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Level Up: How Retreats Transform Sales Teams
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Retreats put you in a grounded space for improvement and self-actualization: the place for fortifying your teams in sales. This episode will go through my experience and insights on being in retreats myself, especially as we try to build accountability and connection.
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Transcript
Taylor's Solarpreneur Journey
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong. went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you 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? 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.
Power of Retreats
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs. Today, we're to talking about the power of retreats.
00:00:46
Speaker
If you have not done a retreat for yourself or for your team, it is a powerful transformational experience that I think can be used to help a lot of people in solopreneur.
00:00:59
Speaker
So we're going to be talking about how you can plan one for your team and how you can transform your solar cells. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Taylor Armstrong. We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:01:14
Speaker
um Just got done with a retreat myself. We were in Utah the past few days. If you follow me on social media, you probably saw ah just us fooling around, um you know playing basketball, doing some good things.
00:01:31
Speaker
um so And it's such a good experience that I thought, hey, I think people need to hear this. especially the leaders out there. If you have not done a retreat for your teams, it's something that can really just get people to think bigger.
00:01:47
Speaker
lot of bonding that happens, a lot of trust gained with your team. And I think it's a great thing you can do. So I'm going to share a little bit about my experience.
00:01:58
Speaker
And then going to share some exercises that we went through. And so even if you are not leading a team, maybe you're just a rep listening to this, ah still go through the podcast because I think even if you're not planning on doing a retreat, you can go through these exercises ah for yourself and it's going to help you with the mindset side of things especially.
00:02:21
Speaker
But just a little bit about my experience. So we got to Utah. um Our company has its headquarters in Utah. It happens to be where i grew up, you know, a lot of door door companies in Utah. So no surprise there.
00:02:33
Speaker
ah We get to Utah. We got a really nice Airbnb and it really set the stage for the experience. And shout out to Tyler, one of our leaders who had planned this whole retreat, whole event.
00:02:47
Speaker
um He just did an incredible job about ah making us feel like we're getting a world-class experience, um you know, not skimping on things. We got lots of steaks.
00:02:58
Speaker
We got, you know, just all the snacks, all the good stuff. So we show up to this Airbnb, and And it has the basketball court down in the basement. It was little bit smaller. We're getting made fun of a little bit on social media because ah we we're playing two e two on this court and it was already like maxed out. So it was a little bit funny in the pictures. It made it seem like it was a full court.
00:03:22
Speaker
So whoever listed that did a good job about getting e fish islands, making it seem like it was a big court. ah But the place was really nice. um And I think that's,
00:03:34
Speaker
If you can get a place that's just um different, that's nice, feels little luxurious, it really helps just you know get away from the mundane things that sometimes we do as solar professionals.
00:03:51
Speaker
So I thought that was really nice, really nice touch. And then the other thing that was cool is Um, Tyler, our leader, he got, uh, just shirts, got the nice stuff. He's not skimping out on that either. He got like the Viori, uh, jackets, shirts that had like kind of our motto for the week. And it had like Wolfpack leader. That's our, uh, that's like our bigger team is the Wolfpack. So it had Wolfpack leader on the sleeves. Um,
00:04:22
Speaker
um and just made us feel like we're part of you know a pack, we're part of a brotherhood. So that thought that was a nice touch too, i'm just getting some type of swag, some type of little gift to feel like you're starting to experience.
00:04:37
Speaker
It's a similar thing if you go to any good events. Usually they have swag, they have shirts, they have something that is kind of like representing the event in that way. So cool little thing with that and From there, we you know got settled in spent some quality time, hung out with each other.
00:04:56
Speaker
And the first exercise we did, and this is where maybe if you have no plans to do a retreat, um Maybe it's not in the budgets or we don't have the resources right now.
00:05:09
Speaker
This is something that I think you could do with your team. um It's going to be a lot better if you can do it in the format of a retreat. But um I know we've done it at times just, you know, on little smaller gatherings too that aren't necessarily retreats.
