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: Taylor Armstrong, your host here, and we are at the end of 2021.
Speaker: If you're listening to this later, then still a great episode to listen to, so don't skip this.
Speaker: But if you are listening to this on the day it releases, just wanted to give a special thank you for listening in to the podcast for the year of 2021.
Speaker: It's been a great journey.
Speaker: We've closed a lot of deals.
Speaker: We've changed a lot of lives.
Speaker: We have made some awesome money in this industry.
Speaker: So here's to a great 2021 and let's gear up for another year of slinging some solar.
Speaker: So if you haven't tuned into the podcast, we're here as usual to help you close more deals, help you generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better experience in the solar industry.
Speaker: Today's episode is going to be a little bit different because we are going to go through the top 10 episodes of 2021.
Speaker: We had some of the best episodes probably in the history of the podcast and got many more great episodes to come, but I thought it was fitting to go ahead and do a little recap and
Speaker: Just go through a few of the episodes, talk about a little summary of them, and then update people just on what these specific guests are doing.
Speaker: If there's any changes to their lives or systems, whatever they're doing.
Speaker: So listen to this episode and then after you've listened to this, if you haven't gone and listened to the actual full podcast of the ones we're going to mention here, definitely go back and listen to them because we're just going to scratch the surface on them.
Speaker: If you missed some of these, you missed out on a wealth of knowledge and some fire tips and content from a lot of these interviews and podcasts that we did.
Speaker: So you're definitely going to want to check out the show notes.
Speaker: Make sure you don't miss any of these episodes.
Speaker: Go back and re-listen to them.
Speaker: And to be honest, it's great to go back and listen to some of these multiple times.
Speaker: I've benefited a ton.
Speaker: I'm the one doing the interviews.
Speaker: And I benefit a ton when I go back and re-listen to some of the episodes, which I still need to do with a few of them.
Speaker: But before we jump into the top 10 episodes of 2021, I wanted to give you a reminder that
Speaker: We got Door-to-DoorCon coming up in just a couple weeks.
Speaker: So if you haven't gotten your tickets, what are you waiting for?
Speaker: Go to door-to-door con.
Speaker: I think it's.com.
Speaker: Anyway, we'll post this in the show notes.
Speaker: So go to the link because I don't memorize these links.
Speaker: But go get your ticket now and make sure you use the code ArmstrongD2D.
Speaker: You're going to get a discount for being a listener on the show here.
Speaker: And we'd love to see you there at the event.
Speaker: Always a life-changing event and always great to connect with more people in the industry and hear what's going on.
Speaker: So that and then the other quick announcement is we just want to thank our show sponsors.
Speaker: Again, Pi Syndicate.
Speaker: If you feel like you need to save more in taxes, if you feel like you want to keep more of the money you earned selling solar deals, if you feel like you need to be more smart with your financial investments and put more money in your pocket to get greater return on your investments, then definitely check out Pi Syndicate.
Speaker: Hey, hit them up, shoot me a message.
Speaker: We'll link to them also in the show notes, but go check them out if you could use some help with your finances, especially as we got tax season coming up here pretty quick.
Speaker: So that being said, let's jump straight into the podcast.
Speaker: We're going to start episode number 10.
Speaker: Then we're going to go to the number one episode of this year.
Speaker: And when I say the top episodes, I'm not necessarily meaning
Speaker: the best although that definitely correlates but i'm meaning the ones that got the most downloads the most plays the most listens whatever you want to call it so they were all great in their own ways but these are the ones that maybe they got shared the most some of them they all were great content okay we're gonna go through them give a tiny recap and again make sure you listen to the full episodes if you haven't already
Speaker: So number 10 was episode 179, and it is our episode with Rick Martinez.
Speaker: It's titled Secrets from the Top Sells Organizations.
Speaker: This was definitely a great episode.
Speaker: If you don't know my friend Rick Martinez, you'll definitely want to be following him.
Speaker: He is the greatest door-to-door page on Instagram.
Speaker: People know him as the Meme Lord, no soliciting, bruh.
Speaker: So go follow him.
Speaker: He's the funniest guy on the interwebs.
Speaker: But this episode was great because what I love about Rick, he has been with so many different companies.
Speaker: If for better or for worse, he has been with a ton of companies and he's seen some really great stuff.
Speaker: He's seen some not great stuff.
