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Quarterly Reset: Reflect, Refocus, Reignite
343 Plays17 days ago
It's officially Q2, and it's customary to look back at our performance from the previous quarter. This episode will go through some guide questions to help you realize where you should be going: promising yourself productivity and progress.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next
Taylor Armstrong's Journey and Mission
00:00:08
Speaker
level. My name is Taylor Armstrong. I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Defining Solopreneur
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you 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 solopreneur you might ask? A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to defeat mastery and you are about to become one.
Importance of Quarterly Reviews
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, solar printers. Today is the start of quarter two, depending on when you're listening to this.
00:00:47
Speaker
Maybe you had the best quarter of your life. Maybe you had some things that were left to be desired. Today, we're going to talk about how to do quarterly review, how to learn from your mistakes, and how to make sure you don't make make the same ones moving forward. So welcome to the podcast. My name is Taylor Armstrong. We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:01:09
Speaker
You are...
Promotion of SolarCon Event
00:01:10
Speaker
listening to this right before we get ready to go to solar there is about two weeks left before the start of solar con so you've been reminded probably 50 times at this point if you haven't gotten your tickets i don't even know what to tell you go snag your tickets Click the link down in the show notes. And if you want to get access to some incredible bonuses, make sure you book the hotel from the link.
00:01:34
Speaker
Send us a copy of your confirmation code, or you can also send us the proof of the upgraded ticket and we will hook you up with some bonuses. But if not, go ahead and grab a free ticket. They are free. Tony Robbins is coming. I can't believe people would not go to this. Grab your ticket today and we'll see you there.
00:01:52
Speaker
Can't wait to hang out with y'all.
Team Metrics and Performance Analysis
00:01:53
Speaker
Got a text from some of our leaders. I'm here in San Diego. ah Right now, i run a team of about 15 guys on our squad trying to grow it.
00:02:03
Speaker
have a few openings available if you want to look into joining our squad. um But got some text from our leaders and they had us send all of the metrics from every single one of the closers, the sales reps on our team.
00:02:17
Speaker
And it just got me thinking, I've been a part of a lot of teams in my solar career, but I've never really dove into the numbers um as much as I have just now, um you know, being with a bigger company and trying to grow my squad.
00:02:30
Speaker
And we got down, we analyzed the numbers, and we just dug into what was going wrong, what could be improved. And it was kind of eye-opening to see not only my numbers, but also from other people on our team who at first glance, it seemed like they were doing awesome, um closing tons of deals, ah getting things installed. But when we looked at the numbers, there some there was a different story on a few of them.
00:02:52
Speaker
And so that's what I want to go over today is to make sure that you just pay attention to your numbers, pay attention to your metrics.
Improving Sales with Specific Questions
00:03:00
Speaker
You've probably heard what gets measured gets improved. So if you're not tracking If you're not measuring, if you're not doing an an analysis on your stats, on your numbers, especially after quarters, after months, then it's very likely that you're going to get to the end of the quarter, end of the month, even end of the week and see that you did not do as good as you thought you did.
00:03:21
Speaker
So today going to give you five or six questions that you can go over just in your personal cells that you can answer for yourself. And then also I would encourage you if you are running a team, if you are over a few guys or have some setters, have them do this too.
00:03:36
Speaker
With our team, we're sitting down with our guys. We're going to one-on-ones where we go through some of these questions and just help them do a little self-analysis, little ah journal entry would be a good idea. So grab a pen and paper. This is how going to get the best results for today. Grab a pen and paper.
00:03:53
Speaker
i would encourage you as we go through these questions, you can pause it. You can write down the answers for yourself, do a little self-analysis. And then we're also going to include a little worksheet.
00:04:04
Speaker
We'll put it in the show notes, ah get you access. But if you want access for a worksheet to follow along with the questions and we'll we'll have some bonus questions in there if you want to dig a little deeper.
Utilizing Planners for Sales Improvement
00:04:14
Speaker
then that will be found in the show notes. You can go download that and a it's going to get you maximum results. yeah And so I use a little planner right now. It's called the full focus planner. Yeah, it's my personal favorite. There's some other like sales specific planners out there, but I just like this one. by a guy named Michael Hyatt. It's simple.
00:04:34
Speaker
um He just has solid questions on there. He has like a weekly review section and a quarterly review section. So some of these questions I'm taking from Mike's planner, Michael Hyatt, and then we'll add in a few sales specific ones. But if you can start with something like that, just little template, it's going to do wonders for you and it's going to help you improve on whatever results you got in the previous quarter, whether they're
Taylor's Wins and Challenges Recap
00:04:58
Speaker
good or bad. okay And so the first question I want you to ask yourself What were three to five of your wins from the last quarter? It's called the after action review. Okay. Michael Hyatt, he talks about how in the military after every like operation or battle, whatever they have a after action review where they just go through what went well, um, what can be improved.
