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Knockstar Event Takeaways
99 Plays2 years ago
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Introduction and Taylor's Story
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
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.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you 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.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
Insights from the Noxstar Event
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey what's going on solopreneurs?
00:00:43
Speaker
We are going to highlight the recent Noxstar event that I went to.
00:00:47
Speaker
I'm going to give you guys some takeaways.
00:00:50
Speaker
some secret sauce, some ideas that I took away from this conference, and a whole lot more.
00:00:57
Speaker
So let's jump into it.
00:00:58
Speaker
My name's Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:59
Speaker
We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:01:06
Speaker
Hope you're doing awesome.
00:01:07
Speaker
Hope you are staying warm wherever you're at.
00:01:10
Speaker
I woke up here in San Diego, and it was 37 degrees.
00:01:15
Speaker
No longer the land of sunshine.
00:01:18
Speaker
It was still really sunny and warmed up, but I was shocked.
00:01:20
Speaker
I don't think I've ever seen it this cold in San Diego.
00:01:23
Speaker
So for those people that are not getting colder than that, I don't know how you do it.
00:01:28
Speaker
You got to be crazy.
00:01:29
Speaker
Everyone should be out here.
00:01:31
Speaker
in the winter.
00:01:32
Speaker
But actually I did talk to people that are in some colder markets and they did tell me that there's way less competition when they're knocking in snow.
00:01:41
Speaker
They said hardly anyone is out knocking in inclement weather.
00:01:45
Speaker
So gotta hand it to you people that are knocking in cold weather.
00:01:50
Speaker
But that's beside the point.
00:01:52
Speaker
Today we're highlighting the Knockstar event.
00:01:55
Speaker
And I actually went to this last minute.
00:01:59
Speaker
I didn't have tickets until like the week before.
00:02:02
Speaker
But just had Taylor McCarthy hit me up, a few other people.
00:02:06
Speaker
And I'm like, hey, these guys are salespeople.
00:02:12
Speaker
They sell me.
00:02:13
Speaker
And...
00:02:14
Speaker
Decided to hit up the event, but I was not disappointed.
00:02:17
Speaker
This was another great event and if you are not doing if you are not going to events You're missing out.
00:02:24
Speaker
It's something that I talk about a lot.
00:02:26
Speaker
There is a ton of power in going to events You get a network with people you get to hear what's Working for other guys in the industry and what I think is probably the biggest thing is you just expand your mindset and
00:02:40
Speaker
Every time I go, I see barriers that have been broken, see guys that are just doing way more sales than I ever thought were possible, and really just helps me see what needs to be done, or helps me see rather what's possible in the industry.
Door2DoorCon and Networking Opportunities
00:02:57
Speaker
So speaking of events, if you did not make it to the Noxstar one with us there, we are actually planning on going to Door2DoorCon.
00:03:09
Speaker
And we have an exclusive solar printer discount code for that.
00:03:13
Speaker
That's ARMSTRONG20.
00:03:14
Speaker
You go to door2doorcon.com and discount code is ARMSTRONG20.
00:03:20
Speaker
If you want the exclusive solar printer discount, we'd love to hang out with you.
00:03:25
Speaker
We'll probably plan last year we did a solarpreneur lunch so hit me up if you are going we'd love to organize a little lunch for everyone that listens to the podcast do some networking but so let's jump into this topic I'm just going to highlight this event.
00:03:42
Speaker
For those that have not been to a Noxstar event, tell you a little bit what their format is, a little bit about it, and then just some takeaways.
00:03:50
Speaker
So I'm not going to go into extreme detail.
00:03:53
Speaker
Sometimes I struggle with these event highlight podcasts because there's so many notes to go into.
00:04:00
Speaker
Could make it hours long, but...
00:04:03
Speaker
Don't want to talk you around for hours, so we're just going to highlight some key takeaways I had from a few of the speakers.
00:04:11
Speaker
Let's jump into it.
00:04:13
Speaker
First, I got back from the event...
00:04:17
Speaker
And I had my whole book that I took notes in.
