Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong. I 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.
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 deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur you might ask? 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. right, what's going on? We are back with a second time guest and a little bit of an upgrade from the last time. if you remember, we got Lenny Gray. Thanks for coming back on the podcast, Lenny. Absolutely. we We were just talking. It was the first time I was in a park, I remember. And you said there's lawnmowers going on in the background. It's, yeah, definitely an upgrade. So it feels good to be in studio with you.
Speaker: yeah Yeah, it worked out good. And um I always joke, that's the guys you know is that are actually like, you know, putting the work in is when they're out in a park or I get guys doing it between and appointments and things like that. Yeah. And I'm like, all right, well, I can respect that. At least we know they're working. Right. It's not some guy that's just, yeah, because the guys that sometimes I get on podcasts and they're like, they got all the vari availability in the world. Sometimes I'm like, okay what you do you do i'm like yeah shouldn't you be a little more busy yeah what are you doing no i'm glad we can make this work man i'm glad you're in town and this will be fun yeah yeah for sure so yeah it's been uh five years i just looked since our last podcast so crazy feels like yesterday we just knocked that podcast out and here we are we're still in door to door what are we doing i know i know you're just asking me man you're still doing this podcast and then you're still doing i know 28 years later here i am we're still at it so i know
Speaker: So yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's been some changes for sure, Lenny, but ah yeah, I guess for you, and five years ago when we talked, you're still doing your pest control company, a lot of consulting, similar stuff for you, or yeah, I guess what's what's new? Catch us up the short version in the past five years. Yeah, so we ended up being acquired, our pest control company, just this last fall. So that's new. We did start another one, as we do. Over the years, we've built and sold 13 pest control companies. Wow. And so now we're we're out of that. i Wrote another book since the last five years that we spoke. So that's book number three that came out. okay And it's specifically for the door-to-door pest control industry. So anybody doing door-to-door pest, it's kind of more of my scripts and everything that I've done over the years as far as my process goes. and Yeah. Just word for word, everything that I'd say in any circumstance that that comes up. So that that happened. And then, yeah, of course, the consulting. I'm at 49 home service verticals right now that I'm coaching or have coached in one way or the other to help build their programs. Wow, crazy.
Speaker: Well, yeah I'm sorry. I didn't even realize you came out with a new book. So I guess I'm out of loop. It's all good. It was pest control. You know, it's just a bug book. You solar guys, I don't want anything to do with pest control. Yeah. I try to stay, stay caught up, but ah that's cool. So did you, how long, how long has it been since you released that book?
Speaker: So it was about a year and a half ago now. Okay. And does is it still the whole door to door millionaire? Is it like part three or different title? Yeah. It's door to door pest control sales, master the game in under three hours. I wanted it to be there. There's a couple of stories to, to kick off different sections, but then mostly it is literally just my scripts verbatim word for word. so But my books, the great thing is I narrate all my books. yeah And so all three of my books, I self-narrate. And so people can actually hear how it sounds, which is very different than reading it yourself and imagining how it sounds. Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: Yeah, well it's crazy. I mean... Five years ago, we didn't have all this stuff going on with AI like we have now. And so, um you know, a lot of people just ask AI like, hey, give me a script. And you got all these trainers. I remember last podcast we were talking to about ah recording, just like recording your pitches and sending and managers and stuff like that.
Speaker: Now you got these whole AI apps that people can like record it all, self-analyze and break it down and everything. So, um yeah, how is, have you guys changed a lot of, I don't know, systems, processes with AI going on? Has that affected anything? Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. i actually have two apps out as well. So my apps would have not been around in five years ago. but My apps are, they're called Ask Lenny.
Speaker: And the idea is, one is for in the field coaching. For instance, you're out in the field, you run into something, you're like, oh I got to text my leader, my team lead, my manager.
Speaker: And team leads are always the bottleneck because they're the ones that are trying to answer questions from a dozen different reps. And so I've got a whole library of me where you can ask me the question essentially. And then I give the answer back whether you just are in a position where you can just read it or you can listen to it. Then the other one is the Ask Lenny AI, where that's the idea. If you've recorded yourself in the field, you can get feedback that would come from me. You know we're toying around with with the AI game as well. Just trying to ultimately what what I'm all about is just helping elevate the door-to-door industry, just teach the right way to sell, the ethical way, sell with integrity. And so I feel like the more content that I can put out there in whatever medium, that's just going to help help the industry as a whole.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure. Mentioned it before, Lenny, solar, we've saw, I think it's building back up. But, you know, as you might have heard, solar took kind of like a small downturn, a lot of incentives disappeared.
Speaker: Trump passed a whole new big, beautiful bill deal and affected a lot of markets, tax credits, things like that. And so solar, we're kind of on the up and up again. I think we're building back, but it took a little hit. Solar coaster. Yeah. Part of the solar coaster. Yeah. um Pest control. I mean, I don't think you guys have quite as much of that. At least don't think, but are you still seeing pests grow more than ever? Like compared to five years ago, you think there's more pest control reps? take Oh, definitely. Yeah. There's definitely more. There's always been more.
