuse me do you know your neighbor Brian across the street we just put you know a hundred solar panels on his house I just wanted to meet you and drop off a car and he looks at me with dude I'm in the finance business you and I both know solar does not have a reasonable
Speaker: I said, well, excuse me.
Speaker: And he goes, you're in the street as a door-to-door salesman.
Speaker: How in the world could you possibly think you have the right to start a conversation with me?
Speaker: Don't tell me about my neighbor.
Speaker: Now, that's the guy who we're all afraid of.
Speaker: That guy, what did he do?
Speaker: He just shamed me.
Speaker: He made a big deal of himself and he made me to be a little guy.
Speaker: It's almost impossible not to take that on.
Speaker: This guy is right.
Speaker: He is a big guy.
Speaker: He's wrong that I'm not a big guy.
Speaker: He made a tragic mistake.
Speaker: He underestimated who I am, but that's fine.
Speaker: That's his prerogative.
Speaker: We are afraid that we're going to knock on a door and someone's going to open the door and grumble growling up Shane, your existence, a fricking sales guy.
Speaker: What the hell is this?
Speaker: You bothered me to come to my door because you're selling some shit.
Speaker: What's going on here?
Speaker: And we're just deathly afraid that this is going to happen.
Speaker: And I'll tell you what, that guy would have blown me out of the saddle.
Speaker: If I hadn't been using one of my hacks, so you have to hack the fact that your brain is afraid of that happening and the fact that it is going to happen.
Speaker: You have to have a hack that's going to overcome that.
Speaker: I happen to be lucky, not lucky, but I happen to be in the middle of employing one of my hacks.
Speaker: I had Joseph with me.
Speaker: And because Joseph was with me, one of my hacks is to always be knocking on doors with somebody else.
Speaker: He's showing you.
Speaker: somebody else how to do it he's showing somebody else how to make money all right so he happened to be with me i'm showing him how to knock because he was there instead of getting blown out of the saddle i showed off i go joe uh he's the guy we're worried about and he's the guy that's gonna do what keep us from knocking on the next door that's the guy that blows you out of the saddle if you find your ass back at starbucks yeah i said but you know what we're gonna do we're not gonna let that guy
Speaker: be the reason we're back at Starbucks.
Speaker: We're going to go knock on the next door.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you want to know the truth?
Speaker: I didn't knock on the next door because I didn't want him to see me walking up the driveway to the next door.
Speaker: I didn't want to look like a door to door guy.
Speaker: I walked three houses away and knocked on that door because I was feeling ashamed and I was scared that the next person was going to do that to me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: But what I did instead of going to Starbucks is I showed off to the guy I was with and I said, come on, Joe, that's the guy who's going to get us to the next door.
Speaker: We went and knocked on the next door a half an hour later, an hour later, we had two more appointments.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That should have, should have not happened because we had the right to go back to Starbucks after that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: We're dealing with this emotion of fear and we're dealing with this state of shame.
Speaker: I don't know about you, but when I'm not in the process of knocking on doors, I go to knock on my first door.
Speaker: I feel like I could throw up in the bushes.
Speaker: Don't laugh at that.
Speaker: Let me say that again.
Speaker: I just like hearing that because I feel that way too.
Speaker: I'm in my truck and I go to walk.
Speaker: to the very first door when I'm not in the process of knocking on doors, like I haven't done one yet.
Speaker: I feel like throwing up in the bushes.
Speaker: And I have a lot of evidence to support the fact that that's an irrational thing, but it doesn't matter that it's irrational.
Speaker: I feel like throwing up in the bushes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's about fear and that's about shame.
Speaker: So I have to find a way to overcome that.
Speaker: One of the hacks of overcoming that is to be a show off and have somebody with you that you're showing off in front of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So anyway, we have to overcome those emotions of fear and shame, feeling like we're going to be embarrassed.
Speaker: I feel like a panhandler.
Speaker: When I'm walking up to a door for the first time, knocking on a door, I'll give you an experience I had two weeks ago.
Speaker: I was in Vegas right after D2D.
Speaker: A few weeks ago, I flew from Salt Lake to Vegas.
Speaker: I'm meeting with a brand new guy.
Speaker: I'm going to show him how to knock doors because I'm the legendary Michael Donald.
Speaker: Come on with me.
Speaker: We're going to knock on doors.
Speaker: It happens to be raining.
Speaker: If he hadn't been with me and I wasn't showing off and it was raining, do you think I'd have been knocking on doors in the rain?
Speaker: It would be tough.
Speaker: I've been through that.
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: I don't know the answer to that, but I'm going to tell you this.
Speaker: Probably not.
Speaker: He and I went to an appointment.
Speaker: The appointment slipped.
Speaker: It's raining.
Speaker: We're standing at the door that's not answering.
Speaker: I was going to show him how to do a presentation.
