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 fell.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Speaker: What's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Taylor Armstrong back with another week, another episode.
Speaker: And I hope you are crushing the fall.
Speaker: We are getting into the fall weather.
Speaker: Perfect time to knock.
Speaker: And I just got back from an event myself.
Speaker: It was called Driven.
Speaker: So I will preface this episode.
Speaker: We got back at 4 a.m.
Speaker: last night.
Speaker: It was up in LA, the event, and I'm down in San Diego.
Speaker: So I'm recording this because I'm not going to miss out on some fire content that we need to drop this week.
Speaker: But I am a little out of it.
Speaker: So if things don't make sense today, I apologize in advance.
Speaker: But we're going to have a great episode, so let's get right into it.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong, and I'm here to help you take your solar sales game to another level by closing more deals, generating more referrals, and hopefully having a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: Hope you're doing well.
Speaker: This week, I want to do something a little bit different.
Speaker: And that is we're going to focus on our friends, our dear friends, the ladies in the solar industry.
Speaker: I've never done this before.
Speaker: And the reason I'm kind of calling this the Women Focus Week is because we have one of my friends, Suli Zink.
Speaker: She's coming on the next episode.
Speaker: We had an awesome interview with her.
Speaker: She had some just...
Speaker: I thought amazing advice on how to basically better treat women in the solar industry, how to make them feel more included in, you know, in your sales teams, in your organizations, and then just how to help them really, um,
Speaker: sell to their potential.
Speaker: And I mean, it can apply to guys too.
Speaker: So if you're a guy listening to this, don't miss out on these episodes because don't get me wrong.
Speaker: Sully, she's one of the top sellers in the solar industry.
Speaker: So she knows her stuff, but they're the reason I think this applies a lot to, you know, the guys in the industry and
Speaker: is because let's be honest, it is a male dominated industry we're working in.
Speaker: But almost every sales team, they're going to have probably a few ladies on the team too.
Speaker: So how can you get them to maximize their potential?
Speaker: And how can you make them feel included in the team?
Speaker: How can you treat them with, you know, respect and make sure they're getting their needs taken care of?
Speaker: Because as a guy, I didn't know, I didn't really know how to do this.
Speaker: I'm still trying to figure out how to do this.
Speaker: Okay, we get girls on the team.
Speaker: And I think at times, me leading our teams out here in San Diego, I don't think I've done a good enough job at helping the ladies, you know, feel more included and maximize their potential.
Speaker: So I'm going to talk about a few of my mistakes on this episode.
Speaker: And then I'm going to give just a little preview of, you know, what I've learned from mistakes I've made.
Speaker: And then things coming up on the next episode.
Speaker: Because I think next episode with Sully, you're going to hear just, you know, the raw stuff.
Speaker: The things that are helping her and things that she has seen that haven't gone the best on teams she's been a part of.
Speaker: So with that being said, let's jump into it.
Speaker: My really first experience selling with ladies in this industry, I guess a couple of stories to start all this off, is I started out on pest control, as many of you have heard on the podcast.
Speaker: This was back in 2012, Dallas, Texas.
Speaker: And I remember starting out in the summer, one girl that started out with me, she was also a rookie sales rep.
Speaker: Her name was Alyssa.
Speaker: And me and her, me and Alyssa, we started out about the same, but I remember after a month, her cells just started exploding.
Speaker: She was getting like four or five deals in a day, which pest control, that's pretty decent day.
Speaker: I was lucky to get one or two, right?
Speaker: And again, I wasn't that good at pest control, but I'm like, what is this girl doing?
Speaker: And then I remember I started to kind of like envy her.
Speaker: I'm like, girls have it so much easier.
Speaker: I mean, she's good looking.
Speaker: People are listening to her.
Speaker: She's flirting with the guys on the doors.
Speaker: Like, how can I compete with that?
Speaker: So it became kind of a limiting belief in my head.
Speaker: I'm like, I'm never going to catch up to this girl.
Speaker: And girls, I think, have an advantage that way.
Speaker: So if you're a lady listening to the podcast, I mean, you want to maximize the advantage.
Speaker: Not that you need to be all flirty and whatnot on the doors or in your cells, but the advantage they have is people open up more generally, I would say, to the ladies on the doors, right?
Speaker: Because they come across less intimidating.