Speaker: i mean, I've been in this almost three decades now and it just probably has increased every single year. Maybe it stayed static for a couple years here and there, but for the most part, it's always increasing. And yeah And again, what's fascinating to me with these other verticals that i'm I'm coaching is you talk about any, just about any home service, if you can put it in on or around a house somewhere, people realize that door to door is a great way to grow. it's ah It's a very efficient way to grow. You're consolidating your routes, your wear and tear on your vehicles and your people is is simplified and it just, it helps you to run a more efficient business. yeah So i I think the other home service industries, especially because a lot of the private equity now that's getting into home services, they're they're all the same companies essentially and they're just buying different verticals. yeah And so if you got these companies that are buying into the pest or the alarms, or like lawn care and some of these basics. Well, they see how those companies have grown just rapidly through door to door. And so now they're like, well, shoot, this other company that we have, that's a garage door company, or that's the the roofing obviously is big into door to door. Or if it's gutters or whatever it is, it's like, hey, if we can do door to door as well, maybe we could have that same growth trajectory that these other industries have had. Yeah, that's true. And same thing happened to Solar, you know, Sunrun. They weren't a door-to-door company. Yep. Went and acquired, you know, Vivint and everything. yeah So, yeah, I think people see it's more effective than other than ever and things aren't changing. And I don't know, maybe you could argue with everything going AI and all that. I think sometimes people, like, sometimes miss that connection and talking to people because we live in a world where more than ever you can do everything digital and just talk to robots
Speaker: People are doing their therapy with like chat GPT now instead of going to yeah to therapy. So well it's interesting too. What I love about the door to door community in general is that we do something. I call us the one percenters where we do something that 99% of human beings would never do. They'd never go knock on a stranger's door and try to sell them something or pitch them an idea. And the fact that we're willing to do that, I i still see the runway being a very lengthy runway for door to door. It's not going to go away. Because we're not going to be replaced by robots or you know, AI because we're doing something that most people don't want to do. They want to do the easy thing. Let's just put more money into pay-per-click or LSAs, GMBs. Let's let's go that route. yeah That's what everybody else is doing.
Speaker: But if nobody else is doing door-to-door, then that's always going to be probably the the most difficult thing to do. But it's going to be effective because it's it's such a there's such ah a resistant path to doing it. Right.
Speaker: I know. We always say in solar, it's like if the job were easy, the whole world would be doing it. 100%. It's like there's so much money to be made, but that's why a lot of people aren't doing it. And we should almost be glad for that because if it was easy, then commissions would go way down because you're paid based on value, right? And so it's like it's very valuable the skill to go out and approach someone at their door. Yep, it is. And it always will be, in my opinion, at least as long as I'm alive. Like there there's going to be value in people who aren't afraid of rejection, who aren't afraid to go out be in the heat and knock on doors or be in the cold and knock on doors for year round programs and and just go out and approach people and talk to people. Yeah, for sure. So I'm curious, Lenny, I know you do. You're building your company. You're doing consulting.
Speaker: So you you got family. You're family guy, too. So how do you have time to do all this, man? It's like building companies, consulting. Is one more focus the end the other? Or do you go on seasons? Or what's your secret for having time for all this? Yeah, it used to be, when's your busy season, people would say. And now it's like it's always a busy season for me because of all the things you've mentioned. I mean, I i will say I think one of my superpowers is I don't have hobbies that take away a lot of my time from my family, from my my work, from church, and and those things that are important to me. they i just don't do them Like I don't golf. I don't have these hobbies that just take a lot of time. Yeah. For better, for worse. Right. I know lot relationships are made on the golf course and people can say this, that and the other. But yeah I just don't.
Speaker: I love to work. I love to be with my family. I love to serve. And if I can just keep myself focused on those things that I love doing. I mean, there are days there was a day last week and my wife was out of town with our kids, at least the younger kids that are home with a family event, like a family reunion type of thing. Yeah. And I was home all day and I literally worked 12 hours straight. I got done and I was so happy.
Speaker: And I was just like, this was such a great day. i just grinded like this whole day. And I actually, in the evening time when I was working, I had a high school football game on like one of my side screens. And I'm like, can it get any better? yeah I'm watching high school football. I've been working all day. I've been productive. That doesn't scare me. Like like I don't look at my schedule and be like, oh it's Monday again. got to work at... I actually look forward to it. And I'm, I don't know, I'm just wired a little differently than most people, I guess. But, but again, i love my family. I love my faith and I love how, you know, the financial side of things work and and how to build businesses and and help people. Yeah. Love that. Yeah, well, we talk about in in the podcast here, you know, I tell guys just like something that's helped me a lot as far as like working, balancing, just looking to outsource things. You know, it's like we got three little boys. So trying to keep up with laundry and all that is a disaster. And so I'm like, OK, well, I can either come home from work a couple hours, come home and do laundry, or i can actually come home and be present. So like we got someone to help come do laundry. And so it's like things like that. For me, that helped a lot. Just being able to show up for the things that are more important. And I still struggle with it. You still got a still season, still working more at times.
