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 fail.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Speaker: Okay, welcome back, Sorpreneurs.
Speaker: We are here with another episode.
Speaker: I'm excited for this episode because we got another guy that is helping reps not only master sales, but really just the, he calls it closing the gap between skill and execution and helping reps master the mental side of things.
Speaker: So I'm super excited for this episode.
Speaker: We got the one, the only Zach Hall.
Speaker: He is over at MindRx Academy, little coaching program, coaching group he started.
Speaker: So thanks for coming on with us today, Zach.
Speaker: Taylor, thank you so much.
Speaker: It's an honor to be with you.
Speaker: Glad to be here.
Speaker: I'm excited as well.
Speaker: Yeah, should be fun.
Speaker: And yeah, you were introduced to me by our mutual friend Ashton Buswell, along with a couple other guys.
Speaker: So I know it's going to be a super quality episode.
Speaker: Ashton, you know, he only recommends the best.
Speaker: So you're going to bring the heat.
Speaker: You ready to drop some bombs on us today?
Speaker: Yeah, that's the plan.
Speaker: Yeah, it takes a goat to know a goat, right?
Speaker: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker: Ashton's awesome.
Speaker: He's always led by example.
Speaker: He's a model of a good figure in direct sales and in solar specifically.
Speaker: So it's an honor to know him and to be connected to you through that.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm excited about this.
Speaker: I've actually been to a few retreats lately.
Speaker: I don't know if you know a guy named Jens Bunnell.
Speaker: You know Jens?
Speaker: I've met him, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I just got back from one of his retreats and you guys probably do some similar stuff, but that's a lot what he coaches reps on is just like not necessarily the sales side of things.
Speaker: There's tons of sales trainings out there, but it's like just kind of like the mental, emotional stuff.
Speaker: I think this is almost you probably agree.
Speaker: Sometimes it's almost more important to figure that part out.
Speaker: And the cells increase just by figuring that part of the brain out rather than doing more cells training and all this other stuff we can do.
Speaker: Would you agree?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I'm pretty biased.
Speaker: At least was true in my life.
Speaker: Like I found it.
Speaker: Early on in your career, like there has to be a certain amount of skill that you need to learn.
Speaker: If you don't know how to approach someone, if you don't know how to present or find pain points and stuff like there's skill in the game.
Speaker: But after six months, a year of doing it, it was less about the skill that I had.
Speaker: I knew what I needed to do.
Speaker: Most sales reps just don't do consistently what they already know how to do.
Speaker: And that's a mental thing.
Speaker: That's an emotional thing.
Speaker: And so I like to get to the source of that and help people remove those blocks, change those filters, and so that they can perform more consistently with the skills that they already have.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so good.
Speaker: Yeah, I'd agree with that.
Speaker: It's like you got to get to the base level, but I think a lot of, you know, experienced reps, this is probably the next step that they need to figure out is...
Speaker: mastering that side of things.
Speaker: So I'm excited to get into that.
Speaker: And I know we'll be jamming on that today.
Speaker: But before we do that, do you want to give us kind of your background, Zach?
Speaker: Like, I know you just are recently transitioning to doing the coaching full time, consulting and all that.
Speaker: So yeah, but tell us your background with solar and direct sales and everything.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Where do we want to start?
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: I wasn't going to be a sales pro.
Speaker: That was not
Speaker: the intended path.
Speaker: I actually went to medical school.
Speaker: So that's maybe where we kick it off.
Speaker: I did a year of medical school in California, planning on being like a foot and ankle surgeon.
Speaker: And I had done a summer of alarms prior to entering medical school.
Speaker: And I saw like the potential of the direct sales life, you know, saw these guys in four months earning six figures or whatnot.
Speaker: And, but I, I didn't really like the product, I guess.
Speaker: Didn't really believe in it.
Speaker: And I already had a wife and a kid at the time.
Speaker: I didn't like the nomadic lifestyle that it seemed like the alarm sales pros kind of lived.
Speaker: And so I, I stuck to the path.
Speaker: I went into med school, but it was in California.
Speaker: Which you're in California, right?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: San Diego.
Speaker: Pretty expensive there.
Speaker: I don't know how you guys do it.
Speaker: But yeah, so cost of living there.
Speaker: Like I maxed out the student loans that you can get for an individual.
Speaker: And it's based on an individual, not a family.
Speaker: And we've got somewhat traditional values.
Speaker: We wanted one of us to be home to raise our baby.
Speaker: And so I was gone all the time studying in classes, lab work, all the kind of stuff.
Speaker: And we just didn't have the money.
Speaker: So I put it on hold.
Speaker: I put school on hold after the first year, borrowed from some grandparents and called my buddy that did alarms and said, hey, I'm ready for another summer of alarms.
Speaker: I have five weeks before my second year.
Speaker: And he was like, well, I'm doing solar in Arizona.
Speaker: And I'm from Arizona.
Speaker: So I said, that's perfect.
Speaker: I'll go sell some solar.
Speaker: Tell me about that.
Speaker: Yeah, it's pretty funny.
Speaker: I remember my manager, assistant manager, as that summer drew to a close.
Speaker: And I was like, you know what?
Speaker: We didn't save up quite enough.
Speaker: You know, I had some cancel issues.
Speaker: And so we didn't save up quite enough.
Speaker: But I thought if we did this for a year, then we could save up and go back to med school.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And actually maybe have everything paid for.
Speaker: You know, the promise seems so great.
Speaker: This is back in like 2015.
Speaker: And my manager was like, don't do that.
Speaker: You won't go back.
Speaker: And yeah, one year became now 10.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Never went back.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: Sounds kind of similar to me.
Speaker: Is that right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, yeah, I was just going to do like six months and then.
Speaker: You know, my wife, she wanted to come out.
Speaker: She wanted to get out of Utah and warm her weather and all that.
Speaker: And yeah, six months turned into 10 years as well.
Speaker: So I'm still going.
Speaker: I know that's, that's the life, but it sounds like you're an easier crew.
Speaker: So you're just like, just like solar.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I'll sell whatever.
Speaker: You weren't like nervous at all, trying a new product or let's run it.
Speaker: Yeah, I was more excited when I asked about that.
Speaker: Because he's like, I'll put you in touch with the alarm people.
Speaker: And I asked him, like, well, tell me about solar.
Speaker: And he presented it.
Speaker: Back then, it was very lease heavy, right?
Speaker: Like the beginning of the career, very TPO.
Speaker: I guess, depending on where you were.
Speaker: And I bought into that product.
Speaker: Like, that makes so much sense.
Speaker: It's good for the planet.
Speaker: It lowers bills they have to pay for, you know?
Speaker: And so I was like, let's sell that.
Speaker: And so I actually was more excited to do this than I was, you know, selling, selling the alarms was like need driven, you know, like I needed the money choosing to sell solar for those five weeks.
Speaker: I was very want driven.
Speaker: It was like, Oh, I want to take advantage of this opportunity.
Speaker: It's back where I live, Arizona, not some nomadic place.
Speaker: And yeah, it was much better.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: So was it like a tough trend?
Speaker: Was it like a rocky road at first or were you out the gates selling a lot or how was it first starting out?
Speaker: Yeah, no, I mean, thankfully I had the summer of alarms that I, you know, how like sales reps, they have that moment where they're about to quit and then they don't quit.
