Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
How To Motivate New vs. Experienced Solar Reps
68 Plays2 years ago
- https://www.youtube.com/@solarpreneurs
- Help Reagan Beat Cancer!!!
- goals.solarpreneurs.com
- oneliners.solarpreneurs.com
- https://solciety.co/ - JOIN SOLCIETY NOW!
- SIRO APP - LEARN MORE!
- Thanks to our sponsor Pi Syndicate for this episode!
- DOWNLOAD THE CHEAT SHEET HERE!: TOP 10 MOST DOWNLOADED EPISODES OF ALL TIME
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Personal Journey
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
Speaker
I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
00:00:41
Speaker
What's
Motivating and Systemizing Sales Reps
00:00:42
Speaker
up, solopreneurs?
00:00:42
Speaker
Today, we're going to be going over the systems you should have in your office.
00:00:47
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?
00:00:57
Speaker
We're going to be talking
Joining Legacy Power
00:00:58
Speaker
about that and a whole lot more.
00:00:59
Speaker
Welcome to the podcast.
00:01:00
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:01:02
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.
00:01:09
Speaker
Thank you for making the podcast the first listen of every Tuesday and Friday.
00:01:14
Speaker
We're coming at you.
00:01:15
Speaker
We are free and available on all podcast platforms, Spotify, iTunes, Apple.
00:01:21
Speaker
wherever you listen to podcasts.
00:01:22
Speaker
We're on YouTube.
00:01:25
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.
00:01:36
Speaker
So make sure to subscribe, like, comment, be much appreciated.
00:01:40
Speaker
But today's episode, I'm going to be basically recapping a leadership event that we recently
00:01:47
Speaker
We're able to attend.
00:01:48
Speaker
And
Leadership and Training
00:01:49
Speaker
this is the first time I'm publicly saying this.
00:01:52
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.
00:01:58
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.
00:02:11
Speaker
I did recently switch over to Legacy, Power.
00:02:14
Speaker
Over here in San Diego with John Soriano, Mike Brand, a lot of guys that I've had on the podcast recently.
00:02:20
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.
00:02:29
Speaker
And I made the judgment call to hop over with them because I think they got great leadership.
00:02:35
Speaker
And really what it came down to for me, if you follow my solar journey, I've been running teams.
00:02:41
Speaker
I've been managing a lot at a lot of companies that are smaller, growing things little by little.
00:02:48
Speaker
And it's been up and down, right?
00:02:50
Speaker
I've had some success growing teams like 20, maybe peaked at like 30 guys, right?
00:02:56
Speaker
So not massive teams, but what I realized is just trying to run the podcast.
00:03:01
Speaker
I'm coaching multiple guys now.
00:03:04
Speaker
I'm just like, okay, this is a lot of work to be training, managing, motivating reps, recruiting.
00:03:12
Speaker
There's just so much that solar entails and you can only do so much on top of that.
00:03:18
Speaker
You know, husband, father of two, a lot of stuff going on.
00:03:22
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.
00:03:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:29
Speaker
And I still get a lead.
00:03:30
Speaker
I still got to grow, but I don't have to do every little thing.
00:03:33
Speaker
So I think that's what it came down to for me.
00:03:35
Speaker
And, um, you know, I've been criticized.
00:03:38
Speaker
People are like, Taylor, why don't you go start your own dealer?
00:03:40
Speaker
What are you doing?
00:03:41
Speaker
Running with other, um, teams like you've been doing this forever.
00:03:45
Speaker
You know what you're doing.
00:03:47
Speaker
I think I could grow a dealer, but again, it comes down to my motivations a little bit different now, right?
00:03:54
Speaker
I just want to grow with someone that can help me plug into a system.
00:03:59
Speaker
I can bring my guys on.
00:04:00
Speaker
I don't have to do every little thing.
00:04:02
Speaker
And funny enough,
Training Techniques for Reps
00:04:03
Speaker
I've actually grown my team at a quicker rate here with Legacy where there's more support than doing it by myself.