Speaker: But yeah for you, do you have anything that, I don't know, maybe like outsource or ways that as you're consulting, you got outsourcing tasks to other people? Any advice on that? In the last few years, I have started to hire out things that used to take me a long time to do because i I wanted to stay in the lane that I'm most productive in. And so I have three assistants right now and they all have different tasks that they're really good at. And so I can send any one of them an email wherever their strengths are. And I could say can say, can you please do this for me? or can you
Speaker: And it is just put me in a lane of just pure focus on trying to stay to be able to do what I do best, what only I can do. Yeah. And it's it's the book, ah Buy Back Your Time. I think maybe you're familiar with that one. So it's that concept, right? If if I can find things that are of lesser value to me, but more time consuming, if I can find ways to to get rid of those, well, then I can actually spend time doing what I'm not replaceable and And I'm not just talking about work. It's family. My kids don't have another dad that they can just go to. or I can hire that out or feel good about it if I did. i mean, I know. People may have nannies or au pairs or whatever, for you know, for whatever reason. but But I just look at it and I say, if I can open up more time for them or to serve or to put myself in a position to affect more people and help more people in what I do, then heck yeah, I'm going to hire it out all day.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. I know. Well, especially when you're writing a book, I mean, doing all that, then adding that book that you're writing on top of that, it's like even more. And so when when you were writing the book, did you have to take a step back from some of the other things or how did how do you have time to add a book on top of that too? Yeah, it was wild because i I felt like this book was one that was writing itself for years because it's not, I shared a couple of stories. One story about how a company called me and they were going to shut their doors. They couldn't figure out door to door pass. They'd come from the alarm industry and they were rock stars there. They couldn't figure it out. So they flew me to their market. and I had two days straight where I just had reps shadow me and they figured it out and now they're in the PCT top 100 pest control companies. I think, I can't remember 15, 20 million they're going to do this year and this was just a handful of years ago. and
Speaker: Doing that was kind of an eye-opener to me that, oh my gosh, like I have saved companies, I've helped companies and so let me just put my scripts out. My scripts have been written for a long time. That that wasn't new but it was actually just putting them on paper in like ah a sequence. You know I'm a very ah systems and processes oriented guy and so everything to me has an order and a sequence and it was just putting it all on paper. So of all my books this is the shortest. This was probably took me the least amount of time to write. yeah
Speaker: and And so yeah it was it was a little bit of ah a different experience writing this third one. Yeah that's cool. Yeah, well, last podcast, I remember we talked a little bit about this, but just how how far door-to-doors come. I think there's a lot more abundance, people sharing things. So when I first started in pest control back in 2012, it's like we were given the training manual, and the first page was like, do not share. and basically, if you like shared anything from the training manual, the company could sue you and all this stuff. Yep, yep.
Speaker: And then we got you now putting out like your exact scripts that you use. Right. Back then that would have been crazy. Like you would have got sued for that you would shared like any scripts from, from the company. So I don't know things have changed lot in pest control. Is that still the kid? you feel like pest control way more abundant now too? Like people are sharing their things or is there still a lot of kind like secretive stuff like that, that companies don't want their material shared or what you think? I don't know everybody and what, what they're doing. I, Here's what I think. This is my opinion and people might not like that I say it, but I feel like if you're a rep or you're a company that has a great formula for selling and you're not willing to share what you do, like let's, I have this one guy had told me some big timer in his company, their top guy, and he was having some issues. And I'm like, well, who's the best in your company? said, well, this guy is the best in the company. I said, well, why don't you go shadow him or go talk to him? he's like, oh, he doesn't talk to anybody. He doesn't tell anybody what he does. There's only two reasons for this. And this is purely my own opinion. Doing something shady to me. But he's either not authentic or he's not ethical. Yeah. It's he's using something that somebody else has done, but he wants to take credit for it or he's, yeah, he's just not being ethical and he doesn't want to expose himself to that. Yeah. Because I think this whole idea of abundance and this whole idea of high tides raise all boats, like that's what I wrote the first book for. And this was 2012, 2013 when I wrote Door to Door Millionaire. Yeah. And it was because there was nothing
Speaker: out there. Everything was a secret. And there was a lot of really shady behavior door-to-door. And I thought, I feel really good every night that I go to bed and what I say and how I do it. i I don't see any issues with it. I'd rather people do that than learn from some of these tactics that are just not right. It doesn't do any good for the industry that they're working in. doesn't do any good for the door-to-door industry. And it certainly doesn't do any good for this human being I mean, a lot of them are very religious people that go out and do door to door. yeah And it's like you learn to do that maybe ah as as a missionary or whatever, and you go do it. And then you come home and you see this company that's like teaching you all these shady things to do. and you're like, well, I guess if that's how people do it, I'll just do it. yeah And then just the thought of that just nauseates me. It's like, why? No, you don't have to do it like that. Like, why would a company teach you to do it the wrong way?
Speaker: Yeah, I know. And especially come in solar, I'd say it's even tougher for us because people are signing 25-year contracts. And so that's one thing that's made our job a lot harder or is just the bad word goes around.
Speaker: You know, currently in San Diego, where I'm at, we focus a lot of like the Mexican families. I speak Spanish, so we'll go and sign up a lot of Mexican families. and they hear one bad experience and it's unfortunate because all of these people they kind of prey on you know maybe like lower education or people that aren't as well informed and all that and then they hear one bad thing and they'll cancel it for everybody yeah yeah so i'm like man it's sad that like because i know we hooked them up with this really good deal and something that would help them a lot but then they heard that their cousin or t-o-t or whatever yeah told them one negative thing and they just pulled the plug on the whole the whole thing So yeah, I know what happens in every industry pest control too. yep So it's great to see there's guys like you trying to spread that and make a difference. And um i don't have you seen a lot of these companies, maybe companies that consult? Have you seen a lot of situations where maybe they're... toeing the line a little bit or doing things and you come in yeah i'm actually playing around with the idea of doing some kind of a a sales training audit for companies or providing that as a service that i can do where they can share their material and just see if i can
Speaker: Just make a tweak or two if if necessary or say, hey, actually, this is legit. Like you're you're actually doing this in an effective way and an ethical way because you can have both. yeah Despite what a lot of people think or the perception out there about door-to-door people, you can be ethical and you can be productive regardless of of people thinking otherwise. That's facts. Yeah, I know. I was just telling my ah brother last night we were in Mexico and we got roped in one of those like timeshare things, you know, like did they go there good to get your the free boat tour.
