Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Today, we're going to be going over the systems you should have in your office.
Speaker: And then also a question that I did not think very much about in my solar career, and that is how should you motivate new reps versus experienced reps?
Speaker: We're going to be talking about that and a whole lot more.
Speaker: Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: Thank you for making the podcast the first listen of every Tuesday and Friday.
Speaker: We're coming at you.
Speaker: We are free and available on all podcast platforms, Spotify, iTunes, Apple.
Speaker: wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker: We're on YouTube.
Speaker: YouTube, we don't release the podcasts the exact same time, but we are, you know, just re-releasing older episodes, video content that we got.
Speaker: So make sure to subscribe, like, comment, be much appreciated.
Speaker: But today's episode, I'm going to be basically recapping a leadership event that we recently
Speaker: We're able to attend.
Speaker: And this is the first time I'm publicly saying this.
Speaker: The reason I've been hesitant to say this is because I don't want to be known as the rep that's jumping from company to company.
Speaker: But if you have not seen, I've been posting a lot of, you know, reposting a lot of things from Legacy, Power, and Cats Out of the Bag.
Speaker: I did recently switch over to Legacy, Power.
Speaker: Over here in San Diego with John Soriano, Mike Brand, a lot of guys that I've had on the podcast recently.
Speaker: And I guess that is, I don't know if it's good or bad, but people that I bring on the podcast, of course, they're always chirping in my ear, trying to get me to come over.
Speaker: And I made the judgment call to hop over with them because I think they got great leadership.
Speaker: And really what it came down to for me, if you follow my solar journey, I've been running teams.
Speaker: I've been managing a lot at a lot of companies that are smaller, growing things little by little.
Speaker: And it's been up and down, right?
Speaker: I've had some success growing teams like 20, maybe peaked at like 30 guys, right?
Speaker: So not massive teams, but what I realized is just trying to run the podcast.
Speaker: I'm coaching multiple guys now.
Speaker: I'm just like, okay, this is a lot of work to be training, managing, motivating reps, recruiting.
Speaker: There's just so much that solar entails and you can only do so much on top of that.
Speaker: You know, husband, father of two, a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker: So end of the day, I'm just like, okay, I want to bring people in a system where I don't have to do all these things.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I still get a lead.
Speaker: I still got to grow, but I don't have to do every little thing.
Speaker: So I think that's what it came down to for me.
Speaker: And, um, you know, I've been criticized.
Speaker: People are like, Taylor, why don't you go start your own dealer?
Speaker: What are you doing?
Speaker: Running with other, um, teams like you've been doing this forever.
Speaker: You know what you're doing.
Speaker: I think I could grow a dealer, but again, it comes down to my motivations a little bit different now, right?
Speaker: I just want to grow with someone that can help me plug into a system.
Speaker: I can bring my guys on.
Speaker: I don't have to do every little thing.
Speaker: And funny enough, I've actually grown my team at a quicker rate here with Legacy where there's more support than doing it by myself.
Speaker: So I guess there's something to be said about it.
Speaker: And I know I'm on a tangent here, but if you are looking for an opportunity, hit me up.
Speaker: We've got a great opportunity for you.
Speaker: But this podcast, we're not here to recruit.
Speaker: Okay, that's not the main purpose of this.
Speaker: People know they can hit me up if you're looking for a great opportunity.
Speaker: But I want to recap some of the things we did in this leadership event.
Speaker: What's really cool, they call it Valor DNA.
Speaker: Hey, John Soriana has a great region here.
Speaker: I think they're like...
Speaker: the top producing division in all of Legacy, which is a big company, right?
Speaker: But we do these leadership events once a quarter, Valor D&A.
Speaker: And what's really cool is everyone gets together.
Speaker: There's a lot of camaraderie.
Speaker: We collaborate.
Speaker: And we're hearing from other managers, John Soriano, of course.
Speaker: Sometimes they bring in guest speakers, people from different regions, things like that.
Speaker: But this time is cool.
Speaker: We just met up
Speaker: We grabbed some breakfast.
Speaker: They had breakfast burritos at the place.
Speaker: We did a little cold plunge in the morning.
Speaker: It was just from like 9 a.m.
Speaker: to 4 p.m.
Speaker: Still had time to go sell in the evening.
Speaker: And yeah, so I'm going to get in a little bit of what we went into.
Speaker: And then I would recommend doing some type of leadership event like this.
Speaker: If anything, get you guys together, get them to see the bigger picture and just have that mastermind type camaraderie.
Speaker: Hey, and you know, free food like that.
Speaker: We all got out.
Speaker: We did a little flag football event after I think this is from like two to four.
Speaker: We went and played a flag football.
Speaker: It was legit.
Speaker: We got like real refs, legit refs.
Speaker: I think they were like high school refs paid them.
Speaker: They came and ref the game.
Speaker: They probably thought it was the most pitiful game of football ever played.
Speaker: A lot of guys were
Speaker: Um, you know, didn't have much experience in football, but it was fun.
Speaker: It was a good time.
Speaker: So there's an activity idea for you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But I'm going to get into how should you train a new reps versus experience reps?