Speaker: And he knows at this point pretty much what separates the top organizations from the ones that aren't as great.
Speaker: And obviously he's interacting with so many different companies, hearing what's working.
Speaker: So with him, it was just great to hear with all his experience in the networking, being around so many different people.
Speaker: This guy travels like crazy.
Speaker: Every single time I see him, he's going traveling out with one company.
Speaker: He's out with a company in Texas.
Speaker: He's out in New York.
Speaker: He's out in Florida, just all over the place.
Speaker: So I think that was his superpower.
Speaker: His strength is just telling what he's seen, his experiences going around the different organizations.
Speaker: So if you are a team leader, if you are someone that's trained to improve your sales organization, this episode is great because you can hear what he's seen and what are those factors that differentiate your
Speaker: A top company from one that isn't doing as good.
Speaker: So that was number 10.
Speaker: Number nine, we got how to become a knock star.
Speaker: That was with my boy, Danny Pesce.
Speaker: Hey, and hopefully you've heard of these guys, Danny Pesce, Taylor McCarthy, but they run, I talk about them all the time in the podcast here.
Speaker: So you should know them by now.
Speaker: They run a knock star, a,
Speaker: which does trainings and consultings and kind of mastermindings for different reps, for sales organizations.
Speaker: I've personally been in their, um, platinum.
Speaker: I don't know what you call it.
Speaker: Mastermind their platinum knockstar group this year.
Speaker: And it's just been awesome to learn from these guys combined between them.
Speaker: They are some of the longest standing people in the door-to-door industry and just know what it takes to really be successful.
Speaker: So Danny Pesci, he just talks about what it takes to have lasting impact in the industry.
Speaker: I mean, he's been in it, I think, what, 15 years now or so, something like that.
Speaker: He did alarms.
Speaker: Now he's doing solar.
Speaker: It was consulting and training.
Speaker: So he's one of the longest guys in the industry.
Speaker: And he just talks about what it takes to really be a knock star, to keep making an impact and to make sure you're not burning yourself out.
Speaker: So, and obviously he is super funny guy.
Speaker: He was a comedian and he's between him and Rick Martinez.
Speaker: We got two jokesters, two of the top jokesters in the industry.
Speaker: So go check that one out.
Speaker: That is episode 134, How to Become a Knockstar.
Speaker: Okay, number eight, we got my friend Ian Wendt here, which funny story, I actually saw him on the freeway the other day.
Speaker: He's driving up.
Speaker: I'm in Utah currently taking a little holiday vacation.
Speaker: and I'm driving on the freeway.
Speaker: And to my surprise, I see flying behind me going 20 over the speed limit.
Speaker: I see this truck coming, this huge truck.
Speaker: I'm like, wow, this guy's cruising.
Speaker: Right when it passes me, I see his brand on there.
Speaker: Ian went, he runs the, I'm going to butcher his brand.
Speaker: Um, his clothing company, I'm going to look it up before I tell you the wrong thing.
Speaker: Oh, Patriot gear.
Speaker: My mind was drawn a blank.
Speaker: He runs Patriot gears.
Speaker: But anyways, I see his logo on the truck.
Speaker: I'm like, wow, there's only one person that would be driving a truck that big and be all decked out in Patriot gear.
Speaker: I looked to my left and of course it's the red bearded maniac Ian Wintz just driving like a madman.
Speaker: So cool guy.
Speaker: But that's besides the fact.
Speaker: His podcast was awesome.
Speaker: Ian Wendt, he has had multiple different sales experiences in alarms.
Speaker: I know satellite was kind of his thing.
Speaker: And he is an expert on selling to different buyer types.
Speaker: I first saw him speak at the Noxstar event, actually, Door-to-Door Fest.
Speaker: And he is really good at just identifying what type of buyer is this?
Speaker: Is this more of the bull buyer, the one that's going to need you to cut straight to the point?
Speaker: Is this more of the chatty one?
Speaker: So he goes through all the different buyer types.
Speaker: There's four main buyer types.
Speaker: And he talks about the differences, how you need to interact with each one of them.
Speaker: And if you are not changing your interactions, if you're selling the exact same way to every single potential customer you come in contact with, you're probably losing deals.
Speaker: Because at the end of the day, people interact differently.
Speaker: People buy differently.
Speaker: People want their buying experience to be catered to them.
Speaker: So he talks about how to identify those personalities, those buying types, and how you need to sell different to each one of them.