Speaker: They come across, you know, especially if you're
Speaker: a guy answering the door, then you're probably going to be nicer to that lady on the other side of the door.
Speaker: You're probably going to hear her out a little bit more.
Speaker: So that's the unique advantage I think they have.
Speaker: That was my first experience selling with a girl and she crushed me in sales as a lot of girls, you know, there's a lot of superstar girls selling out there today.
Speaker: But then what happened, I started to have, I would say, kind of a negative perspective.
Speaker: And that's where I've gone a little bit wrong.
Speaker: That's where I've not been as good of a leader, especially with women, as I think I could have been.
Speaker: I did a two-year mission, as many of you probably also know.
Speaker: I went to Columbia, South America.
Speaker: And in my mission, we were, they assigned district leaders, which I was a district leader.
Speaker: That's basically, imagine like a manager for your little branch of missionaries or a little like group of missionaries.
Speaker: Typically you're in charge of, I don't know, maybe six other missionaries.
Speaker: So a few times in my mission, I had to, I had to, you know, basically help out these sister missionaries there.
Speaker: That's what they call them.
Speaker: Call them brother, sister in the church.
Speaker: But I had to help these two ladies out that were in our little group, our organization there in Columbia.
Speaker: And I just remember it was good working with them, but I also got kind of like a negative thing in my head working with them.
Speaker: I had to deal with problems.
Speaker: We would meet with the leaders in the church.
Speaker: And unfortunately, one of these sister missionaries, she was causing some problems.
Speaker: If any of you have been to like the Latin American culture, you know that they love it when you eat their food.
Speaker: If you don't eat their food that they give you, it's almost like a slap in the face.
Speaker: So we had one sister missionary that did not want to eat people's food.
Speaker: She would reject it all the time.
Speaker: And boy, these people in the church there, they were super mad about it.
Speaker: So I went to church every Sunday and people in the church would come up and, hey, this girl, she didn't eat our arroz con pollo, our chicken and rice, obviously in Spanish, in Colombia.
Speaker: So I would deal with that.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh my gosh, why can't these girls just, you know, do what they're supposed to?
Speaker: So I tried to help them out.
Speaker: And, but I think I could have done a lot better at the time.
Speaker: So that's where the first sort of negative started is, I don't know.
Speaker: I just like, I just thought, oh man, I'm better.
Speaker: I'm better off just like working with guys.
Speaker: I don't want to deal with the drama.
Speaker: I don't want to, you know, deal with that.
Speaker: And I'm not saying all girls are like that.
Speaker: But I didn't know how to really help this sister missionary out.
Speaker: I think I could have done a lot better, maybe, understanding her point of view, seeing where she's coming from.
Speaker: But I pretty much was like, man, you need to knock this off at the time.
Speaker: And then my second negative experience, this last one, I promise, and then we'll get into some points when I'm talking about this, is I had my sister-in-law, she came out and sold for the summer.
Speaker: This was back in 2017 when I was first getting into solar.
Speaker: I had my sister-in-law come out and it was just a terrible experience the whole summer for her.
Speaker: She was living with us in our apartment, which was fine, but...
Speaker: I don't think she had one deal closed the entire summer.
Speaker: So this is where I kind of just like had even more of a negative.
Speaker: I'm like, all right, I don't want to like deal with these girl, these, you know, girl sales reps anymore.
Speaker: They're just, yeah, they're just too hard.
Speaker: I just kind of made up the story in my head that girls were going to be too hard.
Speaker: I was just better off dealing with guys.
Speaker: And I talk about this a little bit in the episode with Sui, but, you know, basically my sister-in-law, she would not really meant for sales.
Speaker: So maybe she should have, you know, figured that out sooner than later.
Speaker: But she would just, you know, go on the curb and cry.
Speaker: And it just wasn't a good experience for her.
Speaker: So that's the stories I told myself.
Speaker: So why am I saying all these things?
Speaker: Just because now I know that after seeing all these girls crush it in the industry, now I know the reasons you should have girls on your team.
Speaker: If you can help them really channel their potential and become successful.
Speaker: The girls I've seen have success since a few of these more negative experiences have
Speaker: have been some of like the best sales reps I've seen.
Speaker: I've had a couple on my team that have been superstars.
Speaker: Obviously we have people like Suli, another one is Solar Lily in the industry and they're just dominating.
