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How to Hold Reps Accountable (Use this formula to get the truth) image

How to Hold Reps Accountable (Use this formula to get the truth)

E165 ยท The Solarpreneur
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44 Plays4 years ago

Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!

Speaker 1 (00:01):

Hey, Solarpreneurs. What's up. Taylor here just wanted to give you a quick intro to this episode. It's going to be James Swidersky on, and he's doing a little series on how we're implementing trainings for companies that would like to uplevel their sales trainings. As many of you may know, we launched our new Solciety training app were already getting great results with it. So James is going to talk about a few things that we're able to implement within the app and ways we're getting great results, whether you're on Solciety or not. You can go and implement these things today, but you can also go and book a demo at Solciety.co. So hope you enjoy the episode and we'll see you on the inside.

Speaker 2 (00:45):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and 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. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask 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 3 (01:25):

Solarpreneurs. What is going on? My name is James Swidersky. And for those of you guys who don't know me, go back a few episodes for the intro. I don't want to bore you guys to death. I just want to dive right into the content today here. And I want to talk about how to hold your reps accountable. Now this is going to be primarily forward business owners, VPs directors, managers, on how to hold your reps accountable, get them motivated, and specifically my four step formula on how to do this. Just an absolutely killer formula on how to cut through the BS. Cut through excuses of, oh, I'm working 60 hours a week. I don't know. What's not working. Uh, oh, I swear. I'm putting a numbers. I'm working really hard. It's going to cut through all of that crap and just get straight transparency on the performance of each rep.

Speaker 3 (02:10):

So you can make critical training and hiring decisions on a regular basis to scale your company. Have you enjoyed that type of content? You know exactly what to do. So let's go ahead and dive right into it. What is the formula to hold reps accountable? First thing I like to do is identify my activities. That reps are supposed to be performing on a daily basis. You'd be very surprised how many companies don't have this clearly communicated within their organization. The best way I used to do this and currently do this with my team at epic as well. Although not solar, it's the same thing. And I learned how to do this in solar is I actually have flat screen monitors up in the office where we are projecting everybody's metrics. It is just a naked organization with metrics and metrics. I see every single as it's scrolling through how many appointments they've set, leads, calls, call time presentations, their close rate, everything transparent.

Speaker 3 (03:08):

The entire company can see what's going on. The entire company could see what kind of numbers we're doing as an organization. What's our revenue look like, right? What's our deal, uh, install rate. They see everything. Transparency is absolutely key here. Now that's just kind of a bonus, but we want to identify the activities that reps perform. So it's probably going to be a nine times out of 10 door knocking appo

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Transcript

Introduction to Episode and Guest

00:00:01
Speaker
Hey, Solarpreneurs, what's up?
00:00:02
Speaker
Taylor here.
00:00:03
Speaker
Just wanted to give you a quick intro to this episode.
00:00:06
Speaker
It's going to be James Swiderski on, and he is doing a little series on how we are implementing trainings.
00:00:13
Speaker
for companies that would like to uplevel their sales trainings.
00:00:17
Speaker
As many of you may know, we launched our new SolCity training app.
00:00:21
Speaker
We're already getting great results with it.
00:00:23
Speaker
So James is going to talk about a few things that we were able to implement within the app and ways we're getting great results.
00:00:30
Speaker
Whether you're on SolCity or not, you can go and implement these things today, but you can also go and book a demo at SolCity.co.
00:00:39
Speaker
So hope you enjoy the episode and we'll see you on the inside.

Taylor's Journey to Sales Success

00:00:45
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:50
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong and 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.
00:01:01
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.
00:01:13
Speaker
What is a solopreneur you might ask?
00:01:15
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.
00:01:25
Speaker
Solopreneurs,

Four-Step Formula for Sales Accountability

00:01:26
Speaker
what is going on?
00:01:26
Speaker
My name is James Svorsky and for those of you guys who don't know me, go back a few episodes for the intro.
00:01:32
Speaker
I don't want to bore you guys to death.
00:01:34
Speaker
I just want to dive right into the content today here and I want to talk about how to hold your reps accountable.
00:01:40
Speaker
Now, this is going to be primarily for business owners, VPs, directors, managers on how to hold your reps accountable, get them motivated, and specifically my four-step formula on how to do this.
00:01:52
Speaker
Just an absolutely killer formula on how to cut through the BS, cut through excuses of, oh, I'm working 60 hours a week.
00:02:00
Speaker
I don't know what's not working.
00:02:02
Speaker
Oh, I swear I'm putting in numbers.
00:02:03
Speaker
I'm working really hard.
00:02:04
Speaker
it's gonna cut through all of that crap and just get straight transparency on the performance of each rep so you can make critical training and hiring decisions on a regular basis to scale your company.
00:02:17
Speaker
If you enjoy that type of content, you know exactly what to do.
00:02:20
Speaker
So let's go ahead and dive right into