Speaker: And I said to him, because I'm showing off, I'm with a guy.
Speaker: And I said, I said, Kurt, when we go to a door and it doesn't open and we find out we don't have an appointment for the next two hours, let me show you how we handle that.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: We go and we knock on some doors.
Speaker: I said, there's a gated community right across the street.
Speaker: It was a gated community that I was too afraid to sneak in and tailgate into.
Speaker: And I wanted sadly to knock this gated community with these gigantic houses.
Speaker: I said, Kurt, we're going to roll in behind here and we're going to go knock these gated doors.
Speaker: Let me tell you how we're going to do that.
Speaker: I'm going to show you.
Speaker: how the legendary Michael Donald goes through the gated community and then gets out and knocks on doors where he, you know, is afraid of getting arrested.
Speaker: The answer to that is I would have not been doing it if he wasn't with me.
Speaker: The hack is I got a guy with me.
Speaker: So I'm showing off.
Speaker: We go through the gated community.
Speaker: The very first door we knock on is a woman.
Speaker: Katie answers the door and she says, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: And I say, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: It doesn't
Speaker: matter and she says you know I think my husband I really want to take another look and we looked at solar city a year ago we didn't like it uh but it was a lease yeah sure let's look at a purchase I make the appointment with her
Speaker: And because I'm a three cooler guy, remember the Wolf of Wall Street?
Speaker: Are you a one cooler guy or a three cooler guy?
Speaker: Because I'm a three cooler guy and I'm showing off because if I hadn't been showing off, I probably would have called it a day and snuck the hell back out of this gated community.
Speaker: We knocked the other 22 homes that happened to be in this community and we wrote two more appointments.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Well, we came back two days later and sold Katie and her husband a 22 kilowatt solar system in Las Vegas that would not have happened if I hadn't been showing off because I sure as hell probably wouldn't have been knocking on doors in the rain behind a gated door, behind a gated community.
Speaker: So, you know, those are.
Speaker: That's just the reality.
Speaker: And why wouldn't I have been behind that gated community if I was by myself in the rain?
Speaker: Two reasons.
Speaker: One, I would have been afraid.
Speaker: I would have been feeling anxiety.
Speaker: I would have been embarrassed to somehow be somewhere where technically I'm not supposed to be.
Speaker: But the other reason is because of inertia.
Speaker: So when I walked into that gated community,
Speaker: I'm like looking for a house that I can know a name of or a reason to knock on the door.
Speaker: So I have some sort of rap about why I'm in this gated community.
Speaker: I'm going to lie and say I have an appointment across the street and they're not home.
Speaker: Just wanted to drop off a card.
Speaker: I'm like going through this elaborate BS thing about why I'm on your street knocking on doors.
Speaker: And I'm scared and I'm looking down the street to see if anyone's coming.
Speaker: I'm thinking we're going to knock these three doors and run around the corner so that we're not near.
Speaker: We're knocking on doors in case somebody calls the cops.
Speaker: So we do that because I'm a three-cooler guy and I'm showing off.
Speaker: We keep knocking until we get three appointments.
Speaker: The last guy is right near the gate.
Speaker: in his driveway, tells me three times he needs to talk to his wife.
Speaker: I tell him three times, that's okay, we're gonna do the proposal and then we'll be back when you and your wife are good.
Speaker: Is she off on Wednesdays?
Speaker: You're both off on Wednesdays, so Wednesday night at six o'clock will probably work.
Speaker: Fantastic, we'll be back here on Wednesday night at six o'clock.
Speaker: I just wrote my third appointment behind this guarded gate.
Speaker: The difference between the guy who rolled into the gate and the guy who's standing there that just wrote up the third appointment is as I walked down his driveway,
Speaker: to where my truck was down the street, somebody's coming through the gate.
Speaker: Someone's coming through the gate right now.
Speaker: The guy who snuck into the thing an hour and a half ago is now standing in the middle of the street with my arm out, stopped traffic.
Speaker: He's stopping traffic.
Speaker: Who's the guy in the car coming through the gate?
Speaker: He's one of the doors that I knocked that wasn't home.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Sir, I'm sorry to bother you.
Speaker: I was just at your house.
Speaker: I just wanted to hand you a card.
Speaker: I'm selling solar to two of your neighbors.
Speaker: We're doing their design right now, and I just wanted to meet you.
Speaker: Here's a card.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So, you know, I mean, they say if it's true, you're not bragging.
Speaker: I'm not bragging.
Speaker: I'm the guy who didn't want to go through the gate, who wouldn't have been knocking on the door, who would have been sneaking around the neighborhood.
Speaker: But once I overcame that, I'm the guy.
Speaker: walking into the middle street stopping traffic.
Speaker: That's bizarre.
Speaker: That's a bizarre transformation.