00:04:19
Speaker
They had the little packets there with all the speaker notes and everything.
00:04:25
Speaker
Got home and realized I actually took home someone else's speaker packet.
00:04:31
Speaker
So I think I took home Nico's packet here.
00:04:34
Speaker
So Nico, I apologize.
00:04:36
Speaker
Maybe you have my notebook, but I got your notes.
00:04:39
Speaker
You got better handwriting than I do, so it's okay.
00:04:43
Speaker
But I don't have notes on a few of my key takeaways, but I'm trying to organize...
00:04:52
Speaker
what was said, so sorry for rambling.
00:04:55
Speaker
But like I said, before we get into some takeaways, I want to highlight just the format of the event if you're not familiar with it.
00:05:01
Speaker
So it was a two-day event.
00:05:03
Speaker
It was in Florida.
00:05:05
Speaker
Great weather.
00:05:06
Speaker
Very warm during this time of the year.
00:05:09
Speaker
And what's interesting that Taylor McCarthy does and Noxstar does, it's a little bit different than other events, is most of the speakers are from his group of Noxstars.
00:05:19
Speaker
Okay, and at the time of this recording, I'm not currently in the Noxstar United program, which is his mastermind.
00:05:27
Speaker
They do weekly calls and all that.
00:05:30
Speaker
I was in it for a year, thought it was awesome, so would highly recommend it.
00:05:36
Speaker
But a lot of the speakers are taken from the winners of the competitions that they run over at Noxstar, guys that are just having a lot of success.
00:05:45
Speaker
And he highlights their success, which I think is really cool and awesome.
00:05:49
Speaker
So we get to hear from people that maybe a lot of people hadn't heard of in the industry.
00:05:57
Speaker
and hear from a lot of up and comers, which is cool, but just a little bit different than your typical like solar con, door to door con where, you know, it's people that typically have bigger followings already.
00:06:10
Speaker
I would say bigger names that maybe they're managing at their companies, maybe they're owners of companies, things like that.
00:06:19
Speaker
Hey, but it was really cool to hear from a lot of these up-and-comers.
00:06:22
Speaker
And then also we got to hear from the one, the only Tom Hopkins, Taylor McCarthy as usual.
00:06:29
Speaker
So it's cool because Tom Hopkins is essentially passing down.
00:06:33
Speaker
the baton of his company to Taylor.
00:06:36
Speaker
And he brought that up actually several times during the event.
00:06:39
Speaker
So it's cool to see just that kind of transfer of ownership to see that Tom is still speaking at these events, but he is just passing down the reins to Taylor.
00:06:50
Speaker
And he did say that of anyone in the world right now, he thinks Taylor McCarthy is the one that's, you know, teaches closest to his style.
00:07:01
Speaker
That's,
00:07:02
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knows how Tom Hopkins ran his events and teaches very similar to him.
00:07:07
Speaker
So that was cool to see.
00:07:09
Speaker
But we heard from them several times.
00:07:12
Speaker
They spoke just kind of some shorter segments towards the beginning and the end.
00:07:18
Speaker
And then we also did a basketball tournament at the end of it.
00:07:24
Speaker
I got smashed.
00:07:26
Speaker
I actually won the first one.
00:07:27
Speaker
So that was cool.
00:07:28
Speaker
I came from behind.
00:07:29
Speaker
I was down.
00:07:30
Speaker
It was a one-on-one tournament.
00:07:31
Speaker
The winner got like a, I think a coaching session or a knocking session with Taylor.
00:07:36
Speaker
It was cool.
00:07:37
Speaker
But I was down, I think six points in the first one.
00:07:41
Speaker
I came back and won.
00:07:42
Speaker
So I was like, let's go, let's go.
00:07:44
Speaker
I was excited about that.
00:07:46
Speaker
But then the second one, I just got smoked.
00:07:50
Speaker
So it was very short lived, but I found out I was against the number one seed.
00:07:54
Speaker
So, yeah, I feel like it was, you know, come on, put me against a lower seed and let me work up to it.
