Transcript
Speaker: What do you call an underground group of solar professionals on a mission to create a more sustainable world?
Speaker: We call ourselves solopreneurs.
Speaker: And while some might call us crazy, foolish, and dissatisfied with the status quo, we're the ones taking action to create a better future for ourselves and the world.
Speaker: Solopreneur is dedicated to give you, the solar professional, the tools, skills, technology, and mentorship to take the industry by storm and sell more solar with less effort.
Speaker: We are solopreneurs and this is our story.
Speaker: This video is going to get pretty emotional for a lot of you, and here's why.
Speaker: The lessons I've learned in just my three and a half years in the industry, being 23 years old right now, are light years ahead of what anybody's taught in solar.
Speaker: The lessons that I've taken away, the challenges, the experiences I've had, have been phenomenal.
Speaker: They have shaped me as a business owner, as a man, and they've improved every area of my life.
Speaker: And if there's one thing I can share with a struggling solar professional right now who's not where they want to be, okay?
Speaker: It's this, to hang in there, to stay the course, to remember the fire that you had when you got in solar, and to let that push you, let that drive you past all of the garbage, all of the noise that you're going to go through.
Speaker: All of the doubt, the insecurities, the fears, the late nights worrying about how you're going to pay the bills,
Speaker: worrying about your spouse, your kids, doubting your ability to sell and overcome your limiting beliefs.
Speaker: I know what it's like.
Speaker: Even at the young age of 23, right?
Speaker: When I got started in solar at 19 in Salt Lake City, Utah, I grew up in an environment of mediocrity.
Speaker: My background, right?
Speaker: My family, my loved ones, everybody that I was around
Speaker: were not sales professionals, were not entrepreneurs, had never even made six figures.
Speaker: I was just on a call with my dad just two weeks ago, and he told me about how this year, 2019, is the first year he's gonna make $100,000 in a year as an educator at a middle school.
Speaker: I made six figures when I was 20 years old, okay?
Speaker: Here's my dad, the guy who raised me, right?
Speaker: that I grew up with, now catching up to where I was just at 20.
Speaker: Think about that.
Speaker: I was still living in my parents' basement at 19, 20 years old, right, when this happened, and I still made more money than them.
Speaker: And I don't share this to impress you, but I want to share with you my journey on how this happened.
Speaker: How do you go breaking out of the mold, right, the middle-class family, the mediocrity, the rat race, whatever you want to call it, how do you break out of that
Speaker: When you're raised in that environment, how do you overcome your beliefs?
Speaker: If you've never made 100 grand, 250, 500 grand, how do you do that if you don't even know a single soul who's done so?
Speaker: How do you sell 15, 20 deals a month when the average person at your company is doing three?
Speaker: How do you do these things?
Speaker: This was the question that was on my mind, and my story is this.
Speaker: When I got into solar at 19, I dropped out of school, okay?
Speaker: I won't get into all of the background before solar because I don't think it applies directly to you in this video.
Speaker: But I grew up not wanting to be in sales.
Speaker: I didn't know what solar was.
Speaker: I didn't want to be an entrepreneur.
Speaker: I grew up in high school wanting to be, of all things, a professional jazz trumpet player.
Speaker: And I was pretty good at it.
Speaker: I was one of the best in the United States.
Speaker: I won a lot of competitions.
Speaker: I had scholarships to any school I'd want to go to in the U.S. And I left it all.
Speaker: I left that life behind to journey into a new one, a new challenge, a new set of beliefs that I would have to overcome in sales and business.
Speaker: And why?
Speaker: I just knew that I couldn't be a successful performing artist if I didn't know how to personal brand.
Speaker: I didn't know how to sell and be in business for myself.
Speaker: So what did I do?
Speaker: I moved back into my parents' basement at 19.
Speaker: And I went on to Indeed, like a lot of you guys, and I started looking for sales jobs because I wanted to learn how to sell.
Speaker: I didn't want to work at like a fashion department or anything like that or a grocery store.
Speaker: I wanted to learn how to sell big stuff, stuff that mattered, stuff that actually brought income in so I can make a difference.
Speaker: And I came across this job, a recruiting ad, and I didn't say what the company or the product was, but it said one thing that stuck out to me.
Speaker: It was you can make, on average, $2,000 for every sale.
Speaker: I've never seen that kind of money in my life.
Speaker: How can you make $2,000 for a sale?
Speaker: I was very skeptical, of course, but I knew I had to take a shot on this.
Speaker: So I called up the recruiting office and the recruiter had a conversation and interview with me and he told me it was a solar company, a local startup solar company in Salt Lake.