Speaker: And then like it clicks for them and they start selling consistently.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I took care of that in the alarm summer.
Speaker: When I started doing solar, it was a week without a deal.
Speaker: And then my next weekend, I sold like three and then it started steamrolling from there.
Speaker: It was rocky, not without bumps.
Speaker: Like I lost half the deals I sold in that 15 weeks.
Speaker: But I saw the potential.
Speaker: So I told my wife, listen, let's move for a year.
Speaker: Let's save up.
Speaker: I'll figure out how to stop the cancels.
Speaker: Like we'll save up.
Speaker: We'll get 50, 60 grand in our pockets to coast through the rest of the medical school years.
Speaker: And then, yeah, that just, we just, I ended up never looking back.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: So yeah, there was some Rocky with the cancel stuff, but figured that out and just kept climbing.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: So for you, what was it like?
Speaker: Was there like a point where you made the decision?
Speaker: Okay, I'm going to stay out here.
Speaker: I'm going to keep doing this because I don't know about you, but like coming from Utah, I come from like the traditional like LDS background.
Speaker: All the moms want their kids to be doctors and had some like family pressure to go back to school and everything.
Speaker: And so for me, it was like kind of a tough decision deciding to stay out there.
Speaker: And I had to, you know, hit some numbers, hit some goals before I made the decision to keep staying out there.
Speaker: Did you have anything like that where something switched or you like made more than you're expecting or something?
Speaker: You're like, you know, I'll just stay out here.
Speaker: What was that like for you?
Speaker: Like in terms of direct sales itself or the solar thing?
Speaker: um yeah i guess just the solar thing or yeah maybe direct cells itself what made you decide to not go back to school my moment of quitting was in alarms and i flew home my wife was like we had our baby he was two or three at the time um she was staying with her parents actually northern san diego county if you know bonds all okay yeah
Speaker: So she was staying with them and her mom was taking care of her grandmother who was like having Alzheimer's and like in homes.
Speaker: And it was just tight and crowded.
Speaker: And my baby was crying all the time.
Speaker: And here I am gone and I'm not selling.
Speaker: I sold like six or something alarms in that first month.
Speaker: And so I took a flight home.
Speaker: Um, and like to regroup, to help out.
Speaker: And I was this close to not going back, but something said, finish the commitment, right?
Speaker: Like you said, two months, go do the two months.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And when I went back, we, we, my, my trainer picked me up.
Speaker: Um, we, we went to a small town and I sold two.
Speaker: that night and then it just started clicking.
Speaker: I was like a one-a-day guy.
Speaker: So it clicked, right?
Speaker: That was the decision like, okay, there's something in direct sales here.
Speaker: Then I went back to school and then, you know, fast forward to the solar decision.
Speaker: I actually didn't get surprisingly resistance from family members.
Speaker: I grew up in a similar background, but they were like, no, if you like it, if you think you can do it, you know, like,
Speaker: More power to you.
Speaker: Like there's something to be said about, you know, starting your family and being able to be around your family more as opposed to going, you know, the medical school route where you actually, a lot of families get divorced.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that was kind of the biggest decision for me as I was family first.
Speaker: That's why I didn't want to dive into alarms, even though I saw the potential.
Speaker: It was too nomadic, right?
Speaker: Hard for the people who brought their kids.
Speaker: And then, but in solar, like you could plant roots.
Speaker: and be around and I saw how I could have the mornings with my wife and my baby and you know in medical school I was gone all the time in the in the fourth year you actually spent 11 months on the road.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Yeah 11 months you're doing external rotations is what they call it and so I would have been across the country for a year and this is where a lot of families get separated that go through it I mean high stress environment.
Speaker: And not that I was running from that, but I was running to a lasting family.
Speaker: That was really the decision.
Speaker: And I saw that I could create that better in a commission-only environment than I could
Speaker: you know taking the medical school route so yeah i got support from the family members in fact the one that was probably hardest to convince was my wife but she got on board yeah nice yeah that's right for me it was opposite it was my family wasn't on board but my wife she was the one that was like pushing me she's like no do this i love it out of utah yeah she's like get me out of utah give me a little cold
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: So you, you had made enough money up to that point and you're pretty confident that like, okay, I can do this longterm.
Speaker: And was that the decision that you were going to do it for 10 years or was it still like, Oh, let's just do another year.
Speaker: It was a year.
Speaker: It was a year.
Speaker: It was like, listen, if we save up for a year, cause I did the math.
Speaker: And if we ran out of money and had to borrow from grandparents at the end of the first year, each year, each year thereafter gets more expensive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: especially with the traveling and the rotations and you're like trying to like pay for lodging and stuff.
Speaker: So, so I was like, if we're running out first year, then we'll run out each of the next year.
Speaker: So let's save up, let's do solar for a whole year.
Speaker: And on top of the loans, we'll have 50, 60 grand in our pocket that we can, we can float the difference.
Speaker: That was the decision.
Speaker: And then proving that true and like banking that cash while living more freely,
Speaker: Um, not on the clock all the time, studying all the time, but like, you know, getting to go visit family, you know, take time off or go work extra hard and earn extra money.
Speaker: Like being able to make decisions like that was very free.
Speaker: And so my wife was happy.
Speaker: We were in a, she likes the heat, same thing.
Speaker: Don't put her in a cold place.
Speaker: Arizona was great for her.
Speaker: And we had our second kid and, um, yeah, so we just were like, let's,
Speaker: It was one year first and then it was like maybe one more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But by then I knew it was, it was, we're not going back.
Speaker: It was more, it was more, one more for her.
Speaker: They offered me a promotion to be a leader and stay.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah, let's let's do this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: So you so I'm assuming you got all your student debt paid off.
Speaker: No more student debt.
Speaker: Dude, no, actually, no, no, I don't.
Speaker: No, no, I'm not.
Speaker: I'll admit that.
Speaker: I didn't do like crazy.
Speaker: And you have to remember too, back in the day, like, right, we were getting paid like $200 a kilowatt.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it wasn't like the substantial pay.
Speaker: And as this is interesting, maybe we dive into this.
Speaker: This is what led to coaching.
Speaker: But as the pay started rising and more dealer model stuff started forming and like the big companies tried to like boost up their commission structures and things to keep up with that.
Speaker: Um, I had been then laid off.
Speaker: It was a very interesting decision that ended up happening.
Speaker: I made the decision to stay in solar after that second year.
Speaker: We're not going back.
Speaker: I got promoted to a district manager level, started seeing great money.
Speaker: A lot of prayer behind this, by the way, it was like, should we stay?
Speaker: Do we go back?
Speaker: Like, it seems like this is the path I made the decision to stay.
Speaker: I get promoted.
Speaker: I think that's confirmation to prayer.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, here's your evidence.
Speaker: And then two months after that, Tesla, which had acquired SolarCity, fired the direct sales channel.
Speaker: And my performance actually right after that started to tank.
Speaker: So I just made the decision.
Speaker: We got the promotion.
Speaker: Tesla fires all of us.
Speaker: I landed laterally, like as a district manager at another company.
Speaker: Um, but my performance started to struggle.
Speaker: And for those two years, probably what you would call like your prime years in a sales career, like years three, four, five, I think is like your athletic prime, you know?
Speaker: Um, I, I was, I was tanking.