00:08:01
Speaker
Don't just smash my face in.
00:08:03
Speaker
But, hey, either way, wouldn't have won it, but that was a fun little detail at the end there.
00:08:07
Speaker
Okay, so let's get into just a couple takeaways.
00:08:11
Speaker
And like I said, there's too
Confidence in Sales with Ryan Allen
00:08:13
Speaker
many speakers to go into all of them.
00:08:15
Speaker
But the few speakers I want to highlight, I'm going to tell you just a couple things from them.
00:08:21
Speaker
The first one was my friend Ryan Allen.
00:08:23
Speaker
He spoke on The Art of Confidence.
00:08:26
Speaker
And Ryan, we're actually going to have him on the show here very soon.
00:08:29
Speaker
We were going to do a podcast at the event, but got a little busy with things.
00:08:34
Speaker
But this dude, he's probably the funniest guy I know in solar.
00:08:37
Speaker
He's got his Boston accent.
00:08:41
Speaker
Just can make anyone laugh and spend a lot of time with him.
00:08:45
Speaker
He spoke on the art of confidence.
00:08:47
Speaker
And what's really cool is he grew up in just a really rough environment, rough childhood growing up.
00:08:55
Speaker
So he just spoke about how he's been able to overcome that in his life, how he's been able to develop the confidence that we need in cells, in solar cells.
00:09:05
Speaker
And a few key things he spoke about is he just talked about how children, they're born relentless, but are taught later to relent.
00:09:15
Speaker
If you think of a child, they're not afraid to ask for things.
00:09:18
Speaker
I got two kids myself.
00:09:19
Speaker
My kid will ask over and over and over and over for his bowl of Froot Loops in the morning.
00:09:24
Speaker
He'll ask over and over and over and over to watch Peppa Pig on TV.
00:09:29
Speaker
These kids are relentless.
00:09:32
Speaker
And sometimes I think we forget that we need to have that same attitude in cells.
00:09:36
Speaker
We need to be relentless.
00:09:37
Speaker
So that was a cool thing with confidence.
00:09:42
Speaker
He talked about if you judge yourself based on your past success, you'll lose admiration.
00:09:47
Speaker
So just realizing that we cannot judge ourselves on our past success.
00:09:51
Speaker
We need to look towards the future.
00:09:54
Speaker
So a couple of things just to develop.
00:09:57
Speaker
And a lot of it was his story.
00:09:59
Speaker
So I'm going to save his story for when he comes on the podcast soon.
00:10:03
Speaker
But it was cool to hear from him.
00:10:05
Speaker
And then two others that I want to highlight.
The Power of Questions in Sales with Tom Hopkins
00:10:09
Speaker
We had Tom Hopkins.
00:10:11
Speaker
He really just spoke about the power of questions, how we need to be leading people down the road to their own decision.
00:10:20
Speaker
And so he did a little magic trick drill with us where he just brought someone up on the stage.
00:10:30
Speaker
Asked him to guess the card and asked all these questions.
00:10:34
Speaker
You know, is it ace or spades?
00:10:36
Speaker
Is it red or black?
00:10:40
Speaker
Just all these questions.
00:10:41
Speaker
You can tell I don't play cards very much because I don't even know all the questions he asked.
00:10:48
Speaker
I would have to go back in my notebook and see the questions.
00:10:52
Speaker
But bottom line, he just compared the questions he asked in his little magic trick that we need to ask the same questions.
00:10:58
Speaker
Because remember, people may not believe everything you say, but people have to believe 100% of what they say themselves.
00:11:08
Speaker
Everything they say can and will be used against them in the cell.
00:11:13
Speaker
So that was his big point is we need to help people realize the benefits of solar by the questions we ask them and get them to speak it themselves.
00:11:22
Speaker
And then a really cool line he had that he actually shared with us on the last day.
00:11:27
Speaker
This was just really if you have someone that is trying to think about it, doesn't want to
00:11:36
Speaker
sign up that day.
00:11:37
Speaker
His line was, that's fine, John.