00:05:17
Speaker
Um, but this part, we're just talking about what were the wins, what were three to five of the top, uh, wins from last quarter. hey And so for me, just to give you some examples, I was able to save a few accounts that had been ghosting me, um had two accounts in specific that were bigger, good checks coming on them that I thought were canceling. We had to do a change order, had to adjust some panels for them. They had some issues, some complaints, objections. It got to the point where they just weren't responding anymore.
00:05:48
Speaker
um So finally, after probably a month and a half or so of not really responding, responding, not really getting anywhere with these accounts. I showed up, um I bugged them for like a week straight and eventually got them sign their change orders and got them back progressing.
00:06:03
Speaker
So that was a win for me, saving these two bigger accounts. Another win I had was completing 75 hard, um lost about 15 pounds as i was going through 75 hard. Could have had better results. so You can go listen to the 75 hard episode we did a week or two ago. if you want to hear more about that.
00:06:20
Speaker
But ah that was a win for me just going through that process, sticking to those habits and losing some weight along the way. Still trying to drop a few pounds, still trying to not now that I'm done with it, not let all those habits just fall off the cliff, but still trying to keep up with them.
Challenges in Solar Sales
00:06:35
Speaker
Easier said than done.
00:06:37
Speaker
OK, and then the second question, after you've written down your wins, um the question that I added to this is just what were some challenges? What were some things that didn't go so well?
00:06:48
Speaker
Maybe you could learn from. So for me, a couple challenges just to give you some examples. I had some clawbacks from EverBite. If anyone uses EverBite, you know they've ah gotten a little more difficult lately.
00:06:59
Speaker
And um our team, when we were using Everbright in their heyday, were closing lots of deals through Everbright. We discovered this battery hack. Maybe some of you heard about this, but basically a way where you could price out the battery in a system separate from the solar. And we noticed that the pay increased when you priced it like that.
00:07:19
Speaker
um You could have the same monthly payment for the customer, but if you price them separately instead of like a combined monthly payment, then for whatever reason, it was like a glitch in their system, I guess, made more money on these accounts or so we thought.
00:07:31
Speaker
Hey, but one of the challenges was and well what we found out the hard way is that everybody, they found this out and they didn't like it. And so even on deals that had already been installed, paid out, they went back and said, hey, no, this wasn't supposed to happen.
00:07:46
Speaker
All that extra money that you made from it, um you know what, we're declining the account. You're going to resign it at whatever the the payout is at the current time. And the unfortunate thing is that sometimes months had been, you know, three, four months since these accounts were installed. Then all of a sudden we're seeing pay difference in thousands of dollars in the adjustments that Everbright made. it was a challenge for myself, for several people on our team. um Some of them we were able to switch to different um TPO providers or different products.
00:08:21
Speaker
But some of them, in the case of one of mine, um I had a massive callback on one that already had permission to operate, ah couldn't be switched. They hit me with this change, couldn't do anything about it. Lost thousands of dollars on an account they had already been installed.
00:08:35
Speaker
So the challenge for us, and maybe some of you went through the same thing that are listening, and but that's why they call it the solar coaster, is because ah things are constantly changing in solar. And unfortunately, there's um some stuff that happens that we don't have a lot of control.
00:08:49
Speaker
But I always tell my guys, this is a high risk, high reward type of thing. we We can get paid, especially out where I'm at. We can get paid um sometimes in insane money on these accounts.
00:09:00
Speaker
But ah sometimes there is higher risk, especially with using providers like Everbright that they were newer at the time. They were paying more. They're kind of like the new kid on the block that everyone was loving. But we paid a little price um with them.
00:09:13
Speaker
Okay, so that's a example of a challenge. Lots of challenges, but that's just one. You hit me up later, I'd tell you about challenges all day long because that's how solar goes. We deal with challenges.
00:09:24
Speaker
why and That's why not everyone does
Focusing on Quarterly Goals
00:09:26
Speaker
solar. But then after that, um another question to go through, what were the progress made what was the progress made on your goals from last quarter?
00:09:35
Speaker
And something I've learned is that it's usually more effective to focus on like three goals max in a quarter, because if you have a whole list of goals, you have 15, 20 goals and you're trying to focus on all of them.
00:09:46
Speaker
Progress is a lot harder to come by when you have that many goals. It's like it's something Michael Hyatt suggests in his little ah goal planner, too, in his planner. So I like to pick two to three goals that I'm focusing on for the quarter and make progress in those.
00:10:03
Speaker
And so some of the specific goals from last quarter for me that I was focusing on is just recruiting more, growing the squads to 25 people. Right now we have about 15.
00:10:15
Speaker
So that was one of my goals from last quarter, get a few new guys in. And this is like a yearly goal. It's a goal for the year. want to have 25 solid reps by the end of the year. But it was a goal that I focused on last quarter.