Speaker: This is something that changed my game.
Speaker: I never really, and I'm still learning this, but I never really had heard much of the difference between buying types.
Speaker: I was the kind of guy that just sold the same to everybody.
Speaker: And I sell great to the people that have a similar personality to myself, but to people that are more aggressive, to people that need more facts and figures, I was not good at selling to those people at all.
Speaker: And I'm still improving.
Speaker: I've got a lot to learn still.
Speaker: But great episode if you need to get better at identifying and selling to those different buyer types.
Speaker: Okay, so moving along, we got number seven.
Speaker: That's episode 164.
Speaker: It's how to sell solar and have purpose.
Speaker: That is with the one and only Mikey Lucas.
Speaker: Hey, this guy is awesome.
Speaker: If you're not following Mikey, he is posting inspiring content all the time on Instagram, on his social medias.
Speaker: But what I really loved about this episode is
Speaker: is Mikey, he was not like a top sales rep.
Speaker: He wasn't like the born salesman that you hear about that's just slinging crazy deals.
Speaker: He was more a guy like I consider myself, someone that came in that put in the effort that maybe they're not the number one rep month after month, but they're always near the top and it's because of the work they put in.
Speaker: It's because of always having that desire to improve.
Speaker: So I really connected with him.
Speaker: And I think this one is specifically, if you feel like you're not a top guy,
Speaker: If you feel like you're an average rep, but just trying to make it, go listen to this one.
Speaker: Because Mikey just has an awesome story about the perseverance.
Speaker: And then also how he's been able to impact just different people's lives through selling solar.
Speaker: He talks about building, I think it was solar farms in Mexico.
Speaker: I need to go back and listen to it again.
Speaker: But just different projects he's involved in where he's given back to the community.
Speaker: where he's used the income and resources he's gotten through solar to help other people in different countries and in different circumstances.
Speaker: So go listen to that one.
Speaker: That is number seven, episode 164 with Mikey Lucas.
Speaker: And number six, this one, I feel honored because this is one that I just did by myself, no guest.
Speaker: So thank you for tuning into this podcast.
Speaker: This was number 178, the questions you need to be asking in your solar presentations.
Speaker: And this one was actually inspired by the Noxstar group I was in.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And that is we did, we just had a discussion about why we need to be asking better questions in our presentations.
Speaker: So I got thinking, I need to share this with my solopreneurs.
Speaker: Everyone needs to learn how to ask better questions in their presentations and really get people to think for themselves.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because if you listen to the episode, I talk about the best way to sell people and help them realize the benefits is if they can realize it themselves by you asking the questions.
Speaker: If you're just telling them benefits, people are not going to buy that as much.
Speaker: They're not going to digest the information versus if you're asking them good questions and helping them realize that it is better to own your power versus rent.
Speaker: that there's more to solar than just saving money.
Speaker: And you do that by asking them great questions.
Speaker: So go listen to this podcast.
Speaker: I give you specific one-liners, specific questions, word tracks you can use and implement today and questions you can just put through the ringer, go test them out.
Speaker: So go check it out and let me know what you think.
Speaker: But that's number six, episode 178.
Speaker: And number five,
Speaker: these we getting some heavy hitters here people that were very influential so here we go number five was episode 158 and that was how to become a door-to-door millionaire with lenny gray and unless you're living under a rock you should know lenny gray he's written two books which i consider some of the biblical content of door-to-door and
Speaker: Door-to-door Millionaire is his book.
Speaker: And then his most recent book that came out right around when we actually recorded this episode, it was called More Door-to-door Millionaire.
Speaker: Yeah, should be right.
Speaker: More Door-to-door Millionaire.
Speaker: And that one, we just went through really a lot of content that's in his book.
Speaker: What's cool about him is he came from the pest control industry.
Speaker: He still has his pest control company, but he is now consulting door-to-door organizations all over the world on how they can better develop their organizations, how they can increase their sales and revenue, and just implement the topics in his books.
Speaker: So go read his book if you haven't.
Speaker: More door-to-door millionaire.
Speaker: I took a ton of notes on this book, and at the time when I was reading it, I was posting on Instagram all day
Speaker: the little highlights I got from it.
Speaker: So go check out his book and then go listen to his podcast.
Speaker: Cause what's cool about the podcast is I asked him specifically how we can apply a lot of the content from his book to solar.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So some of it you can apply directly from reading it.