Enhancing Accountability with Metrics

00:02:22
Speaker
it.
00:02:22
Speaker
What is the formula to hold reps accountable?
00:02:24
Speaker
First thing I like to do is identify my activities that reps are supposed to be performing on a daily basis.
00:02:33
Speaker
You'd be very surprised how many companies don't have this clearly communicated within their organization.
00:02:38
Speaker
The best way I used to do this and currently do this with my team at Epic as well, although not solar, it's the same thing and I learned how to do this in solar.
00:02:47
Speaker
is I actually have flat screen monitors up in the office where we are projecting everybody's metrics.
00:02:53
Speaker
It is just a naked organization with metrics.
00:02:57
Speaker
I see every single rep as it's scrolling through, how many appointments they've set, leads, calls, call time, presentations, their close rate, everything transparent.
00:03:08
Speaker
The entire company can see what's going on.
00:03:10
Speaker
The entire company can see
00:03:12
Speaker
what kind of numbers we're doing as an organization.
00:03:15
Speaker
What's our revenue look

Mapping and Timing Sales Activities

00:03:16
Speaker
like, right?
00:03:16
Speaker
What's our deal install rate?
00:03:19
Speaker
They see everything.
00:03:20
Speaker
Transparency is absolutely key here.
00:03:22
Speaker
Now, that's just kind of a bonus, but we want to identify the activities that reps perform.
00:03:28
Speaker
So it's probably going to be a nine times out of 10, door knocking, appointment setting, right?
00:03:34
Speaker
presentations, follow-up activities, and usually some type of referral activity.
00:03:41
Speaker
These are going to be customized for your business.
00:03:43
Speaker
Map out your entire process, what activities they should do on a regular basis.
00:03:47
Speaker
We're going to play out an example in a minute, so you'll get some ideas from that.
00:03:53
Speaker
Step number two in this formula, identify how long it actually takes to do the activity.
00:03:58
Speaker
Okay?
00:03:59
Speaker
Again, this is where it starts getting real spicy because nobody does this and knows how long it takes.
00:04:06
Speaker
Go ask your reps individually, how long does it take to do an appointment?
00:04:10
Speaker
You're going to hear 40 minutes.
00:04:11
Speaker
You're going to hear two hours.
00:04:13
Speaker
You're going to hear an hour and a half, right?
00:04:15
Speaker
You need to come to a conclusion what that average time is.
00:04:19
Speaker
All right, so you're gonna ask all of your reps, do a survey, do whatever you gotta do, get the numbers, average them out, how long it actually takes to do what they do, right?
00:04:28
Speaker
Sending out a proposal, adjusting a bid, right?
00:04:32
Speaker
How long does it take to adjust in a bid?
00:04:34
Speaker
20 minutes, 30 minutes?
00:04:36
Speaker
How long does it take to send out a follow-up email?
00:04:38
Speaker
You gotta get every activity on the board mapped out, okay?
00:04:42
Speaker
Step

Analyzing Performance and Employee Productivity

00:04:43
Speaker
number two.
00:04:44
Speaker
Three,
00:04:45
Speaker
take your results from last month for each rep.
00:04:49
Speaker
So you're going to actually go through this process with your reps on a one-on-one meeting, and you're going to take the results from their previous month, not like the previous week or days, because that's not enough.
00:04:59
Speaker
And more than a month is too much.
00:05:01
Speaker
One month's going to give you a real good grasp of a rep's performance.
00:05:05
Speaker
This is also going to cut out all of those guys who were top producers a year ago and
00:05:11
Speaker
they haven't sold anything in three or four months, this is going to shine the light on that.
00:05:16
Speaker
Here's the deal.
00:05:17
Speaker
If you're guys and you're hanging on and paying out payroll or whatever, some kind of base salary or something, rewarding guys and incentivizing guys who are not producing, you got to cut that out ASAP, okay?
00:05:33
Speaker
Only incentivize guys who produce results, period.
00:05:37
Speaker
Cut the base commissions.
00:05:39
Speaker
Cut the salaries.
00:05:40
Speaker
Cut all that crap.
00:05:42
Speaker
Fire the lot.