00:10:28
Speaker
Another one that I focused on was reading. hey Obviously, I was doing 75 hard where one of the metrics you have to hit is read 10 pages every day. This one was an easy one to focus on, just reading the books, but actually tracking which books I've read and reflecting on them, being more intentional about it, not just reading the read.
00:10:46
Speaker
And then a third goal I was focusing on last quarter was just paying down some IRS debt. Hey, a few of you have heard um my story about going through an audit with the IRS. Got pretty nasty.
00:10:58
Speaker
I'm still paying off some debt with the IRS. And um that's another challenge. Could go on and on. But ah yeah, was able to pay off a little bit of that. Still working on that. um But yeah, pick goals you are focusing on. And then that's part of your review for the quarter is how far did you get all those goals? Did you focus on them? Did you forget about them? Okay. And question number three, I guess four now is what worked, what didn't work? Just expounding on that. What will you continue?
00:11:25
Speaker
What will you change? Okay. So sort of ah three, four questions in one there. So that's if you want to keep it simple, you could really just end it right there. Okay. I'll just repeat them one more time. After action review, doing three to five of your top wins from the quarter, going through the challenges.
00:11:42
Speaker
And then question three is reviewing the goals, um calculating how far far you got on those goals. What worked? What didn't work? why What will you continue? And then what will you change? So if you want to keep it simple, keep it at that.
00:11:56
Speaker
hey And again, I would suggest having your reps go through this, i'm doing a little one on one, um having your your team answer these questions. OK, but just on top of this, I would definitely recommend go through the metrics ah for yourself.
00:12:12
Speaker
um If you kept track, how many appointments did you sit in How many did you close? What was your sit to close ratio? Then what was your closed install ratio? How many did you actually get installed? Because like I mentioned at the beginning, we looked at our numbers for the team and um some did maybe a little better than we thought. But there were several that it seemed like they're active, seemed like they're working that just fell short.
00:12:35
Speaker
And even myself, I fell short on what I thought in my head I hit. um I didn't do as many installs I was hoping. I didn't get as many sales I was hoping. So it's a great thing to be reviewing this.
00:12:45
Speaker
And hopefully you're doing it every week because it should not be a surprise. If it's a surprise at the end of the quarter, then that's a red flag. And that's the lesson I learned is it's on on top of just my personal numbers. I need to be keeping track of the numbers for my team because the fact that it was a surprise to me what some of our guys were at and that just shows that I need to stay on top of them and help hold them accountable, help them know their numbers so they don't get to the end of the quarter and like, oh, shoot, I only had a few installs or I i had way less sales than I thought
Tracking Metrics for Success
00:13:17
Speaker
I was going to get.
00:13:17
Speaker
hey So that's the most important thing to go over is just your numbers and then go through those questions that we mentioned um earlier in the show today. okay But if you want the full worksheet, again, we will post that in the show notes. yeah There's other questions like your toughest challenge, mindset check, habits you want to build.
00:13:39
Speaker
Um, so we got a worksheet that will go over a lot more questions like that. If you want to check it out, just go make sure you are doing some type of review. Those are the top rep. These are the top reps. These are the people that are achieving their goals is they're reviewing them. They're taking lessons from them.
00:13:55
Speaker
They're not making the same, same mistake. twice and they're staying on top of their numbers and their team's
Intentional Habits and Routine Tracking
00:14:01
Speaker
numbers. If you do that, I promise you're going to have way more success this year, way more success this next quarter, and time isn't going to fly by and you just get to the end of the year and like, oh shoot, I don't even know where this year went. Okay, you got to be intentional with your habits, with your routines, and with your numbers. So I hope that helps.
00:14:18
Speaker
Go grab your tickets to SolarCon. Go grab your worksheet down below. Let me know your thoughts. Let me know if there's anything else you do with your team or you do in your quarterly review that is really effective. We'd love to hear it.
00:14:30
Speaker
And we will see you guys on the next episode. So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
Introducing SolarScout App
00:14:38
Speaker
And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
00:14:45
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage. Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:14:58
Speaker
It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood. It's been working for a lot of teams across the country and now I'm on board too.
00:15:12
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout
Top 10 Solarpreneur Episodes Cheat Sheet
00:15:19
Speaker
on my show. you need to give my listeners a great deal. And they did.
00:15:23
Speaker
So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up. That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor. Okay, back to the show.
00:15:38
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs? Hope you enjoyed the episode. 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.
00:15:52
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start? What episodes should I listen to in the podcast? You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:16:07
Speaker
So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and i would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solarpreneur.
00:16:20
Speaker
We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet. So go download it right now. It's going to be the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com. Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs. We will have that in the show notes. Go download it right now.
00:16:45
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them. That's going to show you how. So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.