Speaker: If they can figure out how to channel this potential and push past the rejection, because really, I think that's the biggest thing that probably the ladies need to overcome.
Speaker: And Sully talks about this too.
Speaker: You'll hear more about it.
Speaker: If you can help them get over the mental part of it, then girls just naturally, I think the girls have the talking part of it, the selling, probably down a lot more naturally than most guys, in my opinion.
Speaker: So that's why now more than ever, if you can find these girls, if you can help them channel their potential, they're going to be number one, super loyal.
Speaker: Because that's what the ladies in this industry do.
Speaker: They are super loyal if you can treat them right and help them discover their potential.
Speaker: And then they're going to be superstars if you can help them get past that mental piece and help them feel inclusive.
Speaker: Okay, so that's why you really need to learn to manage the girls on your team and make them feel good.
Speaker: And I've been putting off having a girl on the podcast for a while now.
Speaker: That's why I'm so excited that we finally got Suli on the show.
Speaker: But the first sort of negative review I had on the show...
Speaker: was this was about a year ago.
Speaker: She said, lots of good info, but I love for the hosts and guests to try to be more inclusive with their wording regarding sales reps.
Speaker: I am a woman sales rep.
Speaker: So when you discuss girlfriend or wife at home or the guys or the boys, that doesn't apply to us.
Speaker: It makes us feel out of place and excluded.
Speaker: We are here and we are kicking butt selling solar as well.
Speaker: Please recognize this.
Speaker: So green gorgeously.
Speaker: I apologize publicly on the podcast for not making you feel more inclusive.
Speaker: That's my bad.
Speaker: And that's one of my goals in the podcast is to try to help the ladies in this industry feel more inclusive.
Speaker: So I hope I've done a better job at that.
Speaker: This was a year ago.
Speaker: And when I saw that, I'm like, man, I'm totally doing that.
Speaker: I'm just talking about the boys.
Speaker: I'm talking about the guys.
Speaker: I think I was kind of probably
Speaker: just dwelling more on the negative that I don't want to like, you know, have girls on my team.
Speaker: I don't really want to help them anymore.
Speaker: So I apologize for that green gorgeously, whoever you are.
Speaker: And I hope you're still in the solar industry.
Speaker: I hope, hope you're doing well.
Speaker: Maybe that was Suli.
Speaker: I don't think it was, but maybe that's Suli that wrote that.
Speaker: It was a four-star review.
Speaker: So thanks for not making it worse than that.
Speaker: But that's my first tip for you guys or whoever you are leading a team, even if you're just a rep on a sales team or if you're whatever, independent, you're your own dealer.
Speaker: Whatever girls you deal with, try to make them feel inclusive.
Speaker: If you're running meetings,
Speaker: If you are running incentives, what can you do?
Speaker: How can you make these people feel more inclusive?
Speaker: Maybe that's if you're in a meeting, you're not saying, all right, boys, let's go.
Speaker: You want to get them fired up.
Speaker: But think about the language you're using.
Speaker: In my case, right now, we only have, yeah, we...
Speaker: Currently, we actually don't even have any girls on the team.
Speaker: We had a few.
Speaker: They bounced.
Speaker: So that's one of the challenges we're trying to face right now is how can you get girls on the team?
Speaker: If you have, you know, 25, 30 guys, how can you get girls in there feeling comfortable and like they're part of the team if they're the only ones selling with you?
Speaker: So I think it starts with that.
Speaker: Try to figure out a way for them to feel included.
Speaker: What are you doing in your incentives?
Speaker: What are you doing in your team activities?
Speaker: Do you think girls would feel included in that?
Speaker: So think about that.
Speaker: As you're trying to recruit girls on the team, as you're running these sales meetings, whatever you're doing, how can you make them feel more included?
Speaker: And that goes, you know, think about every person on your team.
Speaker: Obviously, this can apply to guys too.
Speaker: Okay, so that's step number one.
Speaker: And then I've got two more tips.
Speaker: And then after that, we're going to leave it to Suli on the next episode.
Speaker: So I know I've been rambling about a few stories here.
Speaker: But the two other tips, that was the first one, help them be included.
Speaker: And then number two, help just the girls feel part of a community, I guess, kind of dealing with being included too.