00:04:10
Speaker
So I guess there's something to be said about it.
00:04:12
Speaker
And I know I'm on a tangent here, but if you are looking for an opportunity, hit me up.
00:04:18
Speaker
We've got a great opportunity for you.
00:04:21
Speaker
But this podcast, we're not here to recruit.
00:04:23
Speaker
Okay, that's not the main purpose of this.
00:04:25
Speaker
People know they can hit me up if you're looking for a great opportunity.
00:04:28
Speaker
But I want to recap some of the things we did in this leadership event.
00:04:32
Speaker
What's really cool, they call it Valor DNA.
00:04:35
Speaker
Hey, John Soriana has a great region here.
00:04:38
Speaker
I think they're like...
00:04:39
Speaker
the top producing division in all of Legacy, which is a big company, right?
00:04:45
Speaker
But we do these leadership events once a quarter, Valor D&A.
00:04:49
Speaker
And what's really cool is everyone gets together.
00:04:51
Speaker
There's a lot of camaraderie.
00:04:52
Speaker
We collaborate.
00:04:54
Speaker
And we're hearing from other managers, John Soriano, of course.
00:05:00
Speaker
Sometimes they bring in guest speakers, people from different regions, things like that.
00:05:05
Speaker
But this time is cool.
00:05:06
Speaker
We just met up
00:05:08
Speaker
We grabbed some breakfast.
00:05:10
Speaker
They had breakfast burritos at the place.
00:05:13
Speaker
We did a little cold plunge in the morning.
00:05:14
Speaker
It was just from like 9 a.m.
00:05:16
Speaker
to 4 p.m.
00:05:17
Speaker
Still had time to go sell in the evening.
00:05:19
Speaker
And yeah, so I'm going to get in a little bit of what we went into.
00:05:23
Speaker
And then I would recommend doing some type of leadership event like this.
00:05:27
Speaker
If anything, get you guys together, get them to see the bigger picture and just have that mastermind type camaraderie.
00:05:35
Speaker
Hey, and you know, free food like that.
00:05:39
Speaker
We all got out.
00:05:40
Speaker
We did a little flag football event after I think this is from like two to four.
00:05:44
Speaker
We went and played a flag football.
00:05:45
Speaker
It was legit.
00:05:46
Speaker
We got like real refs, legit refs.
00:05:49
Speaker
I think they were like high school refs paid them.
00:05:51
Speaker
They came and ref the game.
00:05:52
Speaker
They probably thought it was the most pitiful game of football ever played.
00:05:56
Speaker
A lot of guys were
00:05:58
Speaker
Um, you know, didn't have much experience in football, but it was fun.
00:06:01
Speaker
It was a good time.
00:06:02
Speaker
So there's an activity idea for you.
00:06:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:04
Speaker
But I'm going to get into how should you train a new reps versus experience reps?
00:06:09
Speaker
This is something that we talked about.
00:06:11
Speaker
John Soriano.
00:06:12
Speaker
This is what he trained on.
00:06:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:14
Speaker
And so I'm still in some of his content.
00:06:16
Speaker
Thanks John for hooking it up.
00:06:18
Speaker
But what I learned is that new reps, it's a different way of training, right?
00:06:23
Speaker
New reps, you need to have lots of encouragement, right?
00:06:26
Speaker
lots of time, patience, structure, help them pick areas, give them a lot of training, make it fun.
00:06:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:34
Speaker
And I think me being in the industry seven years, sometimes I forget this.
00:06:38
Speaker
I'm like, okay, new guys, just go out and do your thing.
00:06:41
Speaker
I'll give you an area.
00:06:43
Speaker
We'll pair you up with someone, whatever.
00:06:45
Speaker
It's all good.
00:06:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:46
Speaker
But these guys, they need to have their handhelds.
00:06:48
Speaker
They need to have a system in place.