Speaker: I did, I did terrible those years.
Speaker: Um, and I got into a really dark spot actually, um, mentally.
Speaker: So no, still, still lots of student debt.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, I know it's a crazy amount.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know how much, but yeah, that's, that's the thing that I don't like about these doctors.
Speaker: Like even though they make good money when they graduate, some have hundreds of thousands in debt.
Speaker: And so it's like, um, I have a brother-in-law who he, he grad, he's like a music guy.
Speaker: So he graduated in this, he has a doctor in bassoon.
Speaker: It's like this wind instrument thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It turns out you can.
Speaker: But there's not too many jobs in it.
Speaker: So he has all this student debt and, you know, he can't really even get a job for what he's doing.
Speaker: So just like I feel for those people that go to all this school and then they have this debt.
Speaker: And luckily we're in a good, you know, career where we can pay off a lot of that.
Speaker: And I'm sure you've gotten a lot of it paid down.
Speaker: But yeah, it's just crazy.
Speaker: This system where they're doing that.
Speaker: Yeah, what's really cool is like,
Speaker: You make a decision like a doctor either for status or for like the financial security.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's kind of what attracted me to it.
Speaker: My dad was actually in sales, so I never thought I'd go into sales.
Speaker: And him and my mom fought on money all the time.
Speaker: I was one of six kids and they just didn't earn enough and split after 17 years of fighting on money.
Speaker: So I was like, there's no way I'm going to sales.
Speaker: I was attracted to doctoring because...
Speaker: Financial security, right?
Speaker: Well, COVID actually flipped the script on that.
Speaker: My friends that had stayed the doctor route, like there were fewer and fewer people coming into the hospitals.
Speaker: They didn't want to be in the hospital.
Speaker: Everyone was like locked in.
Speaker: So that secure income, it's only secure if the patients come.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so like I learned for myself, security is what you create.
Speaker: There's no relying on external security.
Speaker: You create the security.
Speaker: And I realized like solar took off.
Speaker: 2020 was a heck of a year for solar.
Speaker: I was on a rebound.
Speaker: I had invested in myself.
Speaker: So I was much better mentally and like it was the perfect timing.
Speaker: 2020 was a phenomenal year for me.
Speaker: Whereas if I was in the hospital, I would have earned less.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good point.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: And I think a lot of people listening, they, uh, and especially newer reps, they get in this thing where, Oh, so I've actually got a buddy out in Arizona where he's been doing sounds like 10 years, but he's, uh, wanting to be like a,
Speaker: a pilot now he's like i don't i can't handle the unpredictability anymore of sales but for me it's just like i can't go back to anything else so i don't know once you're like used to this and know that you can go out and make business up and get sales earn your commission it's uh for me it's tough to go back to anything else yeah that's um such a good point and if i heard him say that i would be like well just
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Maybe, I mean, like it's crazy.
Speaker: Him thinking I can't handle the predictability.
Speaker: I bet it shows up and he acts unpredictably.
Speaker: I bet it.
Speaker: Like I would bet a million dollars on it.
Speaker: His actions are unpredictable because he thinks he can't handle the unpredictability.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I think they are for sure.
Speaker: He's coming.
Speaker: Yeah, he's got other issues too, for sure, I think.
Speaker: But, you know, I'll connect you with him maybe.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, I'm interested to hear you talked about how you had kind of like a slump.
Speaker: You went down after Tesla laid off everybody.
Speaker: So how do this?
Speaker: Because I think a lot of people can relate to that.
Speaker: I've been through myself where I feel like I'm doing good.
Speaker: And then I have just like these crazy slumps and everything.
Speaker: So what what caused this?
Speaker: Why did you have like a slump?
Speaker: And maybe you can talk about that story, how you got out of it and what that was like.
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: So obviously it's not a very fun time.
Speaker: Right away, right away, like I did okay.
Speaker: Like I did as I've always done the first month that we moved to this new company.
Speaker: In fact, I was probably in Arizona, oops, out of the group that left or was fired from SolarCity and we like landed over here.
Speaker: I actually, I think at the first month, I think I sold the most.
Speaker: It was like seven, seven deals or something like that.
Speaker: But every month after that,
Speaker: I did a little worse, a little worse.
Speaker: And there were some market changes too that happened.
Speaker: That was fall of 2017.
Speaker: So it's easier to see it looking back.
Speaker: Here's how it works in terms of like the mind, like how your mind works.
Speaker: When you encounter a new experience, your mind doesn't have anything to like
Speaker: understand it by because it's new.
Speaker: Does that make sense?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what actually flashes in your mind is a point of reference, something that's similar to it.
Speaker: So when we got when we got fired, and I didn't know this at the time, but it's become very clear.
Speaker: I was reminded of times in my life where my friends turned on me fourth and fifth, my fourth grade friends became bullies.
Speaker: And of me.
Speaker: And then I was reminded also of like one of six kids.
Speaker: I was the kid who was good.
Speaker: Like after I handled my young issues where I cried all the time, I was a tantrum early.
Speaker: But by about like second grade, I started becoming the kid that could, you know, just be on his own.
Speaker: And so like I didn't get a lot of attention.
Speaker: All the other kids kind of starved my parents of the attention that they had to give.
Speaker: And so I interpreted this thing that happened from Solar City as something like I wasn't wanted.
Speaker: There's something about me that's unwanted.
Speaker: And you didn't know this at the time.
Speaker: You're just reflecting back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's what you've realized.
Speaker: Oh, 100%.
Speaker: At the time, I, oh my gosh.
Speaker: At the time, I had no idea.
Speaker: I just started sucking at something I had been good at.
Speaker: Like, okay, I'm going to cry.
Speaker: You can't see it.
Speaker: I have some tears for me.
Speaker: I started sucking.
Speaker: I'm like, what's going on?
Speaker: And then here's what happens.
Speaker: When you start doing poorly in something that you've done well,
Speaker: you know, where does your thoughts go?
Speaker: Like you start questioning yourself.
Speaker: You're like, what's wrong with me?
Speaker: And you start asking these very like negative based questions.
Speaker: Like, you know, why could you, how do you keep screwing up?
Speaker: What's wrong with you?
Speaker: Like, why can't you get it right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I don't know if you've ever.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: So after a while, like that, then my performance suffers worse.
Speaker: Now it was like this, like,
Speaker: bitterness turned into self-loathing and then like this self-doubt.
Speaker: And after a while of not being able to perform, like my leaders had to say, hey, we can't have you be a leader.
Speaker: Like you're producing maybe two deals in a month.
Speaker: Like that's not leader status.
Speaker: You know, we're very lead from the front here.
Speaker: And so they had to demote me.
Speaker: And I was working more probably than I ever had before.
Speaker: I was like maybe like rookie schedule again.
Speaker: I was all in.
Speaker: every day, as long as I could force myself to do it.
Speaker: But then that even started to get hard because I just felt like it was pointless.
Speaker: Like, what's the point?
Speaker: I would work, you know, 60, 70 hour weeks and get four deals in a month.
Speaker: And I would work.
Speaker: And then every once in a while, I would work like, you know, 20 hour weeks and get four deals in a month.
Speaker: So it's like, okay, I'm going to get four deals.
Speaker: Like it doesn't, doesn't matter how much I work, which is stupid.
Speaker: So after a while, like it's just, then I get demoted.