Speaker: The transformation is about overcoming the negative emotions associated with being a panhandler, scum of the earth, door to door guy in my mind that none of those things are true, but I'm afraid of the guy who's going to say that to me or make me feel that way to actually being in motion.
Speaker: The trick and the real thing is Newton's first law.
Speaker: You know what Newton's first law is in physics.
Speaker: Isn't it gravity always brings stuff down?
Speaker: The second law is gravity.
Speaker: That was his next law.
Speaker: Okay, that's first.
Speaker: It's that an object in motion tends to stay in motion.
Speaker: Oh, right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: An object at rest tends to stay at rest.
Speaker: A salesman on the couch tends to stay on the couch.
Speaker: A salesman at Starbucks tends to stay at Starbucks.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: But a salesman who just came off a door tends to go to the next door.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: And so what the hack is about is a way to hack those negative emotions and a way to overcome the inertia.
Speaker: The energy, the force that keeps something at rest from not springing into motion is called inertia.
Speaker: We have to overcome inertia.
Speaker: The energy that overcomes the inertia is called momentum.
Speaker: The reason an object at motion tends to stay in motion is an energy and a force called momentum.
Speaker: The reason someone knocking on a door tends to knock on one more door and then another door is because they're taking advantage of momentum.
Speaker: Momentum builds on itself.
Speaker: If you can overcome the inertia and knock on the first door, overcome wanting to vomit in the bushes and get yourself to the next door, this thing called momentum is going to build.
Speaker: And before you know it, you're stopping traffic because what you have to say is freaking important.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, so those are just, those are natural things.
Speaker: They're things that we can't do anything about.
Speaker: When I gave my talk at D2DCon, there's, you know, a couple hundred people in the room, whatever I said, is there anybody here in this room that when they have not been knocking on doors, walks up a driveway to go to knock on a door that doesn't experience this rising out of their gut anxiety?
Speaker: Is there anyone in this room that doesn't experience this?
Speaker: Yeah, I remember that question.
Speaker: One guy raised his hand.
Speaker: I said, dude, you are the guy.
Speaker: You are the man.
Speaker: I remember that.
Speaker: And he was a great guy, I guess, but I mean, he kind of had that crazy look in his eye.
Speaker: He looked like a guy that didn't experience the same things most of us experience.
Speaker: The reality is every single person in that room, they were all experienced door knockers.
Speaker: all experience that feeling.
Speaker: How do you get yourself to knock on doors, even though you're one of 99 out of a hundred that experienced those feelings?
Speaker: You need a trick, you need a hack, you need a way to get over it.
Speaker: And that's, that's what we're talking about.
Speaker: Yeah, and that was something that was really impressive about what you talked about.
Speaker: I know you talked about one of the comparisons you made was like doing just one push-up a day.
Speaker: You're not going to get down and just do one push-up a day.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Hopefully, if you can convince yourself to do one, then it's going to be a lot easier to do a couple sets because, yeah, it's just like you're saying.
Speaker: You're in the – Exactly right.
Speaker: Building that momentum.
Speaker: So one push-up a day is called a mini habit.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: The guy who wrote the book called Mini Habits.
Speaker: Oh, there it is.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So the guy who wrote the book called Mini Habits is Stephen Geis.
Speaker: Stephen Geis.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: We'll link to that.
Speaker: He's famous for having to say, if you want to get in shape and be fit, do one push-up a day.
Speaker: Do not work out for 30 minutes or 40 minutes a day.
Speaker: You're not going to end up in shape.
Speaker: Do one pushup a day.
Speaker: So that sounds ridiculous, but it's a mini habit.
Speaker: What you'll find is if you get off your butt and get onto the ground and get your face into the dirty carpet and then do one pushup,
Speaker: it's irresistible to do one more pushup because you're in, you're now taking advantage of momentum.
Speaker: And by the way, I'm already fricking here.
Speaker: Why would I do one pushup?
Speaker: And so do you do one more?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: More times than not, you find yourself having done 10 or 20 and then you get up and you say, you know, I might as well stretch.
Speaker: And maybe why, why wouldn't I do 20 jumping jacks and do it, you know, so that's the, that's the mini habit for physical fitness is to do one pushup a day.
Speaker: What is your mini habit, Taylor, for getting yourself to get one no per day?
Speaker: Yeah, well, I mean, mine is ever since I heard you talk is just I know you talked about going to the appointments that you're around and just going to their neighbors, if anything, because in my case, I have our company has the setter closer model.
Speaker: So I have guys that are knocking that are setting up appointments that I can go to.
Speaker: So I spend a lot less time knocking, which is kind of a catch-22 because it makes it that much harder for me to go and knock.
Speaker: It's like you said, oh, I can just wait until someone sets up a deal for me and then go to that deal.
Speaker: So that's the downside of it.
Speaker: But what I've tried to start implementing is like you talked about, at least going, if I'm at an appointment, it's a no-show or what have you, go to the neighbors, right?
