Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a 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: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Taylor Armstrong here.
Speaker: Today, we're going to be talking about the two things top producers do that you probably aren't doing right now.
Speaker: All that and much more coming up on today's episode.
Speaker: Hope you're doing well.
Speaker: Hope you're crushing this week in your personal sales.
Speaker: And if you're new to the podcast, we are here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong, if I didn't already say that, but let's jump into the podcast today.
Speaker: This podcast has been something I have been thinking about and it came out because I was had the opportunity to go to a little mastermind last weekend I guess it was the weekend before with actually the sponsor of the podcast which is Pi Syndicate if you haven't heard about them I would highly recommend hopping on a call seeing if they can help you out and they help with finances taxes investments all that kind of stuff
Speaker: And so we did a little mastermind.
Speaker: There was only, I think, five, six of us there, pretty tight knit group.
Speaker: We went down to Vegas and we just jammed on stuff.
Speaker: And what was really cool about being a small group, it was super personalized.
Speaker: We talked about just struggles we were facing in closing deals, growing our teams.
Speaker: And it was really cool because it's supposed to be kind of focused more on the financial side of things.
Speaker: But we just talked about everything in the solar business.
Speaker: So if you want to join us in masterminds like that, you can.
Speaker: You just need to join Pi Syndicate.
Speaker: So do me a favor, go check them out.
Speaker: Hop on a call with them.
Speaker: Hit me up.
Speaker: We'll put in the show notes how you can get on a call if you are interested in doing that.
Speaker: But what was really cool about this mastermind, we had guys that are literally closing just insane amounts, insane volumes of deals.
Speaker: And I'm fortunate to have a couple of them on my team right now or working, I should say, at the same company that I'm currently with.
Speaker: And you've heard one of them.
Speaker: His name is Ricardo Ritchie.
Speaker: You can go listen to his podcast, but he was at this mastermind.
Speaker: He did, it was like 2 million in revenue in a single month.
Speaker: And that was the podcast we did.
Speaker: So we'll link that if you haven't already heard his podcast.
Speaker: He came and it was just awesome to have the opportunity to really pick his brain and just figure out what this guy is doing.
Speaker: You can only jam so much in a podcast episode.
Speaker: We heard a lot of that in the episode.
Speaker: Lately, he's been having weeks where he's throwing down 15 cells in a week.
Speaker: He's consistently throwing 10 to 15 in a single week.
Speaker: So I'm like, dude, what are you doing?
Speaker: What is helping?
Speaker: What's working for you guys to close so many deals out there?
Speaker: And then Travis Hartman, he's managing the team with them.
Speaker: They're in Riverside, California.
Speaker: So those two, we all went to this event together.
Speaker: And then along with some of the other top producing guys there, we got to hear what are the secrets?
Speaker: What are some things that you guys are doing to close this insane volume of deals?
Speaker: And I narrowed it down to two things in specific that I think kind of blew my mind.
Speaker: And I've talked to him a little bit.
Speaker: I've talked a little bit about these two things on the podcast before.
Speaker: But the degree that these guys are taking it, taking these two specific things, it's just next level.
Speaker: So I'm going to tell you what these things are.
Speaker: But before we jump into these two top secret items of business, I wanted to just give a quick shout out.
Speaker: We had a new review on the podcast.
Speaker: If you haven't left us a review, would be much appreciated.
Speaker: Whether it's I hate this podcast, Taylor sucks, he's the worst podcast host in the world, I'll take that too, or if you have constructive criticism, whatever you want to do.
Speaker: But if you haven't taken the time to leave a review, it would be much appreciated.
Speaker: So let me pull it up here.
Speaker: Of course, right when I go to pull up the review, it shows the loading sign on there.
Speaker: Okay, here it is.
Speaker: And so this was last week.
Speaker: We had the review from JJPZ6.
Speaker: Sounds like some droid, but love the name.
Speaker: And so he says, great podcast.
Speaker: It's awesome to listen to how the highest producers in the space not only got there, but stayed there.
Speaker: Anyone new to solar should totally listen to this to gain insight from multiple perspectives.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: So JJPZ6, thank you so much.
Speaker: We appreciate you.
Speaker: Love the review.
Speaker: And again, if you can share it, if you can leave a review, that is much, much appreciated.
Speaker: You guys are awesome.
Speaker: And so let's hear what are these two things?
Speaker: What are these two top secret things that are helping top producers?
Speaker: Let's jump into it.
Speaker: The first is this.
Speaker: You need to focus just 100, almost 100% on the selling activity.
Speaker: What do I mean by that?
Speaker: Well, as I was talking to Ricardo, he's doing 15 sales in a week.
Speaker: He's been doing it consistently.
Speaker: Just last month, he had multiple 15 sell weeks.
Speaker: I think he did maybe even 17 in a week.
Speaker: But I think minimum of 10 every week he had last month, which has got to be some type of record.
Speaker: Let me know if you hear people consistently doing more than that.
Speaker: And this was last month.
Speaker: He's kickoff to summer.
Speaker: He wasn't doing that type of volume before the summer.
Speaker: But, and so what Ricardo told me, and this was echoed by a lot of other top producers that were at this mastermind.
