Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: Today we have a special guest on with us, Mr. Taylor Armstrong, also known as the solopreneur.
Speaker: He runs his own podcast.
Speaker: And so, you know, I'm looking forward to interviewing him and getting to know him and his story a little bit more.
Speaker: And so, as you know, we're going to talk with him about some of the things that he's done well or things that he could change going back to his rookie year in sales.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Welcome to the podcast, Taylor.
Speaker: Wanted to start off by asking you, how did you get into sales or door-to-door sales?
Speaker: I don't know your history in business.
Speaker: How did you make your journey all the way to door-to-door sales?
Speaker: Yeah, what's up, Brad?
Speaker: Well, first of all, thanks for the opportunity for coming on.
Speaker: I mean, I knew you've been talking about this for a while, and every time I saw you at the conference, I'm like, Brad, when's the podcast coming out?
Speaker: When's the podcast coming out?
Speaker: So I'm glad you finally got rid of your procrastination.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And but no, I love it.
Speaker: I think it's a much needed topic because as you see, there's so many people that come in new that just like fall off within their first three, four months.
Speaker: And so I think it's a great focus.
Speaker: You got rookie on fire, something that fascinates me.
Speaker: So, yeah, as far as my story, my beginnings in cells.
Speaker: So just like you, I think I got in pest control back in 2012.
Speaker: And originally it was a thing where I was getting ready to go on my church mission.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Two years.
Speaker: They're sending me to Columbia.
Speaker: And at this point, I was like pretty shy kid.
Speaker: I hated like talking to adults, couldn't really look people in the eyes and everything.
Speaker: And so there is that I was going to Southern Utah University and there is these guys classic like college campus recruiting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just saying, hey, if you come to the meeting, you're getting what we're getting dominoes tonight.
Speaker: Come to the meeting, you get free dominoes.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, I'm in anywhere.
Speaker: There's free food.
Speaker: Say less.
Speaker: So of course I show up, check out the meetings, and they just start talking about how these guys can go make 10, 20, 30,000 in a summer.
Speaker: And I'm like, man, that would be incredible.
Speaker: I've never made even 10,000 in a year up to this point.
Speaker: And then on top of that, they're saying, okay, you go knock on doors, you're talking to people.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: Like a lot of guys that get back from the missions doing everything.
Speaker: So I'm like, okay, this I'm sold.
Speaker: I get to go do this and basically like practice for selling Jesus on this mission and make money while I'm doing it.
Speaker: So this is before your mission.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: This is before.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: Okay, okay.
Speaker: So, yeah, I was 18 and went out, did my first summer pest control with Optiv.
Speaker: It was Altera at the time.
Speaker: So, this is back before it was Optiv.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, yeah, I mean, didn't make $10,000 my first summer, but...
Speaker: you know, did gain some valuable skills.
Speaker: And the funny part was that when it right after that summer, when I went on my church mission down in Columbia, like so many people were just wondering what this tall white kid was doing, walking around the streets.
Speaker: So I never even had to knock a door.
Speaker: I probably knocked like 10 doors total in two years on my mission.
Speaker: Dang.
Speaker: Well, I know I served in Chile and South America.
Speaker: A lot of times you can just walk around like the plaza of the city or like, and there's just so many, so many street contacts.
Speaker: There's so many people to talk to out, out and about.
Speaker: Dang, dude.
Speaker: So yeah, dude, the reason why you didn't make 10 grand is because Aptis pay scales back then and the contract values were like 200 to 200 bucks.
Speaker: You know, that's probably a part of it for sure.
Speaker: I hear people now making like 50, 60, 70%.
Speaker: And it's like we're making, I think, 18 percent of the, you know, rookie pay scale.
Speaker: Yeah, dude, that's I didn't sell that many.
Speaker: But well, dude, so that's cool.
Speaker: So you went pre pre mission.
Speaker: And obviously for guys that aren't in the LDS faith, you know, they they have no mission or concept of it really in their path.
Speaker: But so you went before.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So take me back to those early days of.
Speaker: So how many did you do?
Speaker: How many accounts did you end up doing that first summer?
Speaker: Uh, that summer, I think I did, um, I did just over a hundred.
Speaker: Cause I remember that was like, you needed to hit a hundred to get like your rent reimbursed or like the rent bonus.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, but then of course I had like, you know, 20 cancel or 10, 20 cancel.
Speaker: And then it did me below a hundred.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So then I didn't get it taken out.
Speaker: It strips out your rent and everything else.
Speaker: And all of a sudden you owe them money.
Speaker: So, so let's go back to those, those early days, the, you know, the rookie season.
Speaker: And that's kind of the purpose of this podcast is to ask our guests, like, what is the, what are those one or two things that you would do differently?
