Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
From Drug Addict To Sales Superstar - Kayden Carlos
0 Plays2 seconds ago
What if you could harness your bad habits for good? In this episode, Kayden Carlos shares his experience on building the confidence to conquer his addiction, developing a a close-knit sales team, and creating a rigorous program that maximizes their intrinsic growth and personal progress in solar.
CLICK HERE: https://apply.solarpreneurs.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Solarpreneur Podcast
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.
Taylor Armstrong's Journey to Success
00:00:10
Speaker
went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and 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.
Defining a Solopreneur
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. All right, what's going on, everybody? We got a so very special podcast today. This guy, he has an incredible story, excited to dive into.
Introduction to Caden Carlos
00:00:49
Speaker
some I'm excited to have Caden Carlos on the show. Caden, thanks for joining with us today.
00:00:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's a pleasure, Taylor. Yeah, I'm excited. We actually got connected through a mutual friend and previous a podcast guest we had. I'm Mac mac Bjorn, a super funny guy. And he had he had some ah pretty high praise for you, man. Said you had an incredible story. So um so i hopefully it lives up to all the ah the praise Mac gave you.
00:01:17
Speaker
Dude, I, yeah yeah, I mean, I'll take that with as it comes. Mac is a character. He plays on my my men's league baseball team right now. And ah yeah I don't know if you see his Instagram lately, but he is obsessed.
00:01:34
Speaker
ah So that. when i When I worked with Mac on the doors, he kind of approached the the doors the same way he approaches baseball, you know, like head first. And yeah.
00:01:45
Speaker
ah So anyways, I'll take my praises from Mac. Thanks, Mac. I don't know if you mentioned that part. He did mention you own like a new pair of glasses or something, though. Said you guys treated glasses. yeah he gave me he He gave me a pair of.
00:02:00
Speaker
yeah ah So he left his glasses in my car. And they're Maui gems. I love Maui gems. It's like, oh you got Mauis. It's like, dude, I'll give you these if you, you you know give me a pair of Oakley's they're like a hundred bucks I'm like all right yeah let's do it and I haven't been able to really wear his glasses because like the lenses are super scratched right so I'm like i'm like um I need to get new lenses and he's supposed to give me a warranty so Matt give me the warranty I'll get you the shades ah cool man enough about Mac I guess this is this is your podcast but um
00:02:39
Speaker
word Yeah, bro. So um I know you you've you've killed it in recruiting. You were in solar for a really long time. Now you're running the sales division.
Caden's Sales Journey
00:02:49
Speaker
um Sounds like for a home improvement company. um But yeah, do you want to just give us like your brain? and We'll dive deeper in your story, but you want to give us your background, how you got in the door to door sales, how you got into solar, how that went for you and everything.
00:03:03
Speaker
It's Reader's Digest version. Yeah. Yeah. So I started off in 2016 knocking doors. I worked for a company called now communications at the time, which was like the second largest direct TV retailer nationwide.
00:03:21
Speaker
okay I was there for two years. They emerged with a company called clear satellite and rebranded under this company called clear home for a lot of the OGs out there. They'll know what I'm talking about.
00:03:34
Speaker
um was there for ah couple of years and kind of just saw the writing on the wall. Like right before my third summer, like we were having some issues with AT&T, like paying out on accounts. And like one of these people from my mission reached out to and was just like, dude, like we lost our whole sales division. Will you just come manage all or our pest control reps out in the East Coast? So I did that for like a summer.
00:04:04
Speaker
you know so And then that was like, that company was awesome, but like no leadership. The CEO and the owners weren't like involved in the business at all. They're just kind of collecting their residuals.
00:04:16
Speaker
And then really where my career shifted, it was like my fourth summer. i A lot of my buddies that sold for the company or, you know, in the satellite game were now over at Vivid.
00:04:31
Speaker
And that's like really where my career took off. Like I started selling door to door, then a smart home. And my goal when I got into this industry was like, hey, if I can make six figures, like in my mind, it was like, oh, I was going to be rich, right? Like I would have it made.
00:04:48
Speaker
And I was three summers into it and I couldn't break that barrier. I got close to back-to-back summers, but um still didn't break it. And then that first year at Vivint, I made 188,000 and had amazing leadership around me and it really opened my vision. and And then from there, it was just like every year I just doubled my income.
00:05:09
Speaker
Eight summers under my belt. Yeah, I shouldn't say double. Actually, the last couple of years, I did not double in solar, but... um yeah Yeah. I didn't ever break the seven figure mark in the summer. So yeah yeah, it gives you a little bit of background as far as, yeah, correction, didn't break the seven figure mark.
00:05:30
Speaker
but that's Still, though, that's that's killer money, especially in a especially in a summer. Like there's a lot of guys in solar that, you know, it would be stoked to hit that even where we know solar is higher commissions and a lot of alarm guys have switched to solar, as you know, and you did, too.
00:05:46
Speaker
So making that good money, um i guess, what was it for you that made you decide to switch from alarms to solar um even when you're making good money like that in just the summer?
00:05:57
Speaker
For me, at the time in alarms, I was doing so well. Like I was building a house at the time. Leaving alarms really just came down to more of an emotional decision based off of my mental health.