Speaker: And go across the street, go talk to those people.
Speaker: So I've thought about that a lot since you talked about it.
Speaker: Just what things can I do?
Speaker: And I think the other one, didn't you say you're like paying people to just come out and knock with you?
Speaker: Didn't you say like, those are, you nailed it.
Speaker: I mean, you were listening exactly.
Speaker: So those are two of my most effective mini habits.
Speaker: I would say the one where I cannot leave a neighborhood without getting a no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And going, unless I'm late for the next appointment, I'm not allowed.
Speaker: no matter what time it is to get one no before I leave the neighborhood.
Speaker: So why is it that I'm trying to get a no?
Speaker: Because Steven guys in many habits says, if you find yourself, I had the, I had the mini habit.
Speaker: I'm going to, I'm going to knock one door.
Speaker: I'm going to have one conversation before I leave the neighborhood.
Speaker: I found myself not do it.
Speaker: He says, if you find yourself not doing a mini habit is because the mini habit is not absurd enough.
Speaker: It's not ridiculous.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the reason one pushup is famous is because it's absurd.
Speaker: It's ridiculous, but it's also absurd and ridiculous to not do it.
Speaker: If you had a goal of having one pushup a day and be able to look at a calendar and you had an X mark on 30 out of 30 days and you were like seriously jazzed about that accomplishment and that accomplishment was
Speaker: was at least one push-up a day, that would be an awesome, really cool accomplishment.
Speaker: But one push-up a day is absurd.
Speaker: So I realized that having a goal of getting one pitch at a door was not absurd enough.
Speaker: I had to change that mini habit.
Speaker: And this one works for me all the time.
Speaker: I must get one no.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because I'm a closer Taylor and I'm always trying to get a yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And especially if I'm leaving a house with a 10 kilowatt contract, 30 grand sale, I'm feeling on top of the world.
Speaker: The last thing I want to do is crush that with rejection.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And if I try to get a yes and someone tells me no, I've kind of, I've gone from a great mood to a kind of a bummed out mood.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's the, so my brain was defective.
Speaker: It didn't understand this properly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what I had to understand is I'm not trying to get a yes.
Speaker: I'm trying to get a no.
Speaker: I tell my doorknockers all the time, you're not trying to get yeses.
Speaker: You're trying to get noes.
Speaker: So I had to drink my own Kool-Aid and say, all right, I got to get one pitch in before I leave the neighborhood.
Speaker: What I need to do is get one no.
Speaker: When I think about going to a door and getting one no, it's absurd.
Speaker: But it's also too absurd to not try and do.
Speaker: I mean, I've literally been known, for me, I like to cut corners.
Speaker: I've literally been known to roll up to a guy walking his dog at 9 o'clock at night.
Speaker: Do you live in this neighborhood?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, I do.
Speaker: Hey, listen, one of your neighbors has our solar system.
Speaker: I saw you.
Speaker: I just wanted to make sure there's no chance you wanted a solar quote.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, no, we're not.
Speaker: Hey, dude, really, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you telling me that, but I appreciate the no, and off I go.
Speaker: And I'm driving down the road, and I'm, like, bumping off the top of the roof of my Ford F-150 going, dude, I got the no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, so my brain is perceiving properly now the value of having stopped that guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that mini habit, I sat down and just tried to do a checkmark of how many, uh, that checkmark that, that mini habit made me at least $50,000 last year.
Speaker: One, no, one, no.
Speaker: After every appointment I can, I can pick out, uh, you know, a handful of sales that happened because I literally said to somebody, dude, there's no chance you want a solar quote is there.
Speaker: And I'd go, well, actually we're shopping right now.
Speaker: Or, you know, actually my wife told me to get a quote.
Speaker: I'm glad you stopped.
Speaker: You know, that's just random, but that's math.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: So you change when you're trying to get a no, you get out on appointments.
Speaker: Do you change your pitch a little bit?
Speaker: You're actually like trying to get a no at that point.
Speaker: I mean, when I, when it's nine 30 at night and I really, really want to know, I'd actually try to get the no.
Speaker: And sometimes that doesn't work out.
Speaker: And the guy's like, well, actually I would like to quote, but when I'm at a door, I'm a closer.
Speaker: I can't not try to get.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: But I need to understand that.
Speaker: not with the accomplishment.
Speaker: The accomplishment was propelling my ass up the walk and knocking on the door and then getting the no.
Speaker: The accomplishment is the no.
Speaker: And that's what I say, you have to understand what the money's for.
Speaker: I spend a lot of time with the guys that I work with having them understand what the money's for.
Speaker: So if I had a referral from a neighbor and the neighbor calls me and says, Mike, you did my neighbor's solar.
Speaker: I've been looking at the solar.
Speaker: I want solar.
Speaker: My neighbor says, you're the guy.