Speaker: If you could go back and then we'll talk about some of the things that you felt like you did well.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: So maybe I can kind of do two parts because obviously, solopreneur, I'm in solar now.
Speaker: So I think there are mistakes I made.
Speaker: Rookie as a pest guy and then also rookie when I started doing solar.
Speaker: But yeah, I guess talking to pest control first, because this was Summercell's solar we do as like a year-round thing.
Speaker: But I think a big mistake I made just as a rookie in pest control is...
Speaker: I had this a couple family vacations planned.
Speaker: And that was like, before I signed up to do pest control, I'm like, okay, I'll do this for the summer as long as I can like, you know, leave these dates, leave these dates.
Speaker: And they're kind of like, okay, fine, whatever.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I remember looking back now, just especially as like a rookie rep, it just like was a momentum killer because I was still like learning, you know, the pitch, I was still learning how to overcome objections.
Speaker: And then right when I was getting the hang of it, I had this vacation plan midsummer.
Speaker: And so just like leading up to the vacation, I kind of had in my head, oh, I'm leaving.
Speaker: Maybe I won't work as hard, whatever.
Speaker: And then left.
Speaker: And then when I came back, I basically had to like retrain myself all the time when I had built up to that point and get it back going again.
Speaker: So, yeah, looking back, that was definitely a big mistake, especially as a rookie rep, where it just, like, I think, stunted the growth I was making because built all this momentum and then, boom, left on the vacation.
Speaker: Yeah, it was a good time.
Speaker: But, yeah, just made it really tough to, you know, keep the momentum building for the rest of the summer.
Speaker: So that was the first one.
Speaker: And then I would say number two is I went out with one of my best friends and we stayed in, like, you know, the same apartment and all that.
Speaker: It was like a really fun summer.
Speaker: But I think looking back, I should have, you know, you got to have fun too.
Speaker: I'm not saying don't have fun, but just going out with a buddy.
Speaker: I almost wish I would have like separated myself maybe a little bit from my buddy and made it okay.
Speaker: Like we still meet up, hang up, hang out on the weekends or whatever.
Speaker: But like,
Speaker: I need to get around the guys who are crushing it, like spend more time with the guys who are like the top sellers on the team instead of spending time with my buddy every night.
Speaker: And just like, you know, we weren't like doing that.
Speaker: Did you guys ride out to the same area together?
Speaker: Yeah, we did sometimes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Luckily, we were actually on separate teams.
Speaker: So that was I think that was actually in a way a good thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We still would sometimes like meet up, go hit areas together and all that.
Speaker: and, you know, maybe take longer lunches, stuff like that than we should have.
Speaker: So, yeah, I kind of wish I probably would have like separated myself even a little bit more and just spent more time with the guys who were making the most money, who were building the most momentum.
Speaker: So I would say that's probably the two biggest mistakes I made rookie year pest control.
Speaker: Dude, I loved your thought and your feedback on that.
Speaker: I mean, for you managers listening to this, like make sure that when your team gets to the office, even if you're doing year round or especially in pest control, you know, where it's more of a summer program that you split up anyone that has association with someone else.
Speaker: I saw that my first summer as well, where guys that had good friendships, you know, go out and then they take a three, four hour lunch and, you know, they're cutting out early, they're hitting the movies, they're doing that kind of thing.
Speaker: And some of that goes to the culture of the team, but also,
Speaker: It's just way easier if you have a bunch of personal ties to that person.
Speaker: And I like what you said about just focusing on being with high performers.
Speaker: I mean, the rising tide will raise all ships.
Speaker: We all know that.
Speaker: And just being around people you can ask questions to, they can give you some really good feedback.
Speaker: I know my first summer, I spent a lot of time with
Speaker: So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
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.
Speaker: But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Speaker: Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app.
Speaker: It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country and now I'm on board too.
Speaker: I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego so I decided to partner up.
Speaker: But I told them, hey, if I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need to give my listeners a great deal.
Speaker: And they did.
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.
Speaker: That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show.
Speaker: Some other rookies and sometimes we'd ask each other for advice and I'm just like, man, like we had no...
Speaker: real advice to give each other besides like what happened that last hour that the day before we could only go back 10 days, 15 days, 20 days of knocking versus leadership can go back years.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: So tell me about your
Speaker: Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker: And then tell me about your solar, your solar rookie.
Speaker: Yeah, well, I was just going to actually kind of bridge that in my solar rookie year, too.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that was probably the biggest mistake I made in solar, too, actually, just spending time with the wrong people.
Speaker: I got recruited to solar by actually a guy that I...
Speaker: He was like a mission companion guy that I did the mission with.