Speaker: This is something that we talked about.
Speaker: John Soriano.
Speaker: This is what he trained on.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so I'm still in some of his content.
Speaker: Thanks John for hooking it up.
Speaker: But what I learned is that new reps, it's a different way of training, right?
Speaker: New reps, you need to have lots of encouragement, right?
Speaker: lots of time, patience, structure, help them pick areas, give them a lot of training, make it fun.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I think me being in the industry seven years, sometimes I forget this.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, new guys, just go out and do your thing.
Speaker: I'll give you an area.
Speaker: We'll pair you up with someone, whatever.
Speaker: It's all good.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But these guys, they need to have their handhelds.
Speaker: They need to have a system in place.
Speaker: So if you are running a team or maybe you're a new rep yourself,
Speaker: It's a great thing that you could go to your manager, to your team and recognize these things.
Speaker: BIK guys, I like, I want help with picking areas.
Speaker: I don't know what areas I like.
Speaker: I want more structure.
Speaker: What hours should I be working?
Speaker: New reps, they need to know these things.
Speaker: They're not experienced.
Speaker: And experienced reps, you need to have incentives.
Speaker: You need to have responsibility, vision.
Speaker: That's the big thing.
Speaker: And most experienced reps, they want that, right?
Speaker: We've been knocking on doors for a long time.
Speaker: So we want something that's different.
Speaker: We want to see a bigger picture.
Speaker: And this is what I think is cool.
Speaker: What John Soriano is doing here in legacy is he is creating these events.
Speaker: They're not just for only managers, but he's bringing in up and coming leaders and
Speaker: And he's doing exactly that.
Speaker: He's given them the vision.
Speaker: He's given them responsibility over things.
Speaker: Hey, all the experienced reps, they're expected to have their own little squads.
Speaker: And even if you're not managing yet, you have your responsibilities and you have different incentives.
Speaker: And I think that's how you get these guys bought in.
Speaker: So for me, I recognize in myself that I'm sometimes we have a cookie cutter way of training, way of managing, right?
Speaker: But we need to recognize that there are different ways of motivating new versus experienced reps.
Speaker: Okay, so there's that answer to that question.
Speaker: That's how you train differently.
Speaker: Hey, but on top of that, like I mentioned in the beginning, we talked about systems you should have in an office.
Speaker: Hey, and if you don't have this in your office, it's a good question to ask yourself.
Speaker: In your office, do you have someone that's a visionary?
Speaker: Do you have someone that's a system manager?
Speaker: Do you have a culture creator?
Speaker: Do you have recruiters?
Speaker: Do you have effective trainers?
Speaker: You have a sales rabbit, someone that's going to go out and sell at a massive volume, public speaker, someone that's great at speaking, motivating.
Speaker: Hey, if you don't have those things, I think your office is not going to be as successful as it could be.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Once you get an office dialed in and cranking,
Speaker: You realize, okay, we got to have someone that's selling a ton.
Speaker: We got to have someone that's great at managing systems and creating these systems.
Speaker: I think back to my solar career, a team I was running, this was two, three years back now, but switched to solar.
Speaker: Shout out to my boys at Switch to Solar.
Speaker: That was a company.
Speaker: Everyone's like, Switch to Solar.
Speaker: That was the actual company.
Speaker: But I was running the office with Earl Capule, great dude, gratitude mindset.
Speaker: Brent Attaway, he was one of the owners, Bennett Maxwell.
Speaker: Both those guys have been on the podcast.
Speaker: A lot of people know Brent through Solar Academy.
Speaker: He's doing a CRMX.
Speaker: They were great at managing systems, creating systems for the office.
Speaker: But guess what we didn't have?
Speaker: We did not have a sells rabbit.
Speaker: We did not have someone that was going out and getting 15, 20, 30 deals a month.
Speaker: I was doing my 8 to 10 a month, nothing too crazy.
Speaker: And I'll be the first to admit, I have...
Speaker: I can sell, right?
Speaker: But I haven't been a sales rabbit in my career.
Speaker: I'm not someone that does these massive amounts of volume.
Speaker: But I think it helps to have in your office someone that is cracking the lid off the results that people expect, right?
Speaker: Because if I'm only doing eight to 10 sales a month,
Speaker: then that means most of my office is probably going to do half of what I'm doing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And, you know, I can become better sales.
Speaker: I can push myself more.
Speaker: A lot of that's on me.
Speaker: But in your office, can you get someone to really be the sales rabbit to really do that?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And again, do you have someone that's a recruiter, culture creator, all these different roles in the office?
Speaker: So I thought that was really interesting.
Speaker: And then just in general, some things that every office I think should have is a dialed in group communication,
Speaker: We use GroupMe, but are you posting GroupMe?
Speaker: Are you getting people fired up?
Speaker: Hey, do you have correlations that are dialed in?
Speaker: That's a different topic.
Speaker: We do two correlations a week right now.
Speaker: I know people have success doing correlations every day, and I would recommend this if you have a lot of setters, a lot of new guys.
Speaker: Hey, do you have systems for rep retention, rep training, competition systems, recruiting?
Speaker: Okay, all different types of systems you should have within your office.