00:06:11
Speaker
Like at that point in thinking about recruiting every year and taking a team to Vivint and then losing guys, it just was like, hey, do I want to be doing this 10 years down the road and just kind of stuck in this situation?
00:06:26
Speaker
Vivint culture. And I love Vivint, like no knock on them, but it it just, it just felt like that was going to be the pattern I would follow. And so a lot of my, my good friends were, had already jumped ship from Vivint and it was just like, Hey, they had that more balance in their life. And that's what I wanted. So getting into solar,
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, money played a part of it, but it was really just to try to chase balance, which is kind of a lie, to be honest. That's what I was going for at the time.
00:07:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's a still hard in solar. I thought that too, because I came from pest control and, you know, solar, it's easier having a family and kids and stuff like that. But um even even now it's like... um It's tough because solar appointments are running them late at night.
00:07:18
Speaker
And so even where I'm doing it as a year round thing, it's still really tough to like, you know, have the so called balance, even when you're not working like a summer sales grind. that's something I'm always I'm always fighting for. But um yeah, we'll get to that later. But yeah how did it go for you in solar? um What was that like?
00:07:36
Speaker
switching from alarms to solar, pretty smooth transition. You make just as much money. it take a while to adjust? Yeah. yeah so so i've made I made like a mid-summer hiatus, which was interesting. so At the time, my goal was is to, like hey, I want to make somewhere between 300 and 400K.
00:07:57
Speaker
Alarms to like date, I had was probably around 70, 80K, maybe ah more on my back end than I never got. and but At that point in the summer, I only had like two months left and I was like, hey, if I could go you know make 200,000 in these two months, like I'll be good with that.
00:08:15
Speaker
And I blew past it. like i I think um it was like 260 on that like first, I ended up staying like a half of an extra month. And yeah, i hit my goal and it was great.
00:08:28
Speaker
but Selling with Bright Planet. bright Bright Planet was our EPC at the time and they were giving us quick installs and that was right in 2021 or 2022 summer.
00:08:40
Speaker
So it just felt like that was the peak of solar at that point, you know, especially in California. Oh, yeah, those are good. at We're still you're using Bright Planet, funny enough. they're not as good They're not as good now as they were back then, unfortunately. have like have and um you know as she see in there but Are you in California, Taylor? Where are you at?
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm in California. yeah Been in San Diego basically the whole nine years now. and Been in San Diego for like eight of those years. So, yeah, it's been fun. Where do you go in California outside of Bright bright Planet, though, for a decently quick install?
00:09:16
Speaker
Yeah. they're proud That's a good question. Yeah, it comes with the price. You know, our problem is sometimes our quick install, but slow on the back on the PTO stuff. So we've got a few others that are but starting to speed up i'm a little bit.
00:09:31
Speaker
And it's gotten trickier with the batteries, too. It's it's kind of like prolong the timelines a little bit and made a little bit trickier. But at 2022, so you probably got in right around when ah the net metering deadlines and stuff, right? Were you selling during all that in California or?
00:09:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that would have been, I guess 2021 would have been. Maybe I just got my dates wrong, man. It seems like in this career, your years mesh together. um I'm thinking it might have been 2021. Because Net Meter three 2023.
00:09:59
Speaker
April or May 23. Yeah, I think it was... april yeah twenty three yeah i was at 23 i think you're right i think it was like april 2023 so yeah yeah so 21 is when i got in solar 22 i had a full year without net metering 3 23 i had a year with net metering 3 which we we had two offices that i oversaw in california okay in that year with 23 that's right my mac Well, yeah, that's coming out of the gates flying because we got guys listening to this. It's like, you know, sometimes they're struggling to hit even their first six figures for the year.
00:10:37
Speaker
yeah we got guys that are doing that. Maybe they done it that quick. So what do you think helped you hit that level of success just right ah right out the gates? Were kind of treating it like an alarm cell or anything you feel like that hit that level so quick? I really think there's two yeah there's two philosophies with it, right? Like if you're first getting into solar, you're probably going to get put in a lead setter program, right? Like where the way you get your feet wet is you're going to set for a closer. And I think in those dynamics, like if I was starting from scratch, I would want to have control
00:11:10
Speaker
over my success because really as ah setter you are at the mercy of the closer showing up to your accounts hopefully on time and you're hoping that he has the skill set necessary to i think sell that account with integrity to make sure that that customer that you set is taken care of um and then you know the other components to help that i almost look at it as like two sides of a coin right like On one side of the coin, you have the sales perspective. On the other side of the coin, you have a consumer perspective.
00:11:44
Speaker
you know From a sales perspective, you want a quick install, right? like You want someone that can hopefully get an install within a month and they can have that PTO'd within a couple months period. like That's the ideal scenario.
00:11:58
Speaker
So so you're i I think as a setter, you're looking at that closer and you're saying, hey, does he have the skill sets necessary? Does he have the moral integrity to take care of my customers?
00:12:10
Speaker
And then am I part of the right system to where, you know, on the back end of things, those customers are taken care of also? That's probably how I would analyze it is like, if I'm starting from scratch, do that.
00:12:22
Speaker
And my scenario is a little different because like I went and I took a whole team from Vivint with me and we had no solar background, but all of a sudden I had, I think at the time we had 12 lead setters and then I had four closers somewhere around there. And it was like I had to feed these people that didn't necessarily weren't trained closers in solar.