Speaker: He had like made way more money than I was making in pest control.
Speaker: So that's kind of what got me.
Speaker: I'm like, I have to go try this solar thing.
Speaker: And, you know, nothing against pest control.
Speaker: I think it's definitely great.
Speaker: You you get like a good base level work ethic.
Speaker: Like I think solar is a lot harder to get because solar there's there's not too many like really good summer solar programs where you're like in that environment grinding where pest control.
Speaker: Yeah, you just like feel like it's almost like the Marines of cells or something for like a summer because you're just like knocking nine to nine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, solar, that was definitely different.
Speaker: I'm like, OK, we only have to knock like maybe four or five hours and then we get to be in appointments and stuff like that.
Speaker: So it just kind of intrigued me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, I think another mistake I made just in solar is something similar where I went out, I made friendships and stuff on the team and started hanging out with the guys that, you know, were my buddies, the guys that recruited me.
Speaker: And that was good for a while.
Speaker: But I kind of like ran into the same issue.
Speaker: Didn't really learn from my time in pest control is where we would go out.
Speaker: I would just go out with my friend, my buddies on the team.
Speaker: And it was a smaller company.
Speaker: So I guess that's another thing is hopefully people that are looking at companies are looking at offices to join.
Speaker: Like I would say more important than the company or the office, whatever, look for the guys who are having the most success.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's something I've learned.
Speaker: Like, like, don't look as much at the company, I would say you want a decent company and all that.
Speaker: But look at the guys who are having the most success and try to be around them.
Speaker: Um, and so, yeah, like my first year in solar, I just kind of like gotten the bad habit of again, going out with friends.
Speaker: Um, we'd be like, okay, you know what, let's, uh, let's, let's just like chat about the mission.
Speaker: Let's chat about this, that, and, uh, it got to the point where we were like, shh.
Speaker: And we'd go out like three, four, three, four people in the car and just like sometimes waste a lot of time.
Speaker: Sometimes we'd be watching like Game of Thrones before we went out to area just in our cars and everything talking about like Game of Thrones theories.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: Things like that.
Speaker: And so it was, it was fun.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker: But yeah, it just came back to the same issue.
Speaker: Like, I think it got to be a little bit of a problem where we're just like focusing too much on the fun.
Speaker: I wasn't around the right people.
Speaker: And I think I could have grown a lot more if I would have been in like, you know, an office where guys were really crushing it or trying to spend time with those guys that were having a lot more success than I was.
Speaker: So yeah, I think that was probably the biggest mistake I made looking back my rookie solo year.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So how did, so put yourself back in that moment.
Speaker: I mean, how would you, if someone's listening to this and they're like, dang, I'm in the same boat, you know, what advice would you give them, you know, to get out of it?
Speaker: Cause it's going to be tough.
Speaker: They're with their buddies, the guy that recruited them, their mission buddy, like as much as it's fun, how, what would you say to them to just,
Speaker: Escape that.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it's not easy.
Speaker: And I don't know, like, I can, I can, like, say what I should have done looking back.
Speaker: But, um,
Speaker: I'm not like a super assertive person by nature.
Speaker: I'm more of a follower than like a leader.
Speaker: Sometimes I'm not like that type A personality like, okay, let's, especially in my rookie year, you know, I was just like kind of following the crowd.
Speaker: So I think especially for guys who are kind of more like me, who are more maybe followers, especially when you're new, then yeah, you just kind of, I would say just rip the bandaid off, just like, you know, go switch it up, get around people that's,
Speaker: If you can't get around people that are high producers or producing at a high level, then I would say just get around maybe people that aren't your friends.
Speaker: Maybe go and switch your car group, the people that you're not like buddy-buddy with because, okay, at least you know you're probably not going to be sitting in the car for an hour just like talking about stuff before you hit the doors.
Speaker: So maybe at the very least, try to get around some people that you're not, you know, you're not going to waste a bunch of time with.
Speaker: And then I would, the second tip is I would get around people.
Speaker: Once you do have a little bit of experience, go and take like newer guys out.
Speaker: So look for the guys that are brand new in the office, take them out.
Speaker: Because especially if you have like an incentive to grow teams and all that, then you know it's like, okay, I got to be showing like a good example to this guy.
Speaker: I got to be showing him the ropes.
Speaker: I got to be showing him how you're supposed to work out there.
Speaker: And I know a lot of high producers in solar talk about that.
Speaker: I mean, Michael O'Donnell, he talks about in his book how he's like the top.
Speaker: He's one of the top guys in solar, right?
Speaker: He's written a book and everything.
Speaker: But he talks about how he would like hire, I think his niece or something to just meet him at Starbucks and go follow him around for the day.
