How to be a Solar Spartan - Alex Smith

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 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 going on, solopreneurs?

Speaker: We are here and it's a very special episode because we are live at, I guess it's not door-to-door fest, but Danny Pesci, Taylor McCarthy's Noxstar event here live in Key West, Florida.

Speaker: And we have got someone super awesome on the show with us today.

Speaker: We got my man, Alex.

Speaker: Thanks for coming on, Alex.

Speaker: Taylor, thanks for having me.

Speaker: I'm super grateful to jump on the first podcast I've ever done.

Speaker: It's exciting.

Speaker: It's something new.

Speaker: I know, and it's well-deserved.

Speaker: You're crushing it.

Speaker: We've had conversations and just super impressed with what Alex has been able to do.

Speaker: And Alex Smith, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Got to make sure.

Speaker: Like the quarterback?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Less injuries, though.

Speaker: Okay, okay.

Speaker: He played for Utah.

Speaker: It's my favorite football team.

Speaker: No kidding?

Speaker: So, it's a good name.

Speaker: He's also from San Diego.

Speaker: I make the same joke.

Speaker: Yeah, Alex Smith, like the quarterback, to every one of my clients.

Speaker: Literally every time.

Speaker: Because they always be like, oh, Alex Smith, like the quarterback.

Speaker: Like, that's not a real name.

Speaker: I'm like...

Speaker: Trust me, I told my parents I made it a little too generic, but it's what I got.

Speaker: There you go.

Speaker: Well, this guy, he's the quarterback of solar.

Speaker: You can call him that because every time he throws in a solar deal, it's getting installed up there.

Speaker: So he's doing some pretty awesome stuff.

Speaker: So Alex, do you want to start off telling us kind of your background in Doradoor, how you first got in the industry and into solar and all that?

Speaker: Yeah, so I went to FSU, fun school, good times, good memories, met a lot of good people, developed a lot of bad habits, a lot of friends that would kind of bring me in the wrong direction, but it was a good time and it was part of growing and the experience I'm happy I had.

Speaker: So when I graduated from FSU or was about to graduate, I didn't know what I was going to do at all.

Speaker: All my friends already accepted their roles like $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 a year jobs and I thought they were crushing it.

Speaker: Because I didn't go to any career fairs.

Speaker: I didn't show up to anything.

Speaker: And I was like, man.

Speaker: And then the interviews I did get, I didn't show up because the people that were recruiting me, I was like, I don't want to be like those people.

Speaker: Like, I wasn't trying to say it in an arrogant way or think about it in an arrogant way, but...

Speaker: They were trying to bring me in and I was like, I don't think they're very happy with where they're at.

Speaker: So I never went to any of the interviews.

Speaker: And so luckily, someone I became friends with because he worked at a bar, he just hit me up and told me about the opportunity.

Speaker: And he was in California, said he made $10,000 his first month.

Speaker: And I was like, that's a heck of a lot better than 50, 60, 70K a year.

Speaker: And then he dropped the ball, it's gonna be door to door.

Speaker: And I was like, man, I was a triple major.

Speaker: I did finance, professional sales, and marketing.

Speaker: So definitely didn't expect to go door to door.

Speaker: But at the end of the day, I was willing to take a bet on myself for that one.

Speaker: And I didn't have anything else lined up.

Speaker: So I was pretty excited to get away from everyone I knew.

Speaker: And just get a chance to kind of recreate myself rather than just being this frat star or whatever else you want to call me at FSU.

Speaker: I wanted to like, all right, let me peek in a different bubble.

Speaker: I did really well in this bubble.

Speaker: It's a small vicinity, 2.3 miles or whatever in Tallahassee.

Speaker: I wanted to bring that to a bigger area, right, in my career path.

Speaker: And so I moved out to California and started Solar door-to-door.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: Incredible.

Speaker: Funny thing getting out there, too, I don't come for money.

Speaker: So I had to borrow four grand for my grandma to get out there.

Speaker: That was enough to ship the car.

Speaker: And then I had to pay...

Speaker: The security deposit, which in Walnut Creek, for those who know, is very expensive.

Speaker: So my security deposit and the car, I basically had no money when I got there.

Speaker: So it was freezing out.

Speaker: I didn't have money to buy a jacket or anything.

Speaker: And so when I got out there, it was do or die.

Speaker: 100% commission based, getting paid a lot less than what we're getting paid now.

Speaker: So I'm always grateful thinking back to what it was before.

Speaker: And just put my head down, deleted all my social media, didn't talk to any girls, didn't have anyone dragging me in the wrong direction.

Speaker: So I was just hyper focused.

Speaker: And I was sleeping on a pool float.

Speaker: So I didn't have any furniture.

Speaker: So it was an expensive apartment with nothing in it.

Speaker: Standing up, eating.

Speaker: And then, yeah, sleeping on a pool floor.

Speaker: You wake up really early because those things deflate.

Speaker: You exceed a certain body weight.

Speaker: You end up on the ground.

Speaker: So I just wake up, and this is the only thing I eat, slept, and breathed every single day.

Speaker: And so that was the kickoff to my career.

Speaker: That's crazy, dude.

Speaker: And yeah, if you haven't seen Alex on social media, go give him a follow.

Speaker: We'll drop his info after.

Speaker: But this guy, you can't tell if he has a bulletproof vest on or if it's real life because, I mean, he's jacked out of his mind.

Speaker: So if you can imagine this guy all pure muscle sleeping on a pool float, I think I'm sure is deflating pretty quick.

Speaker: Yeah, it was like 2, 3 a.m., start feeling the ground.

Speaker: 4 or 5, I got to get up.

Speaker: Oh.

Speaker: Yeah, every single day.

Speaker: So were you staying at like someone's house there?

Speaker: No, I was in an expensive apartment.

Speaker: So I was splitting it with another new guy.

Speaker: And so the total rent was about $3,000 a month.

Speaker: I don't know why they put us in this place to start.

Speaker: That's where they told us we should live.

Speaker: I guess the other guys were living there, so it made sense.

Speaker: And then, yeah, so my half was $1,500 a month.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: We had literally nothing.

Speaker: Just had no furniture in there?

Speaker: They're just like...

Speaker: We were literally standing eating.

Speaker: We had plastic forks.

Speaker: We would stand, eat, or sit on the ground.

Speaker: That was a full month.

Speaker: Guess what my first investment was?

Speaker: Couch cushions.

Speaker: A bed.

Speaker: Yeah, a bed.

Speaker: First thing I spent good money on.

Speaker: I appreciate beds so much because of it.

Speaker: I bet.

Speaker: That's crazy, man.

Speaker: I mean, I thought I was bad.

Speaker: I was a similar thing.

Speaker: But I at least had a bed.

Speaker: We had company housing, so I didn't have to pay any rent.

Speaker: I had 50 bucks in my bank account, but I didn't pay any rent out there.

Speaker: In California?

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: So I went out too.

Speaker: It was good there covering the rent.

Speaker: That helps.

Speaker: I can imagine, I mean, if you have no other options, just burning the boats, right?

Speaker: I mean, it's like do or die out there.

Speaker: If you don't get a sell, you're not eating, basically.

Speaker: So do you feel like that was one of the main things that first helped you have success?

Speaker: Or just like, no other option?

Speaker: Dude, that was one of the biggest things for me.

Speaker: That was when I first realized how true it is that you have to get outside your comfort zone.

Speaker: I don't know for everyone, you have to go to a different place, but I think for a lot of people, they want to stick around in their hometowns.

Speaker: They want to stay where they're at because it's comfortable.

Speaker: They know people.

Speaker: And the idea of getting to where they don't know anyone

Speaker: and they're just gonna be with a bunch of new guys, new people they're not friends with, essentially on their own, is usually too much for most people to pull the trigger.

Speaker: But the fact that I did that, I wasn't even scared about it, because I was excited more than anything else, and just knowing that, hey, I'm stuck with a 12 month lease.

Speaker: Because a lot of people will try to say, alright, I'll get an Airbnb for a month.

Speaker: Like, dude, you're not gonna make it.

Speaker: I already know.

Speaker: You wanna get a home away place where you stay in a hotel, like, dude, you're gonna be out of here within a week, because as soon as this thing gets hard, you can just go.

Speaker: And so coming out there with nothing else but solar, it was the best thing I ever did.

Speaker: So now it's like, all right, when I see someone that's really comfortable or a new location or something that is new, it's like, I got to attack it.

Speaker: Yeah, I love that.

Speaker: And I think you've probably seen it too, Alex, but like local guys that come in, it's like so hard to get them bought into everything.