Life Mapping and Leadership Vision
00:05:24
Speaker
It's the first exercise we did on day one of the retreat. It's called life mapping. And if you're not familiar with that, that's where you take just like a poster board or a bigger sheet of paper and you just highlight your life.
00:05:40
Speaker
So we had seven of our leaders there, myself included. We just went through, we took um half an hour or so and just mapped out our life. Some guys did bullet points.
00:05:52
Speaker
Some guys drew like a graph type thing. And it's just the purpose is to just remember the highs, the lows, um and highlights of your life up to that point.
00:06:04
Speaker
And so, um you know, you go through some deep stuff, just thinking back, hey, what really, what are the highs and lows of my life up to this point? So we did that about half an hour, 45 minutes or so.
00:06:18
Speaker
And then what's the most powerful part of this exercise is you actually share with each other. um So we went through and the purpose is you just get to know each individual on such a deeper level than you probably ever would before.
00:06:35
Speaker
i mean, you're sharing just obviously some some sometimes heavy stuff with the lows, um some highs that not a lot of people knew about. And um it's just incredible stories hearing what some people on our team, some of the other leaders on our team had have gone through in their lives and ah the ups and the downs.
00:06:58
Speaker
um And really just, I think it built trust between all of us that we were willing to just play all out. um You know, you got grown men crying during this exercise. It is extremely powerful.
00:07:11
Speaker
So I think especially if if you have a team that maybe they're not as close with each other, ah maybe you feel like there's lack of trust. think this is a great exercise to just like take the trust to another level and really be vulnerable with each other and i just get to know the other people on the team at a much deeper level.
00:07:33
Speaker
And a side note, before we get into some of the other exercises the rest of the experience, we did this with all of our leaders. okay So if you are thinking about planning a retreat, think it's a good thing to do is, um you know, you might not necessarily do this with your whole team.
00:07:52
Speaker
You could. But ah for us, it was really powerful. to just go as leaders and just develop our visions for our teams. And, um, you know, Tyler, our leader, he poured into us as leaders of our own squads of our own teams.
00:08:09
Speaker
And so maybe yourself, maybe you're managing, managing a team. Maybe you've got a few people you're leading, so you can even do like a mini retreat. Just take your top guys And i get them bought in because obviously that's just kind of how business works is you're focusing the time on the people that are going to have the most impact.
00:08:30
Speaker
And we got to focus on everybody, but um that's what that's what's moving the needle typically, right? Is you're focus on focusing on the leverage points, the people that are going to grow um and develop the other people on your team.
00:08:45
Speaker
you're not going to be able to lead and develop everyone. So just a side note, maybe you take like your top guys, you take your future leaders or current leaders, depending on what position or how many people you're leading at the time.
00:09:00
Speaker
So that was the first exercise and that took up most of the day. ah Well, most of the evening by the time we got settled into the Airbnb and everything. So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
00:09:14
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. But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Introducing Solar Scout
00:09:25
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout. But it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market. 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.
00:09:44
Speaker
It's been working for a lot of teams across the country and now I'm on board too. I'm going to be one of the first to use Solar Scout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about Solar Scout on my show. you need to give my listeners a great deal. And they did.
00:09:59
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. That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor. Okay, back to the show.
Leadership Interactions and Growth
00:10:13
Speaker
So that was day one. Day two, we went to our company's headquarters. um And maybe, again, maybe you don't have like a killer headquarters at the company you're with, but ah we went to our headquarters and just met with ah Doug Robinson, our CEO, Luke Toon, CSO. We met with just some of the people that we don't get to interact with very much.
00:10:38
Speaker
And it was cool to just see kind of behind the curtains, behind the scenes, what's going on in the actual main office and really just how many people are actually actually behind the scenes working and i going to bat for us.
00:10:52
Speaker
ah But it's really cool for us just to share like what we're going through on a daily basis on the battlefront. and What are the things we're struggling with? What are the complaints? What? uh what are improvements that we have and we felt like really listened to as leaders and um you know we respected that a lot that the ceo was willing to meet with us take our feedback and then just um share with us uh like he did a little presentation just kind of masterminded with us on how we can better develop our teams and be better leaders
00:11:26
Speaker
You know you've referenced the law of the lid, um ah Maxwell, John Maxwell, right? 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Great book on leadership. if you haven't read it, if haven't read it, highly recommend.