00:12:43
Speaker
you know I had to make sure that these lead or lead setters were taken care of too. you know so And i I know you know what I'm talking about, Taylor. So that's that's probably my rule of thumb is like just find how to control your success. The way you do that, are you working with the right people?
00:12:58
Speaker
do they have the right systems and stuff in place necessary to help you have control love that so you mentioned you brought a whole team from vivant you know i've heard some pretty crazy stuff bringing over teams but uh did you did you get any pushback or any nasty letters from vivant or anything taking over a whole team like that yeah Big thing there was is I wasn't recruiting anyone I didn't personally recruit into VIVIT.
00:13:23
Speaker
So I didn't try to take anyone outside of my own downline. When I left, it shook a lot of stuff up. A lot of people wanted to come with me. And they were asking a lot of questions.
00:13:34
Speaker
I just chose to take kind of the moral high ground. I cared about the guy that I worked with at Vivint and I didn't want his region ah to fall apart or anything like that. So I just chose not to even attempt to recruit anyone outside of my own people.
00:13:52
Speaker
okay that's good that's good so no crazy uh not getting sued or anything hopefully no no no lawsuits they they actually paid me a portion of my back end on accident which was funny like the end of that year i was in greece on a vacation and of sudden i look at my bank account and i got a decent chunk you know deposited in my account and i was like like super surprised And good old good old Puck Hartford reached out to me and was like, hey, they accidentally paid your back end.
00:14:28
Speaker
wow One of my guys had went back to Vivit in that hiatus. like He was just like, left us and went back. And then he was wanting to come back. And he took on like ah you know some money from him.
00:14:41
Speaker
I said, well, look, I'll pay you back my money if you don't go after him. I paid back my back end that they accidentally paid to me just so they would leave my buddy alone.
00:14:52
Speaker
Oh, well, that's good. That's good. A little ransom money. Love it. Yeah, well that's awesome, man. When I think that's a good principle. And yeah, especially for newer setters, it's like a lot of people don't know what to look for and ah you know, like who's closing your accounts, who's showing up.
00:15:11
Speaker
So I think that is a great principle for newer guys. It's like, make sure you got someone that's going to take care of your deals. Make sure you got someone that you can trust to show up.
00:15:22
Speaker
um Because if not, then yeah, it's like you're counting on someone like Caden says to get paid yourself. So um yeah, I love that. I think that's super important for any setter listening.
00:15:35
Speaker
Make sure you can trust your guy. And if not, like sit down with them. ah a lot A lot of times I see setters, they kind of get like you know, maybe taking advantage of or maybe their closers like missing appointments or whatever.
00:15:48
Speaker
But I'll tell you one that usually if a closer here is that, um hey, I'm not going to give you any more appointments or hey, I really need to trust you with the deals. they're They're probably going to start showing up because, you know, most closers like getting leads and sits you know for free basically they can just go to so i think most of the time they will for respect that i was i was just gonna say on that point because like there's a red flag that i see all throughout solar this might be like a hot take if you're part of ah a setter closer model group of people has like 20 setters to like four closers
00:16:26
Speaker
or maybe I've even seen ratios where it's like, hey, one closer has like six to 10 setters. You are in the wrong system. 100%, like you are not set up for success at all.
00:16:39
Speaker
And you just got to think about it from a mathematical standpoint, right? Like we ran, when I was doing solar for the region that I oversaw, ran a round robin system, right? Like baseball cue type status. You would have basically a group of closers and then you would have a group of setters and those group of setters would set for maybe two four two to four closers, depending on what group you're in, right?
00:17:02
Speaker
And this is like a backstory to this. I'll just i'll just share this briefly, but In 2022, we had like a really good blitz March of that year. And we just had realigned ourselves with some new EPCs and with a new solar company.
00:17:21
Speaker
And we just felt like morally they kind of encompassed the same values that we did. versus the one that I was working with prior. We went on a blitz. We had ah a company that was getting us really quick installs.
00:17:33
Speaker
And March of that year in that blitz, we had five to six rookies that came out and they all made over like eight to 10 K on their first blitz with us. Like no door to door experience prior to that, just setters.
00:17:47
Speaker
And it was cause we had a quick install and and whatever. and One of the things i I felt like I was really good at is the moment that that happened, I'd get really loud with their stories. And all of a sudden, you know, I would shout that out on social media. They would go back home off the blitz and they would tell their friends. Well, our team at the time was like...
00:18:08
Speaker
I wanna say like 18 solid guys. And then we had like maybe five or six other people that were kind of fickle. But like our next blitz, we showed up in our summer market, you know we were blitzing it with 110 people. ah so in the span of a month,
00:18:24
Speaker
we had recruited basically 80 heads. And my I was so stupid at the time. Like I was thinking like I was top dog and we were going to handle all this. And I i just felt so confident that we were going to be able to manage all that.
00:18:39
Speaker
That blitz was a disaster. Like we had... Compared to the Blitz before, like we had maybe one or two guys that maybe repeated some type of success like that. But there were just so many people and so many hotel rooms and like so much going on to try to juggle all that. And we did not have enough closers to support all those lead reps.
00:19:00
Speaker
And when I went into that summer that year, we went over 300,000 negative in housing trying to support all the lead reps. And I was just naive, right? Like in Vivint culture, it's like recruit as many people as you possibly can.
