Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solarpreneur, you might ask?
Speaker: A solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Speaker: Boom, what's going on?
Speaker: Taylor Armstrong here to help your life easier as a solar sales professional and close more deals, generate more referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: So today's episode is what to do if you hate knocking.
Speaker: or if you're struggling to get out there and knock,
Speaker: And a quick preface for that, the reason I am doing this episode is because I'll be blunt.
Speaker: I have struggled to knock as many hours as I want and need to lately.
Speaker: And I think it's a deeper issue.
Speaker: There gets to a point where you need to go and just identify your why.
Speaker: Why are you out there?
Speaker: Go seven levels deep.
Speaker: So it's something that I'm going to do.
Speaker: And that's the first thing I would invite you to do if you are struggling.
Speaker: to get out there and knock doors, you're struggling with the motivation, figure out why you're even doing this.
Speaker: Why do you want to make, you know, six, seven figures, whatever your goal is this year, go write it down and go seven layers deep.
Speaker: If you haven't listened to the episode, um,
Speaker: I think it was a couple months back, but it was about how to increase your confidence in sales.
Speaker: Actually, one of our more downloaded episodes.
Speaker: Go listen to it, though, because I talk about an exercise that's great for this, too.
Speaker: Just going seven levels deep on your why and figuring out why you're really motivated to do the things that you're telling yourself you want to do.
Speaker: That's the first step.
Speaker: But before we get into the rest of the tips with that, I wanted to thank our loyal listeners.
Speaker: We've had a lot of great reviews, a lot of people sharing.
Speaker: So I want to thank all those that have hopped on and shared the podcast.
Speaker: So I wanted to just give those people a shout out.
Speaker: and pull up a couple of the reviews that people have been leaving lately.
Speaker: So we got Raf Munoz.
Speaker: He says, Taylor does an exceptional job of bringing in people that are experienced and high performers to help elevate others.
Speaker: Someone looking into solar like myself, listening and studying these interviews brings me confidence on making the jump.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you, Rafael.
Speaker: I assume you haven't made the jump over to solar yet, so hopefully you do it soon.
Speaker: We got, I'm not going to try to say this username here.
Speaker: Okay, I'll try to say it.
Speaker: QPWUQ.
Speaker: Looks like a bunch of letters on there.
Speaker: But he says, I like how Taylor is constantly working to help the door-to-door space.
Speaker: I love how freely he gives out pro tips and shares his years of experience with
Speaker: Great interviews with top guests.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: And then he gives me five fire emojis.
Speaker: You just made my day.
Speaker: QP, we are you.
Speaker: WQ.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: And let's do one more for fun.
Speaker: We got a TPEF2 says, podcast helped me out a lot here in Pennsylvania.
Speaker: One of the best podcasts about solar really goes in depth about the process of making a solar deal.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Appreciate you guys.
Speaker: And that is how we grow the podcast.
Speaker: That's how we help others in the industry.
Speaker: And it's good karma.
Speaker: The more you help others, it's going to come back to you.
Speaker: So guys, I'm not just requesting this and not doing it myself.
Speaker: I go on and leave reviews for the podcast I'm listening to do.
Speaker: And hopefully it's going to help me get reviews back.
Speaker: If you want something done to you, make sure you're actively doing it yourself.
Speaker: But I want to give a thank you to those that have made an effort to share, to repost, and to leave good reviews on the podcast.
Speaker: That's what it's all about.
Speaker: So let's jump into the topic today.
Speaker: Again, we're jamming on what you can do if you are struggling to knock yourself.
Speaker: Or if you're just hating knocking lately, it's too hot.
Speaker: A million reasons we can tell ourselves, right?
Speaker: And one of the reasons I start thinking to the future about things, we got college football coming up.
Speaker: My favorite time, one of my favorite times of the years, I get to watch college football, which that and NBA, that's my two sports that I watch more than any other sports.
Speaker: I'm a Utah Utes fan, and sometimes I start thinking,
Speaker: forward, I'm like, man, it's going to be so nice when I can just take a Saturday, not knock, whatever.
Speaker: And that's the problem with college football is most of the good games are on Saturdays, right?