00:11:39
Speaker
But ah he talked about the law of the lid and was just really challenging us to ah increase our lid, right? Think bigger and ah challenge us to help our teams do that as well.
00:11:53
Speaker
So that was cool, a great experience. Had lunch over there at the headquarters, played some ping pong, met with CEO, CSO. So you know you can you could plan something like that if you do a retreat, right?
00:12:08
Speaker
Depending on your company, maybe that's something you could do is get with the higher level people or do a little meet and greet, but it's cool to feel heard. It's cool to meet with people that you're not and necessarily interacting with as often.
00:12:20
Speaker
And then we get back. The second exercise we did, um i guess we did go do some top golf. Forgot to mention that. That was day one as well. Always a great time at top golf, even though I about kill myself hitting the ball. It's never really going where it's supposed to. It's usually popping up in the air and ah pretty much hitting me in the face. But hey ah golfing is one thing I have not done very often.
00:12:49
Speaker
um But ah the second exercise we did after we got back from our company's headquarters got back settled in a little bit is we did seats, right? So we just went, we put one person in just the a hot seat to share and wasn't, you know, like a roast or anything, but we answered three questions.
00:13:13
Speaker
So we had a little bit of time. I think it was 20 minutes um to answer these three questions, but the questions were number one, your, our wins and losses and lessons learned over the last year. Number two, it was our goals for this year moving forward, things we wanted to accomplish um as far as our career goes. And number three, it was what could potentially hold us back or what obstacles do we see um in reaching those goals?
00:13:45
Speaker
And so we each took 20 minutes or so to answer those questions. And then we went one by one and just did a little sharing based off those questions.
00:13:57
Speaker
And it was pretty interactive. um We had, is as each person shared, we each took a few minutes to just basically give like feedback, kind of poke holes in the goals, and and just bring up things that's maybe like blind spots that we and maybe the other person's plan.
00:14:19
Speaker
um But that was really powerful. Just we're all leaders in there. We're all trying to grow our teams. We're all at similar stages. um Most of us at the retreat, we have a team of um five to 15 people and all of us are just trying to grow it to the next level and, um you know, close at a higher level, have better retention.
00:14:41
Speaker
So that was really powerful for us, just masterminding ideas of the struggles we had. you know Most of us, we weren't super happy with our signed install ratio.
00:14:52
Speaker
So that was a big topic, things we can do to have a higher retention, have a higher signed install. um A lot of us brought up that we weren't happy with our recruiting, that we could improve in recruiting.
00:15:07
Speaker
So we brainstormed, masterminded some recruiting ideas, which, yeah, I'll probably share some of those for a future podcasts, um some of the strategies we were talking about. ah But yeah, things like that.
00:15:20
Speaker
um Some guys, it was all a little bit different for each person. um you know For example, our team, we have a pretty solid group of closers. We got four or five Solid guys.
00:15:33
Speaker
Shout out to my closers on our squad, on our team here in San Diego. And we got some killer closers. But one of our problems was our setters, you know, they're doing a little bit better now, but like setters aren't producing at the level that we think they're capable of.
00:15:53
Speaker
where some other leaders there, they have super high level setters, but they don't have closers on their team. So they need to develop more closers. So it's just interesting hearing, you know, what one person's problem, one person's problem was maybe another person's strength.
00:16:12
Speaker
So we just kind of bounced ideas back and forth between each other and based on what we're struggling with. um And then The last part of it, number three, the last thing we and we actually didn't even get to all this.
00:16:26
Speaker
That's the other thing. We were supposed to keep it to a time limit, but and and these exercises alone, we could have spent, I feel like, an entire day just on each exercise.