Speaker: Could we get together tomorrow night and could you do a design and get me written up for solar?
Speaker: So Taylor, I'm going to ask you a question.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: If I offered you $300, would you go take that appointment for me?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You would, right?
Speaker: I mean, honestly, if I offered you $300, would you go take that appointment for me?
Speaker: Heck yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, you would.
Speaker: I mean, I would too.
Speaker: I would do it for 300 bucks.
Speaker: Who wouldn't do it?
Speaker: Then why the hell am I paying you $2,000 for someone who says yes?
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Because the money is not for going to meet with someone and writing them up for solar.
Speaker: That is not what the money's for.
Speaker: Our brain perceives that because it's the event that triggers a check.
Speaker: But if I'm the owner of a solar company, and I am,
Speaker: And I had a guy that just needed his questions answered and a proposal shown to and write them up.
Speaker: I would pay you, you know, somewhere between 250 and $500 for an hour, hour and a half of your time to go to his house.
Speaker: So why the hell are you making a thousand, 1500, 2000, whatever the math works out to be, you know, on your, on your, on your,
Speaker: Car plant, why am I paying you that much money?
Speaker: And it's because that's not what the money is for.
Speaker: I paid you $500 because I had the guy who said I want solar.
Speaker: That's not what the money's for.
Speaker: The money is for the seven people that you had to talk to to get the appointment that said no.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: That's why I know that I get paid about $500 a no.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: $250, whatever it is.
Speaker: So you need to understand that the money is not for the yes.
Speaker: I would not pay you.
Speaker: I would not pay you that much money to go show a design, answer their questions, and write them up.
Speaker: The money is for the seven guys who said no at the door and the three appointments you had and two of them said no and one of them got written up.
Speaker: The money is for the seven guys at the door and the two that you visited that said no.
Speaker: That's why I'm paying you $1,000, $1,500, $2,000, whatever that number is.
Speaker: That's why you're getting paid that money.
Speaker: It's important to get your brain to understand that.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: And yeah, it's something, I mean, I've done it a couple of times before, but yeah, I don't even think about that anymore.
Speaker: So I think it's worth going through those numbers and doing the math because that's true.
Speaker: What a, what a huge mind shift.
Speaker: You can get your mind to think, okay, I'm making 500 bucks.
Speaker: I just made 500 bucks.
Speaker: Someone said no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's the difference between can't get out of the truck.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And can't keep myself from getting out of the truck.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The difference from skulking up to a door that I just, you know, crashed the guarded gate or whatever, and walking out and stopping traffic.
Speaker: The difference is understanding and perceiving that accurately versus inaccurately.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: Well, thanks, Mike.
Speaker: That's some huge shifts that I realized that I need to make and go back and review.
Speaker: Because, yeah, it's just – and I think it's little things like that that we forget over time, too.
Speaker: Because, yeah, everyone's heard – I think most people have heard track your numbers.
Speaker: But, like, how many reps have actually sat down and figured out how much every no is worth?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: How much – what the math is?
Speaker: How much are you making hourly?
Speaker: So I think that's a huge shift that reps can make and how –
Speaker: we can find that extra motivation and hopefully last as long as you and all have gray gray in our beard someday and still be doing this.
Speaker: That's what would you like to make $50,000 more this year right now?
Speaker: You Taylor?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Add one, add one more mini habit.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Big time Taylor who has all these centers out working for him because he's a time closer.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Get real and make an appointment once a week.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: with a door knocker and you go be the big time guy.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Make an appointment once a week with one door knocker and go show him how it's done.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: He's gonna get to go out with the big time closer and go knock doors.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: It's a hack.
Speaker: One thing, you're gonna set the appointment for three o'clock at Starbucks.
Speaker: All right, spend a half an hour getting a coffee and talking to the guy.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'll be talking to you.
Speaker: Make a friend, make a friend, have him call you when he gets good appointments.
Speaker: Hey, I just made a great appointment.
Speaker: Call the boss and ask him to give this appointment to you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So make an appointment at Starbucks, spend 30 minutes, make a friend, have him be your bird dog and then go out knocking on doors with them.
Speaker: Don't do it for four hours.
Speaker: Go do it for two hours.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Can you knock on doors for two hours a week?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Don't here's the hack.
Speaker: Don't do it alone.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Never knock on doors alone.
Speaker: Always schedule that door knocking to happen with your brother, your cousin, your next door neighbor.
Speaker: Something we don't realize, are you a 1099?
Speaker: Are you paid straight commission?
Speaker: Well, our company switched to W2s.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But most salespeople, you know, we're all on commission.
Speaker: If you're on commission, you're your own company.
Speaker: Most of us are on 1099, which means that technically, technically, we are a business.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: So add one person to your company.
Speaker: One.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So my, the company that I helped start and I'm one of the owners of is called sun solar solutions, but I am my own business because I'm a 1099 sales guy.