Speaker: They were about 10 minutes from my mom's house so I wouldn't have to go very far for the interview.
Speaker: So I booked the interview for the next day.
Speaker: I'll never forget.
Speaker: It was like it was yesterday.
Speaker: I show up, right?
Speaker: I'm driving a Nissan Versa, super old Nissan Versa, and I drive up there full of doubt, skepticism, never been in sales in my life, right?
Speaker: 19 years old, and I know I look super young in this at 23, but imagine how young I looked when I was 19, okay?
Speaker: Straight up baby out of elementary school type of thing.
Speaker: I show up and I have this interview.
Speaker: I sit down with this guy named Jim, and Jim tells me about solar.
Speaker: He gives me a pitch on solar.
Speaker: He talks about net metering.
Speaker: And just this magical moment happened when I realized, holy shit, like this product is a game changer, right?
Speaker: Think about when you had that moment.
Speaker: When somebody told you about solar the very first time, what did that feel like?
Speaker: What was that fire like?
Speaker: Wow, how many of these can I sell, right?
Speaker: Wow, what difference can I make on myself, my family?
Speaker: This is the coolest product I've ever seen, right?
Speaker: That belief that fire was a 10.
Speaker: And that's something that I look for in new solar pros when we're hiring at Lumen here is that 10 on certainty belief.
Speaker: Nobody has that fire like a new sales rep does.
Speaker: Nobody.
Speaker: So what happened?
Speaker: He takes me out the next day and we start training.
Speaker: And I'll never forget, we go to a movie theater.
Speaker: We had a partnership with a movie theater where we spin like a prize wheel.
Speaker: Kids come over, we talk to their parents.
Speaker: And here is the solar sales training that I received, right?
Speaker: Brand new guide of sales.
Speaker: Here's the level of training I got.
Speaker: James, spin the wheel.
Speaker: Kids come over, set an appointment with them.
Speaker: I got to get rolling to an appointment.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: That's my training.
Speaker: This is the level of training, the level of care that I was given in this company.
Speaker: So believe me when I tell you, I know what it's like to not get trained, to not have a mentor, to have no guidance in solar.
Speaker: I received almost zero guidance.
Speaker: In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Speaker: When I showed up to the office after that moment, the next day, right?
Speaker: We had an office training.
Speaker: And I show up and there's seven guys in the office, super small team, and everybody looks jaded as hell, right?
Speaker: They don't know what they're doing.
Speaker: They're just sitting around lazy.
Speaker: And I start talking to them.
Speaker: I start saying, hey, how many deals have you closed this month?
Speaker: How many deals are you closing?
Speaker: How long you been in solar?
Speaker: And guess what the top guys' numbers were?
Speaker: Four deals, right?
Speaker: It closed four deals in the last month.
Speaker: Some of these guys have been in the industry 15 years.
Speaker: Four deals.
Speaker: Me, personally, like with the ambition and drive that I had with trumpet and music in my career, right?
Speaker: Because I knew what it was like to be successful at something, just not something like sales.
Speaker: I wanted to close 20 deals in my first month.
Speaker: That was my goal, especially after I heard that product pitch.
Speaker: I had a lot to prove here.
Speaker: And when I was told four deals, my heart was broken.
Speaker: I thought, if these guys can't close four deals and they're double my age, they have 15 years of experience, who am I to be able to do this as a 19-year-old kid dropped out of college that plays trumpet, right?
Speaker: Who's not even in sales.
Speaker: How the hell am I going to be able to do this?
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Get that scholarship reignited, right?
Speaker: Start going back to school.
Speaker: Don't throw away your talents with trumpet, all that you've worked for.
Speaker: Why are you throwing this away for sales and business and something that you've never done before?
Speaker: Why would you do this?
Speaker: Me and your dad, we didn't raise somebody who quits.
Speaker: You quit something that you worked so hard for on something that we don't do.
Speaker: The Swiderisky family, we don't sell.
Speaker: We don't do business.
Speaker: We don't do any of this entrepreneurship stuff.
Speaker: It's too risky.
Speaker: James, you're going to go through hard times.
Speaker: You're going to do this, this, this.
Speaker: You're never going to be able to make it on this.
Speaker: This is what my own parents told me.
Speaker: So when your wife, you come home late at night and your wife asked if you made a sale and you said no again for that,
Speaker: sixth, seventh week in a row, believe me what I know it's like to feel that gut feeling of anxiety, of fear, of sadness.
Speaker: I know what it's like.
Speaker: And this is just you and me talking here.
Speaker: The challenges in solar are real.
Speaker: Challenges in sales and life are real.