Speaker: Because like you're saying, they can just go back to mom and pop's house and just hang out.

Speaker: They got the financial support if it doesn't work out.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But it's like so hard to get these guys getting results if they're just still have that like lifeline they can go back to at any time.

Speaker: I mean,

Speaker: So I think that's a huge secret for anyone that's listening to this.

Speaker: If you are struggling, if you're just working in a local market, I mean, I think it gets to a point where you just got to switch things up, maybe go someplace else, go to a new market, burn the boats.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Have you been able to have success with like local guys?

Speaker: Do you have any, I don't know, tips for people who maybe are like staying at home?

Speaker: Like maybe I'd have.

Speaker: So honestly, when I was in California, I didn't really have that much success with local guys.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: and my power base, I would bring people out there, was from Florida.

Speaker: And that was a hard sell.

Speaker: Because even though I could show them my pay stubs, I changed my life, a lot of people weren't willing to move across the country.

Speaker: But those that did, they usually ended up being successful because they had no plan B. But now in Orlando, we actually have a...

Speaker: a decent amount of local guys.

Speaker: I'm super impressed by them because I know even for myself, if I was in my hometown, I would have a very difficult time not falling back into my old habits, not hanging out with the friends that were anchors, that were holding me down, that wanted me to keep doing their thing.

Speaker: I give kudos to the guys on our team that are doing it.

Speaker: I think a lot of it is because our culture is really strong.

Speaker: We're meeting every day.

Speaker: One of our guys, Louis, for example, he left his fraternity.

Speaker: He quit his fraternity and he was just super happy because it felt like he was in a fraternity again, just the same brotherhood, except it's more focused on getting better and making money and leveling up.

Speaker: So he just turned what he was doing before into something else, but similar premise, just now it's focused on growth.

Speaker: And so he's just super happy with it.

Speaker: So the local guys have kind of figured it out, which is awesome.

Speaker: I think a lot of that comes from the daily meetings.

Speaker: We're meeting every single day.

Speaker: So these guys are like, they have to do something different.

Speaker: Yeah, for sure.

Speaker: So we'll get to all that for sure.

Speaker: Yeah, I want to dive deep into that.

Speaker: But before that, I was curious to know, like, during California, how long were you out there then in total?

Speaker: Three and a half years.

Speaker: Three and a half years, okay.

Speaker: What company was that?

Speaker: So I started with Sungrade Solar.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And then I went over to Koda Energy Group.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And so that's where I spent all my time between those two companies.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So yeah, tell me about when you first started out, was it like instant success?

Speaker: Did you have to build up into it?

Speaker: Or what was your experience out just getting out there at first?

Speaker: So when I started, like I said, I didn't know.

Speaker: I thought California was always sunny and always 70 degrees.

Speaker: It's not the case in the wintertime.

Speaker: It was pretty darn cold.

Speaker: And so I didn't have a jacket.

Speaker: The first night they took us out to our first day in the morning,

Speaker: and one of the leaders took me out to a breakfast, Andrew Zambetti.

Speaker: He took me out to breakfast, I ate the food there, I got food poisoning.

Speaker: And so I was going out to the doors having to throw up and I was in fetal position every night when I got back.

Speaker: But I just kept thinking, I was like, no, dude, I can't have this failure start this early in my career.

Speaker: That's literally what I was thinking.

Speaker: I was like, no, this cannot beat me.

Speaker: My will to survive, my will to do something was way higher than those problems.

Speaker: Pouring rain, freezing, and food poisoning.

Speaker: So still knocking through that and then pushing through that made everything else easy.

Speaker: A lot of people complain when it rains.

Speaker: I was like, dude, I was in a monsoon.

Speaker: I was in the worst monsoon of California for like five, six years, everyone was saying.

Speaker: And so pushing through that, yeah, I had some quick success, but it was just because I was putting in a lot of hours.

Speaker: Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker: Yeah, you were telling me the story the other day when we were talking, at least I think that was you, about how you're running.

Speaker: I know this translates to all areas of your life.

Speaker: So Alex, he's not just doing like this in solar, but you were telling me when you would work out, you'd run like, what was it when you were doing 75 hard?

Speaker: You were done like 10 miles at night doing 75 hard and stuff like that, right?

Speaker: I wanted to put, I had David Goggins in my ear.

Speaker: So I can't say it was all me.

Speaker: I had a complete absolute beast in my ear all the time.

Speaker: So 75 hard, I think a lot of people already know what it is.

Speaker: But my second workout at nighttime, I just turned it into 10 miles a day.

Speaker: And it was fun to see how far you could push yourself.

Speaker: Because I'm working out heavy every single morning.

Speaker: And then like heavy weights, going hard in the gym.

Speaker: And then at nighttime after work, it could be 10 PM, I'm running 10 miles.

Speaker: And so I was like, all right, what am I capable of?

Speaker: And half the time I would come back crippled.

Speaker: Like shin splints beyond belief.

Speaker: Achilles heel feels like it was ripping.

Speaker: Knee, complete knee issues.

Speaker: I don't even know what those issues are.

Speaker: I would just go to my pool and float and be like, I'm done.

Speaker: And then so I wouldn't be able to move.

Speaker: I even bought those,

Speaker: You know those things like LeBron uses, the compression legs?

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: I don't know exactly what those are, but I got those because I need something.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And the craziest thing was like I kept pushing through all the pain.

Speaker: And like every time I felt like I was going to break.

Speaker: Like I was like, I don't even know if I can work tomorrow kind of thing.

Speaker: I was like, this might be a bad idea.

Speaker: And then all of a sudden there's just one day, I think around like day like 25, 30, something in that range where all my pains went away.

Speaker: My shin splints went away.

Speaker: My Achilles problem went away because I felt like my Achilles was like going to snap, break.

Speaker: It had this like clicking feeling and like a rubber band.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then my knee was given out.

Speaker: I got all these compression things on.

Speaker: I looked like a robot running around.

Speaker: And all of a sudden, my body just completely adapted to it.

Speaker: And all the pain went away.

Speaker: And 10 miles became a breeze.

Speaker: I wasn't winded, tired, or sore after it.

Speaker: It was like a flip of a switch.

Speaker: And that just made me realize what David Goggins found out.

Speaker: He found out that if you push yourself really hard, your body and your mind can figure it out.

Speaker: And so that's something.

Speaker: I've carried that little nugget, that reference point with me through a lot of other things.

Speaker: So even though that was a physical thing, it definitely is a learning point.

Speaker: Yeah, no, it's so true.

Speaker: And that's something we've talked about with a few guys here at this event is just like, I don't know, at first knocking in solar, I mean, a lot of guys on our team would only go out and knock four hours.

Speaker: But it's like it came from pest control.

Speaker: We were knocking like 10 hours a day in pest control.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I first came out, guys in solar were only doing four.

Speaker: I'm like, why are these guys complaining about knocking a lot?

Speaker: We should do 10.

Speaker: Totally different mindset.

Speaker: Yeah, and I've been in solar five years now.

Speaker: And so, yeah, there's times where now I complain about.

Speaker: I'm like one of those guys sometimes where I'm complaining about knocking four hours.

Speaker: But then we get guys coming on our team that got back from alarms.

Speaker: It's like same thing.

Speaker: They're like, you guys only knock four or five hours here?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's like, it's just adapting because we can do so much harder things if we condition our minds.

Speaker: Like we can do way harder things, but guys get complacent.

Speaker: It's so easy to let yourself be like, oh, this is hard.

Speaker: This is, I can't do more than this.

Speaker: This is like a max effort, but just like the same thing.

Speaker: Once the first guy hit the four minute mile, it's like.

Speaker: Those little bears.

Speaker: Do you bring like a lot of people from alarms or pests in, into your business?

Speaker: Have you felt that?

Speaker: Yeah, we do.

Speaker: I'm out here with Jason Newby's team now and he's obviously alarm background.

Speaker: He brought tons of people from alarms.

Speaker: That probably brings a ton of lifeblood to the team.

Speaker: They're exposed to the people that have done it at a high clip.

Speaker: They're like, oh crap, I'm really not working that hard.

Speaker: That is valuable having those people come in because they're like, dude, I was doing this for 10 hours a day.

Speaker: Unless they revert to what you guys are doing, but hopefully they bring in that leadership there.

Speaker: Yeah, so I think it's super important just bringing in guys that are from maybe different industries, guys doing different trainings, keeping it fresh.

Speaker: I know that's something you've invested a ton into and we'll talk about, but just bringing in like Taylor McCarthy, trains your teams, dropping a ton of money on just keeping your team motivated, working with other guys and going to events.

Speaker: We see all your guys here.