00:19:16
Speaker
And Vivint had all the resources to sustain that. But like, you know, in solar, you can't do it, right? Like, You know, we eventually got rid of a ton of people, you know, even before the summer came, but still our ratios were wrong. We had seven closer seven lead reps to one closer or seven setters to one closer.
00:19:35
Speaker
And if you just look at it, like you're going to have 10% of the talent is gonna do 90% of the volume, right? And so if you have seven people to one closer as the ratio, like one to two of those guys are gonna fill up all the slots necessary for that one closer.
00:19:51
Speaker
And that means the rest of everyone's not eating. What happens is, is all sudden you're getting crap appointments because everyone's chasing those slots. So they're throwing up you dog piss appointments, just basically trying to get that slot before the next person.
00:20:05
Speaker
And it doesn't help from a closing standpoint. And it it for dang sure makes it to where a lead rep isn't in a scenario where he's going to actually be successful. So there's a little long winded, but like, that's like, that's my hot take for the day. If you're part of a culture right now where you look around and there's like four closers, but there's 20 plus lead reps around you, you're in the wrong system.
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, well, I've talked to some people that, um you know, they have they have all these appointment setters, but like they're only taking the best of the best appointments, like, you know, confirmed appointments, things like that.
00:20:44
Speaker
And that's great, especially for the guy closing them. But at the same time, like you said, there's going to be appointments that maybe weren't. you know, quite a solid that probably someone still could have sat with. That's just getting like missed now just because it didn't have like a full confirmation.
00:21:00
Speaker
um so I don't know. I think there's a balance to it. And especially for the people setting the appointments, you got to make sure these people get paid because I yeah can't even imagine 100 plus people showing up to a blitz and trying to manage that.
00:21:12
Speaker
That would be a yeah it's stressful for sure. Yeah, that's crazy. Did you guys, is there anything you think you could have changed to to make that a success. I don't even know what you could have done. I mean, recruited recruit more closers.
00:21:27
Speaker
I should have been shouting that from the rooftops. and And we did. Like, we... When people saw what we were doing, we had new closers that came in to the equation. It was too much to manage at the time.
00:21:39
Speaker
Trial and error. like Hindsight's always 20-20. would have completely done it different. I probably would have landed that summer with 20-30 people like we did the Blitz before.
00:21:50
Speaker
and I think we would have done more volume than what we would have did with you know the 60-plus that we had. That's crazy. Was that all in California too? is that where you're i see where That was all Yeah, that year.
00:22:03
Speaker
Well, man, I wish I would have known you back then. how would have come in, closed some deals for you guys. Get me rolled up there. Yeah, we would have loved that. Yeah, we were we were in Southern county and southern California there. Just not not that Southern.
00:22:16
Speaker
That's cool, bro. um So, yeah, speaking of recruiting, I want to talk about, um I know talking with Max, he says that's definitely one of your superpowers. any you I mean, anyone that can bring in that many heads.
00:22:28
Speaker
That's ah super impressive to even have 100 guys show up, greater to sell. So maybe let's speak on that for a little bit. What are you, I know you mentioned just barely having guys post their results on stories and stuff like that on social media, but what are some, I don't know, recruiting principles, some things you did to get so many guys b blessing with you and just build your team so big.
00:22:51
Speaker
You know, ah you look around the space today and you hop on Instagram and you see, you know, the Taylor McCarthy's and, know, you know, basically all these quote unquote sales gurus that are really good at marketing their brand.
00:23:07
Speaker
And you could also see sales organizations within companies are really good at that too. And if you go back to 2021, that wasn't the same landscape as it is today.
00:23:20
Speaker
Like you can, you would maybe have a couple people that would have an Instagram page and that Instagram page was like exclusive for this, the people that were on the team. but they wouldn't open it up for the public to see.
00:23:32
Speaker
And i mean you know in 2021, my main thing was like, well, how can we you know create a brand necessary that people would like respect it, know what it is, and like want to be a part of it?
00:23:46
Speaker
So like that was goal number one is like, hey, let's figure out what are our core values What's our vision? And then from there, it was like, okay, what are going to be the milestones that separate us out from all our competition, right? Like what are the things that when people like think of that that brand, they know we've executed x y and z And then it was like, okay, what's the systems necessary that are to allow us to continue to repeat that success to where people know who we are?
00:24:16
Speaker
What I'm talking about there, I call it you know, my synergy triangle where basically right at the top is your vision, right at the other part of the triangle is your targets. And then that last component is the systems necessary.
00:24:30
Speaker
And so for me as a recruiter, it was like, I got to get loud about that. And so when I would, when I would hop in a recruiting meeting, like someone put someone in front of me, my first thing was, is like vetting them out. Like I want to see if their vision aligns with our vision.
00:24:47
Speaker
And a lot of times it wasn't. Like I would say most of the time, like they were just fresh out of high school or whatever. And they had like a desire to make money, but they hadn't ever had a conversation with somebody that was like principle based to where they were like really kind of aligned with it.
00:25:06
Speaker
But I was okay with that as long as they would took a liking to what I had to say with the vision. yeah And if they did, I would like, you know, like I recognize I can mold them. So that was it. I'll get loud about the vision, I'll go over core values, and then I'll explain like you know some of those success stories. like that Those are the milestones, right like the targets that we aim for within these guys.