Speaker: So got to figure out a way to start recording games.
Speaker: But there's all sorts of things.
Speaker: Once we get into this phase of the year, people knock in the summer are gone.
Speaker: Sometimes you feel alone.
Speaker: Sometimes your team isn't producing as much.
Speaker: So what can you do to not fall into this trap of not producing at the level you need to and not getting out there and hustling?
Speaker: Because these months in solar, especially out here in San Diego, for whatever reason, people get their, these are the hotter months.
Speaker: More than July, more than August, usually September, October are super hot months for us out here.
Speaker: And that's when people are getting their really high bills.
Speaker: So for us, it's a time when we need to be speeding up, when we need to be going against the flow.
Speaker: If people are slowing down, we need to be going quicker.
Speaker: So what can you do?
Speaker: So I'm going to go through, I did close three deals last week, had a decent week.
Speaker: I know there's guys closing three deals a day.
Speaker: But for me, I'll, I take three deals.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: And I'm going to build on that.
Speaker: So what I did to still produce, even though I did not feel like knocking it all last week, number one thing I'm going to give you right here is I teamed up.
Speaker: I got with an accountability partner at someone that I was driving out to my areas.
Speaker: I know there's a lot of teams out there in solar.
Speaker: They don't do car groups.
Speaker: They don't go out together.
Speaker: They're just riding solo because they have their own appointments.
Speaker: They got their own areas.
Speaker: But guess what?
Speaker: It doesn't matter if you have your own area if you're not motivated, if you're not going to actually hit it up.
Speaker: So that's what I did.
Speaker: I recognize that I do not want to get out there today.
Speaker: Do not want to go knock.
Speaker: I recognize that.
Speaker: And so I hit up one of the newer guys in our office said, Hey man, let's carpool out to our areas.
Speaker: We're actually working like close to an hour drive away right now.
Speaker: It's a little bit further.
Speaker: So I said, Hey, let's carpool up.
Speaker: Let's share the area.
Speaker: And then we can just both get out there at the same time.
Speaker: So this is the number one thing that helped me last week.
Speaker: Just get out with somebody carpool, get your car group,
Speaker: Because it's like the circumstances you put yourself in.
Speaker: If you don't, if you're trying to cut out sugar, the best way to do that is not have sugar in the house, right?
Speaker: And if you're trying to knock, the same principle applies.
Speaker: Get with someone that's going out there knocking.
Speaker: Don't put yourself in a tough situation where you have to decide to, you know, sit in the car or get out there.
Speaker: Be with someone that you know is going to actually go get the job done.
Speaker: You know is going to,
Speaker: shadow you, whatever.
Speaker: And that's another pro tip.
Speaker: If you haven't listened to Mike O'Donnell's episode, this is what he does.
Speaker: He always goes out with somebody when he's knocking.
Speaker: He pays someone, I think it's 50 bucks.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: He'll pay someone 50 bucks to meet him at the Starbucks and get out there and hit the doors.
Speaker: Because if he has someone out waiting on him to go to the doors and he paid the money, how likely is he to not actually get out there and knock?
Speaker: And if Mike O'Donnell is doing this, the number one, you know, solar rep in the country, if he's doing this, then there's no shame in struggling to get out there and knock.
Speaker: There's no shame in paying people to go out and knock.
Speaker: That's just Mike O'Donnell doing the same thing.
Speaker: He recognizes that it will be tough for him to get out there and just knock on his own accord, open the door himself.
Speaker: So he gets someone to meet him up.
Speaker: He pays someone to go meet him at the Starbucks and get out there at the same time.
Speaker: So if you're struggling at all, that's the first thing I would recommend.
Speaker: Just team up with somebody, get a newer guy in your office, get a good excuse to recruit right there, or, you know, get someone to hold you accountable.
Speaker: And maybe you don't have an office that's cranking a ton of deals.
Speaker: Maybe you don't have a ton of good reps that are motivating.
Speaker: I struggle with this at my previous company.
Speaker: There sometimes were reps that weren't pushing me to work as hard as I needed to.
Speaker: So if that's the case, then consider getting in on our Inner Circle program.