Speaker: It's huge.

Speaker: Yeah, it's huge.

Speaker: And then I guess last thing I wanted to ask you about, California, Alex, what was your biggest struggle starting out as you, like, you know, first started hitting doors?

Speaker: What was the biggest thing you struggled with and how did you, I don't know, overcome it, would you say?

Speaker: Honestly, I did a really good job when I started out.

Speaker: So, like, by deleting all my social media.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: not talking to any girls, like just head down.

Speaker: I didn't think about anything else.

Speaker: There's literally nothing else I thought about.

Speaker: So I think I gave myself the best start possible.

Speaker: So there was nothing I, I felt like I really struggled with in the beginning because I enjoyed it, doing it every single day.

Speaker: Like it was a good time.

Speaker: And I was working from morning.

Speaker: I literally saw the other guys.

Speaker: They were getting out at, our meetings were at 8 a.m.

Speaker: every day.

Speaker: So you're knocking.

Speaker: So other guys, I was waiting.

Speaker: I did my car because it was getting shipped out.

Speaker: So I was waiting until 10, 30, 11.

Speaker: They were dragging their feet.

Speaker: I didn't understand.

Speaker: I'm like, dude, I need to get to the doors.

Speaker: So when my car got shipped out, dude, I was out to the doors.

Speaker: As soon as the meeting was over, I didn't go back to my apartment because the office was right across the street.

Speaker: Just go to the car, go straight out turf, and I was there until it was pitch, pitch black.

Speaker: Holy cow.

Speaker: And so, yeah, I think the beginning, if anyone's new getting into this, you don't need social media.

Speaker: You haven't gotten to the point where you need to share anything properly.

Speaker: You probably don't have that much stuff or success to share.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so, um, well, so no, that's a super awesome though.

Speaker: I think the reason for your success is just like burning the bridges, just getting rid of everything.

Speaker: And, um, I mean, honestly, probably most of the problems that people have can be solved by just like working insane amounts of hours.

Speaker: Would you agree?

Speaker: Yeah, I think that's really it.

Speaker: One person told me like any problem I had whether it was customers cancels installation because all that stuff happens, the solution is at the next door.

Speaker: Like it will literally solve whatever problem you have.

Speaker: The next door will solve it and thinking anything else is going to do it won't happen.

Speaker: Like it just won't work.

Speaker: Yeah, for sure.

Speaker: How many hours would you say you were hitting then in the beginning?

Speaker: In the beginning I was there at 9.30 until whatever dark was, like really dark.

Speaker: Like rain, shine, anything.

Speaker: It was the entire time and that was my big advantage because all the other guys are veterans there.

Speaker: I jumped way past them.

Speaker: For anyone that's new in the industry, I don't think any company operates based on a hierarchy or in a structure where it's political.

Speaker: It's all based on production, effort, results.

Speaker: And for anyone that's new into the business, I think the biggest thing you can do is separate yourself early.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because you can either take three months to get incredibly good or you can take three years.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: A lot of people take the three year out, then they're gone within a year because they don't realize without that early success, without really grinding the beginning, you're going to be four or five months and you're not producing, you're out.

Speaker: You're going to leave because you never went down head first in the beginning.

Speaker: I agree for sure.

Speaker: What about, were there guys, were you like the hardest worker at your company starting out or was that kind of like the culture?

Speaker: Was everyone like doing those amounts of hours and you're just following along?

Speaker: There was only one other guy, it's got a manual.

Speaker: That was a new guy with me that was working just as hard as me.

Speaker: So that helped having someone else working really hard too.

Speaker: But everyone else, it was funny, like within a month, all the veterans were asking to go out knocking with me.

Speaker: And I literally told them no.

Speaker: I was like, I can't go out knocking with you because I can't, my goals, I won't hit my goal if I'm splitting commission with someone.

Speaker: So everything flipped.

Speaker: I'm like, this is weird.

Speaker: Like you guys have been doing this for a while and they're still cooking lunch and sitting at the apartment.

Speaker: And whatever they did, I was just basically doing the opposite.

Speaker: And then they started, wherever I would go on turf, they would draw a circle with Sales Rabbit right next to mine because they thought wherever I was was just like this magical bubble.

Speaker: So everything changed pretty drastically.

Speaker: They just started trying to do whatever I was doing and then try to hop on the train, it seemed like.

Speaker: Yeah, geez.

Speaker: So you've changed the culture, it sounds like, and kind of got their butt in the gear price.

Speaker: They're like, dang, got to keep up with this guy.

Speaker: It exposed people.

Speaker: It exposed a lot of people.

Speaker: A lot of people that are veterans that are sliding by, it exposed them.

Speaker: And so, you know, based on their time and effort they put in, you know, it seemed like they should have been the next person to be a manager in office.

Speaker: But within the first month, I was asking what it's going to take for me to be a manager because I knew I wanted more out of it.

Speaker: And so, yeah, I just passed all of them.

Speaker: That's awesome.

Speaker: So what would you say for guys, like maybe they're in a company where, yeah, it's like people aren't working much and culture isn't great.

Speaker: Have you had times where you've had to, I don't know, like maybe on your team, guys aren't working as hard.

Speaker: Do you have any experiences or ways that you think are good to change that and kind of turn it around and inspire guys to work more?

Speaker: Yeah, I think the number one is, and this is the cliche, leave from the front.

Speaker: That's the easiest one.

Speaker: But the thing you can always do, I think even me, I didn't really want to do it for a while.

Speaker: A lot of companies will do a correlation once, twice a week, maybe do some in Zoom.

Speaker: And so for any new guy or anyone that's feeling burnt out, those days where you don't have a meeting, you don't get dressed, you don't put on your superhero outfit, right?

Speaker: Like you don't play the part, you don't act it.

Speaker: Like you don't do it.

Speaker: So meeting every day has been crucial.

Speaker: So we meet every single day, either at 9 a.m.

Speaker: or 12 p.m.

Speaker: We do team buildings when we're doing like a sport.

Speaker: So football, basketball, frisbee, golf, bowling, you name it, we're doing a sport from 10 to 12.

Speaker: And then Saturdays we're meeting at 9.

Speaker: So we're with each other six days a week, sometimes seven if we're doing other activities on Sunday.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: At the end of the day, anyone that wasn't working, when you're seeing the numbers every single day and you have to put up a bagel, you have to put up a zero because you're going with the numbers every day.

Speaker: That's just what you did the last three days recapping.

Speaker: That right there alone, I think, if any company adopts that, I think that's the easiest, quickest solution to boosting production because then you guys get dressed.

Speaker: They're ready to go.

Speaker: They're not going to want to go home.

Speaker: They're dressed.

Speaker: They got to the office.

Speaker: They're just ready to roll, man.

Speaker: Put them in a car group.

Speaker: Put them in a car group.

Speaker: That's number two.

Speaker: Put him in a car group, have a leader in the car group, call him a commander, general, whatever you want to name him, make him feel important because he is.

Speaker: Have him running the show.

Speaker: Let him be a leader for his group of guys.

Speaker: It could be three guys.

Speaker: See what he's capable of.

Speaker: You might empower him and then all of a sudden you know he's the guy for the job.

Speaker: He's going to run the next office.

Speaker: And so that also is critical because now these guys are forced to go out.

Speaker: I was against car groups for a while, but once I started doing them, I'll never go back to anything else.

Speaker: Just let the leaders have a chance to shine.

Speaker: Yeah, well, I know it works because we were just talking yesterday about how pretty much the same schedule you're doing.

Speaker: It's what Jason Newby and our squad here is doing too.

Speaker: I mean, how long did you start your leg dealer out here?

Speaker: March.

Speaker: March, okay.

Speaker: It's not that long ago.

Speaker: Jason started about the same time.

Speaker: And yeah, he's got a team like 40, 50 guys.

Speaker: I know your team's crushing out here.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So it's like success is leaving clues.

Speaker: These are what top guys are doing.

Speaker: So they're meeting every day too?

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: What time are we meeting?

Speaker: We meet at 1130 right now.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: You guys trying to beat us by 30 minutes, dude.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We heard your schedule.

Speaker: We're out.

Speaker: We've got to get 30 minutes on these guys.

Speaker: Dude, that's awesome.

Speaker: It's fun to hear that because you guys are crushing it, bringing a ton of momentum.

Speaker: Everyone, I think, sees what Jason and you guys are doing over there.

Speaker: Yeah, you're right.

Speaker: Success does the best.

Speaker: I didn't implement this, so I should have done it earlier because I had my own squad out there.

Speaker: And we weren't doing daily meetings.

Speaker: And our production was, for sure, suffering because of it.