00:11:39
Speaker
Obviously, you wouldn't take your time thinking this over unless you were seriously interested, would you?
00:11:45
Speaker
So may I assume you'll give it very careful consideration?
00:11:49
Speaker
Just to clarify my thinking, what phase of this opportunity is it that you want to think over?
00:11:54
Speaker
Is it the quality of the service I'll render?
00:11:57
Speaker
Is it something I've forgotten to cover?
00:12:00
Speaker
Seriously, please level with me.
00:12:02
Speaker
Could it be the money?
00:12:02
Speaker
Okay, and then he just, you know, goes into isolating the objection.
00:12:09
Speaker
So I thought that was a cool line he shared with us at the end that you can use.
00:12:13
Speaker
So pause that, re-listen to it.
00:12:14
Speaker
You can ride it out.
00:12:16
Speaker
But yeah, just developing the skills of asking questions.
00:12:20
Speaker
So I think it's a good thing.
00:12:22
Speaker
Go analyze the questions you are asking in the cell.
00:12:26
Speaker
If you're new to solar, just go with your manager, go with someone that's closing a lot and figure out what questions are they asking.
00:12:33
Speaker
We've done episodes about questions on the podcast here, but it's great to do a little self-analysis and
00:12:40
Speaker
Great to record your sits, your appointments, figure out am I asking effective questions that get people to realize the pain of staying with utility, the benefits of going solar, and what they'll lose if they don't go solar now.
00:12:57
Speaker
Hey, and then just a couple other highlights
Achieving Financial Independence with Mikey Lucas
00:13:01
Speaker
here.
00:13:01
Speaker
We heard from Mikey Lucas.
00:13:03
Speaker
He talked about the art of creating wealth, and he took us through a really cool exercise of just really identifying how we can create passive income and really just figuring out what is our status right now in our financial situation.
00:13:18
Speaker
And most people don't do this, but he had us go and write down all of our expenses,
00:13:26
Speaker
figure out how much passive income we need to really be financially independent.
00:13:31
Speaker
So it was a cool exercise just to figure out exactly what my expenses are.
00:13:35
Speaker
I haven't done that in a little bit.
00:13:37
Speaker
and then figure out how much money we actually need to invest to create that amount of passive income because it's true financial freedom when you get to where your passive income, your investments can cover all your expenses plus more, and then you're just working to get ahead at that point.
00:13:58
Speaker
So that was a cool exercise.
00:14:00
Speaker
And one last takeaway before I start.
00:14:05
Speaker
Getting too much in the weeds here going through everyone.
Mastering Closing Techniques with Will Dirlene
00:14:08
Speaker
This guy I was really impressed by.
00:14:09
Speaker
His name was Will Dirlene.
00:14:12
Speaker
He is over at OmniPower Group, I believe, in Arizona.
00:14:18
Speaker
Hopefully you have him on the show here soon.
00:14:19
Speaker
So if you're listening to this, Will, hit me up.
00:14:21
Speaker
Let's do a podcast.
00:14:22
Speaker
But was really impressed by his closing process.
00:14:25
Speaker
He took us through his whole close, his whole format of how he closes people.
00:14:31
Speaker
And just a couple of things I learned at the end is just with objections,
00:14:39
Speaker
He does a lot of what Mike O'Donnell does, Mike O'Donnell, but he really just changes his mindset to, hey, I'm not coming back here.
00:14:49
Speaker
I'm getting this done today.
00:14:50
Speaker
His secrets that he uses to close, I think he said 80% of his deals, is he goes for the close just like everybody.
00:14:59
Speaker
If he can't get him that time, then he says, hey, just so you know, the States gives you three days to think this over.
00:15:06
Speaker
Hey, it's not like you have to get 100%.
00:15:08
Speaker
It's not like we're getting married today.
00:15:11
Speaker
We're just asking that we start the process and then we fill in the 10.
00:15:15
Speaker
We get you to 90%.
00:15:16
Speaker
We fill in the 10% as we go.
00:15:19
Speaker
But hey, what I'll do for you.