00:06:51
Speaker
So if you are running a team or maybe you're a new rep yourself,
00:06:55
Speaker
It's a great thing that you could go to your manager, to your team and recognize these things.
00:07:01
Speaker
BIK guys, I like, I want help with picking areas.
00:07:05
Speaker
I don't know what areas I like.
00:07:07
Speaker
I want more structure.
00:07:08
Speaker
What hours should I be working?
00:07:10
Speaker
New reps, they need to know these things.
00:07:12
Speaker
They're not experienced.
00:07:14
Speaker
And experienced reps, you need to have incentives.
00:07:17
Speaker
You need to have responsibility, vision.
00:07:19
Speaker
That's the big thing.
00:07:20
Speaker
And most experienced reps, they want that, right?
00:07:23
Speaker
We've been knocking on doors for a long time.
00:07:26
Speaker
So we want something that's different.
00:07:27
Speaker
We want to see a bigger picture.
00:07:29
Speaker
And this is what I think is cool.
00:07:31
Speaker
What John Soriano is doing here in legacy is he is creating these events.
00:07:37
Speaker
They're not just for only managers, but he's bringing in up and coming leaders and
00:07:42
Speaker
And he's doing exactly that.
00:07:43
Speaker
He's given them the vision.
00:07:45
Speaker
He's given them responsibility over things.
00:07:47
Speaker
Hey, all the experienced reps, they're expected to have their own little squads.
00:07:53
Speaker
And even if you're not managing yet, you have your responsibilities and you have different incentives.
00:08:00
Speaker
And I think that's how you get these guys bought in.
00:08:04
Speaker
So for me, I recognize in myself that I'm sometimes we have a cookie cutter way of training, way of managing, right?
00:08:11
Speaker
But we need to recognize that there are different ways of motivating new versus experienced reps.
00:08:16
Speaker
Okay, so there's that answer to that question.
Systems for Successful Offices
00:08:19
Speaker
That's how you train differently.
00:08:22
Speaker
Hey, but on top of that, like I mentioned in the beginning, we talked about systems you should have in an office.
00:08:28
Speaker
Hey, and if you don't have this in your office, it's a good question to ask yourself.
00:08:32
Speaker
In your office, do you have someone that's a visionary?
00:08:35
Speaker
Do you have someone that's a system manager?
00:08:37
Speaker
Do you have a culture creator?
00:08:38
Speaker
Do you have recruiters?
00:08:39
Speaker
Do you have effective trainers?
00:08:41
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.
00:08:50
Speaker
Hey, if you don't have those things, I think your office is not going to be as successful as it could be.
00:08:56
Speaker
Right.
00:08:56
Speaker
Once you get an office dialed in and cranking,
00:09:00
Speaker
You realize, okay, we got to have someone that's selling a ton.
00:09:02
Speaker
We got to have someone that's great at managing systems and creating these systems.
00:09:07
Speaker
I think back to my solar career, a team I was running, this was two, three years back now, but switched to solar.
00:09:15
Speaker
Shout out to my boys at Switch to Solar.
00:09:17
Speaker
That was a company.
00:09:18
Speaker
Everyone's like, Switch to Solar.
00:09:20
Speaker
That was the actual company.
00:09:22
Speaker
But I was running the office with Earl Capule, great dude, gratitude mindset.
00:09:28
Speaker
Brent Attaway, he was one of the owners, Bennett Maxwell.
00:09:33
Speaker
Both those guys have been on the podcast.
00:09:34
Speaker
A lot of people know Brent through Solar Academy.
00:09:37
Speaker
He's doing a CRMX.
00:09:39
Speaker
They were great at managing systems, creating systems for the office.
00:09:44
Speaker
But guess what we didn't have?
00:09:46
Speaker
We did not have a sells rabbit.
00:09:48
Speaker
We did not have someone that was going out and getting 15, 20, 30 deals a month.
00:09:53
Speaker
I was doing my 8 to 10 a month, nothing too crazy.