Speaker: We were just meeting, like, once or twice a week.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's like you said, those two days, we were seeing guys produce, you know, pretty good.

Speaker: But then the rest of the days, it's like, guarantee guys were getting out at least two hours later than they would have just because...

Speaker: In my opinion, 90% of the purpose of the meeting is just to get the guys together and go out there.

Speaker: Put them there.

Speaker: You know we do so many trainings.

Speaker: Trainings are good but it gets to a point where you're just getting out, you're building the team, building the momentum and getting out there.

Speaker: Yeah, and bringing some energy to the meetings.

Speaker: Give them some boost.

Speaker: Give them a little boost.

Speaker: Give them some shout outs.

Speaker: Give them some recognition.

Speaker: Let them jump some ranks of other people on the leaderboard.

Speaker: That's it.

Speaker: Get out there.

Speaker: We have a fun time getting together.

Speaker: It's fun to see that you're doing that too.

Speaker: Yeah, it's fun.

Speaker: I see your meanies.

Speaker: You guys are screaming and shouting and getting guys fired up and stuff too, right?

Speaker: You're trying to be a little ridiculous.

Speaker: Try to m ake it a little different every single time.

Speaker: We like to do energy exercises.

Speaker: A lot of stuff I picked up from other people in the industry.

Speaker: It's nothing I created on my own.

Speaker: But yeah, that stuff works.

Speaker: It's cheesy or weird as it sounds.

Speaker: Running around in an office yelling random stuff just creates energy.

Speaker: It's fun.

Speaker: I know.

Speaker: Well, yeah, I don't know if you've been to Tony Robbins events, but it's like the same stuff Tony Robbins is doing.

Speaker: You're standing up, screaming, shouting, and all that.

Speaker: No, I haven't.

Speaker: Have you been to a Tony Robbins event?

Speaker: I've seen him speak like two or three times, but it's the exact same thing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He's like, his big thing is you're changing your state, and if you change your state, you need to change something about your state in order to change your life.

Speaker: you know, momentum and change what you're doing.

Speaker: Yeah, change your state.

Speaker: So, I mean, it's something I forgot about because, yeah, I'll be honest, like, I was, sometimes I would run some pretty boring meetings just like, all right, guys, what's your goals?

Speaker: Cool.

Speaker: All right, let's get out there.

Speaker: Clap.

Speaker: And then that was it.

Speaker: I've done that too, man.

Speaker: I've done that too.

Speaker: But yeah, the stuff works.

Speaker: It's effective.

Speaker: The same thing that Danny and Taylor are doing here at the event.

Speaker: It's like they're having to stand up, scream, shout, whisper, yell, and really get after it.

Speaker: Yeah, I'm guessing – it's funny.

Speaker: With Danny and Taylor, one of the main things I was taking notes on was exactly how they were handling us.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like how they were getting our energy, bringing us to present.

Speaker: You know the snaps?

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: That's good.

Speaker: Snap three times if you can hear me.

Speaker: Okay, snap four times.

Speaker: And then eventually the whole room was, all right, now be quiet.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I was taking notes on all that stuff because that stuff is like super effective.

Speaker: Yeah, it works.

Speaker: It works.

Speaker: So yeah, any of you boring sales managers or company owners out there, if you are not getting your guys fired up, I think you're doing them a disservice because even if they don't like it, but it works and you need to get your guys on a different level because then they can take that out on the doors too if they're feeling like at a low state on the doors.

Speaker: I mean, it's the same stuff.

Speaker: Do some jumping jacks, get your guys fired up and teach them how to change their state when they're out there on the doors too.

Speaker: Yeah, how do you cheat them out of that?

Speaker: What do you do to them out of that?

Speaker: I mean, just like the affirmation stuff.

Speaker: I'm sure you can talk to your guys.

Speaker: Just like, you know, the Brian Tracy stuff.

Speaker: I like myself.

Speaker: I like myself.

Speaker: And I love my job.

Speaker: It's like repeating that between the doors.

Speaker: It works for me.

Speaker: And I know for me, if I've gotten like a hard rejection, it's just like affirmation, affirmation before the next door.

Speaker: That and popping on my little Segway thing lately.

Speaker: Oh, you got the Segway?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's funny how cheesy it sounds, though.

Speaker: Like, I think a lot of people listening are like, man, if you have never done it before, you think self-talk, affirmations.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like that's just Fugazi Fugazi.

Speaker: Because I thought the same thing.

Speaker: And then you hear people like Taylor doing it every second.

Speaker: We could be playing tennis.

Speaker: Taylor McCarthy's out there just talking to himself.

Speaker: Always talking positively.

Speaker: Come on Taylor, you got this.

Speaker: You're good at this stuff.

Speaker: And so it's one of those things until you actually try.

Speaker: If you haven't tried it, you're listening to this.

Speaker: Absolutely try it.

Speaker: I love my job.

Speaker: My job is easy.

Speaker: All I do is write a line down a piece of paper, show your current situation, what your new situation would be.

Speaker: Just keep saying that kind of stuff out loud.

Speaker: It surprisingly works.

Speaker: And then just smiling.

Speaker: Just smiling too.

Speaker: Just remembering just to smile.

Speaker: That'll change your state too.

Speaker: For sure.

Speaker: I know.

Speaker: Yeah, it works 100%.

Speaker: So yeah, definitely go out and do it if you haven't tried that for all our listeners.

Speaker: So Alex, yeah, I want to jump into now.

Speaker: Like I was saying, you have what, seven or eight guys here at the event?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Eight included me.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And you have what, like around 20 guys or something in your office right now?

Speaker: Yeah, I think we just went up to like 23.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So growing a ton.

Speaker: But yeah, that's pretty impressive to have that many guys here.

Speaker: And I know it's just showing what you guys have built.

Speaker: I can see that you guys are hungry to learn, want to grow a ton, and just eat this stuff up.

Speaker: So any company I've been with, even,

Speaker: I had 50 guys with my company and we only got three of us here.

Speaker: Not to say they don't like learning, but pretty impressive that you can bring a whole crowd here and get them all excited about these things.

Speaker: That's fun, man.

Speaker: It's exciting.

Speaker: How have you built that or how do you get your guys to buy into this whole culture of learning and get them to show up with these things?

Speaker: These kind of trips are basically incentive driven.

Speaker: It's always good to do incentives for prizes, cool watches, a segue, whatever it is.

Speaker: But the most beneficial, and they're fired up to just have the opportunity to come here.

Speaker: And be able to expose them to higher level people, even if we're losing three, four, five days of production, is gonna pay off tenfold.

Speaker: Just having guys that understand the value of personal development.

Speaker: And if you're not working on yourself every day, like they don't see you becoming better.

Speaker: Like I'm always posting when I'm reading books.

Speaker: I'm always writing quotes.

Speaker: I'm always like showing things I'm learning on social media so everyone can see it.

Speaker: And part of the reason I do it is not because I just have an ego for it.

Speaker: It's because they're going to see what I'm doing on a regular basis and realize that personal development getting better is really part of the process to be happier.

Speaker: If you're becoming better every day, you're going to be happy.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That's like I think the easiest way to do it boil it down if you just feel like you're becoming better it could be in fitness health Business relationships if you just feel like you're getting better learning more stuff Mm-hmm you'll be happy so just having the whole culture based around that and then in the past I used to think like whatever Whatever leaders I had in my you know circle or in my company I could get everything I wanted from them Yeah, that's like what I thought of you like felt that too like hey, this is like I'm good I don't need to pay for anything else and once I realized that

Speaker: Paying to play is the most important, quickest way to hack time.

Speaker: It's been a game changer for me.

Speaker: I'll pay for all my guys.

Speaker: Anyone that's working, putting the time, I'm going to invest as much time and money as possible into them.

Speaker: Because if they can understand the same value, what it's like to hack time and pay to play and just get a few shortcuts, a few nuggets from these things, you'll do it for the rest of your life.

Speaker: You'll be happier.

Speaker: Guys are going to come back more motivated, hungry, and then bring that to other guys and it bleeds over.

Speaker: It just keeps bleeding over.

Speaker: Nice, love that.

Speaker: And I think it's important that you're saying like do it as an incentive too because it's like I've been, I remember my previous company I was with, they like, you know, bought a bunch of people like tickets to go see Grant Cardone.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But then I can't remember if it was an incentive or if it was maybe it was like a really easy one.

Speaker: So we went there and then half the guys like showed up for half the events and

Speaker: Half the time they're on their phones and not appreciating it.

Speaker: So it's like when people pay, they're going to pay attention, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So it's like at least get them to like earn it so they're going to come and show up.