Speaker: But the guy like he's like, oh, we'll give you the local pricing on the boat tour. And we're like, okay. And it was like way cheaper than what we saw online. So like, all right, cool. And then at the very end, he's like, yeah, the only thing we ask you, we're just going to, on the way to the boat tour, we're going to take one of the new hotels in the area just so you can like see it and consider it for next time. he didn't say anything about like presentation or anything was going on. Next thing you know, two hours later. We're going back. We're like, okay. So it's just funny, like something and I'm thinking myself, was like totally unnecessary. The guy could have just said it's a presentation. And then he was throwing in stuff like, oh, the hotel just opened three months ago. then we got there like, oh, we've been open for six years. don't know why he told that. I'm like, yeah. And a lot of it. That's so interesting that you'd say that because a lot of that when I find reps, whether they're in my own company over the years or in companies I consult for, they're saying things that don't need to be said and it's not going to change the outcome of the sale. It's just they've heard that somewhere or somebody taught them that and they think they have to say it, but we can strip that out and the end result does not change more often than not. Yeah, it's so true.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, yeah, hopefully anyone listening to this, if you see it going on, you know, we all got to work together to help change it for sure. But yeah, so for consulting, how many companies are you consulting? What's like your typical consulting load? How many companies you do at a time? Oh, it's it's dozens. it's It's hard to keep track because I don't have with my consulting and even for reps, I consult reps and I consult companies. I don't have a one size fits all.
Speaker: like I don't say hey if if you're going to consult with me you have to do it like this because every company has different needs every company every rep is in a different spot and so I have so many resources i I always joke around with people and I say there is not another human being on the planet that has as many low cost to no cost options in door to door than me Because I just put so much out, whether it's on social media, whether it's my books, my free newsletter. i have a newsletter that goes out every week. My apps are super cheap. Like I just, it's not about me more than like spreading the good word is more important to me than making some of these things as moneymakers. That said, I'll have companies because I i mean, just to give you an idea, several weeks ago, I set up on my website, people can schedule a free consultation with And you can imagine, I have everything hit me at these free consultations. It's wild. I had back-to-back calls. One call was for a guy that just started a poop scooping company, right? Like like that was what was going to do. and And we had a call.
Speaker: Hadn't even knocked his first door. So we have this free 15-minute call. My next call was with a foundation repair company, the biggest in the world that does $2 billion dollars in business. Those were back-to-back calls. Wow.
Speaker: And so what's going to work for the Poop Scooper is going to be very different than what's going to work for this other company. So I got into, we actually, I did a deal with this company. We did ah a four-week pilot for them just to kind of explore what door-to-door would look like, give them some numbers, give them some data. Whereas the Poop Scooper, it was, hey, like sign up for my free newsletter, follow me on social media, just get the free stuff. you know Do the YouTube channel. Like don't worry about buying anything crazy. Just just do the basics right now because that's that's where you're Yeah, it's awesome. do you have it Do you have any solar companies? you work with solar companies? soon Yeah, absolutely. So in fact, some of them, even years ago, built up and and sold or have changed ownership or got bought out by private equity. Like I've seen the whole cycle with some of my solar ah clients as well. Yeah, wow. So I'm curious as far on the solar side of things, what are some things, i don't know, what's like the main things you consult them in or what's like, don't know, their biggest problems and all that that you're seeing? Mostly it's scripting. So mostly it's, it's you know, and and and we've got the setter-closer model, right? And so what I found with most of my clients, solar included, is the closing model is pretty dialed in. Those are the high-level guys like you that are going out and you can get into anybody's living room and and do the presentation, close the deal. Yeah. but it's how do we generate more quality leads so that my guys that are rock stars that can close deals, how do we make sure they're spending time with the right leads? If they're not like a hybrid or a self-gen guy, right? If you're not generating your own leads, then if you've got a team doing that under you, how do we make sure that they're teeing you up for success? And so most of it has to do with, I i spend more time with my solar clients on the setting side than I do the closings. Okay. Yeah, well, solar, one thing that's interesting is solar, it's so, like, different depending on the market.
Speaker: Because, yeah, I've been in California most of my whole solar career, but we've done blitzes where we go to other markets. And then sometimes I'll try to say things that work great in California where, like, just an example, we went to Texas for, um yeah, blitz. And I started talking about, like, government programs in some Texas texas countryside.
Speaker: My government program. They're like, yeah, we're not yeah we're not doing government program. Yeah. You're totally like anti capitalism. Yeah. So don't care about the government. We don't need help. Yeah. So I'm like, all right, maybe i got to adjust a little bit. Yeah. You know, depending on the market. How many states have you knocked in? Um, uh, well for solar, probably only like five, not a crazy amount in pest control, I guess.
Speaker: i don't know. Three other states on top of that. Okay. So, yeah, um it's different, right? it's I mean, it's different sometimes from city to city or neighborhood to neighborhood. But yeah, you you go outside of state yeah and it's it's different. I mean, I've knocked in, you know three Canadian provinces as well. And and so there's there's just a different feel that you it takes a minute. It's not just rinse and repeat for the most part. You do have to understand who you're speaking to. And it could be, like i said, in the same city, just different income levels or or whatever. So, yeah, it's fun. Yeah. yeah
Speaker: And yeah, i know we'll we'll talk about this in a minute, but I know you're going be doing the whole world tour door to door. So yeah, it's pretty cool. Yep. So i want to ask you more about that. But yeah, as far as states go, have you knocked in pretty much every state at this point?
Speaker: I'm in the 30s right now. Okay. So I'd have to go back and count again. But but of all the states that I've knocked in, I'm in the 30s. And then like I said, three, three provinces up in Canada. Okay. So with solar, because a lot of times there's different state incentives or different programs, like a lease program in California could be totally different compared to another state. And so i don't know where you mainly consult for solar, but how do you, have you seen some ways you can adjust it if you had to learn with that too, is you're coaching up maybe solar setters? How do you ah adjust that based on their market? Well, some of it too is, I mean, there's community solar now and and there's there's people that are doing the full thing from soup to nuts from, yeah, we're doing the the appointments, we're closing and we're doing the install or sometimes that's separated from you know the company and the installers. And so, yeah yeah, it really kind of just depends on the client, but I would say it doesn't. It doesn't matter. i mean, one of my my main solar clients is in the Northeast. okay And yeah, somebody in California versus somebody in the Northeast, I don't see a whole lot of difference. mean, solar is what solar is.