Speaker: I faced a lot of those challenges early on.
Speaker: And because of those challenges and pushing through, they're where I'm at today.
Speaker: So when you come home after appointments, and believe me, I did.
Speaker: I came home day after day, working my tail off eight, nine, 10 hours a day, driving in traffic, right?
Speaker: All of this stuff.
Speaker: And I come home and my parents say the same thing.
Speaker: Did you sell anything?
Speaker: If not, when are you going to give up?
Speaker: When are you going to throw in the towel on this?
Speaker: Go back to school?
Speaker: Get a part-time job?
Speaker: You got to move out of my basement, James.
Speaker: How are you going to do this with this sales thing?
Speaker: And I felt severe anxiety to the point in where one day, three months into my career, I came home from an appointment.
Speaker: I was coming home from an appointment rather.
Speaker: And my arms started to numb up, started to get a shortness of breath.
Speaker: My chest was tight and I couldn't see.
Speaker: My vision started blurring.
Speaker: So I pulled over, right?
Speaker: Freaking out.
Speaker: And I had to call the 911, right?
Speaker: And had an emergency truck, right?
Speaker: Come take me to the ER.
Speaker: And I thought I was going to die.
Speaker: right?
Speaker: I'd never experienced anything like this.
Speaker: Turns out it was just an anxiety attack.
Speaker: A little too much time without sleep, a little too much caffeine, way too much stress, took a toll on the body and boom, wiped out.
Speaker: And I'll never forget, I'm talking to the guy in the ambulance, right?
Speaker: Talking to the medic there and I'm starting to calm down just a little bit, right?
Speaker: I can breathe again.
Speaker: He's got me strapped up to a machine.
Speaker: I'm talking to the guy and he says,
Speaker: what kind of stress are you going through right now, man?
Speaker: He's like, I could see it in your eyes.
Speaker: He's like, you are the most stressed kid I have ever seen in my life.
Speaker: I said, man, dude, I just started selling and I gave him the whole story.
Speaker: I said, this is all the things I'm going through, man.
Speaker: My mom doesn't believe in me.
Speaker: I'm having a hard time, man, overcoming these things.
Speaker: And we just had a good conversation about it and nothing came from it.
Speaker: And I
Speaker: Guys, that is the lowest point of the low.
Speaker: And when I got back from the ER that evening, I made a commitment.
Speaker: I said, enough is enough with this.
Speaker: I'm going to figure this out.
Speaker: Because my personality, the one thing I've got going for me at this time, right, was I don't give up.
Speaker: When I put my mind on something, I will go until death to complete it.
Speaker: Okay?
Speaker: And that's what I did.
Speaker: I said, this is it.
Speaker: I'm going balls to the wall.
Speaker: I'm doing whatever it takes.
Speaker: I'm going to seek out the mentors, the books, buy the courses, do whatever it takes to become the number one sales professional in my office here.
Speaker: So what happened?
Speaker: We fast forward another two months, no sales.
Speaker: Top guy with getting leads, but I didn't know how to close, didn't know how to present.
Speaker: I had that drive.
Speaker: That work ethic was back.
Speaker: I was studying my ass off, reading from all of the grades, but I still wasn't seeing any results.
Speaker: I no longer cared about what my parents told me.
Speaker: I ignored them.
Speaker: I shoved that out of the way.
Speaker: I said, I'm not listening to anyone else.
Speaker: I know what is possible.
Speaker: I know what I am capable of.
Speaker: So what happens?
Speaker: Where's the pinnacle moment here?
Speaker: When did we get out of this hole?
Speaker: We had this event, it was a large event that we had for the company and we invited everybody through all out the state, right?
Speaker: The New York office, the Carolina, South Carolina office, Connecticut.
Speaker: We invited all these people out to talk about, you know, how to improve the business, how to get better at sales.
Speaker: And I'll never forget at the street, I met my first real mentor in my life and to keep his privacy, he's a private guy, I'm gonna call him John, okay?
Speaker: So I meet John, he's a big guy, he comes and talks to me, and he says, James, here's what I know about you, man.
Speaker: I know you're the guy who, you're the youngest kid in the entire company's history, right?
Speaker: By a long shot.
Speaker: You don't give up, you're not making sales, you're getting more leads than anybody, but you can't close anything.
Speaker: I wanna talk to you.
Speaker: And John saw something in me, he saw potential in me that day that nobody else had in my entire life.
Speaker: Yes, a little in music, but nobody had sat down with me
Speaker: and told me, John told me, James, I know you're gonna do big things in solar.
Speaker: I know you are.
Speaker: This is why we're talking.