Speaker: He says, Taylor, I am focusing a hundred percent on when is my next appointment?
Speaker: When is my next selling opportunity?
Speaker: I'm not doing anything besides that really.
Speaker: I'm going to these appointments.
Speaker: I'm offloading my brain of almost everything else.
Speaker: I'm just focusing on how am I going to get in that next appointment.
Speaker: And so come to find out, I start talking.
Speaker: I actually went and picked him up on the way as we went to this mastermind.
Speaker: And what's interesting, I was talking to his roommates there in their apartment.
Speaker: And I said, hey, what's Ricardo doing?
Speaker: What's like his schedule?
Speaker: And they told me he's actually kind of a super messy person to live with.
Speaker: He doesn't clean up his stuff.
Speaker: He leaves his plates all over.
Speaker: And he admitted it.
Speaker: I said, Ricardo, are you as bad as roommate as these guys are saying?
Speaker: He's like, yeah, I mean, to be honest, I don't really clean up after myself.
Speaker: I mean, I'm in deals all day.
Speaker: And it wasn't surprising, though.
Speaker: This guy, he's literally coming home.
Speaker: He's throwing his food in the microwave and he's going to bed.
Speaker: He's not really focusing on anything else.
Speaker: It wasn't bad.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker: He's not like trashing the place.
Speaker: But he did.
Speaker: You know, he leaves his plates out and he gets to him when he gets to him.
Speaker: But that's the price he pays to be a top producer.
Speaker: And so what was interesting to me is he is just so focused on the cells that it's almost like there's nothing in his brain besides that.
Speaker: And it just correlates.
Speaker: I think of highly successful entrepreneurs.
Speaker: You think of Elon Musk.
Speaker: You think of Bill Gates.
Speaker: Just any highly successful entrepreneur.
Speaker: What are they thinking of?
Speaker: They're probably thinking of very little.
Speaker: When I grew up, my dad was thinking about who's going to mow the lawn.
Speaker: Who's going to do this house project.
Speaker: Who's going to organize the garage.
Speaker: But these top guys, they're making...
Speaker: having this level of success, making this amount of money, I think a lot of them are not really focused on these other things.
Speaker: And what are they doing?
Speaker: They're outsourcing a lot of these tasks, a lot of these things to other people.
Speaker: And so Ricardo, for example, and I've had one myself for a while, but we both have assistants that help handle a lot of these, you know, just different tasks that we don't need to be focusing on.
Speaker: and i've talked about this before but if you have not done just a list of all the tasks you do and analyze and figure it out to see if you can offload some of these things maybe hire a personal assistant maybe hire a cleaner maybe hire someone to do your dishes to do your laundry whatever you might be spending way more brain power and time and money on these activities than you should
Speaker: And so that's the first secret.
Speaker: Figure out what you can offload.
Speaker: Figure out what you can outsource.
Speaker: Consider getting an assistant.
Speaker: You know, you can get a VA like I have or Ricardo.
Speaker: He has like an in-person assistant.
Speaker: And he told me that as he's closing these deals, he does not focus.
Speaker: He does not think about it, does not touch the deal again.
Speaker: And that's key because if you think about it, if you're closing 15 deals in a week, there's bound to be, you know, people that have HOAs you need to figure out, people that have extra questions.
Speaker: And so what Ricardo does, he does a group text with his assistant and the customer as he closes them.
Speaker: Says, hey, Mr. Jones, this is my account manager.
Speaker: He is going to be walking you through the process, answering any other questions if you have them, along with myself, and just making sure your solar progresses.
Speaker: And he leaves it at that.
Speaker: Doesn't have to think about anything else.
Speaker: Doesn't handle HOA documents.
Speaker: Doesn't, you know, maybe if they need signatures, something like that.
Speaker: But does not, you know, answer questions from our, like, team about specific accounts.
Speaker: He has an assistant that does all those things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, so that's secret number one.
Speaker: Just figure out how can you outsource some of the things you're doing.
Speaker: Make a list of everything you do in a week, whether it's laundry, cooking, dishes, whatever, and just brain dump all that.
Speaker: Then ask yourself, could I offload this?
Speaker: Could I hire someone to do this?
Speaker: And you can start small, maybe hire someone.
Speaker: to just come do your laundry once a week, right?
Speaker: How much time could that save you?
Speaker: How much time could you focus on other deals?
Speaker: Because the other thing, it takes brain power that you're putting towards these other tasks.
Speaker: So that's secret number one.
Speaker: And secret number two is a little bit similar, and that is the following.
Speaker: You need to almost not care about
Speaker: what your customer does, say and so.
Speaker: That didn't really make sense, but you need to not focus on whether the customer is going to sign up or not, and you need to figure out quick if they're going to be able to make a decision or if they're going to waste your time.
Speaker: This is another thing that as we're going through our mastermind that I recognize that I'm not doing near as much as I need to, that I should, is
Speaker: That's just wasting time in homes where they're not going to make a decision.
Speaker: That's maybe caring too much about a deal.