Speaker: It's almost more similar than say a pest control or a lawn care where it's more seasonal and there's different types of bugs and bugs come at different times of the year. Your grass has, you know, weed issues or or dormant at different times of the year. Like solar is kind of, it's solar. yeah um You know, you're getting power that's, you know, You know, helping out with your, you know, lower your your power bills. You're getting power from a different source. So, yeah, I don't think in the solar industry in that space it's as different from state to state other than some of the, yeah, regulations and the bureaucracy that goes into, you know, a lot of what happens in the in that industry. yeah
Speaker: And do you help with like people structuring their whole model, like, you know, how they're going to progress people from setting to closing? And what's your thoughts on that? As you've seen consulting solar companies, what's been like kind of the best structure and don't know, progression, stuff like that? Yeah.
Speaker: I love that question because I think what I've seen is you get people that are fine being setters. And if they can make a thousand to two thousand bucks a week and all they do go out and talk to people and so some people are just they're built for that. And here's here's what I love. Most importantly is I like I've got every opportunity in the world for people that are willing to knock doors to be successful. Mm hmm.
Speaker: Because it used to be you just have to close pest control deals or alarm deals when, you know back in the day, 30 years ago. and And if you couldn't close, you couldn't do door to door. That's different now because we do have setters that that's just, that's where their comfort zone is in just setting appointments. They don't want to close. It's just not in their personality. So sometimes you could you could be a setter, but I do help companies see If they build some kind of strategy that looks at a progression that a rep that maybe starts as a setter could make, and that progression might look like, hey, first you're going to be setting deals for Taylor and you know he's going to go close them and you're going to make a little bit off off of what he does, but you want to set solid leads and we'll give you maybe a flat rate for whatever sets you have or sets that have qualified sits or however however you're measuring these things, right? Yeah. And maybe it's just an hourly as well. You know, you have some setting programs that's just like, we'll pay you hourly as you go through it. Well, if I'm going to progress and I think, well, okay, my ceiling, if I'm just going to be a setter is going to be X, you know, it's a thousand, 1500, 2000 bucks a week, depending on where in the country you live. Well, what if I want to,
Speaker: What if I want to close my own deals? yeah It's like, okay, well, maybe we I would call it a hybrid position. I know there's different names for it, but I'm like, yeah, just just self-gen. Just do your own thing. Go out and and now you're getting paid on the one end as being a setter, but you're closing your own deals. You're sitting your own appointments. yeah And then eventually you get good enough at closing and you say, the last thing I want to do is go knock doors and and have to set my own appointments because I'm really good in Mr. and Mrs. Jones's front room. That's where I need to spend most of my time. We talked about that earlier, right? Putting your time and into where you're most effective. yeah So now what I do is I hire setters under me and I can even forefoot some of my commissions to have setting teams under me that are setting my own appointments. So all I do is go from appointment to appointment to appointment. So that's kind of the progression. And then obviously you could get past that you get into leadership management, you know, executive team boards, just different things like that. but But to me, if you have some trajectory out there for somebody who's just new to solar and they want to start as a setter, that that may be where they stay. But some of them I think will progress. And I'd be interested to hear what your experience has been like this being in solar as long as you have. Do you see people that start as setters that actually progress into self-genning and then maybe hiring a team under them to set appointments for them? Is that even... Is that even realistic anymore?
Speaker: Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, that's that's the dream because, yeah, the first company I started with, there and wasn't really a progression path. They either either hired someone to stay as like a setter or someone as a closer. And then what would happen is these setters, they would feel like they hit their cap and they would want to progress to the next thing. But the company wouldn't let them.
Speaker: And so we saw a bunch of them would just leave to other companies. But yeah, I mean, in my current situation, we're kind of like hybrid. We have some people that run setter closer teams and we have some people that are just going out self-gen.
Speaker: And so I asked this to another guest ad on recently too, but I'm curious what you would say because the challenge is, is some of these setters see, oh, this person just going out on his own.
Speaker: um He's not like a huge part of the team. He's kind of doing his own thing, just going out and self-generating deals. And then we're in San Diego, a pretty large area. People are like an hour south, an hour north. And so sometimes it's hard for us to like get people together, all go out as groups to areas. And then we're having correlations like twice a week. But then other than that, people are like, oh I don't want to come to your area.
Speaker: So sometimes we have setters knocking an hour south in different locations, which can which can make it little challenging. So, um I don't know if you've consulted callson consult on this or what your thoughts are. Like, what do you what do you have people set up? is Do you have everyone go out as car groups, kind of like pest control style? Or what do you generally recommend to solar companies as they're like setting up these programs, like structure at best?
Speaker: It's going to depend. right And I hate to be, I hate that answer when when I ask people questions. They're like, it depends. but But in this case, it really does. and And I've seen it work in several different ways, whether it is the car group, that kind of the old school, just put them in a van, drop them off and come pick them up later. Or if it's, there's territory division. Sometimes it is the Wild West. yeah And it's like, you just go where you go. Everybody's open. I don't necessarily subscribe to that because it it really sucks to knock on some doors that you're excited about a neighborhood. it's like, oh yeah, somebody from your company was just here last week. You're like, what am I doing? That's a waste of everybody's time. so And I think technology canvassing software and that makes it really easy to make sure everybody's kind of on the same page and everybody can see where everybody else is knocked. Very different than when I started. I mean, my first two, I always joke around, my first two years of knocking doors, i didn't have a cell phone. Yeah. you know I think I might've had a pager or something, but I wasn't working with a cell phone. Now we have all these sophisticated apps that can tell you people's credit score, their their household income. And before you even knock on their door, you already know their name. Like there's there's kind of some cheat codes out there, which is nice.