00:09:58
Speaker
And I'll be the first to admit, I have...
00:10:02
Speaker
I can sell, right?
00:10:03
Speaker
But I haven't been a sales rabbit in my career.
00:10:06
Speaker
I'm not someone that does these massive amounts of volume.
00:10:11
Speaker
But I think it helps to have in your office someone that is cracking the lid off the results that people expect, right?
00:10:19
Speaker
Because if I'm only doing eight to 10 sales a month,
00:10:23
Speaker
then that means most of my office is probably going to do half of what I'm doing.
00:10:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:27
Speaker
And, you know, I can become better sales.
00:10:30
Speaker
I can push myself more.
00:10:31
Speaker
A lot of that's on me.
00:10:32
Speaker
But in your office, can you get someone to really be the sales rabbit to really do that?
00:10:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:37
Speaker
And again, do you have someone that's a recruiter, culture creator, all these different roles in the office?
00:10:43
Speaker
So I thought that was really interesting.
00:10:45
Speaker
And then just in general, some things that every office I think should have is a dialed in group communication,
00:10:51
Speaker
We use GroupMe, but are you posting GroupMe?
00:10:55
Speaker
Are you getting people fired up?
00:10:57
Speaker
Hey, do you have correlations that are dialed in?
00:11:00
Speaker
That's a different topic.
00:11:01
Speaker
We do two correlations a week right now.
00:11:04
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.
00:11:11
Speaker
Hey, do you have systems for rep retention, rep training, competition systems, recruiting?
00:11:19
Speaker
Okay, all different types of systems you should have within your office.
00:11:22
Speaker
Okay,
Recruitment Strategies
00:11:23
Speaker
and then on a monthly basis, are you doing things like team dinners with your office?
00:11:29
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.
00:11:37
Speaker
So our office, we got like, you know, 80 people in it, but we're not going to 80 person dinner.
00:11:43
Speaker
We're breaking up into little squads.
00:11:45
Speaker
We got our...
00:11:47
Speaker
mini team, right?
00:11:47
Speaker
And we're doing separate incentives for that.
00:11:50
Speaker
We do team dinners for just our squads.
00:11:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:53
Speaker
And then same thing, blitzes for our squads, swag, events, trips, meetings for your teams, closer meetings.
00:12:02
Speaker
So these are all little mini systems you can have within your office.
00:12:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:06
Speaker
So just a couple of things we talked about, I thought were really interesting.
00:12:11
Speaker
And again, even if you are not managing a team,
00:12:14
Speaker
These are things you should recognize that maybe you could go to your company leadership.
00:12:20
Speaker
Maybe you can go to your managers.
00:12:22
Speaker
Say, hey, guys, this is how I want to be trained.
00:12:24
Speaker
This is how I want to be led.
00:12:25
Speaker
Because managers, I manage teams.
00:12:29
Speaker
I am a very imperfect manager.
00:12:32
Speaker
We're all trying to figure this thing out.
00:12:34
Speaker
But I think these are things that every office should have.
00:12:37
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.
00:12:43
Speaker
Still, you can probably figure out a way to do some of these, even if you're just a really small team.
00:12:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:48
Speaker
And then last thing I'll touch on is just the importance of recruiting.
00:12:52
Speaker
This is another big thing we talked about.
00:12:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:55
Speaker
I know at times in my school career, I've just been like, Oh, why recruit?
00:12:59
Speaker
I can go out and bank big commissions.
00:13:01
Speaker
I don't have to worry about babysitting these guys.
00:13:04
Speaker
Hey, but Mike Brands who
00:13:06
Speaker
is, you know, a thousand install guy growing huge regions.
00:13:10
Speaker
He's been on the podcast.
00:13:11
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.
00:13:18
Speaker
Hey, when you're recruiting, you're having a stewardship over somebody.
00:13:22
Speaker
And what happens when you are responsible for someone, you probably are going to bump up your production.