Speaker: That's so funny.

Speaker: It's true.

Speaker: If people don't pay for it, it's like you give someone a book, they won't read it.

Speaker: You know, you just give it to them for free.

Speaker: Like one of the guys, Mikey, that came to talk to us, he was like, here, put in this code and you'll get a book for free.

Speaker: I'm like, dude, I want to pay for this book.

Speaker: Don't give me this for free.

Speaker: If I don't pay for it, it's going to sit on the shelf a lot longer.

Speaker: And then you know what they did with telling everyone to silence their phones or put their phones in the room?

Speaker: I'm doing that at any of these kind of events.

Speaker: I grabbed everyone's phone on my team and put it all in the room.

Speaker: Everyone's phone was gone.

Speaker: When everyone takes a ping or checks anything else, there's so many other things going on.

Speaker: When they're at the Grant Cardone event, that just makes you not want to do it again.

Speaker: Why would an owner want to bring people out to another event where no one's paying attention?

Speaker: I know.

Speaker: Super important.

Speaker: Figure out a way to get these guys there.

Speaker: bought in and yeah I was telling you about I mean we have this Soul Society app we launched the training platform which hopefully all of our listeners are on but it's like I can't remember if I told you but all the people I gave free access we did kind of like a trial period gave like I don't know 15 people free access and it's like guess how many of them logged on like three or four of them yeah something like that and then probably two of them have actually like you know like done something with it so yeah and then what about the people that paid yeah

Speaker: What about those people that we're paying to get on?

Speaker: Yeah, I mean they're going through it.

Speaker: They're the ones that are actually getting results.

Speaker: That's awesome.

Speaker: It's like, yeah, and it's what Danny and Taylor talk about.

Speaker: These events, they're super expensive, but if people don't pay, they're doing us a disservice if they don't charge us because we're not going to take it seriously.

Speaker: We're not going to appreciate the content.

Speaker: So yeah, no, I think it's just getting your guys to buy in with that.

Speaker: If you are, I don't know, using some sort of training platform, figure out a way to get them skin in the game, because if not, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, you're showing me your app.

Speaker: I'm pretty excited about it.

Speaker: I feel like that was the one thing...

Speaker: I really want a smooth transition from when someone gets onboarded, the content they consume that I can actually track and measure all the way to when they start and then for the next month.

Speaker: I've always thought I need to get a good source of content for it that's interactive and engaging.

Speaker: I'm not even here to plug you on it.

Speaker: This is legit what I think about what you showed me.

Speaker: Super interactive, super engaging and be able to bring in my own content to it on an app on their phone where people are glued to already.

Speaker: I'm excited to white label it, bring in those content, have your content on it.

Speaker: And so I could have that part of the standard operating procedures dialed in from the second a person gets onboarded.

Speaker: They have to complete all this all the way until they start for the next month.

Speaker: I think that's going to hack time too.

Speaker: So that's really cool.

Speaker: We created that.

Speaker: It looks clean.

Speaker: It looks clean.

Speaker: Appreciate it, brother.

Speaker: I didn't tell him to do that.

Speaker: It looks clean, man.

Speaker: It's good.

Speaker: It's good.

Speaker: Appreciate that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We'll get your team on it for sure.

Speaker: But yeah, man, so no, it's just super impressive what you've been able to do with your team and get them bought in and really get them come to these events.

Speaker: And it's like, it's not really a secret.

Speaker: I mean, another guest, I know you know Mo Fala and his crew, but they're doing pretty similar things you guys are both doing.

Speaker: He showed up at Door-to-Door Con with basically his whole team there and they're all getting up on stage.

Speaker: Doing all these things as a team, getting guys bought in, it's just helped you grow a ton.

Speaker: You started in March.

Speaker: How many guys did you start with back in March then?

Speaker: March was just me and one other person.

Speaker: I think it was mid-March, I got two other people.

Speaker: I was just meeting in my house.

Speaker: It was a pretty slow growth in the beginning.

Speaker: Brought in a couple other people.

Speaker: Obviously didn't have any systems or anything dialed in.

Speaker: And then, what was it, in April, I think we were at nine people.

Speaker: Did a blitz.

Speaker: We were experimenting with different stuff.

Speaker: Hearing it from other people was working.

Speaker: I got some tips from Mo.

Speaker: Shout out to Mo Fawal.

Speaker: He was providing some help on that side of things.

Speaker: I really appreciated that.

Speaker: So the blitz was effective.

Speaker: It was fun getting everyone around each other.

Speaker: And then we brought in, we got up to 20 guys in June.

Speaker: And brought guys, got into office space.

Speaker: Office space was huge.

Speaker: That was big.

Speaker: We actually went on a hiring freeze for like a month and a half, two months.

Speaker: We just started hiring again because I didn't want to plug people into a model that wasn't fully developed.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: And so I've done that before where I just bring people in and it's not where it needs to be.

Speaker: And you know it in your heart if things are good to go.

Speaker: If you're bringing someone in, are they going to be successful quickly?

Speaker: Or is there only going to be a few people that are going to survive because it's only designed for the people that are ready to go on their own?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so waiting for that hiring freeze, getting everything dialed in, our systems, our processes, how we do business.

Speaker: And now it's like, all right, let's open the floodgates.

Speaker: That's why I hired like Serge, the creator and these guys to do everything else.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Shout out to Serge.

Speaker: He's here.

Speaker: Serge.

Speaker: He's here recording us right now.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: You're going to see some video with this episode.

Speaker: I appreciate it.

Speaker: I hear him laughing in Russian.

Speaker: If you're laughing, it's these Russians laughing at us.

Speaker: But no, so another thing that's been cool is you've invested a ton just in your growth and your team's growth.

Speaker: I mean, yeah, you're investing in Surge.

Speaker: He's doing content for your team.

Speaker: You invested in Danny and Taylor.

Speaker: They're blowing things up.

Speaker: So I know a lot of companies listening to this, maybe a lot of like,

Speaker: team leaders they're nervous to like invest in themselves and drop money I mean some pretty serious money that you drop to work as closely as you are with Taylor and Danny the cheapest thing I ever bought no just kidding so cheap stuff no but so it's gotten you crazy results but I know you're telling me you're pretty like nervous to like invest in that so what's been I don't know what's helped you I guess have confidence and like dropping that kind of money and just seeing your team grow

Speaker: I just saw other people doing it.

Speaker: I was like, they're dropping all this money.

Speaker: Not everyone, very few people are doing it, but I saw the people that were doing it, showing up all these events, bringing their teams, doing this stuff.

Speaker: We're seeing a lot more success.

Speaker: I just realized, I've got to start paying.

Speaker: I've got to start paying to get around the right people, to expose myself, expose the team.

Speaker: Man, when I drop that money for Noxstar Select, it's a decent amount of money.

Speaker: In the beginning, I was super nervous.

Speaker: I was like, man, did I just blow this much money right now?

Speaker: Because in the first month or two, I didn't really know exactly how to get what I wanted out of it.

Speaker: The main reason I did it was because I wanted Taylor McCarthy.

Speaker: All the money was mostly just, even the master event, I wasn't even thinking about that.

Speaker: I just wanted Taylor McCarthy to be in my office for three days.

Speaker: And so he came and blitzed with our team for three days and it completely changed everything.

Speaker: It's one thing to show people how great the slicks are and to use little tactics myself.

Speaker: And then it's another thing to have someone that knows how to use it to the highest level, the highest technical level.

Speaker: They see that stuff and you just realize what is possible, what you can do.

Speaker: And so just those three days pay for the entire thing, without a doubt.

Speaker: And then having these mastermind events and everything else on top of it.

Speaker: It's one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Speaker: That's awesome.

Speaker: So I'm going to keep doing it.

Speaker: That kind of just sparked it.

Speaker: Actually, the first thing I invested in was Noxstar Bootcamp, which I was hesitant to pay $5,000 for it.

Speaker: I was in it with you.

Speaker: We were in the same boot camp.

Speaker: I was like, man, five grand for one Zoom a week?

Speaker: Is this going to be worth it?

Speaker: That paid for itself within three, four days.

Speaker: You just got the motivation, got the competition going.

Speaker: I think the biggest thing is just taking the first you invest in books.

Speaker: Then you might invest in some little training platforms.

Speaker: Then you level up, you invest in something like $5,000 ticket item.

Speaker: And then you just start to realize that at each level, you're unlocking the next level.

Speaker: You're like, okay, I spent $5,000, so now I can spend $50,000.

Speaker: Okay, so now I can spend $100,000 on getting better, working with the right people.