Speaker: He would like pay her just to meet up because he knew he couldn't get out of knocking if he like was paying someone 100 bucks to go follow him around that day.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that's what I would have done is just get around probably newer guys, look for some guys to lead.
Speaker: And then, yeah, if possible, get around, hire producers and just be in a little bit better environment.
Speaker: But easier said than done.
Speaker: But that's what I would.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's hard, especially for a personality that's a little bit more passive, you know,
Speaker: And I think I would, you know, putting myself in that situation, just be like, hey, guys, like, I think we all have some goals, like some big goals, like, you know, we can tell that this isn't working.
Speaker: And I want to hit my goals.
Speaker: So I think if we all go be around, you know, a little bit
Speaker: some of the top producers that we're going to perform more.
Speaker: And obviously, if the guys don't want to, they're going to say, no, I like being comfortable.
Speaker: And then that's an easy one to just kind of veer off and go do your thing.
Speaker: But getting into sales and having success, it's not something that you can get in and just like dip your toe in the water and have success.
Speaker: You'll definitely get beat up if you jump into door-to-door sales kind of half-assed.
Speaker: Well, dude, that's, I appreciate you jumping on and sharing with us and all the listeners this feedback.
Speaker: Because as much as these podcasts are short and sweet, that's the whole goal is to give that real raw feedback and not be, you know, super long-winded about just a bunch of different topics, but be very, very assertive about what you would do differently.
Speaker: And that advice is so raw and real.
Speaker: And I love that.
Speaker: the things that you mentioned about just being around the right people, asking a lot of questions, those to those that have experience and, um, and really just trying to level up through, through your network.
Speaker: So yeah, definitely.
Speaker: And then, yeah.
Speaker: And then one more thing I would say that helped too is I feel like I talk about this on my podcast, but when I had my breakthrough, another thing that I did too, is like, I hired a coach.
Speaker: I was paying people to help me.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: Like once I started paying someone to help me, I no longer struggle with like hanging out with the loser reps or whatever.
Speaker: Not that my friends were losers or anything, but like when I'm putting money on the line, when I'm like paying for coaching, at the time it was a lot of money for me too.
Speaker: It's like,
Speaker: It's like, okay, I'm going to go do what this guy says.
Speaker: I'm going to like go all out because like, I don't want to just be throwing money down the drain and then not implementing what my coach was saying.
Speaker: So that's when I had a big breakthrough is like, I decided to burn the bridges, hire a coach.
Speaker: I had like some, you know, this is kind of a long story, but had it had my parents were trying, were basically begging me to go back to college, go get a real job and everything.
Speaker: So just kind of at that breaking point where I'm either like, OK, either I have success and go all in with this or I just go back and go back to college, go get a real job because knocking on doors wasn't a real job.
Speaker: And then right eight years, eight years later doing this still in solar.
Speaker: Dude, that's fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So paying for a coach and going all in is is a real hack.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: And then invest in stuff like rep card, you know, invest in the tools, invest in yourself to get better.
Speaker: That's going to like, yeah, force you to implement probably more than people that aren't investing in this in themselves and in their development for sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: One thing that comes to my mind when you say invest, like my son plays competitive baseball and he has every gadget in the book.
Speaker: And so like when he gets ready for a game, he's got like all this different accessories and bats and his bag and sliding glove and all this stuff.
Speaker: And it's like once you like
Speaker: acquired all that stuff or whatever it obviously it's like i better take this serious you know like not just buy all the stuff or you know people that are buying you know rep card or you know whatever whatever they're getting like it's because they they want to do more that's huge well sweet dude thanks for thanks for hopping on we're gonna wrap this thing up um and so if you guys want to reach out to to taylor i mean how would they reach out to you and get in contact with you
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Thanks, Brad.
Speaker: I would say follow the podcast.
Speaker: We're on Instagram at Solrepreneur Podcast.
Speaker: And then at Taylor J. Armstrong is the Instagram.
Speaker: Then we've got some guides on there if people want some, you know, more tips just starting out.
Speaker: So go click our link in the bio.
Speaker: You're going to be able to get access to those.
Speaker: And yeah, shoot me a DM.
Speaker: Happy to help however I can.
Speaker: So I think Skim for letting me come on the show today, Brad.
Speaker: I'm excited to see the future episodes you got coming up.
Speaker: I know you're going to be doing some heat.
Speaker: So be sure to subscribe.
Speaker: Keep tuning in.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Hey, thanks, Taylor.
Speaker: I appreciate it again.
Speaker: As you mentioned, if you want some more additional help or advice, you know, our guests are always open to helping out and to helping out those rookie reps or even people that are experienced that just want some reminders to do better.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
Speaker: What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day.
Speaker: For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
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