Accountability and Alliances
00:16:37
Speaker
so it was like a two and a half day retreat that we did. So we ran out of time, but the last exercise that we didn't fully get to, that we're going to, is we did one-year alliance between our leaders.
00:16:51
Speaker
And basically, it's just how can we help each other? How can we hold each other accountable? accountable What are we going to do to make sure we actually achieve our goals to and just stay connected as a group?
00:17:05
Speaker
So get back to you on that one because we didn't even really have time to get into that third exercise and the third thing. But ah all in all, it's just a great retreat, great way for us to feel more connected as a team.
00:17:19
Speaker
and What's cool about this, were just talking, is Tyler, our leader, he he had a similar retreat that was done for him an upper management level. and Now he's bringing it to us on like our team level. It got me thinking, I want to eventually do this ah soon for the people on our team.
00:17:42
Speaker
smaller team level, squad level. So it doesn't really matter how many people you're leading. You can still do a version of this retreat, a version of pouring into your people.
00:17:52
Speaker
um You know, depending on how many guys, depending on budget, you might not get like the bougie Airbnb and go all out with super nice swag and all that. can still do something little. Maybe it's a one day thing. Maybe you're just doing like a team activity and paying for a lunch.
00:18:09
Speaker
And then for a few hours after you're doing a little retreat style type thing with your small team. So just thought it was ah really impactful for us. Got us just super bought in and excited to just go out and dominate, go out and crush it this year and hold each other accountable.
00:18:26
Speaker
So I hope this gets your gear spinning and I hope whatever stage you're at, I mean, you can go answer these exercises yourself. You can go do a life mapping thing. i mean, going to be more impactful if you do it with other people on a team, but yeah what it is a good thing to do. Just recognize those things so on an individual level.
00:18:45
Speaker
And you can go yourself and answer those three questions that we did. What were the wins from last year? What were the losses? What are your goals? What were the lessons? And what could hold you back?
00:18:57
Speaker
Okay, you you should answer those questions yourself, whether you're doing it with your team or just by yourself. It's going to help you. So yeah, go out. um I would invite you consider doing a retreat like that for your
Upcoming Episode Tease with Dan Tracy
00:19:09
Speaker
team. And speaking of retreats, we've got someone coming up on the next podcast. Matter of fact, it is a master of retreats. He actually has a ranch where he runs retreats for teams.
00:19:20
Speaker
So if you want to do an even larger scale retreat, want to take it to another level, make sure you tune in. His name is Dan Tracy. He runs a ranch in Idaho. Forget the name. You have to listen to podcasts.
00:19:33
Speaker
and Sorry, Dan. But he runs a ranch and he actually brings in teams to do retreats similar to this. And he does some really cool stuff. He'll do like rodeos for teams going up there.
00:19:45
Speaker
He'll have stuff catered, cook like some good country food, all that. and He's done like breath work, meditation type things. um So yeah, that's another idea. If you want to make it even more unique, um make sure you tune into this next episode. And he just has a really cool story on top of that.
00:20:04
Speaker
um He does blitzes for solar. So he talks about his experience between running his ranch and running retreats. and then still actively blitzing for solar, which is pretty unique.
00:20:17
Speaker
So make sure you tune in in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in today. Consider running a retreat.
SolarCon Ticket Promotion
00:20:23
Speaker
And remember, last thing, if you have not grabbed your ticket for SolarCon yet,
00:20:28
Speaker
Probably sound like I'm beating a dead horse here, but go grab your ticket. We are going to be rolling out some super cool bonuses for people that have already purchased a ticket or who purchased a ticket. So stay tuned.
00:20:43
Speaker
We're in the works of finalizing those. So ah grab your tickets today. the links in the show notes down below. Shout out to our sponsors who always support the show.
00:20:54
Speaker
Solar Scout, incredible tool. Go check them out. And we'll see you on the next episode. Hey, solopreneurs, quick question. 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?
00:21:12
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. 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.
Introducing Solciety
00:21:35
Speaker
And it's called Solciety. 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 Currently, Soul Society is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to soulcidity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now. This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to soulcidity.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.