00:25:30
Speaker
And then those people that had a competitive spirit would take a liking to that because they're like, oh, if that guy can do it, I can do it. right And then from there, it was just, hey, like let's plug you into our systems to try to get you there.
00:25:44
Speaker
And then, yeah, I just kind of rinse and repeat that process. So as soon as someone would have success, I would have a weekly meeting where I would basically invite my potential recruiters to come into a meeting. And ill say, hey, guys, like, so the reason we invited you here today is we believe that you have you know a pretty good network of friends and people that are like you.
00:26:07
Speaker
And since you're talented and you've done really well with us so far, we want to find someone that's exactly like you. And so I want you to ask yourself right now, like who in your network is similar to you that you could put down on this list right here. We're going put down five names.
00:26:24
Speaker
And then I want you to make it a point to like get them in front of me by the end of this week. You know, we would call it a focus five and they would do that. And then I would just kind of rinse and repeat that process. And You know, I was the guy recruiting in every meeting, you know, if that makes sense. so So that was my that was literally the system that I would go about.
00:26:44
Speaker
Were you guys running pure blitzes? Were you just doing it like a summer program and blitzes? Were you doing year round sales at all? It shifted. So we the end of that 2022 summer, we shifted to an all year round model.
00:26:57
Speaker
So we had a couple of guys that we promoted as quote unquote managers and had them try to hold the fort down. all year round as I went back to Utah.
00:27:08
Speaker
Yeah. um Well, no, that's great way to recruit. And I've had some others. I think that's um probably one of the best ways getting guys just building off your current reps.
00:27:20
Speaker
The best recruiters I talked to their masters are getting their people bought in to recruit for them. And like you said, making that list of um potential people, helping them follow up.
00:27:32
Speaker
And I think that's where most people go wrong is they don't even um they don't they don't leverage that. And then they don't follow up with their people. i'm Actually, the guy that recruited me at my current company, it's exactly how we built the team that I'm running now is he just he recruited me and then he would check in with me every week and say, hey who do you know?
00:27:52
Speaker
um Have you reached out with to them yet? And he followed up with me, followed up on the people. I would almost be like that appointment setter, um just like you were with my potential recruits.
00:28:03
Speaker
And we built, you know, we got like 15, 20 guys right now that are selling year round with me down here. um But yeah, that's literally how we built it. We didn't run ads or anything.
00:28:14
Speaker
um So yeah, I think there's a ton of power for guys that are looking to build your teams just leveraging the people you already have and having them make the list like that. You know, obviously you guys. it best Especially if you can like, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
00:28:29
Speaker
No, you're good. was done. um But especially if you could build it off of other people's success, right? Like the the biggest recruiting tool is like when someone comes out with you,
00:28:41
Speaker
and maybe they're new or they've been with you for a while, but like they they hit a ah hot streak, so to speak. of success and you know they they made a pretty decent amount of money and like you just get really loud about that.
00:28:57
Speaker
I think I see you with like a Legacy shirt on, right? like Is that right? It's kind of blurry. But like with Legacy, they would do big check Friday. I think that's genius, right? like Post that person's check, but do it from a setter standpoint. like If you got some decent upfront pay from a setter perspective and and like post it get loud about that. And now all of sudden those guys have it on their Instagram feed.
00:29:25
Speaker
And then their friends are reacting to it, right? It's like, hey, who reacted off that? You know, oh, this so-and-so. Dude, you should reach out to him. Like, let's try to get a a lunch meeting with him, you know, or something like that. It's just the biggest key or the key that leads to success is other people's success.
00:29:43
Speaker
and that's fire. So, and then how would you manage all these people coming in? um sounds like you learned some lessons when you had the hunter guys, but just in general, would you sit up like it? like group interview, would you just meet with them one on one?
00:29:56
Speaker
Or how did you like kind of set the expectations? And what system did you guys plug in getting all these people in? Yeah, so as soon as you got them to the door, I'd have them go through a rookie orientation.
00:30:08
Speaker
So like every Tuesday, you know, if it was in the off season, and I wasn't in market every Tuesday, I would basically put on a meeting, which I would call a rookie orientation. That was the first meeting of me vetting them out and you know trying to see if they're going to show up. So I'd get them into that meeting.
00:30:27
Speaker
From there, I'd give them an idea. Once again, on culture, I would go over this thing that we called the rep roadmap. And it would show like, hey, this is how you progress in solar, right? Like we don't want you to stay stagnant.
00:30:40
Speaker
So if you you know do really good at setting, the goal would be to you know basically get you to become like a lead mentor, right? or a center mentor. That means you would lead out a car group.
00:30:52
Speaker
From there, you know if you get really good at that, it's like, okay, let's now get you progressing and and to try to start closing accounts. From there, we would require them to try to go self-gen 10 accounts.
00:31:05
Speaker
Once they self-gen 10 accounts, we would put them in queue to start taking appointments. So I would paint that vision of opportunity and growth. highlight just like the stuff that they needed, right? So if they were gonna need slicks on the doors or their shirts or a badge or whatever, we would get them everything that they needed to start knocking in that meeting, um you know which wouldn't include all their onboarding stuff.