Speaker: Now I start hating myself and I start seeing all the evidence of like how I'm screwing up, not just in this career that I decided and like changed my family's life on.
Speaker: It's a lot of pressure.
Speaker: But I started seeing that I was feeling in church.
Speaker: I had a church calling that I, that I love to do well in and I was not showing up for that and I was missing meetings and you know, I didn't have the money I needed to like pay tithing, which has been a huge part of who I am and
Speaker: you know, donations and things like that.
Speaker: And then just, I started failing and everything.
Speaker: Um, and so that's, that's kind of like the mindset, but I was just recognizing myself failing.
Speaker: That's tough.
Speaker: And yeah, I mean, I can relate.
Speaker: I got, I got wife, kids and everything.
Speaker: So especially, um, when you got like that monkey on your back where, you know, you gotta be the provider, uh, take care of family, take care of the kids.
Speaker: Um, yeah, it's easy.
Speaker: I've definitely fallen into that trap and, um,
Speaker: Um, I don't, I'm sure you'll talk more about this, but it seems like the more that's like, like how we talk about what you focus on is what's going to happen.
Speaker: So as you get this like negative bias going on, you just start to see all the negative and everything that, Oh, I'm falling in this.
Speaker: I'm not getting sales, not doing the church calling, not being a good dad.
Speaker: Um, and I think that can affect anyone and, um, definitely super tough to sell when you're having those thoughts come up and, um, loss of confidence.
Speaker: So tough, dude.
Speaker: In fact, most sales rep's problems, especially experienced ones, they're not sales problems.
Speaker: They're personal problems affecting their sales.
Speaker: And that's what happened to me.
Speaker: And I got to a pretty dark place.
Speaker: Thankfully, we're in an amazing area.
Speaker: We have some incredible people actually at church and other friends and things like that.
Speaker: And someone gave us a book.
Speaker: We took a trip to California to visit my wife's parents.
Speaker: And I read this book the whole way.
Speaker: So I read it there and back.
Speaker: We finished.
Speaker: And it was written by a student of Bob Proctor.
Speaker: If you know the name Bob Proctor.
Speaker: Bob Proctor, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So it was written by a student of his.
Speaker: And I started applying the principles that it teaches and immediately began thinking better.
Speaker: Like that was the first thing that started happening is we started applying it so our thinking got better.
Speaker: And as the thinking got better, we started seeing things happening for us.
Speaker: There were some crazy obstacles for some big things that were happening that year.
Speaker: We don't have time.
Speaker: That's another episode maybe.
Speaker: But they just magically came to pass.
Speaker: And the obstacles diffused.
Speaker: And things happened the way they needed to happen.
Speaker: And it was so fast.
Speaker: It changing and me thinking and feeling and acting better, like, and stuff happening, opportunities appearing, which by the way, they're always there, but I just didn't notice them.
Speaker: Um, it was a complete one 80.
Speaker: And so then I was like, well, shoot, dude, I got to do this for other people.
Speaker: Um, whoever this did for me, like I got, I re after the book, I like reached out to Bob Proctor's company, Proctor Gallagher, and I got coached by him.
Speaker: I spent more money than I had, had to go on payment plan, had to miss a couple payments.
Speaker: But I stayed in it until things really broke through.
Speaker: And yeah, it was a complete 180.
Speaker: And I realized how much it changed me.
Speaker: I said, that was the moment I decided I have to build.
Speaker: This is my work.
Speaker: This is where I belong.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: So what book were you talking about?
Speaker: Good, yeah.
Speaker: It's called The Jackrabbit Factor.
Speaker: Jackrabbit factor.
Speaker: Author is Leslie Householder.
Speaker: You mentioned you're a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Saints.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I am too.
Speaker: Leslie is.
Speaker: So it's pretty cool.
Speaker: It's like an allegory for how the mind works and how it creates, but it's told in story form, which is really neat.
Speaker: So it's a great book.
Speaker: And they wrote a sequel too.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: You have to check that one out.
Speaker: Um, that's cool.
Speaker: That book changed it.
Speaker: So you're telling me from the, from this book and then the coaching, um, how did that affect all the other areas?
Speaker: Was it like super quick one 80 or like, what was, what was the turnaround from there?
Speaker: I mean, looking back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like looking back, it seems like it was, it was like that.
Speaker: Um, but no, it took, it took place over a matter of months.
Speaker: Um, and then my, my year that actually was COVID.
Speaker: So like, I went to launch my coaching company, my business.
Speaker: I went to launch it in February of 2020.
Speaker: I remember having like my first gathering of like close friends and say, Hey, this is what I'm doing now.
Speaker: Like they recommended.
Speaker: And, uh, and then COVID hit and solar took off.
Speaker: And so I, and like,
Speaker: Yeah, so I leaned into solar.
Speaker: And so I actually had to put coaching on the back burner for a while.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it was actually probably supposed to happen that way, too.
Speaker: So then, yeah, it was probably what happened.
Speaker: October.
Speaker: October of 2019.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: September of 2019.
Speaker: We're reading the book.
Speaker: By October, I've invested in the coaching.
Speaker: By March, I'm back.
Speaker: I'm back to what I was before the downfall.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And so while you're going through this coaching program, is that where you started to notice these things that you're telling me where you're focused on the negativity and notice what had gone wrong?
Speaker: They were kind of teaching you what's actually happening in your mind.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Things started becoming a lot clearer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Things became a lot clearer.
Speaker: I started seeing like how I had created this negative downfall myself.
Speaker: Like it was my responsibility.
Speaker: It wasn't the market changes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, cause there were people who did well after the market changed.
Speaker: It wasn't getting fired.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, cause there were a lot of people who got fired.
Speaker: It was me thinking that getting fired meant that I wasn't wanted.
Speaker: That's, yeah, that's powerful.
Speaker: So how did this, once you started making the changes, turning around, how did that affect yourselves?
Speaker: Was it like right back to where you were and plus even better?
Speaker: Did you just like make some insane breakthroughs after that?
Speaker: Or how did it reflect on like sales, family, church, all that stuff?
Speaker: Yeah, everything.
Speaker: Appreciate it.
Speaker: Everything reversed.
Speaker: 180 in the trajectory.
Speaker: And I pretty much restored, I call it like a restoration breakthrough.
Speaker: So everything restored back to the type of character, caliber, and ability that I had previously.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Through that first round.
Speaker: But I actually hit a ceiling, and I got right back to where I was before I started tanking.
Speaker: And then I was stuck there for a couple of years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 2022, 2023, roughly the... No, no, no.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: 2020 and 2021, roughly the same...
Speaker: Sales as I had before, the same amount of income, and I had reestablished a new ceiling.
Speaker: Even though now we were getting paid more, by the way, per deal.
Speaker: My income was restored back to what it was when I was like fresh and high believer in all this stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that led to another round of coaching, this time from the Life Coach School, because I was taking it more seriously.
Speaker: That's by Brooke Castillo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Have you heard of that?
Speaker: Yeah, I've talked to a few people that do that.
Speaker: It seems like most, you know, kind of the Life Coach and everything, it seems like she's kind of like the number one academy here.
Speaker: you know, training program that the life coach people go through, get like certified and everything, right?
Speaker: Yeah, she's big.
Speaker: It depends on your circle.
Speaker: Depends on your circles.