Speaker: And even Jerry that was talking today, he's spending $400,000 on his coaches.

Speaker: And he said he'd pay more if he could find more coaches that could help him out and level him up where he thought they could.

Speaker: And so it's like, yeah, all the real Gs out there are doing that.

Speaker: So it's just...

Speaker: Start small and keep growing that.

Speaker: Make that part of your spending.

Speaker: For sure, and it's cool.

Speaker: Investing, not spending.

Speaker: Yeah, and I don't know if you heard Jerry, but he was saying some of the programs he was in, the mastermind groups, he didn't even invest in it for the training.

Speaker: He just did it to be around the other high-level people.

Speaker: So he's like, all right, if I'm paying 150 grand, there's going to be some people pretty committed in here that I'm going to be able to make connections with.

Speaker: So he said that alone has made him millions of dollars just being able to network with those other people.

Speaker: Yeah, he said 150,000 made him 2.2 million.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Just being around the right people.

Speaker: That was a pretty aha moment.

Speaker: It's like you don't even need to pay to get the training.

Speaker: It could just be purely the circle.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Just the circle of people could change your life.

Speaker: So that was another aha moment with just how far you can go with this thing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That's awesome.

Speaker: Have you ever made any bad investments on the business that you regret making?

Speaker: Or has it all been pretty good?

Speaker: I don't think I've made any bad investments on the business.

Speaker: I think the only thing I didn't do is invest enough in the past.

Speaker: I think that was the biggest thing.

Speaker: I just didn't invest enough.

Speaker: I think the worst investment I made was just not spending the money.

Speaker: That was the worst thing I did with the cash is put it toward dumb things rather than back into the people, back into myself.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, yeah, no, and it's pretty easy.

Speaker: I mean, you just look at the results.

Speaker: Like, he's investing in Surge.

Speaker: Surge is getting massive results with his video clients.

Speaker: And then Danny and Taylor, they get massive results for everyone they work with.

Speaker: So it's pretty simple.

Speaker: I mean, just look at this.

Speaker: I was asking Mikey the same question because he's in all these mastermind groups.

Speaker: I'm like, Mikey, why do you invest in so many?

Speaker: Like, you're in, like, four different mastermind groups.

Speaker: Like, what?

Speaker: How do you track that?

Speaker: Yeah, it's like how do you figure out that they're all gonna be worth it?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So yeah, he's just saying, I don't know, it's like Jesus said, right?

Speaker: By their fruits, you'll know what's going on with it.

Speaker: So for anyone that's doubting on investing in things like that and training, just go look at the results, see what other people are having success with.

Speaker: And I mean, it's just gonna come down to the work you put into it too and apply it, which is what you guys are doing.

Speaker: One thing I heard that always stuck with me, there's three steps and basically laws to constant human improvement.

Speaker: The first one is you have to add knowledge.

Speaker: Second one is you have to act on it or apply it.

Speaker: And the third one is you have to evaluate how that went.

Speaker: Is it something you're going to keep doing?

Speaker: A lot of people just add the knowledge.

Speaker: They'll come to these kind of events.

Speaker: They get hyped up about it.

Speaker: Then they don't reflect on it.

Speaker: They don't spend the time...

Speaker: polishing or learning and studying what they just learned.

Speaker: And then acting on it.

Speaker: And then one thing I always left out of the equation, I was pretty good at acting on it.

Speaker: I left out of the equation the evaluation part.

Speaker: Like evaluating how that stuff did.

Speaker: Did it make the, was the results worse?

Speaker: Like did it not help me out?

Speaker: Or is it like something, okay, this is really good.

Speaker: I need to fine tune this.

Speaker: So evaluating and reflecting on that, following those three steps with reading a book with anything else,

Speaker: any mentorship, if you just follow those simple three steps, I think that's the key.

Speaker: That's the key to improving.

Speaker: Yeah, that's fire.

Speaker: Add knowledge.

Speaker: What was it?

Speaker: Add knowledge, evaluate, and then reflect?

Speaker: Add knowledge, act on knowledge, evaluate.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Evaluate.

Speaker: That's awesome.

Speaker: That's super good stuff.

Speaker: Fire.

Speaker: Well, yeah, man.

Speaker: So I know you guys are what I was talking to some of your guys and they're telling me you're closing like 70, 80% of your deals, which is like super good.

Speaker: Has that just been working with Taylor?

Speaker: You guys just implementing all this stuff and that's what's taking you to the next level on the closing?

Speaker: Yeah, I can't take credit for that, man.

Speaker: Working with Taylor, just getting little tips and tricks.

Speaker: Something as simple as his hypothetical he throws in.

Speaker: Hypothetically, sir.

Speaker: If you already had the panels on your roof, you just have this, it's been three years, you just have this fixed payment of $150, so you've already added $4,500 of equity, $6,000 of equity to your home, and it's never going up.

Speaker: And then you have Duke Energy, whatever utility, knock on the door, and they try to convince you to rip all those panels off.

Speaker: They want to extract those three years of equity, so that $4,000, $5,000 back to the CEO's pocket, and then go back to a variable rate that's much higher than what you're paying today.

Speaker: What would you tell Duke Energy?

Speaker: And so like just little things like that, just even the most simple one on the doors, this is a nugget everyone should take and apply it immediately because it's so easy.

Speaker: Getting the appointment or even getting the clothes.

Speaker: My job is super simple.

Speaker: I just draw a line down a piece of paper.

Speaker: I show you what your current situation is and then what your new situation would be.

Speaker: Now, if this doesn't make sense, I wouldn't expect to do it.

Speaker: In fact, I won't even come back.

Speaker: But if it doesn't make sense, it's logical.

Speaker: You're going to do it, right?

Speaker: Like it's not going to be a thing that you have to think about.

Speaker: It's just gonna be a side by side comparison of your current and your new situation.

Speaker: And at the end of the day, if it ends up costing you less to own something, is there any reason you'd want to continue to rent it with Duke and pay your energy landlord?

Speaker: So just little nuggets like that.

Speaker: Boom.

Speaker: Yeah, that's the thing.

Speaker: And come to these events, you just pick, like I started making like a notes just folder of all like the one-liners.

Speaker: So it's like all that stuff.

Speaker: It's just a game changer.

Speaker: And I know people have gone and listened to Taylor's podcast episode just on repeat.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And yeah, I think several of your guys were telling me they've done it.

Speaker: They post it every day.

Speaker: They're like, you guys got to listen to this thing.

Speaker: Again, listen to it again.

Speaker: Listen to the car.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's like that kind of stuff.

Speaker: It's just changing everybody.

Speaker: Those things, it's solidifying the customers.

Speaker: What was your closing ratio, would you say, before you started working with those guys?

Speaker: I would say my closing ratio was about 40% or so.

Speaker: I would say it was about 40%.

Speaker: So it significantly went up.

Speaker: There were just a lot of little tactics I used.

Speaker: At the end,

Speaker: There's like a lot of people, like a lot of new reps, they just started closing.

Speaker: They'll say all these objections that happen to end, they want to think about all these concerns.

Speaker: It's like that doesn't happen to me anymore.

Speaker: Because all the little jabs I throw in that I've learned from Taylor and other people in the industry all along the way, by the time I get there, it's purely just, is this the correct spelling of your name?

Speaker: Okay, great, is this the right last name?

Speaker: Okay, what's the last word of your social?

Speaker: There's no questioning what they're doing.

Speaker: There's no pauses or breaks.

Speaker: And if you are having people throwing stuff at you at the end when you get into numbers, it's because you haven't dialed in your technique before at that point.

Speaker: So dialing the word tracks, getting the technique, throwing in enough jabs to where it makes complete sense for them and is just a no-brainer is something that a lot of people don't do.

Speaker: And you have to get training from the best people to do it.

Speaker: Otherwise, you're just going to try to figure it out on your own.

Speaker: It's going to take forever.

Speaker: Yeah, fire.

Speaker: So yeah, guys, I know it sounds like Noxstar paid us to do this, but we're doing this for free.

Speaker: We promise that Danny and Taylor don't have a gun to our heads.

Speaker: Tell them to say all this stuff.

Speaker: Taylor, get out of here.

Speaker: I'm just kidding.

Speaker: But no, it's true.

Speaker: So yeah, learn from the best and just, yeah, implement it.

Speaker: Memorize those lines because I think that's been a game changer for all of us.

Speaker: So the last thing I wanted to ask you, Alex, before we kind of wrap up here is you have obviously a huge social media following, I know.

Speaker: It's probably 99% chicks that just want to, you know, fill your abs and all that stuff.

Speaker: Who knows, man?