Speaker: ah So I would just make sure that whatever the strategy is, that it's communicated across the board with the team so that everybody is playing by the same rules. Even if you have a lone wolf, that's fine if you got these lone wolves that want to go do their own thing. But you give them a zip code or you give them a city or you give them a territory and you say, if you're going to go outside of this, just let us know so we're not tripping over each other's feet. feet So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
Speaker: And as we were 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. Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout.
Speaker: 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 any given neighborhood.
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 two 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 to give my listeners a great deal. 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. That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay. bag dashsh And when you are doing that, because sometimes it's, yeah, sometimes that's what you got to do. And there's people all over the place. But how do you like hold them accountable? Because that's the tough thing for our team sometimes is they're knocking on their own, but we see they're getting out later than the rest of the team. and People are just kind of making their own hours, which that's kind of year round solar program.
Speaker: That's one benefit is you can to a degree sort of set your own schedule and control a little bit little bit more. But there's guys that take advantage of it and all a sudden they're working like part-time job just getting out there two three hours a day they were like well you wonder why you're not making money it's like you're treating this like a part-time thing and so yeah what's your advice on that how do you like hold guys accountable and even when it's a little bit chaotic with the structure anything any advice you'd have on that Yeah. So I look at it and I go the year round model or or we'd call it like the marathon model versus the sprinter model, yeah like the marathon model you're doing, you're knocking doors year round and you have to have a little bit more flexibility with scheduling that because it's hard. It's a grind, right? It's a grind for four months if you're doing the the sprinter summer sales model.
Speaker: I look at it and go, what what first and foremost, we have to ask is what is the structure? Are are these people full-time? Are they employees? Like are they W2'd or are they I9s? Because if they're I9s, we technically can't tell them you have to work this schedule. They're they're the master of their own domain, right? they They can set their own schedule. So we do have to balance that out as well, depending on how they're hired and then look at it.
Speaker: I mean, even with a summer sales model where we're hiring a bunch of IC independent contractors, I look at it and I go, we can suggest a schedule and say, piggyback some bonuses or incentives on top of keeping a schedule or at least the production that would come from that schedule. So we we can't say this is the schedule what you have to knock doors, but we can also say, you know this is the recommended schedule. And if you do that, you could be eligible for this incentive or this bonus or or whatever. So- You have to be sensitive to keeping the law, certainly. that That would be first and foremost. But then you all it depends on how your company is set up as well, whether you're doing you know full-time employees or or it is more of an independent contractor and know they they can do they they can do what they want, essentially, schedule-wise. Right. Yeah. I think most solar companies that I hear of are independent contractors. So it makes it maybe a little tougher. in Pest control, that's pretty much all independent contractors too, right? Not necessarily. there' in In a lot of traditional, and I'd call a traditional pest control market, like a market where there's bugs active all year, right? Like a Texas or a Florida or California for that matter. Yeah. And I look at that and I have clients of mine that have adopted of a full-time employee, give them a car, but they knock doors all year. and but But yeah, they're W-2'd or whatever. And and so they're they have a schedule, they have requirements, they have benchmarks they have to hit or or minimum you know revenue generated on a monthly or a weekly basis or their commissions are affected. And they, you know, those clients, I mean, they, they offer a lot of nice little perks and they can, you know, benefits, health benefits, those types of things. But the reps have to stick to the schedule. They have to actually do the job, whether it's the hours work, the schedule that they set, or the revenue that they need to generate to keep their job. So for your personal pest control companies, have you always just run them with summer programs? We've had both. Yeah, we've had like year-round programs as well. Most of our year-round would be more commercial though and and less residential. But we have had reps and we've had 13 companies that we've built and sold and probably half have been in...
Speaker: traditional type markets and the other half have been in non-traditional Minnesota and Boston and and Detroit where it's cold and it's why are you knocking doors selling pest control in the middle of the winter on somebody's house and in a residential neighborhood you're probably not it's not gonna go very well for you but if you're doing commercial and you know it's a restaurant or or something like that that they've got to have pest control all year anyway and some in fact some states require that then a commercial program in a non-traditional pest control market seems to bode well um for for a year-round program doing commercial but not necessarily residential. So you kind of have to look at you know location to location as well. Okay. So yeah, if you're running like a year-round program, what what have you seen most successful as far as like you're, you say, I'm running correlations for guys.