Speaker: Okay, and then on a monthly basis, are you doing things like team dinners with your office?
Speaker: And if you are a bigger organization, what we've started doing here over at Legacy is, like I said, you divide in little squads.
Speaker: So our office, we got like, you know, 80 people in it, but we're not going to 80 person dinner.
Speaker: We're breaking up into little squads.
Speaker: We got our...
Speaker: mini team, right?
Speaker: And we're doing separate incentives for that.
Speaker: We do team dinners for just our squads.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then same thing, blitzes for our squads, swag, events, trips, meetings for your teams, closer meetings.
Speaker: So these are all little mini systems you can have within your office.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So just a couple of things we talked about, I thought were really interesting.
Speaker: And again, even if you are not managing a team,
Speaker: These are things you should recognize that maybe you could go to your company leadership.
Speaker: Maybe you can go to your managers.
Speaker: Say, hey, guys, this is how I want to be trained.
Speaker: This is how I want to be led.
Speaker: Because managers, I manage teams.
Speaker: I am a very imperfect manager.
Speaker: We're all trying to figure this thing out.
Speaker: But I think these are things that every office should have.
Speaker: things that you should consider if you are running a deal or running an organization, or maybe you're just a one man team.
Speaker: Still, you can probably figure out a way to do some of these, even if you're just a really small team.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then last thing I'll touch on is just the importance of recruiting.
Speaker: This is another big thing we talked about.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I know at times in my school career, I've just been like, Oh, why recruit?
Speaker: I can go out and bank big commissions.
Speaker: I don't have to worry about babysitting these guys.
Speaker: Hey, but Mike Brands who
Speaker: is, you know, a thousand install guy growing huge regions.
Speaker: He's been on the podcast.
Speaker: If you don't recognize him, we linked to his podcast pretty recent, but he came and he just talked about the purpose of recruiting.
Speaker: Hey, when you're recruiting, you're having a stewardship over somebody.
Speaker: And what happens when you are responsible for someone, you probably are going to bump up your production.
Speaker: You're going to try and push a little harder.
Speaker: You're probably going to work harder.
Speaker: You're probably going to work more.
Speaker: I know for me, I'm always working more hours when I have someone out shadowing me.
Speaker: And Michael O'Donnell, he talks about this too.
Speaker: He literally pays guys to go out and shadow him because he knows he's going to work more.
Speaker: He knows he's going to push a little harder at the door.
Speaker: Not that he should be pushy, but he knows he's going to stick in there, hang in the pocket a little bit longer.
Speaker: And that's how he has great success, insane amount of success.
Speaker: So all these top guys, they're recruiting.
Speaker: They're taking stewardship over the people they bring on.
Speaker: And really, it's just helping you think bigger and create generational wealth.
Speaker: Okay, and quick thing to wrap up here.
Speaker: If you have not been too much into recruiting, a great way to start, just like you have your power base starting out when you're selling, all the friends, family, whatever that you can potentially sell to you, you should do the same thing with recruiting, right?
Speaker: So we did a little brainstorming activity and divide just your life into your job, schools, gyms you've gone to, whatever.
Speaker: You create name lifts, you rank them top to bottom.
Speaker: And same thing like you're when you're creating your power base, you start contacting them and you put the names in buckets, need to contact, spoken to, need to follow up with, signed on to your team.
Speaker: And this is a great little activity that you can do if you have not gotten too much into recruiting yet.
Speaker: And so, yeah, just a little recap there.
Speaker: Do these events with your team, with your companies.
Speaker: They're great.
Speaker: You can structure it the same way.
Speaker: We started off with a cold plunge.
Speaker: We had just like 20 to 30 minutes presentations from a bunch of different people in management on the teams.
Speaker: We had a little breakfast burrito.
Speaker: We had some lunches.
Speaker: Some Mediterranean food for lunch come in, keeping it healthy.
Speaker: Then we did some flag football after great events, great time.
Speaker: Would highly recommend doing something like that.
Speaker: Okay, so I hope that helps.
Speaker: I hope you are constantly striving to up level yourself because there is no neutral in solar.
Speaker: There's either progressing or regressing.
Speaker: You want to be someone that's always progressing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And, um, I can't wait for some of the future guests we have coming up on the show.
Speaker: If you have not shot us a message or left us a review or shared the podcast would be much appreciated.
Speaker: Please do it.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: Can't wait to introduce some of the guests we have coming on soon.
Speaker: So send me your topic recommendations if you want a specific topic that we should talk about here on the show.
Speaker: If you want a specific guest, hit me up.
Speaker: Always look for new people to bring on the podcast that are high level.
Speaker: And yeah, just give me your feedback.
Speaker: I know this isn't a perfect podcast, but this isn't meant to be a perfect podcast.
Speaker: It's meant to share the struggles I personally have.
Speaker: the struggles from guests that we bring on the show, and hopefully just help you improve from the mistakes we make.
Speaker: So I love you guys.
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in the podcast every Tuesday and Friday, and we'll see you on the next one.
Speaker: Peace.
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 Solrepreneur.
Speaker: We put them together all in one sheet.
Speaker: 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.