Decisive Actions for Growth

00:05:43
Speaker
Get rid of the old veterans who have been in the industry and who are just riding comfortable for 10 years.
00:05:48
Speaker
They are ruining your culture.
00:05:50
Speaker
They are bad apples in the barrel.
00:05:52
Speaker
Cut them out.
00:05:52
Speaker
Get some fresh, new, young blood.
00:05:55
Speaker
Boom, rock and roll, right?
00:05:57
Speaker
Again, I don't expect many of you guys to apply that because, again, you've got to be willing to take a few steps back to go forward over the next several years.
00:06:05
Speaker
There's very few companies who are willing to do that.
00:06:07
Speaker
I know I'm sounding aggressive with this, straightforward.
00:06:10
Speaker
I'm just really sick of seeing it.
00:06:12
Speaker
It's a super common thing in the industry, any industry for that matter.
00:06:17
Speaker
You have to be willing

Data-Driven Decisions in Sales

00:06:18
Speaker
to make some temporary sacrifices if you want to grow.
00:06:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:21
Speaker
If you don't want to grow, I respect it.
00:06:23
Speaker
Right.
00:06:24
Speaker
Don't complain about your situation if that's the case.
00:06:26
Speaker
All right.
00:06:26
Speaker
I'm off my soapbox now.
00:06:28
Speaker
So take your results from last month for each rep.
00:06:32
Speaker
Hey, Taylor, you closed 10 deals last month.
00:06:36
Speaker
You did 20 appointments.
00:06:38
Speaker
You did 500 doors knocked, whatever it is, right?
00:06:42
Speaker
Make sure they agree with their results when you're talking to them.
00:06:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:45
Speaker
And then next,
00:06:46
Speaker
And the last part here is simply calculate how long they actually worked.
00:06:51
Speaker
All right?
00:06:52
Speaker
So let's play out an example.
00:06:54
Speaker
Let's say that a rep closed 10 accounts last month.
00:06:58
Speaker
And for math purposes, I know this is a small commission.
00:07:02
Speaker
Math purposes, he made $1,000 per deal.
00:07:05
Speaker
He made 10 grand in commissions, right?
00:07:06
Speaker
All right.
00:07:07
Speaker
Awesome.
00:07:08
Speaker
10 grand.
00:07:09
Speaker
What activities made up those 10 accounts?
00:07:11
Speaker
Well, he had to go prospect and knock doors.
00:07:14
Speaker
It takes him about 30 minutes of knocking doors to create an appointment.
00:07:17
Speaker
We know how long it takes.
00:07:18
Speaker
Cool.
00:07:19
Speaker
30 minutes equal an appointment.
00:07:21
Speaker
All right.
00:07:21
Speaker
Let's say he has a 50% close rate.
00:07:24
Speaker
He's just like on the ball.
00:07:25
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:26
Speaker
And it takes him 90 minutes driving to the appointment, having the appointment, following up with the appointment.
00:07:32
Speaker
It takes him 90 minutes to do a presentation.
00:07:36
Speaker
And he closes 50% of his presentations.
00:07:38
Speaker
And then let's say it takes him about half an hour to send out a proposal and a bid.
00:07:44
Speaker
It takes 30 minutes to do a proposal, a bid.
00:07:46
Speaker
That's not just the deals he closed, the follow-up deals.
00:07:50
Speaker
And then let's say he takes about 40 minutes per account, 20%.
00:07:54
Speaker
total to close a deal so 40 minutes of following up with calls emails texts that is about what it takes to close one deal all right so after you map out each activity how long it takes all that jazz right you're going to come to the conclusion of the monthly results you're going to find in this example that he spent 30 hours running appointments for the month
00:08:18
Speaker
He spent 10 hours setting appointments in the month, 10 hours sending proposals for the month, and 6.6 hours following up for a grand total of 56.6 hours worked for the month.
00:08:33
Speaker
Monthly, not weekly.
00:08:35
Speaker
And what you're gonna find is most of your guys who say they're working their tail off, they're working like 15, 20 hours a month when you do this math.
00:08:43
Speaker
I just did math for a guy who closes 10 deals a month.
00:08:46
Speaker
How many of your reps close 10, right?
00:08:49
Speaker
Super rare, right?
00:08:50
Speaker
You're doing pretty well if you have a lot of 10 deal reps, right?
00:08:55
Speaker
Most of your guys are gonna be working like 15, 20 deals, I mean 20 hours a month, right?
00:09:01
Speaker
And what happens is for the first time with these guys, they're going to realize that they're full of shit.
00:09:09
Speaker
Pardon my French, right?
00:09:11
Speaker
They're just full of it, right?
00:09:13
Speaker
They've been lying to themselves.
00:09:15
Speaker
And you're going to find your guys are just like, oh, crap.
00:09:19
Speaker
You can't argue this.
00:09:21
Speaker
You cannot argue this.
00:09:22
Speaker
And the way you make sure your reps are on page with this is you just make sure they agree with every number.
00:09:28
Speaker
So if they say it takes 90 minutes, do the math with them in front of them for the 90 minutes.
00:09:33
Speaker
If they say they take 30 minutes to close an appointment or 60 hours or whatever, it doesn't matter.
00:09:39
Speaker
Their close rate's 100%.
00:09:40
Speaker
Do the math with them on their level.
00:09:43
Speaker
Trust me, it doesn't matter how you do the math.
00:09:45
Speaker
It's always gonna highlight and expose how little they actually work.
00:09:50
Speaker
And you could have a frank conversation at this point.
00:09:53
Speaker
Now that the numbers are out in thin air, you could say, John, you wonder why you're making seven grand a month, closing two deals a month.
00:10:01
Speaker
You're working 15 hours a month.
00:10:05
Speaker
What are we gonna do about that?
00:10:06
Speaker
What can I help you with as your manager, your VP, your director, your CEO, whoever?
00:10:11
Speaker
What can I help you with to increase those numbers?
00:10:14
Speaker
What do you need help with?
00:10:16
Speaker
Do we need to hold these kind of meetings on a weekly basis?
00:10:19
Speaker
What do we need?
00:10:20
Speaker
Have those conversations and make real decisions.
00:10:23
Speaker
The problem is it's difficult to make hiring, recruiting, or firing decisions, or training decisions, or whatever if you don't have proper data, okay?
00:10:34
Speaker
I preach a lot about