Speaker: So know typically like a summer program for pest control something, it's like you start out every single day, morning correlation, everyone's going out as a team. So for a year round program, I don't know, what do you normally recommend to people? How do you adjust it? Is it like you meet once, twice a week now and guys kind of go on their own or how do you kind of keep that structure within like a year round program? I like at least two to three meetings a week. Like sales training meetings where we are role playing. We are you know talking about any issues that that we're having with our program, whether it's the setter or the closer side. and you could you could have it to where probably on the setting side, it's at least three days a week on the closing side. Maybe it's a couple days a week, but you also are marrying those two as well. where they're they're in some of these meetings, maybe just even once a week or twice a week, they're actually in meetings together. Because if you don't, if you have that separation, sometimes people are saying things to somebody else and and it's it's the telephone game, right? And and every time and a message gets passed on, it gets watered down from somebody else. so i I like to have that. And I know there's some challenges with that, but we have magical virtual meetings now that we can use, you know, meet, zoom or whatever it is. And and we can do these now where it's not as powerful, but if you require cameras on and you have to see where people are and making sure they're paying attention, I'd rather do that than nothing. Yeah. But, ah but preference would be in person. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I want to talk about a recruiting for a minute too because it's one thing that's with the solar, one of the hard tough things is is like you're getting paid the majority of the commission at the install. We've actually had a lost a lot of guys in solar even though commissions are way bigger. We've lost a lot of guys to like Fiverr or some of these other products where I think they're making, you know, maybe the same, maybe sometimes even less money, but they're just like... Well, they get it that day. Some yeah companies are saying... same day pay right so that's a new thing in the industry in the door-to-door industry exactly well so yeah and especially for guys that are broke but need money now sometimes it's you know we can like advance them some here and there in solar but um some of these guys just tough and they want to go to like a quick fix thing somewhere they'll make money quick for recruiting guys around that i don't know any ah recruiting strategies like how do you get guys bought in to recruit what's worked for recruiting um as you're consulting some of these companies
Speaker: It's all over the board because it really is about the individual and the person. if you If you have somebody that has bills to pay yesterday and they're strapped with car payments, house payments, maybe they're trying to pay off you know debt in college or whatever it is, that's going to be really hard to say, hey, you can make a ton of money, but you have to wait for it yeah versus I want the money yesterday. And so a lot of it, you have to, when you're recruiting people, you have to find out where where that person is in life and what their most immediate needs are and really what their future goals look like as well. Because if somebody is like, I just want to make as much money as I can for four months and be done. i don't want do it. I'm going do an internship or I've got this thing set up. I just need to pay off debt.
Speaker: I think the sell to do solar or a really high ticket item that that the, um, the process is elongated just based on install times and everything else, I think that's a really tough sell for for most people. And so they're going to want the quick lawn care, fiber, pest, they're going to want something where the money comes in right quick. yeah So as you're going through that process, and and I have kind of a four-pronged approach with with recruiting, but as you're going through whatever pathway that you you do to to get leads, Make sure your funnels are communicating those things because you don't want to waste time. If you're looking for a particular type of person, you don't want to waste time with people that would be better served with ah a quick out a quick payment, you know something like that Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And we've structured some things. like I don't know the current company I'm at, we give them like $500 fast pay they call it. Like out front yeah after a- Yeah. So the week after a sale, they get that at least. Yep.
Speaker: So they've tried to solve some of those issues. And I think you kind of got to do stuff like that if you're trying to get in people that don't have the money. Because, yeah, you're not keep them. It's sales reps world, isn't it? Like back in the day when I i sound like that old man, like back in the day. But, yeah, in the 90s, early 2000s when I was starting with this, it was the owners. They made all the money. yeah And now it' it's the reps. Because, and forget, I mean, I'm a rep at heart. Like, i you know, I mean, I was a CEO of a home service company for 22 years. But at the same time, you know, I started as a rep. yeah And I remember in Pest, you know, my commissions, I could max out at like 15% or 20%. I mean, just something ridiculous. And now it's like, ah you can be a new kid off the street that's never going to make twice as much as that, right? So it is a sales reps world. And I think what happened is owners realized that really good sales reps or even those willing to go out and knock doors, like we talked about earlier, they don't grow on trees. These are one percenters. And so you've got to pay them ah good money if you're going to get them or somebody else will. Well, and yeah, speaking of pest control, it's crazy because like, you know, when I did it in 2012, it was like 99 every three months, 99 bucks every three months. Yeah.
Speaker: I got people come to my door. They're like, oh, 200 bucks every three months. It's like literally double the price. yeah It's like when I was telling it. Yeah, contract values are through the roof. Yeah, I'm like, holy cow, pest control is a inflation is real with pest control. But and guys are still putting up massive numbers too with it. Probably even more than they did back in the day. Yep. So yeah, do you think that's, um yeah, i don't know, seeing the prices go way up. Is that just guys like wanting to sell it more or is the have the costs gotten a lot more expensive with but pest control too or? I mean, yeah, with inflation cost of certainly, they haven't gone at the rate that now pest control is being sold because it's it's looked at more ah as ah a premier type of a service and and a need.
Speaker: It used to be, I remember when I was with Orkin and Orkin's marketing companies called Eclipse Marketing out of Provo. And I started with them. And during the off season, after the summers, they'd fly me to different markets because Orkin wanted to know, hey, should we do A door to door team in Boise or in Denver because nobody had ever knocked doors there. And so they'd fly me out to these markets or Portland and and I'd go knock doors and just to kind of get a feel.
Speaker: I'm doing this in the fall and I'm knocking doors in like a Denver, let's say, and nobody had ever knocked on these people's door talking to them about Pesca ever. And so it was always like I'd get them right to the point of buying and then I will see how it goes next year or, well, we've never really bought anything from somebody at our door. So we're not. and And now it's shifted. Now it's like if you're not the second, third, fourth, fifth person, it's like it's really tough to break a shell of somebody because they're like, yeah, we get.
Speaker: Don't worry if if I miss out on your deal, somebody will knock on my door and within a week. and I'll get their deal. So the game has changed that way in in in any industry for that matter because everybody's competing for that doorstep.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, love that. Yeah, well, i want before we run out of time, I want to talk about what we brought up a minute ago. So you're doing a world tour. You're going um and a bunch of different countries. I saw you're going be selling things. So tell tell us about that. I mean, i just saw what I saw on social media. So tell us about that. What's going on with this whole door-to-door world tour you got going on? Yeah, the Door to Door World Tour. So my family and I are in a very unique position. Our youngest son is leaving on his mission here in a couple of weeks. And so he's going to be gone. i have another son that's been out for a year on his mission. I've got two kids in college. And then we have a four year old.