Speaker: And so I have just, I have a mini habit.
Speaker: I schedule, I don't schedule time to knock on doors.
Speaker: I'm too big time for that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I really am by the way.
Speaker: I knock on doors in between appointments.
Speaker: I have three appointments, four appointments every day.
Speaker: I am too big time to go knock on doors for four hours a day, five days a week.
Speaker: I am big time.
Speaker: So I don't do that.
Speaker: So I knock on doors for two hours a week as a door knocker.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: As scheduled.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: door knocker, me, Mike O'Donnell door knocker, not Mike O'Donnell closer.
Speaker: I'm going to schedule at least two, and I may do that two or three times a week.
Speaker: Why the hell would I not for crying out loud?
Speaker: But I'm going to do that with somebody else.
Speaker: We're going to go knock on doors together.
Speaker: And that's maybe a door knocker in the company.
Speaker: That might be somebody I'm trying to show how to do it, recruit, how to do it, whatever, whatever, whatever.
Speaker: But I'm going to make an appointment to meet them at Starbucks at 3.30 and then we're going to knock on doors from four to six o'clock.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then I'm going to give that guy the appointment.
Speaker: When I say I pay them to go with me, it's that guy's appointment, not mine.
Speaker: I'm not a door knocker for Christ's sakes.
Speaker: So I'm too big time for the appointment.
Speaker: I'm too magnanimous.
Speaker: The appointment, I'm going to hand the appointment to him.
Speaker: It's his appointment.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Whatever the cents per this dollars per cent, whatever per cent.
Speaker: It's his, not mine.
Speaker: Now I'm going to make sure I get the appointment.
Speaker: I'm going to go run the appointment.
Speaker: And so there is no salesperson in all of solar who doesn't make enough per sale.
Speaker: Pay a guy, you know, a hundred bucks, 200 bucks, 500 bucks, whatever that number is, or per watt per sale, whatever, to go with him and knock on doors and make a point.
Speaker: So, you know, grow your company.
Speaker: You are the company.
Speaker: You are an entrepreneur.
Speaker: You're working on commission.
Speaker: Grow your company.
Speaker: Have somebody go to work for you four hours a week or whatever.
Speaker: That means go at Starbucks, go knock on doors for two hours, four hours, whatever, together.
Speaker: Do that once a week, twice a week, three times a week.
Speaker: You're going to make appointments because you'll be showing off.
Speaker: Keep knocking on doors after that a-hole blows you out of the price to blow you out of the
Speaker: And you're still going to be knocking on doors a half an hour later when the appointment happens, all because of the hack.
Speaker: The hack was have a guy with you and be shut off.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: So, Mike, what would you say?
Speaker: I know not everyone maybe is in that situation where they're like managing and.
Speaker: where they would go knock with other people.
Speaker: What about just like normal reps that maybe they're demotivated, but their company is only having them go out and knock by themselves.
Speaker: What do you say?
Speaker: What sort of hack would you recommend?
Speaker: Well, by the way, you could pay your cousin to come with you.
Speaker: Pay him 10 bucks an hour just to keep you company.
Speaker: And when I turn to you, hand me a business card at the door.
Speaker: Don't say a word.
Speaker: By the way, you'll be learning how to do this and maybe you might find you could be big time like me someday in the solar industry, whatever.
Speaker: So nobody can't not have somebody with them.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Anybody can take on the initiative of have somebody go with them to keep them company or pay them whatever per hour just to hold your business cards or whatever.
Speaker: So that's number one.
Speaker: But number two is it's just about momentum.
Speaker: Create the mini habit that gets you to Starbucks at 3.30.
Speaker: every day or whatever days per week you're doing this, create the mini habit that you are going to be at Starbucks at 3.30.
Speaker: And then you are going to be on one door and get one no, you know, at four o'clock or whatever that is and get yourself in motion.
Speaker: After that, it's absolutely easy.
Speaker: You don't need to convince yourself to stay in motion.
Speaker: You're in motion.
Speaker: At that point, you have to decide, you know what's going to stop you next?
Speaker: You got yourself to Starbucks.
Speaker: You got yourself to the neighborhood.
Speaker: And you knocked on 6, 7, 10, 12, whatever doors.
Speaker: Now you have an appointment.
Speaker: Oh, my God, I got an appointment.
Speaker: What happened?
Speaker: No, just math.
Speaker: Math happened.
Speaker: All right, now you have an appointment.
Speaker: You know what's going to stop you next?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: You need another hack for this?
Speaker: Now you have an appointment.
Speaker: You've accomplished what you set out to do.
Speaker: And now you're going to have to figure out –
Speaker: You know, in the Wolf of Wall Street, Gordon Belfort, when he said, at that point, you have to ask yourself, am I a one cooler guy?
Speaker: Or am I a three or four cooler guy?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: After you get yourself to Starbucks, get out there and get an appointment, get a second appointment.