Speaker: You can apply it to solar, but some of it, maybe it's not as obvious how you'd apply it to the solar industry.
Speaker: So I go through a lot of the questions I had as I read his book and ask him, hey Lenny, how can we do this but in solar?
Speaker: I know you've done this in pest control.
Speaker: So go tune in.
Speaker: Super powerful episode.
Speaker: He was filming, I think, in a park.
Speaker: He was pressed for time a little bit.
Speaker: So you will hear some lawnmowers going in the background.
Speaker: I apologize.
Speaker: We had a couple audio issues, but super powerful content in that one.
Speaker: Okay, now we got number four.
Speaker: That was with Alex Smith and how to be a solar Spartan.
Speaker: It's episode 173.
Speaker: And Alex, he is one of the most inspiring people I have met in solar.
Speaker: And he is just a young hustler.
Speaker: When you think of young hustler, this kid's name should come up in the dictionary.
Speaker: He's just jacked out of his mind.
Speaker: He's running like a crazy organization over in Florida.
Speaker: He's got his guys producing on a level that I don't really see anywhere.
Speaker: And I don't think there's anyone on his team that made less than six figures, if I'm remembering right.
Speaker: So he's not only recruiting rep after rep after rep, but he's getting them to produce at a super high level.
Speaker: And compared to anyone else I've seen on Instagram, social media, it's his guys that I see posting out their paychecks.
Speaker: I would say on average I'm seeing bigger commissions of guys working with Alex Smith.
Speaker: It was really cool to be able to connect with him.
Speaker: We did this podcast at one of the Noxstar events.
Speaker: Just got to hear his story, how he got in the industry, how he decided to start his own dealer over there in Florida.
Speaker: And how he's been able to get his guys to just grind and the things he's had to give up.
Speaker: That's one of the things that stood out to me in this episode is he's given up a lot to get to the level that he's achieved.
Speaker: He came from kind of like the partier background.
Speaker: Yeah, he did.
Speaker: Good looking guy.
Speaker: Partied a lot and stuff.
Speaker: And now he's given up a lot of that to reach an insane level of success.
Speaker: So go listen to that one and you can hear what he had to do and maybe it will change your perspective on things that you can give up in this new year to hit the level of success that you deserve.
Speaker: Okay, now we got top three here.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: So episode number or the top number third episode.
Speaker: Okay, sorry, I messed that up.
Speaker: Number three on the list is we got 167 and that's how to crush solar objections.
Speaker: Another name in the industry that you should know by now, he's got Solar Joe.
Speaker: This guy, he has the top Facebook group for Solar Pros called Solar Objections.
Speaker: I learned so much just by being in this group and seeing all the interactions with everybody.
Speaker: But not only that, he posts some of the greatest content I've seen.
Speaker: Okay, next to the Solarpreneur podcast.
Speaker: Okay, but his Solar Objections live streams are so good.
Speaker: If you're not tuning into them, go check them out.
Speaker: So I feel like myself, he's been able to interview a lot of the top people in the solar industry.
Speaker: And what's cool about what he does is he goes through specific objections.
Speaker: So he's almost doing that role play style with most of his live streams.
Speaker: And he's getting...
Speaker: you know, solid one-liners from guests and just figuring out exactly what they do to close more deals and achieve more success.
Speaker: So that was the focus of that episode.
Speaker: Just hearing how he started up the Facebook group, how he's grown up so much, how he's kept it quality.
Speaker: And then just how some of the top ways to overcome objections.
Speaker: So that was cool about this one.
Speaker: You can hear some of the ways he goes about overcoming specific objections.
Speaker: Super important.
Speaker: And as you know, the better you can overcome objections, the more deals you're going to close.
Speaker: So go listen to this one.
Speaker: You're going to hear how he overcomes objections and some of the top tips he's learned from interacting with hundreds of solar pros.
Speaker: And now we got number two.
Speaker: One more after this.
Speaker: Number two was episode 194.
Speaker: This was a pretty recent podcast and it is how to close 68 deals in a month.
Speaker: That was with my boy Chance Pranszynski.
Speaker: Always butcher his last name.
Speaker: I think it's Polish or something.
Speaker: But this one was crazy.
Speaker: I had never heard a rep closing this many deals in a month.
Speaker: 68 freaking deals in a month.