00:31:32
Speaker
So that that's how I'd get them in the door. Eventually, like as I learned from my lessons, you know and after that first year, i I developed a program which I called the Abundance Program.
00:31:45
Speaker
And I just like i wanted everyone to maximize their stewardship. So like people's positions became really important because I wanted them to maximize their stewardship.
00:31:58
Speaker
And so if you were a closer, you were considered a leader on the team, which means i would i would assign specific lead reps or setters to you, which you would oversee and have stewardship over.
00:32:09
Speaker
And I would just basically make sure that I would never ever have then three lead reps to one closer on a ratio. So if there was four closers in a queue, I would never go over 12 people in that in that sales group.
00:32:24
Speaker
That's a whole nother conversation, but yeah, that was kind of my philosophy on things if that helps. Yeah. so Okay. Yeah, that's good. That's good. So you would always run them in person. You didn't have like a bunch of people from out of market that were trying to just join you on the Blitz.
00:32:37
Speaker
It was always people like in Utah or wherever you were at. You would get them together in person. Then you train them up and just go out California. Most of the time, yeah. If it was in market though, like so for instance, Mac.
00:32:49
Speaker
Mac overseen, like I recruited Mac to come work with our group. He overseen the Reno office. So he did everything that, you know, we did in in our markets in California, but he was literally year round Reno.
00:33:07
Speaker
And he just went and repeated that same process. And for Mac, he was already doing a lot of everything we were doing, but he was doing it at the previous company he worked for. So for him, it was just kind of plug in and play. And he had all the skill sets to just kind of run with it at the time, which was cool.
00:33:23
Speaker
um Well,
Overcoming Addiction and Finding Faith
00:33:24
Speaker
good stuff, bro. And so I want to before we run out of time, I wanted to get into just um you have a pretty or incredible story. that ah Mac was kind of telling me about just, you know, overcoming ah like addiction growing up and going on your church mission and everything.
00:33:40
Speaker
i want to have you tell that for our audience fear if you're cool with it, just because I know a lot of guys can relate sales. We got a lot of guys that maybe they're struggling now or they had to overcome addiction. And um I think there's kind of the nature of ah door to door. You see a lot of a lot of that.
00:33:57
Speaker
So do you mind sharing your story and kind of, I don't know, maybe relating it to your journey and um how that's helped you overcome and an obstacle like that? I know we got a hard stop on here, so I'll give you the watered down version.
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah, you're good. you're good. Take your time, bro. Yeah, so so addiction's been like a big thing in my life. Still have super obsessive behaviors and addictive behaviors.
00:34:27
Speaker
deal with it all the time. i think the people that ah are in this space probably could heavily relate to it just based off of, you know, I find a lot of the top people in this space are but like they battle with the same thing. So yeah, I hope hopefully this can, you know, give some people some encouragement. But Yeah, my background is, is, you know, I found myself at the peak of my addiction, you know, right around 18 years old.
00:34:54
Speaker
I was addicted to heroin at the time. It started off, you know, when I was around 12, my mom and my dad, like growing up, they had their own addiction problems. Dad battled with like cocaine, along with other stuff. And sort of my mom, right around 12 years old is when I found myself kind of going through those same patterns.
00:35:15
Speaker
I guess kind of give you like some background, you know, when I'm 12 at the time, my dad had passed away like two years prior. My mom had been about two years clean off her addiction, had been taking us to this church, which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
00:35:32
Speaker
And like at the time, it was just like, You know, i was kind of really opposed to all that stuff, but some of the influences around me, such as my brother and, you know other people, like i that's just kind of what they were doing.
00:35:45
Speaker
At 12 years old, I started smoking weed and drinking and got my first alcohol ticket at 12. By the school year that year, I ended up trying cocaine my first time and what was called, like it was methadone, but they used to come in like these basically octic or octagon looking things.
00:36:05
Speaker
And so at 12 years old, that was like my first time doing hardcore drugs. Um, didn't take a liking to it. Like I got really sick off that stuff, you know, basically from 12 to 14, know, battle with, like or it was like dabbling in different types of stuff, psychedelics, ecstasy, stuff like that. And then right around 14 is when, uh, my best friend at the time, his uncle had passed away and left him and his mom big inheritance.
00:36:37
Speaker
And his mom was like an alcoholic and, we then at that point in our lives just had free reign to money. And so at 14 years old, like we would take his mom's ATM card and go pull out like five, 600 bucks every two to three days.
00:36:53
Speaker
And like, we would literally just spend on whatever we wanted. And so I then developed an addiction to a lifestyle because you know, at 14, like we would literally have wads of cash and we would buy, like, I don't want to get into, I don't want to feel like I'm glorifying this stuff. I just give like some background, but we had whatever we wanted. And ah yeah, it just made me, made me addicted to that lifestyle.
00:37:23
Speaker
And then eventually we got busted for stealing the money. And he moved away. And at that point, like ah me and my friend group was like, well, how are we going to make money at this point?
00:37:35
Speaker
And that's when we started selling heroin. And so we would go down to the Salt Lake and we would pick up, you know, a bulk amount of heroin and we would go to our little county that we lived in and we would sell it.