Speaker: So in our case, if you don't have many girls on the team,
Speaker: then make sure they're listening to like Sully's podcast.
Speaker: There's a couple of good Facebook groups.
Speaker: There's some good Instagram pages.
Speaker: And I know my friend Solar Lily, if you don't follow her, she's doing a like, I think it's on Clubhouse where she has girls go on and just talk about kind of their challenges in the industry, things like that.
Speaker: I think she invites guys too.
Speaker: But people like that, they're doing great things.
Speaker: So go follow Solar Lily.
Speaker: Go follow Suli.
Speaker: They have two pages on Instagram.
Speaker: I think they might be on Facebook too.
Speaker: And guys, I know guys can follow these pages too.
Speaker: So go follow them because I'm actually learning more about how to.
Speaker: you know, manage the females too by being part of these groups.
Speaker: So the first one is called Women United and Solar.
Speaker: Solar Lily, she runs that page and she also has, I think, a clubhouse where they go and talk about it.
Speaker: Maybe a Facebook group too.
Speaker: She just got done with an event that she put on too.
Speaker: And the other one is Female Knockers United.
Speaker: Or maybe it's Female Knockers Unite.
Speaker: And that's Suli's page.
Speaker: And she has great content on there.
Speaker: She features different lady, like door knockers from different industries too.
Speaker: I know she has people on alarms, pest control.
Speaker: And they'll go on there.
Speaker: They'll share tips and just what's working for them.
Speaker: So whether you are a girl or a guy, I highly recommend you go follow these pages.
Speaker: And it's going to help you become a better sales rep and then also learn to just, you know, help, like I said, help the girls on your team unlock their potential.
Speaker: Okay, and then the last tip I have before we wrap it up here, and this really deals with, you know, guys and girls, anyone really in sales or in the solar industry, is just figure out your motivation.
Speaker: I was listening to a TED talk, just kind of preparing for the podcast before a lady that runs like a sales organization for women.
Speaker: And this was her big thing is girls, more than anything, the females, they're not usually motivated to buy money.
Speaker: And I think this goes for both guys and girls, but she was saying, especially girls.
Speaker: So ladies, I guess you can tell me if that's true, but this is what the TED Talk lady said.
Speaker: It's usually not money that the ladies are motivated by.
Speaker: Even though, even if they say, I want to make money, a lot of times that's not it.
Speaker: So what is it?
Speaker: Why do you want to make the money?
Speaker: And I've talked about this in previous episodes.
Speaker: I think one of them is if you go back and listen to how to develop extreme confidence or how to develop confidence in sales, I think it was probably like six months back.
Speaker: But I talk about this going seven layers deep on your why.
Speaker: So especially with your ladies, figure out why they want to make the money, why they want to do what they say their goal is.
Speaker: And then the lady in this TED Talk, I thought it was cool what she did.
Speaker: A girl on her team, once she told her she wanted to make the money, she kind of took her through this exercise.
Speaker: Oh, why do you want to make the money?
Speaker: And she figured out she wanted to take her kids to Disneyland.
Speaker: So what she had her do, she had her kids write her a note saying, Mom, I know it's a tough day today, but remember, we want to go to Disneyland.
Speaker: And her kids wrote her this note and then put it on a picture.
Speaker: She put this on her desk.
Speaker: In this case, it was like a phone sales job.
Speaker: But she put this on her desk.
Speaker: And then anytime she didn't want to like make another call,
Speaker: or she wanted to take a break, whatever, she looked at this note from her kids and her card.
Speaker: She's like, ah, all right, I want to take my kids to Disneyland.
Speaker: So for you that are knocking doors, that are trying to get more appointments, consider that.
Speaker: Figure out your why.
Speaker: Make sure you have your motivation written out.
Speaker: And for anyone leading a team or managing, make sure you help the ladies and anyone on your team do this.
Speaker: So I hope that helped, guys.
Speaker: Let me know what you think.
Speaker: And if you are working with a lot of women on your team, hit me up.
Speaker: Let me know what's working for you.
Speaker: And let me know what you thought.
Speaker: So send this to anyone that's working with the women on the team.
Speaker: And then I can't wait to see you on the next episode where we're going to get the one and only Suli.
Speaker: And she's going to be dropping some fire.
Speaker: So we'll see you on the next one.
Speaker: And go crush it this week.
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