Speaker: I think she's huge in the women world.
Speaker: And so a lot of like, a lot of Utah and California and Arizona have attracted to her.
Speaker: But there are some significant people outside that circle too that are also dominant in the coaching space.
Speaker: But yeah, so now I have like a merged thing.
Speaker: I have my Bob Proctor background and I have this Brooke Castillo Life Coach School background and I found a way to like make it super applicable to sales.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, that second round kind of resulted in the next breakthrough and I had my best year in sales ever.
Speaker: Yeah, that's so good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so let me ask you this because I know some people have like side businesses and, you know, I manage like a team of guys, a squad of guys.
Speaker: And I do some coaching to myself.
Speaker: I coach some reps that I reach out.
Speaker: Stuff like that.
Speaker: So how did you, it sounds like you were trying to build this coaching business and had a lot of involvement in that.
Speaker: How did you not let that get distracting to yourselves and keep improving yourselves, keep improving these?
Speaker: Because sometimes I see guys that have side businesses, do other things.
Speaker: And even myself, sometimes I'll have a lot of coaching clients and all that.
Speaker: And it's tough to manage your pipeline, manage your team, then also build coaching.
Speaker: So for you, what did that look like?
Speaker: Did it ever get like distracting, trying to like learn all these things and grow a coaching business or yeah.
Speaker: What was that like for you?
Speaker: Obviously I'd love to say like, no, it was so perfect.
Speaker: No, it was, it was definitely a challenge.
Speaker: Just, you know, you're, you're doing something new, you're reaching out and yeah, it was distracting.
Speaker: I think distracting is a great word because I was so driven on what I wanted to do.
Speaker: Like, this is actually where I want my life to go.
Speaker: And my goals and things like that were starting to be more focused on that.
Speaker: Like big picture.
Speaker: So that's, yeah, there's where my thoughts are going.
Speaker: So it was a bit distracting.
Speaker: That being said, you then have to check yourself.
Speaker: If you find yourself getting distracted, my take on it would be like, watch your language.
Speaker: You know, meaning like, am I doing this or that?
Speaker: And like, why choose or?
Speaker: You know, like, why make it an or?
Speaker: Like, that's interesting that you choose the word or.
Speaker: Like, there's a lot of other words you could put there.
Speaker: This and that.
Speaker: This and that, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That could be the thing.
Speaker: So I started watching that.
Speaker: I started applying that a little bit more than even just that one word shift, like, oh, let's do it together.
Speaker: Like, find a way that they fuel each other.
Speaker: And that was a significant thing for me.
Speaker: Like, oh, wait, the sales could fuel my coaching.
Speaker: And I think that was a big part of what led that.
Speaker: And then an actual coaching session was what led to, like, my second breakthrough to my high performer year.
Speaker: So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
Speaker: And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
Speaker: But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Speaker: Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app.
Speaker: It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
Speaker: It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
Speaker: I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
Speaker: But I told them, hey, if I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need to give my listeners a great deal.
Speaker: And they did.
Speaker: So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up.
Speaker: That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: And I like the focus, you know, even just now you're correct in like language because I've heard some people that have gone through this program and I think they say it was like the thoughts lead to emotions, emotions lead to feelings, feeling leads to action, something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So Brooke Castillo came up with the model.
Speaker: She didn't come up with it.
Speaker: Bob actually taught the same thing.
Speaker: She just, she just frameworked it and marketed it really well.
Speaker: So credit to her though, but it's circumstance, thought, feeling, action, result.
Speaker: C-T-F-A-R.
Speaker: Emotions and feelings are the same.
Speaker: Those are interchangeable.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think a lot of it, and I don't know if this is what you do in your coaching, but a lot of times when you're coaching people, just by how they're talking, the words they're saying, is that like how you identify, you know, what they're doing?
Speaker: Because I'm just thinking maybe like a manager talking to his rep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the rep's like, oh, this is too hard or, oh, I don't have time, whatever.
Speaker: So like for you, how do you make these shifts in people's mindsets and the words they're saying and help them like correct these things?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just like you did with me saying, and what are some things you do?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This is big.
Speaker: And this is so big for leaders.
Speaker: So if you're a leader listening to this, listen up because someone won't change their way until they change their mind and they won't change their mind until it's their decision.
Speaker: So a lot of like sales leaders will try to get, and I did this for years.
Speaker: as a leader, trying to get my people to change by just offering them the suggested way to think.
Speaker: Like, dude, it's just talk to, just talk to 15 people.
Speaker: It's like just 15 people.
Speaker: It's like not that long, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you talk to 15 people every day, you'll get a sale every week or like, or you shouldn't do this job.
Speaker: Like that was, it's like obvious.
Speaker: Of course, if I do that, that'll work and they'll think that way.
Speaker: But they have a mental idea, a block or a belief that that is not true.
Speaker: And so they won't act on it.
Speaker: So what I would what I do now, as I'm coaching, or if I was leading someone is I listen to what they're saying.
Speaker: And I watch a statement that is that is arbitrarily subjective.
Speaker: So I listened for for adjectives.
Speaker: This is like, this is cheat sheet stuff, like normal people have to pay for this.
Speaker: But it's it's it's listen for adjectives, because the adjectives that this is so hard.
Speaker: Or your buddy, your buddy was like, I can't deal with the unpredictability.
Speaker: That's a choice that he's making on unpredictability, right?
Speaker: That doesn't have to be true.
Speaker: He's putting a description there, right?
Speaker: So I would catch a statement like that and I would ask him out of curiosity, when you think that this is unpredictable,
Speaker: And that you can't deal with the unpredictability.
Speaker: Like, just think about that for a moment.
Speaker: You're thinking about your job.
Speaker: It's unpredictable and you can't deal with it.
Speaker: Like, what do you feel?
Speaker: It's like, what would, what would that be?
Speaker: Like one word, how would you describe that?
Speaker: Like feeling.
Speaker: And for men, it's usually difficult to describe it.
Speaker: So I have to try to help them find it in their bodies.
Speaker: There's a lot of other stuff that I do until they get used to finding the feeling.
Speaker: But eventually he would probably say like, well, it feels overwhelming.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then I would ask him, okay, when you're feeling overwhelmed, thinking about your job, like, what do you do?
Speaker: Like, be honest here.
Speaker: What, what are your actions like?
Speaker: Like if I watched you feeling overwhelmed and I would probably find him describing something like, well, I try this out and then I, like, I get distracted and I go do this and then I'm kind of bored.
Speaker: So I play on my phone or,
Speaker: And he's just all over the place.
Speaker: So he's overwhelming himself because he's not focused on any one thing.
Speaker: And it's him thinking that.
Speaker: Does that make sense?
Speaker: So you're making them dig a little deeper.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you dig it deeper.
Speaker: You help them see how it's affecting them.
Speaker: And then you say, well, let me ask you this idea that like you can't deal with the unpredictability.
Speaker: Is that even true?
Speaker: Like, could you deal with it?
Speaker: And I, and I look for them to disprove their way of thinking.
Speaker: And once they've disproved their way of thinking, they're open to a new way.
Speaker: They will never be open to a new way of thinking until they realize what they have been thinking is false.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And that's the goal.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's so good.
Speaker: Cause I don't, I don't think any manager really knows this stuff.
Speaker: It's like, like you said, there's like, it's not that hard guys go out, talk to more people, put in two more hours.