Speaker: Who knows?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So you're big on social media and all that, and I know you've recruited a lot.

Speaker: How many followers do you have on Instagram?

Speaker: Like 100K?

Speaker: I think it's like 105K.

Speaker: Hopefully that's going to go up, Serge.

Speaker: Right, man?

Speaker: We're going to get 200,000 or something.

Speaker: It blows up.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Surge better than me to go up.

Speaker: But yeah, so how is that, as far as recruiting goes, has that been a big thing for you, the social media, or do you have anything else that's helped you recruit these guys and bring on more people?

Speaker: I'm glad you brought that up, because that is the key I've used to, I've restarted multiple times.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: For anyone else that's like grown a business or grown a, you know, like just talk about solar, right?

Speaker: You've grown a sales team and you leave that organization or something happens and you know you have to move out and you're starting from square one.

Speaker: I've done that multiple times.

Speaker: And that's gave me confidence that I could do it again.

Speaker: Like I know at the end of the day I've always been able to do it again.

Speaker: So like I keep that as a reference point that no matter what's going on I could do it again.

Speaker: And the way I always did it was through social media.

Speaker: So I would simply find a better opportunity I can offer other people.

Speaker: And at the end of the day that's what I was always chasing.

Speaker: Like what's the best opportunity, not for me, like that's the cool part.

Speaker: But like I really want to find the best opportunity to bring guys in.

Speaker: Because at the end of the day if I have a better offer for them, I have a better culture, they're going to join me.

Speaker: And the only way they're going to see that is if I'm posting stuff about it.

Speaker: So that's all I've ever done ever since and I've been consistently posting my lifestyle.

Speaker: I used to share my own success and I think in the beginning you share your own success, right?

Speaker: Like how much you made and it's not about ego, it's not about being arrogant.

Speaker: A lot of people think it's like that but I can't tell you how many guys I brought in to this business because they said they saw or someone shared my story with them.

Speaker: And they exposed like, hey, I just made $20,000 in a week.

Speaker: Like they got exposed to that and they wanted to reach out.

Speaker: Because if I didn't do that stuff, which a lot of people steer, because it is weird in the beginning, like sharing financial stuff.

Speaker: A lot of people steer away from that.

Speaker: But if you post that out there consistently over time, some people will hit you up immediately.

Speaker: There's going to be people that are ready for change right now.

Speaker: Just like Taylor says, the hardest part of my job is timing.

Speaker: And that involves social media too.

Speaker: Then I've had people three years later, like, hey, dude, I followed your journey for three years.

Speaker: Like what you're doing is awesome.

Speaker: Actually, I just saw that you moved to Orlando.

Speaker: This might be perfect for me.

Speaker: I'm over in Tampa.

Speaker: So those things start happening three, four years later and you don't realize it at the time that it's going to be that way.

Speaker: But it's just like investing.

Speaker: If you think about, okay, I'm only going to make...

Speaker: 8% this year, that's not that much more money, but it's like compounded over time.

Speaker: You keep doing it consistently and sharing success.

Speaker: First is my success, then I really now only focus on other success.

Speaker: So I share what Liam's making, I share what Will's making, I share what Sawyer, Jake, all these guys, they're closing all these deals.

Speaker: I share their success.

Speaker: Because at the end of the day, if you just keep talking about yourself, that's not going to be much valuable because they just think you're a one-off.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So showing new guys success in the industry on social media has been pivotal to growing all my businesses because that's where most – my teachers always used to tell me, LinkedIn, man.

Speaker: LinkedIn is going to be a thing.

Speaker: You've got to be able to network and do, do, do, do.

Speaker: and have people write out your, you know, you're level 10 or you're excellent at communicating, excel.

Speaker: I'm like, dude, that is fugazi, fugazi if I've ever heard it.

Speaker: When I heard that stuff, I literally thought, I was like, this is BS and the fakest platform in the world.

Speaker: People are just putting on a face and a front.

Speaker: And I was like, they're not real.

Speaker: They're reaching out like,

Speaker: Hey Alexander, I really like the things you're doing.

Speaker: I think it'd be great to connect and you could be great for this opportunity.

Speaker: That is dead.

Speaker: That is not the way.

Speaker: It may work for some businesses but I already knew that wasn't going to work for mine.

Speaker: I didn't know Instagram was going to be the thing but that's just where I shared my life on.

Speaker: It was funny just reflecting on like these teachers were completely off for this business for sales and everything.

Speaker: It is social media, man.

Speaker: Look at Grant Cardone.

Speaker: Look at anyone that's doing it at a high scale.

Speaker: It's where it's at.

Speaker: Yeah, I know.

Speaker: One year taking advantage of it.

Speaker: I mean, I just started doing this stuff like semi-recently.

Speaker: I mean, I got like 700 followers going long ways, but you know, consistent stuff.

Speaker: But even with my 700 followers, just by posting like these testimonial videos, stuff like that, like I'm getting referrals, I'm getting people like reaching out, be like, oh, hey, I didn't know you do solar.

Speaker: Just from like doing that with like 700 people.

Speaker: So you're getting referrals for solar?

Speaker: Yeah, for solar, yeah.

Speaker: So...

Speaker: So I think that's an interesting point.

Speaker: I don't have that at all.

Speaker: Because I think you can approach it two ways.

Speaker: Either A, it's going to be customer facing.

Speaker: Or B, it's going to be sales rep facing, right?

Speaker: Like new guy facing, recruiting facing.

Speaker: It's pretty hard to do both.

Speaker: I think you can.

Speaker: But I know for a fact if my clients follow me on Instagram...

Speaker: There's going to be some cancels.

Speaker: There's going to be some problems at a brew.

Speaker: They can follow me on Facebook.

Speaker: Facebook is separate.

Speaker: Facebook is like, okay, old people hang out here.

Speaker: This is a good platform to be friends with them on.

Speaker: Even there, I don't really want to be because they'll see my old college days.

Speaker: I think it's like you can go one or two ways about it.

Speaker: For me, I picked like, okay, my lifeblood is bringing in new people.

Speaker: That's what makes me the most happy.

Speaker: I love selling deals.

Speaker: I love selling deals.

Speaker: But at the end of the day, my lifeblood is bringing new people in.

Speaker: Bringing new people and sharing their success, helping them be successful.

Speaker: That's really what...

Speaker: what I want to focus on.

Speaker: Yeah, no, and I think you got to focus.

Speaker: I mean, this was kind of like a lucky thing because it was like a friend from Utah that just recently bought a home.

Speaker: So he's like, oh, hey, help me out.

Speaker: Yes, dude.

Speaker: That's awesome, though.

Speaker: I know some of my friends are good at that part, too.

Speaker: They get like friends and stuff through social media.

Speaker: So everyone can do it differently.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But no, it's a huge tool.

Speaker: So yeah, and we'll have to have Mr. Surge Creator on in another episode.

Speaker: He can share more about the social media part.

Speaker: But yeah, man.

Speaker: So no, I appreciate you coming on, Alex, and dropping some fire for us and for our listeners.

Speaker: So yeah, speaking of social media, where can people connect with you and hang out with you on social media?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Find out more about what you're doing.

Speaker: Alex H Smith.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Alex H Smith on Instagram.

Speaker: I don't think I have anything else.

Speaker: Just Instagram, man.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: But Serge is going to add some platforms to that, right?

Speaker: I'm going to be a TikToker.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And I would say, I would say one last thing I just wanted to bring up just because it was so pivotal in kind of creating a hockey stick trajectory for me.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I don't know who this is going to relate to or who it's going to help out, but for the longest time,

Speaker: you're in the sales cycle, you can ride the roller coaster.

Speaker: I had a lot of ups and downs.

Speaker: And I even got to a point where I cleared my first $100,000 in a month and I literally was not happy.

Speaker: I wasn't feeling it, I was like, what is going on?

Speaker: I have all this stuff's going right, but I just didn't feel good.

Speaker: And there were just a couple bad vices I had.

Speaker: I always knew for me, and this is different for everyone, but I always knew for me, like drinking was one thing that always like caused me to go into a downward spiral.

Speaker: So like I would drink and then I would be depressed for three or four days.

Speaker: So if I drank on a Saturday, I wasn't drinking every day.

Speaker: If I drank on a Saturday, I wasn't back into myself by Thursday.

Speaker: And by then I was feeling good.

Speaker: It's like, okay, now I can do it on a Saturday.

Speaker: So every time I would show up for my team, if I did that, I wouldn't go to every weekend, but if I did that, I would be...

Speaker: you know, 40% of who I am.

Speaker: And I always knew that was a problem and it took a long time.