Speaker: So obviously we had to get him on, hear what he did to close so many deals.
Speaker: And I hadn't heard about Chance before.
Speaker: My friend Marshall actually referred me to him, told me, hey, man, there's a kid in our company that closed 68 deals.
Speaker: If you had heard anyone closing that many, I had not.
Speaker: And as far as I know, this is an industry record, 68 deals in a month.
Speaker: I don't think anyone's done this many deals.
Speaker: And we'll see if someone can beat it next year.
Speaker: Crazy number.
Speaker: If you hear of anyone getting close or beating this, definitely let me know.
Speaker: But it goes without saying this.
Speaker: You want to hear what this kid's doing.
Speaker: If you can close 68 deals in a month, you got something to share.
Speaker: What's cool about his is a lot of people would think, oh, he probably got fed tons of leads.
Speaker: They're probably all just like referrals and leads.
Speaker: He didn't like go out and generate these own, his own leads.
Speaker: But what's cool is he actually set up, I think, I want to say it was around half of these were appointments he set himself.
Speaker: A lot of them were coming from same day appointments as well.
Speaker: So if you thought he was just being spoon-fed deals, spoon-fed people that were just lined up on a platter and sent to him, you thought wrong.
Speaker: This kid was out hustling.
Speaker: He was working like 15-hour days and he was just unstoppable.
Speaker: Go listen to him.
Speaker: It just gets you inspired to hear the level of work ethic he puts in and just really hear what it takes to hit that many deals in a month.
Speaker: I haven't gotten close to that many, but it was cool to hear
Speaker: what he had to do to get to get to that level.
Speaker: Hey, and then the top episode of 2021, give me a drum roll.
Speaker: If you're listening to this, if you're in the gym, whatever, I don't care.
Speaker: Look like an idiot in there.
Speaker: Give me a drum roll.
Speaker: Episode number one of 2021 was the one, the only Taylor McCarthy.
Speaker: Hey, and you've probably heard this episode.
Speaker: This is actually our most downloaded episode of all time history of the podcast.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And it was titled, How to Achieve Goat Status in Solar Cells, Episode 155.
Speaker: So you've probably listened to this, but if you have not heard that episode, go listen to it.
Speaker: I've gotten so much feedback from this episode.
Speaker: So many guys have listened to it on repeat.
Speaker: I think I've heard of people that have listened to it like 15 to 20 times, no joke.
Speaker: And the reason is because Taylor just gives so many one-liners, so many specific things you can go out and implement today that you can use in your presentations.
Speaker: He doesn't hold back anything.
Speaker: And there's just so much to learn from him on the specific things he does in his presentations, on the doors, how to close deals.
Speaker: This one is a juicy one.
Speaker: It's full of nuggets.
Speaker: It's one you want to listen to on repeat over and over and over.
Speaker: And that's why it was our top episode of 2021.
Speaker: Because Taylor McCarthy, probably the greatest solar cellman ever.
Speaker: of all time okay obviously you got guys like chance the up-and-comers but i want to say he's like the michael jordan of solar cells he's been great he's passing his wisdom on to future generations and he is crushing it so go listen to that one listen to it on repeat and those were the top episodes of 2021
Speaker: So I hope you enjoyed this.
Speaker: Let me know what you think.
Speaker: I actually got this idea from a few other podcasts I listen to that do their top episodes.
Speaker: So I thought, what a better episode than that to go and recap and go through some of our most listened to episodes.
Speaker: So go listen to them.
Speaker: Again, all these episodes are worthy of being listened to multiple times.
Speaker: Let me know what you thought of this.
Speaker: If you like this style here in recaps like that,
Speaker: And again, hope you crushed 2021, but whatever you did this year, let's make it 10 times better in 2022.
Speaker: Hope to see you at DoorToDoorCon here coming up.
Speaker: Make sure to use Armstrong D2D.
Speaker: Get your tickets now.
Speaker: Go join Pius Syndicate, and we'll see you in that group as well.
Speaker: And that's a wrap, guys.
Speaker: Happy 2021.
Speaker: Happy New Year's.
Speaker: And we'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker: Hey Solarpreneurs, quick question.
Speaker: What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day?
Speaker: For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
Speaker: That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry.
Speaker: And it's called Solcitee.
Speaker: This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day.
Speaker: Currently, Soul Society is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
Speaker: So go to soulcidity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to soulcidity.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