Speaker: Like no one knows how to,
Speaker: help guys dig deep like that.
Speaker: So I think that's insanely powerful as a leader.
Speaker: Dude, and no disrespect to this.
Speaker: This is what I did forever.
Speaker: It's like, buck up.
Speaker: Like, this is what you're left to say as a leader.
Speaker: You're like, well, buck up.
Speaker: Like you chose this.
Speaker: And sometimes like, that's what they need.
Speaker: That's what they got to hear.
Speaker: But man, then they're fighting against their own belief system.
Speaker: And that doesn't work.
Speaker: It's called cognitive dissonance.
Speaker: If you, if you have two ways of viewing something, you're not, you're going to be in a state of confusion.
Speaker: You have to disprove one before you can adopt a new one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, would you say people are motivated by different things?
Speaker: So they know some guys they're motivated.
Speaker: Like they can get people fired up, say work harder, but then some reps you tell that to, it just like pisses them off and they work less.
Speaker: So I don't know if you've seen that in your coaching too, but is there any ways you like coach guys different?
Speaker: Maybe guys that have big, cause a lot of sales guys have these big egos and stuff like that.
Speaker: It's like, how do you, we like recognition and stages and stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's like a requirement, right?
Speaker: To be in sales.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, we definitely do.
Speaker: So yeah, no.
Speaker: So the question is like, how, how is that part of the work is getting people motivated or, or whatever?
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: How do you identify like how people's motivations are different?
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: for all the people you coach, is there certain things you do?
Speaker: Like, okay, this didn't work for this guy.
Speaker: Let me try this way.
Speaker: Maybe how do you identify what'll motivate other people or what'll work in coaching and training them?
Speaker: Stuff like that.
Speaker: Well, really understanding first, a couple of things about this.
Speaker: Motivation is very fleeting.
Speaker: So I typically don't try to target motivation.
Speaker: That energy, think of that emotion.
Speaker: When you feel motivated, you'll run through a wall, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But how quickly does motivation burn out?
Speaker: Like motivation itself as an energy fuel, if it's a fuel, it burns fast.
Speaker: It's high energy, but it burns really fast, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's usually gone by the time you go from correlation to the area you're knocking.
Speaker: Yeah, the area you're like, where did that feeling go?
Speaker: This door is really heavy.
Speaker: I can't get out my car door.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, no, I'm not trying to trigger motivation.
Speaker: That's the work is never about that.
Speaker: Um, then the next step you look at it is there's really only two levers.
Speaker: There's two things that are motivating.
Speaker: Um, one is a freedom from something.
Speaker: So like one's like move away from something and the other one's a freedom too.
Speaker: So it's like move towards something, pain or pleasure.
Speaker: Like that's really, that's the simplest science of the animal brain that was, that is within us.
Speaker: And, you know, you know, this is a salesperson, right?
Speaker: Probably which one's more powerful, the freedom away from something or the freedom to something.
Speaker: I think freedom away, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pain will get people to move far more quickly than any other thing.
Speaker: But I don't like freedom from.
Speaker: Because moving away from a pain gets me thinking about the pain.
Speaker: You know, what happens if you do this for too long or you delay this action or you don't go sell?
Speaker: Like, well, then I won't have money and my wife won't be there.
Speaker: She won't be able.
Speaker: So like, I'm going to I won't let that happen.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But what are you thinking about?
Speaker: You're thinking about what you don't want.
Speaker: So think of the energy.
Speaker: It's all painful energy.
Speaker: So I typically if that's needed, it's needed.
Speaker: But most of my work is spent trying to find the freedom to.
Speaker: where if you had, if you could do anything that you wanted and the money already took care of itself, like what would, what would it be?
Speaker: And then attach that to the things that they do today through some stuff.
Speaker: And, uh, now they have freedom to, and they're big pictures driven by the daily.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: It reminds me, um, maybe this is kind of the same kind of principle, but we're trying to potty train our, uh,
Speaker: our three-year-old, or he's like two and a half for trying to potty train him.
Speaker: And I always, cause I've heard that, Oh, it's better to, you want to move away from the pain.
Speaker: Um, so my head, I was like, okay, well, I'm just going to threaten to like spank him.
Speaker: If he poops his pants, now I'm going to like scream at him if he poops his pants and then I'll be, he'll be so scared of like getting spanked or whatever that he's never, never going to do it.
Speaker: But then it like wasn't working.
Speaker: He kept pooping his pants over and over and over.
Speaker: And I looked this up on chat GPT.
Speaker: So I assume it's true.
Speaker: But I'm like, I'm like, hey, why?
Speaker: Why is my kid not getting potty trained?
Speaker: And it told me that you need to not you can't punish them when they like poop their pants that you need to just like praise them for doing the good thing, like not get mad at them.
Speaker: So just like give him.
Speaker: So we did this thing where he gets like a little toy after he, you know, poops in the toilet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that, that works.
Speaker: It didn't work us like punishing him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm just thinking what you're saying.
Speaker: And it seems like it's almost the same thing.
Speaker: Like you got to get people to focus on that.
Speaker: That is a perfect application.
Speaker: And thank you for being honest and vulnerable about that.
Speaker: The parents don't want to admit that they're like kids having a hard time or,
Speaker: They're willing to like have negative.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And it's, it's, this is the way we're taught.
Speaker: You were probably raised in a home with, which like had more negative punishment type stuff.
Speaker: This is what most parents rely on.
Speaker: And I think, I think leaders and sales leaders do that too.
Speaker: They rely on the negative, but when you do that, you're, you're encouraging the thinking about what's going wrong.
Speaker: Instead of encouraging the thinking about what could be going right and what is going right.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: And that energy, one, it burns high.
Speaker: So it is a high energy thing.
Speaker: Like the determination instead of motivation, determined burns high.
Speaker: It's high caliber energy, but it burns long.
Speaker: Like determination burns a long time.
Speaker: Like you can run on that fuel for ages.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: And yeah, I think this is a secret for anyone that's leading, guys.
Speaker: Yeah, I think so many people don't know this.
Speaker: So pretty sure you're sharing that and something to think about for sure, especially for people that are leading teams or other reps.
Speaker: is how are you leading?
Speaker: Are you leading?
Speaker: And I think some of our teams, we call it like the carrot or the stick, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The stick is like, you're beating them.
Speaker: Are you leading with the carrot?
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: I think you probably have a little bit of both, but more, it seems like more carrot, like you said, and getting them thinking more about the thing that they should achieve.
Speaker: Yeah, dude.
Speaker: I mean, life's hard enough.
Speaker: I think people have enough sticks.
Speaker: Like they have enough reasons to move away from poverty, to move away from paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: There's enough things to move away from and enough life of pain.
Speaker: Like be a leader that finds out what their carrot is.
Speaker: One, don't throw out some generic carrot.
Speaker: I mean, that's better than nothing.
Speaker: But like, let's find out about my people.
Speaker: Let's find out like what they want freedom to do.
Speaker: And then help them see how this amount of effort today unlocks that freedom.
Speaker: And whoa, like that, that'll run people.
Speaker: I just did a, I just did a work with a client.
Speaker: We had a one-on-one call.
Speaker: We're in a, we're in a group coaching community that I built.
Speaker: And, uh, each, each month, depending on which camp you're in, you'll get a private call.