00:13:29
Speaker
You're going to try and push a little harder.
00:13:31
Speaker
You're probably going to work harder.
00:13:32
Speaker
You're probably going to work more.
00:13:34
Speaker
I know for me, I'm always working more hours when I have someone out shadowing me.
00:13:38
Speaker
And Michael O'Donnell, he talks about this too.
00:13:40
Speaker
He literally pays guys to go out and shadow him because he knows he's going to work more.
00:13:44
Speaker
He knows he's going to push a little harder at the door.
00:13:47
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.
00:13:52
Speaker
And
Team Events and Self-Improvement
00:13:53
Speaker
that's how he has great success, insane amount of success.
00:13:57
Speaker
So all these top guys, they're recruiting.
00:14:00
Speaker
They're taking stewardship over the people they bring on.
00:14:02
Speaker
And really, it's just helping you think bigger and create generational wealth.
00:14:07
Speaker
Okay, and quick thing to wrap up here.
00:14:11
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?
00:14:25
Speaker
So we did a little brainstorming activity and divide just your life into your job, schools, gyms you've gone to, whatever.
00:14:33
Speaker
You create name lifts, you rank them top to bottom.
00:14:36
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.
00:14:48
Speaker
And this is a great little activity that you can do if you have not gotten too much into recruiting yet.
00:14:54
Speaker
And so, yeah, just a little recap there.
00:14:58
Speaker
Do these events with your team, with your companies.
00:15:00
Speaker
They're great.
00:15:01
Speaker
You can structure it the same way.
00:15:03
Speaker
We started off with a cold plunge.
00:15:05
Speaker
We had just like 20 to 30 minutes presentations from a bunch of different people in management on the teams.
00:15:12
Speaker
We had a little breakfast burrito.
00:15:14
Speaker
We had some lunches.
00:15:16
Speaker
Some Mediterranean food for lunch come in, keeping it healthy.
00:15:20
Speaker
Then we did some flag football after great events, great time.
00:15:24
Speaker
Would highly recommend doing something like that.
00:15:26
Speaker
Okay, so I hope that helps.
00:15:29
Speaker
I hope you are constantly striving to up level yourself because there is no neutral in solar.
00:15:35
Speaker
There's either progressing or regressing.
00:15:38
Speaker
You want to be someone that's always progressing.
00:15:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:41
Speaker
And, um, I can't wait for some of the future guests we have coming up on the show.
00:15:46
Speaker
If you have not shot us a message or left us a review or shared the podcast would be much appreciated.
00:15:53
Speaker
Please do it.
00:15:54
Speaker
And, um,
00:15:55
Speaker
Can't wait to introduce some of the guests we have coming on soon.
00:15:59
Speaker
So send me your topic recommendations if you want a specific topic that we should talk about here on the show.
00:16:05
Speaker
If you want a specific guest, hit me up.
00:16:08
Speaker
Always look for new people to bring on the podcast that are high level.
00:16:12
Speaker
And yeah, just give me your feedback.
00:16:15
Speaker
I know this isn't a perfect podcast, but this isn't meant to be a perfect podcast.
00:16:19
Speaker
It's meant to share the struggles I personally have.
00:16:22
Speaker
the struggles from guests that we bring on the show, and hopefully just help you improve from the mistakes we make.
00:16:31
Speaker
So I love you guys.
00:16:32
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in the podcast
Episode Guide and Feedback
00:16:34
Speaker
every Tuesday and Friday, and we'll see you on the next one.
00:16:36
Speaker
Peace.
00:16:38
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
00:16:39
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:16:41
Speaker
Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
00:16:52
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:16:59
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:17:02
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:17:06
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.
00:17:19
Speaker
We put them together all in one sheet.
00:17:22
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.
00:17:28
Speaker
So go download it right now.
00:17:30
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:17:34
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:17:39
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:17:42
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:17:43
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:17:45
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:17:51
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:17:52
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.