Speaker: If you have not read the book, Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff, he goes into a ton about this, just using different frames and basically not caring or just having the attitude of not caring whether your customer does it or not.
Speaker: We all care, right?
Speaker: But the key is you can't be needy in sales.
Speaker: You can't make the customer think that you care.
Speaker: You've got to put off that attitude that you could care less if they're going to do this or not because you've got three more appointments.
Speaker: This is something that Michael O'Donnell talks a ton about as well.
Speaker: And so what we discussed is as these guys are closing 10, 15 deals a week, they figure out within the first five minutes if this deal is going to close or if it's going to waste their time.
Speaker: And how do they do this?
Speaker: They ask the questions.
Speaker: They do the framing like Warren Klaff talks about.
Speaker: Hey, Mr. Jones, so here's what we're going to do.
Speaker: We're going to go through all the steps for you, see if they make sense or not.
Speaker: At the end of this, you're going to come to a decision.
Speaker: Decision one is to stay with the utility and continue paying their rates.
Speaker: Or decision two is submit an application and see if we can get you approved on this program.
Speaker: And we only do that if it makes perfect sense.
Speaker: And from there, we can see if your home's a candidate.
Speaker: You can use a line like that.
Speaker: I know Taylor McCarthy, a lot of people have different lines to just frame the deal up, tee it up.
Speaker: And then hopefully you should get a yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But something that these guys are doing, if they do not feel that people are going to make a decision and sometimes it's super easy to know this.
Speaker: If it's a one-legged, they say they need to talk to their husband.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: They're out of there instantly.
Speaker: Or if it's someone that's like, you know what, we're going to get six more quotes.
Speaker: We're not going to make a decision.
Speaker: Leave your quote off.
Speaker: Then these top guys, they don't even mess with these deals.
Speaker: They're only spending time with the highly qualified people that are going to make a decision, that are willing to submit their applications.
Speaker: And for some of you, that might be a little bit scary.
Speaker: It's like, but Taylor, what if we only have one appointment that day?
Speaker: And maybe we could flip and make a decision.
Speaker: And so there's that side of things too.
Speaker: Maybe you're not having very many appointments.
Speaker: Maybe that one appointment a day is like gold for you.
Speaker: You want to do everything you can to close it.
Speaker: And so I think there is a balance.
Speaker: Some of these are going to flip.
Speaker: Some of these are not.
Speaker: And to be fair, Ricardo, Travis, a lot of these guys, they do have, you know, they get preset appointments.
Speaker: They have a team of setters that are setting them leads.
Speaker: So if someone doesn't want to make a decision, then they're like, okay, we've got two more of these.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: See you later.
Speaker: They're not spending time with them at all.
Speaker: And so I think you've got to find a balance.
Speaker: If you are not in that fortunate position to have two more appointments in case one isn't a great appointment or one says they're not going to make a decision, then you've still got to fill it out.
Speaker: You still shouldn't spend your time if you think there's no way they're going to do it today.
Speaker: I mean, you don't want to be spending your time with those people at the end of the day.
Speaker: And so I think the key is just do not have a scarcity mindset.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: What does the scarcity mindset mean when you're going to appointments?
Speaker: It's like, oh, they may do it.
Speaker: They might do it.
Speaker: I'm going to stick in this as long as they can.
Speaker: Versus having the abundant mindset.
Speaker: It's like, no, I can go out and get three more of these appointments.
Speaker: Some will, some won't.
Speaker: So what?
Speaker: Okay, and I've realized the people that have more of the abundant mindset,
Speaker: They're the ones that are closing just mountains and mountains of deals versus the scarcity mindset.
Speaker: They're hanging on the straws.
Speaker: Sure, maybe there's one out of 10 that said they weren't going to make a decision that you can flip.
Speaker: But think about how much time you can waste by just grasping for those straws and spending your time on unqualified prospects.
Speaker: So this is something that I, even after six years doing it, I realize I'm making this mistake pretty frequently still.
Speaker: spending my time with people that aren't going to make a decision.
Speaker: So that's the two secrets.
Speaker: Number one, figure out how you can offload, outsource, divvy up your time, get an assistant, whatever.
Speaker: And we'll talk more about this here in some coming episodes about specific things I think you can do.
Speaker: And number two, don't have the scarcity mindset.
Speaker: Have the abundance mindset.
Speaker: Don't be afraid to let go of your deals and figure out quick if your prospect is going to make a decision or not.
Speaker: If they're not, then get out of there.
Speaker: Do not spend your time with that prospect.
Speaker: Treat your time like gold.
Speaker: Get in as many appointments as possible.
Speaker: And that's the two traits that you need to make sure you're cultivating.
Speaker: Hope this helps.
Speaker: Send this to someone that wants to be a top producer, that wants to be the top 1% in solar.
Speaker: Can't wait for you guys to go crush it this week.
Speaker: We'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker: Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
Speaker: One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
Speaker: What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
Speaker: You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
Speaker: So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and I would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solopreneur.
Speaker: We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet.
Speaker: So go download it right now.
Speaker: It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We will have that in the show notes.
Speaker: Go download it right now.
Speaker: And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
Speaker: That's going to show you how.
Speaker: So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.