00:15:21
Speaker
I'll extend that to 10 days so you guys have even more time to make sure it's the right decision for you.
00:15:31
Speaker
Does that sound cool?
00:15:33
Speaker
Along those lines, hopefully I'll find my closing notebook because I did write it out exactly word for word.
00:15:42
Speaker
But that and then the second part that he goes into, if he can't get him with extending the cancellation to 10 days, then he says, hey, this in this section from Michael O'Donnell says, hey, that's totally fine.
00:15:56
Speaker
Like you guys can do this whenever.
00:15:58
Speaker
But we do have a cool department that actually is in charge of following up with people and they're great.
00:16:06
Speaker
They're the best at following up.
00:16:08
Speaker
They'll call you off.
00:16:11
Speaker
More than happy to put you in touch with them.
00:16:12
Speaker
They're called the marketing department.
00:16:14
Speaker
But unfortunately, Mr. Customer, the marketing departments, they got to get paid too.
00:16:19
Speaker
So obviously they have different pricing because we have to make sure they get paid.
00:16:23
Speaker
So how about this, Mr. Customer?
00:16:26
Speaker
if I can get our company to take the money that they have to spend to pay the marketing department to follow up with you and just apply it to your system,
00:16:38
Speaker
We'd actually give you six months where we'd just go ahead and pay your solar bill.
00:16:43
Speaker
In addition, you'd still have the 10 days to make sure it's the correct decision for you guys and go from there.
00:16:50
Speaker
Does that sound cool?
00:16:52
Speaker
Awesome.
00:16:52
Speaker
Okay, so those are just some things he took us through.
00:16:54
Speaker
I thought that was genius.
00:16:55
Speaker
He says he closes 80% plus of his deals going through that process.
00:17:00
Speaker
Okay, so yeah, we're going to do more episodes getting, you know, specific into these things, but just wanted to pass on a few of the notes that I enjoyed, a few of the takeaways I got from the Noxstar events.
00:17:13
Speaker
Okay, and I hope to see you guys at some of these coming events.
00:17:17
Speaker
We got Door-to-DoorCon coming up.
00:17:20
Speaker
We got SolarCon coming up in April, and I am hoping to do an event...
00:17:26
Speaker
I know I just need to make it happen, commit, but the plan is that we're going to do a solopreneur event here this year.
00:17:36
Speaker
So it's the first time I'm saying that publicly.
00:17:38
Speaker
Hit me up if that's something that you would be interested in coming to.
00:17:41
Speaker
We'd probably do it in Southern California.
00:17:43
Speaker
So love events.
00:17:45
Speaker
You should go to them if you have not.
Future Events and Resources
00:17:48
Speaker
And those are a few of my takeaways.
00:17:51
Speaker
Sorry for rambling a little bit.
00:17:53
Speaker
I'm actually recording this.
00:17:56
Speaker
11 o'clock at night.
00:17:58
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So I got caught up with a few things.
00:18:01
Speaker
But hey, I'm getting it done for y'all.
00:18:03
Speaker
And we'll be sure to bring some heat on the next coming episodes.
00:18:07
Speaker
We've got some fire coming at you.
00:18:10
Speaker
Next episode, we are going to actually be hearing from someone that's
00:18:16
Speaker
uh breaking records he is he closed i think i want to say 150 plus deals last last year but this guy is killing it his name is stetson sofa he is one of the top closers top installers here at legacy power
00:18:33
Speaker
So we're going to hear from him, hear some secrets.
00:18:36
Speaker
Until then, keep crushing it.
00:18:38
Speaker
Hope you have your goals laid out for 2024 or whenever you're listening to this podcast.
00:18:44
Speaker
And we'll see you on the next episode.
00:18:46
Speaker
Peace.
00:18:47
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
00:18:49
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:18:50
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.
00:19:01
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:19:08
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:19:11
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:19:16
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.
00:19:29
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.
00:19:38
Speaker
So go download it right now.
00:19:39
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:19:43
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:19:48
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:19:51
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:19:52
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:19:55
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:20:00
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:20:01
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.