Speaker: I tried to, you know, stop drinking because I used to say like I can't drink.

Speaker: That was like kind of the thing because I started on just FSU gave me some habits.

Speaker: So I'd say, all right, I'm just going to, you know, it would just be like I could pound forever and still keep my demeanor.

Speaker: I'm not going to be a menace out there.

Speaker: And so finally it was like two and a half months ago, two months ago or something like that.

Speaker: When I was around a group of, my whole team, we just got the office and for me, and I think a lot of people can relate to this, you see the opportunity in front of you, you see other people doing big things.

Speaker: And I felt the overwhelming weight on my shoulder of, okay, here's like 20 guys that relying on, I need to be here for them to be successful.

Speaker: I need to be showing up 100% focused, 100% clear every single day.

Speaker: And when I showed up for the first meeting, I was still hungover from going out in St.

Speaker: Pete.

Speaker: And I was like, man, I had brain fog.

Speaker: I wasn't clear.

Speaker: I was tired.

Speaker: I had no energy.

Speaker: I was feeling sick because my immune system was down.

Speaker: And I just remember that exact moment looking at everyone.

Speaker: I was like, I'm done.

Speaker: I'm done.

Speaker: I'm Alex Smith, and I don't drink.

Speaker: It's not that I can't drink.

Speaker: I don't drink.

Speaker: And when I made that decision, it no longer became, because I think anyone can decide at any moment to change who they are.

Speaker: It only takes a second to change it.

Speaker: You can decide, I'm Alex Smith, I don't drink for me.

Speaker: I'm Alex Smith and I knock doors for four hours a day.

Speaker: I knock doors for six hours a day.

Speaker: I'm Alex Smith and I close 20 deals a month.

Speaker: I set that for myself and anything else is impossible.

Speaker: I can't do anything less.

Speaker: For me, that was drinking and when I stopped drinking,

Speaker: It was crazy.

Speaker: I never lost any focus, never got distracted.

Speaker: And so for me, that was the biggest thing I made a change on.

Speaker: And for anyone having bad vices that bring them down into being depressed or anything like that, I don't usually talk about this stuff publicly or to anyone.

Speaker: But that was a big problem for me.

Speaker: And so I was happy, unhappy, wanted to stay in bed for an order of Ubi Eats three times in a day, and I'll just go back to bed and eat it.

Speaker: And I'm like, man.

Speaker: Cutting, figuring out what those vices are for you that bring you to that bad state, those energy drainers.

Speaker: And then learning how to just make a decision.

Speaker: It's not you can't do it, it's you don't do it.

Speaker: Or it's just like who you are now.

Speaker: That changed my life, man.

Speaker: I love that.

Speaker: And I'm glad you brought that up.

Speaker: Because, yeah, I forgot to ask you that.

Speaker: But, yeah, another thing I remember you telling me yesterday is just like as you did that, now your entire team is basically like, you know, kind of cutting it out and everything too, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They're like falling your...

Speaker: I never fully believed it when I heard it, but they always said, you know, your guys will do half the good you do and twice the bad you do.

Speaker: And I never fully believed it.

Speaker: I'm like, whatever, I'm just going out drinking.

Speaker: Like, I would like to go out with them too, because it turns out everyone I hang out with are people I work with.

Speaker: I don't hang out with anyone else.

Speaker: Like, that's it.

Speaker: That's why my people I work with are my best friends.

Speaker: So I love my job because of that.

Speaker: And so I was definitely showing them, you know, going out drinking.

Speaker: And so, and then I wasn't doing my morning routine and everything kind of falls away.

Speaker: Like if I go out drinking, okay, now I'm not going to wake up early.

Speaker: Okay, now I don't have time to read.

Speaker: I may have time to go to the gym, but now I don't have time to write goals and all these other little things to help myself in the morning, have a good energy, go away.

Speaker: And so when I stopped doing all that stuff, like I felt a ripple in the office because a lot of them started thinking about what they were doing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because if I'm doing it, I'm the guy in front of them, I'm the leader, then it's okay for them to do twice as much.

Speaker: That's the bad, they're gonna pick it up.

Speaker: And so that ripple effect was, I didn't even think about that when I did it, honestly.

Speaker: That wasn't a reason for it.

Speaker: But now I just realize how important it is as a leader to make sure you have the right habits, make sure you're doing it on a regular basis.

Speaker: If not for yourself, first and foremost.

Speaker: If you can't help yourself, you can't help anyone else.

Speaker: But more so for everyone else.

Speaker: At the end of the day, they're gonna see what you do every single day.

Speaker: They're gonna see whether you're on the doors,

Speaker: They're going to see if you're reading books, if you're bringing them new information.

Speaker: Because if you're reading books in the morning, there's going to be a chance you find nuggets you share with the team in the meeting.

Speaker: And then all of a sudden, you're adding value that you wouldn't be able to add before.

Speaker: So just doing those things every single day, I think it's compounded in the whole team.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: No, 100%.

Speaker: So love that.

Speaker: And I think that's a great way to end.

Speaker: Just like, you know, do be the leader.

Speaker: And for all our listeners, if you're managing a team, if your guys are out partying weekends, whatever, I mean, do the good.

Speaker: And it's like you're saying they're going to do, what was that, half the good and twice the bad.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I like that.

Speaker: I never heard that.

Speaker: But.

Speaker: So yeah, for everyone listening, be the example, be the leader on your team.

Speaker: Go out and do these things that Alex is doing.

Speaker: I know another thing we talked about too is just 75 hard.

Speaker: It's a good place to start.

Speaker: Andy for Sully, he talks about a lot of this similar stuff you were saying.

Speaker: So maybe if you are doing stuff like that, go try a thing like 75 hard, 75 days, cut out the alcohol, get the solid routine.

Speaker: see what happens because I know that's been a game changer for you and your guys.

Speaker: Yeah, you completed it, man.

Speaker: You completed it.

Speaker: So kudos for you.

Speaker: That's a mental battle.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, hey, man, if I looked like you, I don't think I would have even done it in the first place.

Speaker: 30 pounds dropped in 75 days?

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: It's kind of ridiculous.

Speaker: Good for you, man.

Speaker: That's awesome.

Speaker: What was the biggest thing you took away from that?

Speaker: I got to ask that question because I think a lot of people think Sermon Hours is just about getting into shape.

Speaker: But for you, it could have been that, but what did you get most out of that?

Speaker: Yeah, just the consistency, honestly.

Speaker: If you listen to Andy Priscilla talk about it, he says it's not a fitness challenge.

Speaker: That's not the purpose of it.

Speaker: It's more a mental thing to see how much you can stay consistent on just these little things.

Speaker: It's really not that hard.

Speaker: Anyone can go out and do two 45-minute workouts in a day and read a book and whatever the steps are.

Speaker: Don't drink.

Speaker: What was the hardest part for you?

Speaker: Phrase the progress picture.

Speaker: That's stupidest thing.

Speaker: Easiest part for most people.

Speaker: I actually woke up at one night.

Speaker: I mean, maybe I cheated a little bit, but I forgot to do it one night.

Speaker: But then I woke up at like 3 in the morning and remembered.

Speaker: So I ran in the bathroom and took it.

Speaker: That's clean.

Speaker: It was like day 70, though.

Speaker: So I'm like, I'm not counting this.

Speaker: That's clean.

Speaker: That's clean.

Speaker: The sun didn't come out.

Speaker: There wasn't a new day yet.

Speaker: Yeah, I'm like, sun's not out.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But...

Speaker: But yeah, no, so just staying consistent.

Speaker: And same thing we were saying with everyone, just all these little things you do consistently, the social media, the working out, the leading your team from the front, the doing meetings every day.

Speaker: I mean, that's, it sounds like that's basically your entire like path to success, right?

Speaker: It's not a lot.

Speaker: It's not super complicated.

Speaker: A lot of people make it out to be more than it is, but it is pretty simple.

Speaker: It's just hard.

Speaker: It's hard to do it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Just got to just realize that.

Speaker: Just got to do it.

Speaker: And hopefully, hopefully there's some, something you guys can take away from it.

Speaker: Yeah, no, I love it.

Speaker: So yeah, stay consistent.

Speaker: Go out and give Alex a follow on Instagram.

Speaker: Let him know you appreciated this episode.

Speaker: And Alex, thanks again for coming on, brother.

Speaker: We'll look forward to connecting with you more and keep crushing it.

Speaker: Likewise, man.

Speaker: Taylor, I'm super grateful for you, man.

Speaker: Super nice meeting you.

Speaker: That's awesome.

Speaker: Appreciate you, brother.

Speaker: Okay, peace.

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