Speaker: Sometimes it's really hard to keep going because, holy, I just crushed, man.
Speaker: I just got two appointments.
Speaker: I'm going to sell one of them.
Speaker: I just made a four-figure dollar amount.
Speaker: I should go back to Starbucks.
Speaker: I should go home.
Speaker: I should go see my girlfriend.
Speaker: I should, whatever.
Speaker: At that point, you're going to need a hack that's going to get you to just get one more no.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, I've decided to leave.
Speaker: By the way, every time I decide to go back to Starbucks, I can't go back to Starbucks unless I get one more no.
Speaker: Not a yes, not an appointment.
Speaker: If you say to yourself, I'm going to keep knocking until I get one more appointment, you're pretty much, you're probably done.
Speaker: If you say to yourself, you know what, I'm going to get one more no, and be okay with yourself if you get one no and call it a day or whatever,
Speaker: But the problem is, or the actual thing is, is once you go to get one more no, you're going to find you knocked on three more doors or 10 or 12, or you just, you know, you caught that second wind.
Speaker: Somebody said yes, and you caught fire and you find out you're still knocking on doors an hour and a half later and had three more appointments or something like that.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: you know, that to the, to the individual rep, those are the things that they're dealing with.
Speaker: They, they've, they've got to overcome inertia and then they got to figure out once they're getting an appointment or two, you know, am I going to be a superstar or just a run of the mill guy?
Speaker: How do I hack myself into getting, you know, two more appointments and have a four appointment day?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Crazy.
Speaker: Well, that's some genius stuff.
Speaker: I've definitely taken my notes here.
Speaker: I got my, uh,
Speaker: forgot my notebook so I took out my scrap of paper but but yeah you shared some uh some sweet hacks and definitely something I'm gonna implement yeah I think it's just built off what you talked about at door-to-door con and I think definitely some huge secrets you've taught us here and I know we're short on time Mike but uh you're doing some stuff with with um the the summit you're doing and all that and big tell tell us a little bit about that yeah so I'll be with uh Sam and the guys there's one uh
Speaker: you know, superstar closer from each industry.
Speaker: So I'm the solar guy.
Speaker: We've got that, uh, Ian is going to be there.
Speaker: Uh, Ian went, and then we've got the, uh, the guy from, uh, pest control and the various different segments.
Speaker: There's one of each of us that are going to be there on February.
Speaker: I'm sorry, on March 28th.
Speaker: So the thing that we can't do in a one hour podcast or that I can't do from, uh,
Speaker: A one hour, you know, from a time slot at D2D to talk is we can't get into the nuts and the bolts of what the heck do you actually say at the door?
Speaker: And then more important than that or as important than that, what do we say in the presentation when the customer who you can tell is excited and they're all fired up?
Speaker: And they're starting to froth at the mouth about how compelling.
Speaker: And they just said to you, oh, my God, why isn't everyone solar?
Speaker: Don't you love it when you get through the presentation and the customer says, oh, my God, how come everyone on this block isn't solar?
Speaker: Solar, it should be a law.
Speaker: I always had a dollar for every time someone said it should be a law.
Speaker: Everybody should be solar.
Speaker: And they're going to explain to me why we're not going to write up solar today.
Speaker: We're going to do it on a different day.
Speaker: So what do you actually say when that guy says to you, oh, my God, it should be a law.
Speaker: Everybody should have to be solar.
Speaker: And it's that look in the eye.
Speaker: Oh, my God, I just showed the salesman my non-poker face.
Speaker: And he's going to realize he should be closing me for solar.
Speaker: And then he gets nervous and he says to me this.
Speaker: We've all heard this a thousand times.
Speaker: Are you going to email this to me?
Speaker: I hate that.
Speaker: Are you going to email this?
Speaker: Am I going to have this proposal so that I can give it the due diligence and time that it deserves?
Speaker: And every salesman in the world knows what that means.
Speaker: What does that mean?
Speaker: What does it mean?
Speaker: Yeah, that's what we hear in our nightmares once you've been in this industry.
Speaker: It means we ain't signing up solar today.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And by the way, that's actually the job of a closer hasn't even started yet.
Speaker: We could have sent a YouTube video to get him understanding.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Solar is compelling.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The job of a closer just started.
Speaker: The only reason you're there is so that you're there when that guy says, are you going to email this to me?
Speaker: That's the moment when we understand why we didn't send a YouTube video.
Speaker: We sent a killer whale shark with a supercomputer.
Speaker: for a brain to transform that moment into 30 minutes later, walking out the doors with signatures on a contract and that guy's going solar.
Speaker: The guy needs you to be that guy because he's not going to end up solar if you're not that guy, but you have to learn how to be that guy.
Speaker: What are you going to say right then?
Speaker: that changes that moment from, Oh, would it be okay if I called you on Friday or whatever that thing is?