Speaker: We just did his private call.
Speaker: And like, he realized that he only needs like 60, 70 grand to live on comfortably in a year.
Speaker: Uh, he's in Texas and,
Speaker: Sorry, Californians.
Speaker: And, and he realized like every third install could go towards his dream.
Speaker: So if he, if he gets three installs in a month, the two cover him and the third is freedom.
Speaker: So whereas most reps will stop after getting the two cause they're covered, right?
Speaker: Not push harder, not keep going, not overcome the rejections anymore.
Speaker: Like they'll coast because they're covered.
Speaker: His third, fourth, and fifth in a month are now attached to his freedom, what he's looking forward to doing.
Speaker: And he went from having no sales the month prior, joining this group.
Speaker: He just did his fourth and fifth deal.
Speaker: um in our in our first month and he wasn't dude you couldn't like his negatives he was in a very negative state i had to like stop him on the calls i'm like hey we're talking about wins right now i asked what are your wins and he started going up so dude freedom too all the way find out their carrot not hey who wants a watch you know i mean it's fine some people do so that'll help but yeah yeah wow so good yeah that's powerful yeah man i'm just thinking of ways i do it so even if you're not getting coached i think we can all
Speaker: you know, hopefully you guys can take from this episode.
Speaker: Just are you focusing more on the negative and are you creating that freedom fund?
Speaker: Cause I think we do it.
Speaker: It's probably that guy I'm guessing was doing it subconsciously.
Speaker: Like you would just sell two and then maybe couldn't figure it out.
Speaker: Cause I know I've done that a lot where I like, you know, let off the,
Speaker: Yeah, let off the gas just because I know I got my expenses covered, got everything covered.
Speaker: And it's like we do it subconsciously.
Speaker: We don't even realize that we're like selling how we did in the first two.
Speaker: Intellectually, you're up here.
Speaker: Yeah, you're like, of course, I want to keep working.
Speaker: But your actions and the quality of that action gets sabotaged or suffered in from thinking that you're good.
Speaker: You know, you're not moving towards something.
Speaker: You're just doing your job.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: So good, Taylor.
Speaker: That was powerful.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Yeah, that's, that's good stuff.
Speaker: So before we're out of time, Zach, I wanted to ask you, I know just recently before we started the recording here, you, you talked about how you just did your last, I think it was at least the last cell you plan to make selling solar last referral, you closed up and you said, now you're doing full-time coaching.
Speaker: So that's a pretty big step, man.
Speaker: Cause yeah,
Speaker: I mean, we all know there's a lot of money in solar and it's tough to leave that behind.
Speaker: So what led you to that decision?
Speaker: Yeah, what's it like now?
Speaker: Just knowing that you're going to be full-time coaching.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: And if I had resistance, Taylor, from my wife leaving medical school to become a door-to-door sales rep, after proving that that was a good call, man, the resistance on this move just...
Speaker: It's another level, you know?
Speaker: So like the hardest, you know, you'd look for like family members as support and stuff like that.
Speaker: But actually most of them are still like, yeah, do it.
Speaker: You've always been very good at this type of stuff.
Speaker: Like go for it, go for it, you know?
Speaker: But no, she, she's like having a hard, hard time with it.
Speaker: But that being said, like she's incredible, incredible.
Speaker: She's supportive.
Speaker: She's like, yeah, I see it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And she's doing her part and stuff like that too.
Speaker: So I can't... I'm just noting that it was a bigger change, interestingly enough.
Speaker: Yeah, I had a referral.
Speaker: This year, as of April, I stopped closing deals in my name unless it was a referral.
Speaker: And I just had my last referral get installed that I closed.
Speaker: If I get more now or when I get more, I'll pass them off.
Speaker: The plan is...
Speaker: this is the thing and make the main thing, the thing.
Speaker: And, um, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and so I, uh, yeah.
Speaker: Well, the, the question was like, what drove that or.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Just like what drove it.
Speaker: And yeah, if that was like, uh, I don't know if you were nervous about that at all.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: So, so yeah, plenty nervous, actually quite fearful.
Speaker: Um, and in fact, um,
Speaker: You might not recognize this, but you actually get paid with your ability to seek out fear, seek out rejection.
Speaker: That's how salespeople are paid.
Speaker: That's how performers are paid, the ability to be uncomfortable.
Speaker: And so rather than seeking positive emotion all the time, I've realized the power that can come from actually seeking and putting myself in an uncomfortable or negative emotion experience.
Speaker: and finding how to perform through it.
Speaker: And so I felt like this was ultimately like what I wanted to do is freedom to
Speaker: And, um, it felt bad, like hard and doubt and all that stuff, which I just took as evidence that like, okay, then that, this is what I actually need to do like this.
Speaker: Not only is it what I want to, but I need to prove that I can, I can do this and like my stuff works and that the mind is what it is.
Speaker: And so it's become a really cool, like real life in person, um, test of, um,
Speaker: the mind and all this stuff.
Speaker: And I could get into super deep detail if you want another time, but we've, it's been a crazy year.
Speaker: Um, but, uh, you know, I, I've learned probably more than I've ever learned, um, before in such a short amount of time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Incredible, man.
Speaker: Well, no shout out to you.
Speaker: That's, that's amazing.
Speaker: And I know that's a big step.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: Something I probably not now, but something I eventually might want to make because I'm coaching now, too.
Speaker: But for me, it's like, you know, solar is still the main thing.
Speaker: And that's where I'm making the money and all that.
Speaker: So I can't even imagine making that jump right now, going full time into coaching.
Speaker: I know you've been doing it for a while and, you know, you've been changing other people's lives.
Speaker: So for you, is it just solar guys you're coaching?
Speaker: What's the future for your program?
Speaker: Are you trying to transition to other industries, just focus on solar?
Speaker: What does that look like?
Speaker: Appreciate the question, man.
Speaker: Yeah, it's mostly all my clients are solar clients because of my time in solar.
Speaker: That's where I'm known.
Speaker: So it's mostly been network driven so far.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But no, yeah, the plan is actually to branch out and work with other sales companies and professions.
Speaker: Eventually, this is about performance-based income.
Speaker: So the real dream is anything that is performance-driven, which might get me back into athletics.
Speaker: That'll be really cool.
Speaker: But anything that's like you get paid based on how you show up,
Speaker: right and what you produce that's where these tools are the most effective and empowering and so yeah right now it's sales and specifically solar but it'll it'll keep growing yeah love it well i know we could go on for hours and hopefully do another podcast in the future you're a great host dude this is awesome well done yeah appreciate it brother no it's i always i learn a lot too so
Speaker: People, sometimes people think that the podcasts are further, but half the reason I do the podcast is so I can ask the questions and get help myself.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: People don't realize I'm being selfish with these.
Speaker: I'm getting free coaching from you.
Speaker: So I appreciate it.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: That's the gem right there.
Speaker: Oh, I want to learn something as much as I can.
Speaker: I'll build a podcast and get all these amazing.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's the joke with Ashton is because I don't know if you knew this story, but that was actually one of the reasons I started this podcast because Ashton, I was originally trying to get him to, I was like, Ashton, let me take you to lunch.
Speaker: And we're at different companies, but I'm like, Ashton, can I, you know, pick your brain on what's working for you in solar cells?
Speaker: And he was always like, no, I'm too busy.