Maintaining Accountability through Tracking

00:10:35
Speaker
data the last couple episodes.
00:10:37
Speaker
Data's king.
00:10:38
Speaker
It's everything.
00:10:39
Speaker
Tracking is everything.
00:10:40
Speaker
That's the only reason I had two failed solar companies before starting my first successful one was purely because of tracking.
00:10:47
Speaker
All right.
00:10:48
Speaker
I had to learn the hard way.
00:10:50
Speaker
do not do the same mistake that I did and many others do.
00:10:54
Speaker
Start tracking these things.
00:10:55
Speaker
Use this formula with each one of your reps.
00:10:57
Speaker
Use this formula with yourself, with your activities, your daily pipeline, right?
00:11:02
Speaker
Whatever you're doing, this is the magic formula.
00:11:05
Speaker
So guys, that is it.
00:11:06
Speaker
That's how to hold your reps accountable.
00:11:08
Speaker
It's a no BS straightforward way.
00:11:09
Speaker
It's how to hold yourself accountable.
00:11:12
Speaker
And I hope it serves you guys well.
00:11:14
Speaker
If you like that type of content, keep tuning in to
00:11:19
Speaker
this series I'm doing.
00:11:20
Speaker
I'm going to be dropping to fire for company owners.
00:11:24
Speaker
I know I'm calling my own stuff fire, but I don't see anybody talking about it.
00:11:29
Speaker
So I got to call it what it is, right?
00:11:33
Speaker
All right.
00:11:34
Speaker
Well, it's been real, guys.
00:11:35
Speaker
My name is James Sersky, and I'll see you in the next video.

Introducing Sol Society Community

00:11:38
Speaker
Hey Solar printers, quick question.
00:11:40
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?
00:11:50
Speaker
For the last three years I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite solar professionals
00:11:55
Speaker
and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
00:12:01
Speaker
That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new solar learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with the top performers in the industry.
00:12:13
Speaker
and it's called Sol Society.
00:12:15
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.
00:12:33
Speaker
Currently Soul Society is closed to the public and membership is by invitation only.
00:12:37
Speaker
But solopreneurs can go to soulciety.co to learn more and have the option to join a waitlist when a membership becomes available in your area.
00:12:47
Speaker
Again, this is exclusively for Solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now.
00:12:59
Speaker
Thanks again for listening.
00:13:00
Speaker
We'll catch you again in the next episode.