Speaker: What are you going to say right now that changes it from that to you and him doing paperwork?
Speaker: That's actually closing.
Speaker: That's why you're there.
Speaker: That's your job.
Speaker: You're going to have to do things that are uncomfortable.
Speaker: You're going to have to say things to him that are uncomfortable for you to say and are uncomfortable for him to hear.
Speaker: But that's why we sent you instead of a YouTube video.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So what we're going to do in the summit is get down to the nuts and the bolts of what do you say then?
Speaker: What do you, what are the constructs of what transforms that guy from that guy to the signed up guy?
Speaker: So you got to bring a toolbox into that meeting.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And you got to have, you know, two, three, four, five, six tools in that toolbox.
Speaker: So when this tool takes a hammer, you put out the hammer, don't hit the guy with it, but you hit the nail on the head and drive that nail into the board and sign paperwork.
Speaker: Now that's what we're going to talk to.
Speaker: That's what we're going to talk about at the sales summit.
Speaker: When you're at the door and the guy says, I got to talk to my wife.
Speaker: Sounds great.
Speaker: I'm glad you spent 15 minutes on my door straight commission.
Speaker: And now that you've done that, can I set an appointment?
Speaker: No, I got to talk to my wife.
Speaker: Are you kidding me?
Speaker: You need to talk to your wife to commission an estimate?
Speaker: What uncomfortable things am I going to say right then to get the appointment?
Speaker: And when the guy says, you're going to email this to me, what uncomfortable things am I going to say then so that I walk out the door with a contract instead of a...
Speaker: BS, maybe call you some day thing.
Speaker: So anyway, that's what the summit's about.
Speaker: We're going to be there for days and days and days, and we're going to actually do it, actually run through it, maybe do it for real.
Speaker: That's what's going to happen at the sales summit in Vegas on March 28th.
Speaker: That sounds incredible.
Speaker: And I know there's, I think it's what, only 15 people per industry, something like that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's going to be real limited.
Speaker: It's going to be one-on-one.
Speaker: We're just going to be one-on-one.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: For those that want to find out more, do you know if there's still spots available or where people can go to find out more about that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All they got to do is email Sam and either here or one of his experts will ping you back and tell you what it's, it's, it costs nothing.
Speaker: It's like two grand for the whole three days or whatever.
Speaker: It's, it's literally almost nothing to do it.
Speaker: Two grand for stuff you'll learn that'll probably make you an extra 50 grand during the year.
Speaker: So in the first one hour, you're back home.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: One hour you're back.
Speaker: Something that will happen that will cover the two grand.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: So we'll link to that, but I know that's probably on Sam's website and all that door to door.
Speaker: I would just go ahead, go ahead, email Sam at D to D experts and he'll get back to you or have somebody get back to you with the whole sum.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, I know we barely scratched the surface here and you shared with us just some cool, some awesome tips, things we can do, but hopefully we can have you back on maybe in the future to talk about closing.
Speaker: I know you're a wealth of knowledge, so I appreciate you being on the show, Mike, and looking forward to continuing to learn from you and hearing what you're doing and anywhere you want to point people to where they can connect with you more, learn more about what you're doing.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: They can always get ahold of me on my email.
Speaker: It's Michael at sun, solar solutions.com.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: On Facebook, Michael O'Donnell.
Speaker: I'm not cool enough to have some cool Twitter, Instagram thing happening, but get ahold of me on my email.
Speaker: You can also call me on my cell or text me on my cell.
Speaker: My cell is 602-818-1355.
Speaker: Just get ahold of me.
Speaker: We'll, we'll, I'd love to talk to her or chat with, with anybody.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Look at that.
Speaker: He's given out his personal cell number.
Speaker: So hopefully you don't get people blowing you up, but I talked to a kid named Roman sat next to him at dinner at the VIP dinner at D to D a guy actually texted me and called me and I spent about half an hour on the phone the other night, great kid up in Canada.
Speaker: And he was like, okay, I started reading, thinking grow rich.
Speaker: What do I do next?
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Yeah, we're giving, and that's how you're going to get it back.
Speaker: Good to be with you, Taylor.
Speaker: Yeah, appreciate you again, Mike, and we'll look forward to connecting more.
Speaker: Thanks again for being on the show.
Speaker: You bet.
Speaker: All right, see you.
Speaker: Wow, what another amazing episode of the Solarpreneur podcast.
Speaker: Now, before we take off here, do us a favor and go leave an honest review on your platform of choice or wherever you're listening to this podcast.
Speaker: It helps us get the word out about the Solarpreneur movement and impact more entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and marketers just like you.
Speaker: And hey, don't forget to head over to Facebook and join the Solarpreneur group for more daily content that's going to impact you and help you take
Speaker: your sales game to the next level.
Speaker: See you guys in the next episode.