Speaker: You can go to soulcite.co, apply for that.
Speaker: But that's what we're all about is creating a group of like-minded people that need the accountability, need the motivation, and are going to push to get results.
Speaker: So if you need help being around people like that, go hit apply.
Speaker: You can book a call and we can see what we can do to help you out.
Speaker: That's the first tip.
Speaker: And then the second thing is, I know I've talked about a few of these in previous episodes.
Speaker: So if you have binged a ton of episodes, you might be hearing a few of these again.
Speaker: But this is an app that I know I've talked about.
Speaker: It's called Stick, S-T-I-C-K-K.
Speaker: And this app you can go and you can find accountability partners and you can literally place money on the line for a habit or whatever action you're trying to do.
Speaker: So that's a pretty cool app.
Speaker: First heard about it from Tim Ferriss, actually, one of my favorite authors in his book, Four Hour Chef.
Speaker: Great book.
Speaker: But he talks about this.
Speaker: He's trying to get people to basically follow his recipes.
Speaker: And he's like, guys, you're not going to learn how to cook if you don't actually go through these recipes I created and go through the book.
Speaker: So before you even continue in the book, he tells people to download the stick app and put money on the line that they're going to go through it.
Speaker: Funny part is I still haven't gone through the book all the way.
Speaker: So I didn't take his advice seriously enough.
Speaker: But anything you're trying to do, that's a great app.
Speaker: You're putting money on the line and it goes to a charity that you don't agree with.
Speaker: So if you hate, I don't know, Trump, if you hate Biden, you can don't download it.
Speaker: And put money on the line and it'll go to the thing you don't want it to go to.
Speaker: So how motivating is that?
Speaker: Pretty sweet idea if you ask me.
Speaker: Yes, that's the second tip.
Speaker: Get someone to hold you accountable on the stick app.
Speaker: Then the third tip actually talks about this in a little bit in last week's episode, but just develop a knocking routine.
Speaker: And just brought this up, but Taylor McCarthy, he'll go get ice to really signal his brain that he's starting his knocking day.
Speaker: So what trigger can you put into place that's going to trigger you?
Speaker: It's time to go out and knock.
Speaker: And so I know I mentioned that in last week's episode, but it's worth mentioning again.
Speaker: Just figure out how you can really trigger your brain.
Speaker: to get out there and to hit those doors or to do whatever you're trying to do.
Speaker: Maybe it's make 50 calls that day.
Speaker: Maybe it's contact your referral sheet.
Speaker: Just whatever you need to do, put a trigger around it and be super consistent.
Speaker: And it's so simple, guys.
Speaker: The success is simple.
Speaker: The guys that are closing tons of deals, they're not doing that many more things than the guys that aren't.
Speaker: But they're just doing it at a more consistent level and they're not giving up.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So that's the key.
Speaker: I hope this helped.
Speaker: Remember those three things.
Speaker: Team up with someone and get someone newer to go shadow you.
Speaker: Go knock.
Speaker: I personally love it when people shadow me is because I can't get out of it either.
Speaker: I have to be out there and I'm not going to like, I'm going to show off.
Speaker: I'll, I'll be honest.
Speaker: I'm going to like try as hard as I can to overcome the objections.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because I don't want people shadowing me to be like, hey, this guy didn't even try to overcome that.
Speaker: So I'm pushing harder than I normally would.
Speaker: And I've closed a lot of same day deals just by having someone out shadow me.
Speaker: Okay, so that's the first one.
Speaker: Team up with someone.
Speaker: Number two, use stick.
Speaker: Number three, develop your routine and put triggers around your knocking hours, your prospecting hours, or whatever difficult thing it is you're trying to do.
Speaker: So I hope that helped.
Speaker: I can't wait for you to go out and apply these things.
Speaker: Let me know if it helps.
Speaker: Send it to someone who is struggling to knock.
Speaker: And we will see you out on the doors and in the next episode.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
Speaker: What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day?
Speaker: For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
Speaker: That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry.
Speaker: And it's called Solcitee.
Speaker: This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day.
Speaker: Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
Speaker: So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