Speaker: Little did I know that John was actually the number one producer in not just this company, but he was a broker for many other solar companies, including SolarCity, who he was working with for 20 plus years, okay?
Speaker: He worked with them from the ground up, SolarCity.
Speaker: He was one of the top guys, and he showed me, what he showed me that day changed everything.
Speaker: Next to belief in me,
Speaker: He showed me belief in what was possible in solar.
Speaker: I asked him point blank, how much money are you making with solar?
Speaker: Is this even worth it?
Speaker: And what he showed me was amazing.
Speaker: He whipped out his commission thing, right?
Speaker: This commission sheet chart.
Speaker: And he showed me all of the cash that was sitting here with commercial residential projects.
Speaker: He had millions of dollars in deals coming through.
Speaker: He showed me his bank balance.
Speaker: He showed me his bank balance with over 700 grand in savings, okay?
Speaker: Not even just his main checking account.
Speaker: Me, growing up in a middle-class family, I'd never even seen $7,000 in a bank account, let alone $700,000.
Speaker: That belief, as you can imagine, light bulb moment.
Speaker: Changed everything.
Speaker: Just like the emergency room chip, that changed everything because now I had the belief in myself right after the emergency room thing, but now I had the belief in the industry and what was possible.
Speaker: These two things unlocked the
Speaker: what James Swiderski is today.
Speaker: So fast forward, I worked with John.
Speaker: The next 30 days, I closed my first nine contracts.
Speaker: Instantly became the top producer in the Salt Lake City team, right?
Speaker: Nine contracts, 12, 15, 20, 25, 40 plus contracts.
Speaker: These were the numbers that happened in the subsequent months coming after working with John, having him show me the ropes and having that belief in myself and the belief in the company go together.
Speaker: Now,
Speaker: What you'll realize here is back up a little bit after that emergency room moment, I had two, three months here of just studying and working my ass off.
Speaker: And I really was for six months, but I didn't make any money in those moments.
Speaker: But believe me, when I say those moments of working, putting in the grind every day, ignoring what my parents were saying, those paid off big time.
Speaker: Nobody becomes successful and rich slowly, okay?
Speaker: It's all a hockey stick curve.
Speaker: That's what get rich quick gets, is that hockey stick curve.
Speaker: Six months of no deals, boom, struggle, grind, grind, grind, boom, up to the point where I made over $1.2 million in commissions, over $8 million in sales in less than nine months.
Speaker: All because of belief in myself, belief in what was possible in Soler.
Speaker: So guys, I don't share these things with you to impress you.
Speaker: It's far from impressive.
Speaker: There's a reason I haven't shared this story with people before.
Speaker: It's very personal.
Speaker: It gets very emotional for me.
Speaker: If you can't tell them this, I'm getting pretty passionate right now.
Speaker: I get pretty fired up.
Speaker: I get pretty emotional right now.
Speaker: It's because these things are personal.
Speaker: I know how they can help you too.
Speaker: Wherever you're at in the industry right now, new in sales, new starting your own business, having your wife,
Speaker: tell you to throw in the towel and give up, looking at your kids, coming home to your kids, wondering how you're going to take care of them, wondering if you're living up to your potential as a man or a woman.
Speaker: I know what it's like, and I want things better for you.
Speaker: So guys, let me know in the comments below what resonated with you in this video.
Speaker: What do you want to see from Solopreneur?
Speaker: How can I help you personally?
Speaker: How can my team help you?
Speaker: How can we install those belief systems for you?
Speaker: What kind of training do you need?
Speaker: Seek out training and mentors, guys.
Speaker: That's the biggest thing I can take away with this.
Speaker: Believe in yourself.
Speaker: Believe in the potential solely.
Speaker: Remember that fire and then seek out help and mentors.
Speaker: Changed my life.
Speaker: It'll change yours as well.
Speaker: Take care, guys.
Speaker: We'll see you.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Wow, what another value-packed episode of The Solarpreneur.
Speaker: Guys, if you couldn't tell, we spend a lot of time and energy to put these episodes out to hopefully give you just one strategy, one golden nugget that's going to launch your solar career to the next level.
Speaker: And we do it all for free.
Speaker: And if you found any value in this episode or it's helped you in any way, all I ask in return is that you just take 30 seconds of your time and leave us a review on iTunes.
Speaker: so that we can help more solopreneurs like you to change the world.
Speaker: And as a gift for leaving us a review, we have a special training package exclusive for solopreneur listeners over at solopreneurs.com.
Speaker: Remember, you need to leave us a review on iTunes to qualify for the training package.
Speaker: So take care of that now, and we'll see you on the next episode.