00:37:50
Speaker
And so I did that for a couple of years until... until really I feel like God intervenes. like Without going too deep into detail, I really had some divine intervention where some pretty miraculous things happened in my life. and That started off when I was 16 and like I had basically two consecutive years of falling back into the pattern of needing money and being addicted to heroin the point I was 18 years old. and watched one of my best buddies overdose and, you know, kind of die in front of me.
00:38:27
Speaker
And then, ah and then it was like, okay, well, I'm, I got to be done with this stuff. And, and then, yeah, 18, I decided to, to, you know, in my, from my point of view, turn my life to Christ and really try to get things together. And,
00:38:44
Speaker
So I did that went through a process with my church. and And then two years later, I was found worthy to be a missionary. and And then I was called to serve in the Maryland Baltimore mission, which was awesome.
00:38:57
Speaker
So changed my whole life. I got home from there. And then once again, i was just this broke kid. Like i didn't even have a vehicle at the time. My mom is a single mom. she did we didn't I didn't have money on that front. And so it was like, okay, well, how am I going support myself financially and go obtain some of these goals that I have? And that's when I found doorto Door to Door.
00:39:20
Speaker
That's incredible. Where did you grow up, by the way? Utah? Brigham City, Utah. Brigham City? Wow. Man, who would have thought there's there's a heroin going around in Brigham City?
00:39:34
Speaker
Oh, man. People have no idea. It's crazy. like we but When I was in middle school, they had a ah news article on Utah get published based off of the whole football team being addicted to heroin in my school.
00:39:48
Speaker
No way. so Yeah, it was a big deal at the time. Yeah, it's crazy. I grew up in canab, if you know where that is. It's a small town. Yeah, probably smaller than Brigham City.
00:40:00
Speaker
Man, i know we had drugs, but and I don't think it was anything to laugh. Well, I never heard of heroin going around. At least so you maybe maybe you didn't know of it. I'm sure it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah I'm sure there's always got to be stuff there.
00:40:15
Speaker
But the that that's incredible, man. And, um you know, I think it I appreciate you sharing that just because I know there's people listening me this that maybe, you know, I'm sure there's guys listening to this that maybe they're struggling with that right now. And um like I said before, there's a lot of addictions and sales, lot of struggles guys have. And I know that because just running teams myself.
00:40:36
Speaker
I've seen it and I feel like over and over more often than not, it's guys aren't producing because they're going going through some something like that in their lives, whether it's addiction, whether it's family issues.
00:40:49
Speaker
And, um you know, we got to learn how to manage that and help guys overcome that. So I think that's powerful to hear that. That ah you could overcome something like that and you know turn to God. I think that's important too. And um turn to a higher power.
00:41:03
Speaker
And just really change the course of your life. So um is your mom, is she... So it sounds like your mom overcame an addiction too and she's doing good. noman Oh, yeah.
00:41:14
Speaker
Yeah, if you if you met that woman, dude, you would never even think she battled it. Yeah. She has been clean since 2004. Yeah. Yeah. never went back.
00:41:26
Speaker
and So she, she is, she is literally like the beacon of light. Like I credit it a big part of my sobriety to her and everything that she's done and her faith and yeah she's awesome that's so good well yeah just to wrap that and part up what would you say to guys maybe they're struggling with like an addiction or something hard in their lives or maybe you had like stuff that you shared with your guys that on your teams anything you could speak on that that would maybe help guys that are struggling with something similar there's there's two thoughts running through my mind one
00:42:02
Speaker
for the people that are currently in the midst of like an addiction where, you know, you're under the influence of a substance, like right now is probably not the time for you to be in cells.
00:42:15
Speaker
It's not like I, I have, I know this from experience. I have tried to bring buddies and friends and family members of mine that are literally right in the midst of the addiction, probably need to detox, haven't even detoxed, and they're trying to turn the cells as that being their saving grace.
00:42:34
Speaker
It's not. Even if, like, it's not. Like, you gotta get yourself in a position, you know, mentally and emotionally and physically,
00:42:46
Speaker
Before you could go focus on the financial. Yeah. So. Put yourself in a rehab. Do whatever you need necessary to like take care of that stuff first.
00:42:57
Speaker
The financial stuff will come later. You don't have to go make up. like Because in addiction, like you you feel like you're always behind. You feel like you got to play catch up. The cell stuff could come later on, go catch up on the physical and emotional and all that other stuff first.
00:43:15
Speaker
The cells is going to be there when the time's right. For those that have gotten rid of the substance part and are you know at a point where they're wanting to like turn the cells to help them get financially ahead, dude, I am all for it. like I am the guy that is...
00:43:31
Speaker
hyper obsessed and uses my addictive behaviors to my benefit in sales. And it has made me a lot of money. So yeah, like go for it, do it, become obsessed.
00:43:44
Speaker
Yes, there's going to be points in your life that are probably other or other aspects in your life that are unbalanced. they' There's seasons for that, right? Like when I was in door to door, there'd be times where I wouldn't be around my wife basically months at a time.
00:43:59
Speaker
That was a season where I was unbalanced in that relationship. You know, but when I was home, i would use that obsession or try to at least. I shouldn't say I was perfect at this, but I would try to now obsess over her, spend the necessary time, plan a trip with her, you know, take her on vacation.