Speaker: I don't have time.
Speaker: I don't really want to like coach people from other
Speaker: companies.
Speaker: And then sure enough, when I started the podcast, he's like, okay, we can do a podcast.
Speaker: That was my secret for, uh, for, uh, you know, getting people on and getting some free coaching.
Speaker: That's so good.
Speaker: Now I'll just say quickly, cause I'm not, I won't be bashful about this either.
Speaker: Like I launched this, uh, uh, an offer, like a new offer.
Speaker: And I based it on the back of a seven day per top performer habit thing I was telling about.
Speaker: And Ashton was the first person I reached out to because he had said he wants to get on more podcasts.
Speaker: So what you did, Taylor, is you found a way of value to him without taking something away and you presented that value.
Speaker: My, my biggest post, the post that was most visible on the seven day, I pulled people together like Daniel Hattabas and Melissa Ramiza and Adam Webb, like, you know, goats and solar and, and Ashton's post that Ashton was going to be a guest speaker was the most viewed.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Which, which expanded my network.
Speaker: So yeah, same kind of like selfish drive behind it, but it was what I want to do.
Speaker: And I found something that he wanted to do and provided him a platform.
Speaker: That's, that's so good, dude.
Speaker: You, you nailed that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: So for people listening, yeah, no, we don't need more solar podcast, but go find, if you're wanting someone's time and they're like high up and whatever, and you want their time, like find something valuable to them and present that to them as a way to get close.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's so many different tools, social media, you know, you can just go live on Facebook, Instagram, so many different ways you can make it a win-win and plug people into audiences.
Speaker: Quick note, don't ask them how you can be of value.
Speaker: That is like, then they have to think about how to answer your question and like find, they don't know you.
Speaker: No, you get to know them, find out what would be valuable and you present what you have as a skill set or something like, Hey, let me serve you this way.
Speaker: Are you cool with that?
Speaker: That's the way to do it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Well, Zach, before we wrap up here, if people want to connect more with you or look into joining any of your programs or find more about what you're doing, what's the best way to connect with you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Got a website, mindirexacademy.com.
Speaker: There's a thing on there you can fill out like a form and we'll reach out to you or just follow along for tips.
Speaker: Instagram at mindirexacademy.
Speaker: Zach Hall, it's like a logo, big M.
Speaker: Um, so that would probably be the biggest thing just to, for tips and tricks or to stay along or to hear things would be Instagram, the websites there.
Speaker: Um, and our camp is run quarterly.
Speaker: We have three tiers, a, uh, for someone just getting started and like a $25,000 a month sounds awesome.
Speaker: That's base camp.
Speaker: For $50,000 a month sounds awesome because you've been stuck down here.
Speaker: There's first peak and then second peak is the $100,000 a month coaching group.
Speaker: So we have a group for each one of those types of people and where different concepts and strategies are introduced.
Speaker: So you can go onto the website and find out about that.
Speaker: But the next launch is in January.
Speaker: So it's closed right now.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Well, you're doing incredible things, man.
Speaker: And we appreciate you coming on to drop some knowledge for us.
Speaker: And hopefully you guys will reach out to you.
Speaker: And, you know, thank you for coming on the show today.
Speaker: Check out more of what you got going on.
Speaker: So last question, maybe there's a rep listening to this that is struggling.
Speaker: That they're like, oh, I don't can't do.
Speaker: Well, the truth is everyone can like figure out a way to do coaching, you know, if it's most important to you.
Speaker: So that's that's the difference that probably goes into what we're talking about earlier, the language stuff.
Speaker: Maybe if they're like, man, I just want ways if I can like do one thing to like help out my mindset or.
Speaker: um, you know, get out of this funk I'm in, what would you tell like a struggling rep that's just like in a funk, um, to maybe like help them out today or help them out this week?
Speaker: They were going to change one thing.
Speaker: No, absolutely.
Speaker: And I'll, I do a workshop where I include this as like the final piece.
Speaker: So this is, this is appropriate that it's, that it's here.
Speaker: And let me also say Taylor, like, thank you.
Speaker: Thank you for putting something on like this.
Speaker: Thank you for reaching out and allowing me a space to, to share more.
Speaker: Um, here's what I would tell them.
Speaker: Think about what they're wanting to create, right?
Speaker: Like, why are they going out to work?
Speaker: What are they wanting to create?
Speaker: Like some kind of like success.
Speaker: What does that mean?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then think about a time in their life where they felt the same way.
Speaker: So go back to the past and relive an experience where you felt as good as you're wanting to feel in the future when you accomplish that success.
Speaker: Do you follow?
Speaker: So set a success target, like $50,000 a month or winning some award, whatever it might be that would say that you've arrived in sales or whatever.
Speaker: Let's go there.
Speaker: What do you expect to feel there?
Speaker: Pride, accomplished, whatever.
Speaker: Go back to a time in your past where you felt that way and relive that experience.
Speaker: And I would spend five minutes just visualizing both back and forth, back to the past where it was genuine and real.
Speaker: And then in the future,
Speaker: where it hasn't been real yet.
Speaker: Your mind really doesn't know the difference.
Speaker: They're all just images being processed.
Speaker: So it doesn't know the difference.
Speaker: It thinks this is us now.
Speaker: This is what we do.
Speaker: And it will act more accordance with that target.
Speaker: It's a book called Psycho Cybernetics.
Speaker: I just summed it up, but it's like super good.
Speaker: But that's its core tenant right there.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: Attach it to the winning experience.
Speaker: Maybe, you know, we all have the high school moment where
Speaker: I don't know, maybe won the state championship, whatever.
Speaker: But all of us forget about these things.
Speaker: So I love that.
Speaker: Just attaching the good moment to what you want to achieve in real time.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: Yeah, my seventh grade, seventh grade, no, eighth grade football coach.
Speaker: And I almost quit that year.
Speaker: My eighth grade football coach, after a game where our lead running back got hurt, I was next up.
Speaker: I had my best game ever.
Speaker: And he was like, we're walking out of the locker room.
Speaker: And he's like, Zach, do you have your Wheaties this morning?
Speaker: What was that?
Speaker: And I was like, no, it was Apple Jacks.
Speaker: He's like, whatever it was, keep it up.
Speaker: And then I turned to my dad.
Speaker: I was like, dad, we need more Apple Jacks.
Speaker: Every time I think that just smile confidence, my shoulders go back and I just feel so accomplished.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So every time I go to speak, even before this, I replay that memory.
Speaker: And then I think about a successful delivery of what this is supposed to be, or like a speaking engagement or, or a sale.
Speaker: I would do this video in my head just before knocking on someone's door.
Speaker: to go sell them like it was it's so powerful.
Speaker: So hopefully if you don't get anything else from the call, like do this a little visualization exercise, relive a great past, tie it to a future success and then go and do.
Speaker: Yeah, love that.
Speaker: Absolute bomb.
Speaker: So guys, go try that out today.
Speaker: And Zach, thank you for bringing the heat today, giving us some practical things that we can go and lead better and lead our lives better and change not only ourselves, but I think really all aspects of our lives by applying a lot of these principles.
Speaker: So I appreciate you again, brother, and hopefully we can do this in the future.
Speaker: And yeah, thanks for coming on.
Speaker: I'm for it.
Speaker: Appreciate you.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
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