00:44:18
Speaker
There's seasons for it all. You could use those obsessive behaviors to channel them into the right networks. And then there's another component to it, like get your habits in order. Like, I can't emphasize that enough. For me that has like hyper obsessive behaviors, my balance came developing the necessary habits to to try to balance it as best I can. There's no perfect way to do it, but, you know, waking up in the morning, having a workout routine, praying, reading your scriptures, getting a healthy meal.
00:44:52
Speaker
If you could check off all those items first, it will allow you to feel more than enough. So when you go attack a life, like you're not feeling like a ah shell of yourself, you know? So I could speak so much on this, man. I feel like I'm giving you like a really watered down version, but this is,
00:45:13
Speaker
Dude, i I am like the pinnacle of like self-development, dude. I have so many weaknesses. i can't even begin to like go over them. And i've it's just been this constant battle since you know my teenage years of just trying to improve and having the the will to do so. and Yeah.
00:45:34
Speaker
Will do. That's incredible. and um Yeah. I mean, I feel like you you could do a TED Talk or something on... and just that have a whole separate podcast just on a, on this topic. So, but no, it was super cool here. And just at least you touching on it. And um I know a lot of guys will probably relate, relate with that. And,
00:45:55
Speaker
um, connect with your ah story and everything. So appreciate you again, Sharon. Um, but yeah, if guys, just as we start wrapping up here, Caden, if guys, uh, want to, you know, reach out to you, connect with you more, um, don't know if you're on social media a way for guys to reach out if they want to connect with you more.
00:46:12
Speaker
and don't I don't have the Gram or Facebook downloaded on the phone currently, but I check it on. and This goes back to the habit thing, man. Like I can't, the reels will get me in. yeah But i I do have it on my iPad.
00:46:28
Speaker
I periodically will check it on there. Instagram is probably the best way. Just Caden Carlos on there. K-Y-D-E-N, last name Carlos. i just a simple guy man you want to reach out dm me yeah um i'll toss you my phone number you could take it from there good stuff yeah i was just joking with my wife yesterday how you know something we do like team trainings and stuff and we'll take like to to present like this the trainer or whatever we'll take just the photo from instagram or whatever on social media and um every time i go i have the intention oh i'm just going and like
00:47:03
Speaker
taking a picture from their Instagram. But ah every time it ends up being at least probably 10 minutes because I like get distracted. I forget what I was doing there in the first place. And then 10 minutes into some like random reel or video much. I'm like, wait, why why did I get on Instagram in the first place?
00:47:20
Speaker
so it's powerful powerful stuff dude yeah but uh yeah man well hey we appreciate you sharing and um we'll have to hopefully have you on in the future man and um you know dig even deeper but uh i know it i know you're busy guys so your time is valuable want to respect that too but um but yeah thanks again for coming on man and any uh last final words for uh maybe like a setter that's struggling or a sales rep that's struggling solar, any ah final words that you maybe give to
Advice for Sales Reps
00:47:51
Speaker
someone like that? man, you put me on the spot.
00:47:54
Speaker
Setter or a closer, someone that's struggling. Dude, the midsummer blues. Hey, man, if you're if you're driving home from area and you're listening to this and like you bageled and you feel like you're ready to to pull out that cup of bleach and and drink it and drive off the side of the freeway. Yeah.
00:48:15
Speaker
Don't do it, man. It's like, ah I can't tell you every summer I went into it, there was a point where I was like, dude, why am I doing this career? I am done. Like ready to go home. Yeah.
00:48:27
Speaker
There's two principles, ah faith and a hundred percent commitment. If you have faith that you're going to go make the money that you want to do, or that you want to make, you obviously have showed up to the summer, you've used that faith to be there.
00:48:41
Speaker
Couple that faith with 100% commitment to go and obtain your goal. So that means knocking all the hours necessary, doing everything you need to do, that's the 100% commitment. Couple the faith with the 100% commitment.
00:48:54
Speaker
You will hit the result, I promise. and it might not come in the form that you see it. like It might be one of those things where you know you're too... I can't tell you. There was a couple of summers where I'm like two months into it.
00:49:06
Speaker
My bank account is not the way I want it to. i don't even feel like I'm hitting my goal. But then all of a sudden, I would have this, like what I would call a miracle placed in front of me where I would go have a record-breaking week and it would put me right back on pace with my goal.
00:49:21
Speaker
And it's just because I kept that 100% commitment. So yeah, that's the last thing. There you go. So good, bro. Fire. Love it. Love it Well, hey, thank you so much for coming on. So anyone listening to this, go reach out to Keenan, let them know you appreciated him. And, um, oh, it's like my video just went out.
00:49:40
Speaker
Um, but yeah, man, thanks again for coming on we'll look forward to chatting more in the future, but I appreciate you, brother. It's a pleasure, Taylor. Thank you. So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
00:49:54
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.
00:50:05
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called SolarScout. 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.
00:50:23
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 SolarScout in San Diego so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need give my listeners a great deal. And they did.
00:50:38
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.
00:50:51
Speaker
Okay, back to the show. What's up, solopreneurs? Hope you enjoyed the episode. and 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.
00:51:07
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start? What episodes should I listen to in the podcast? You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:51:22
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 Solrepreneur.
00:51:35
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. So go download it right now. It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com. Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com. Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs. We will have that in the show notes. Go download it right now.
00:52:01
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them. That's going to show you how. So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.