Speaker: So we have this surprise baby 13 year gap and she will be starting kindergarten in a year. OK. And so my wife and I said, you know, we'd love the idea of of going traveling the world in that. But 12 more years when our daughter, 13 more years when she's out of the school system, yeah I might be too old. I might, you know, you have to wheel me around. So we're like, do we have a window. We have this one year. It's 13 months. Okay.
Speaker: And so my wife's wanted to travel around and and this, that, and the other. And of course me, I'm not just the guy that's like, Hey, let's just go have fun and take a break and travel for 13 months. Not for me. No. So 13 days wouldn't work for me. yeah So I I'm like, let's make this like this huge social experiment. And well, you know, I've already told my wife, I need a day or two every week when we're gone just to work. Cause that's where my happy place is. So I need to work. But part of that work is i'm gonna go out and knock doors. I thought, why not?
Speaker: yeah and so we've got 32 countries in 13 months and i'm just going to go knock doors and i'm going just talk to people i'll probably talk to people on the street as well just to see what it's like to knock doors somewhere else see what the response is see if it's a common thing that they get their door knocked and and really it'll be documentary style like going to post it all over social media like i want people to follow it and just see but really yeah i mean i've knocked in north america that's it the united states and canada And so we've got three other countries, I think, or excuse me, three other continents that we'll be in in these 13 months. wow And so we'll we'll do like Australia. We'll do kind kind of the islands in that. We'll do Asia. i guess four other countries. We'll do Europe and we'll do South America. Wow. And yeah, 32 total countries to...
Speaker: Just go, you know, go have fun. yeah Go knock doors. i I actually think one of the coolest things in the world, and I hope we get footage of this, is I get cussed out by somebody for knocking on their doors in a foreign language. I think that would be so fun just because I don't know what they're saying, but they're just mad and it's like, hey, this is awesome. I know.
Speaker: Well, it's funny because whenever I knock like foreign people's doors, for whatever reason, they're like way less intimidating because I know there's like, especially if they don't speak very good English. And and then they're in America, right? Like, like they're kind of in your turf or or your, you know, you come to them and yeah, there's a humility, but now I'm going to their turf yeah and I'm the American. So now we completely flip the script on this and I don't know, like they may hate me. I have no idea what's going to happen. And that's, what's going to be fun about it. Yeah. can't wait to follow. So are you getting like a camera guy to follow you around or who's getting all the equipment? Yeah, I've got my own equipment. I will have my oldest daughter will be joining us on some of the trips. So I may solicit her help yeah to to kind of help me this first little bit and we'll we'll figure it out. But yeah, I definitely want to have, I mean, people have talked to me about like metaglasses or different things to to capture everything. There's going to be ways to to capture it for sure. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, and what about the language cause barriers? Because if you're going to be a lot of countries, they're not speaking English. Yeah, and I don't have ah the language skills even like you have. I mean, I've got a ah ridiculously long Duolingo streak, but my Spanish is still horrible. So, you know, Google Translate, I think, will be my best friend. I mean, there's always ways to communicate with people nowadays, easier now than ever. So, yeah, I'll probably use that. I mean, probably have to find out if people speak English right off the bat as well. yeah And just that that would make the communication a little better, a little bit more effective. But I'm sure I'll i'll do a little bit of Google Translate and just, yeah, we'll just have fun. We'll just see what happens. Yeah, it's crazy. People are probably going to be so confused. Like, what's this white guy doing? Like, doesn't even speak my language. He's trying to sell me something. yeah here he is at my doorstep. Like, who is this guy? What is going on? i think it'll be fun. yeah and what are you gonna sell are you gonna pick like different products yeah it it depends i've had a couple people reach out to me from some of these countries i i listed the countries on my social media page the 32 countries that we have planned to visit and so some people reach out to me and said hey we've got a you know this kind of company or that kind of company there could you sell for us so if i can make relationships with people i'll do it i mean years ago i was actually uh at a flown out to canada in toronto And the national news there, it's kind like the 60 Minutes. We know it's 60 Minutes in the United States. It was called CBC Marketplace. That's kind of Canada's consumer watch thing. They flew me up there to talk about my book and go knock doors. And they had they said, well, just go sell you know try to sell people pest control because that's what you do. Well, I was selling people.
Speaker: And then they'd be like, the news anchor would come in and say, oh, it's just, yeah this is you're on CBC Marketplace. And we're not really going to do pest control. We don't have a company. It was just so weird. And people would be like, oh, really? I actually need it. Like, this sounds like something I want to do. And and so I don't know. I'm not going to make up stuff to sell. I mean, if I happen to find a a strategic partner that, you know wants me to to to go sell or or has a product that I can offer, sure. like i'll do So if anybody's listening and they have something and they want to say, hey, go sell this in Slovenia or Czechoslovakia or wherever, then yeah let's do it. But otherwise, it's it'll probably just be more interview documentary style, like what people think about door to door. If they've had people knock on their doors, if so, what's been sold, just that that type of thing.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay. So you think you'll start off kind of like actually trying to sell something and then maybe transition into, oh, have you had people come sell or and yeah just kind of play by? Yeah. It could definitely be an option. Yeah.
Speaker: That's cool. I going to be knocking doors and what happens after that, we'll just, we'll just, we'll see what happens. Yeah. That's cool. And I can't wait. Yeah. That's a unique thing. Cause I've never seen someone do like a world tour like that where they go to all these places. Why not? so Why not? I'm going to be traveling anyway. Like I said, I might as well go knock some doors and yeah and see what happens. So yeah, I'll post most of it on my social media. Probably Instagram will be the main one that that most people will will follow me on. But yeah, we'll put a lot of content content out there. Nice. And are thinking you'll do like live streams or it's actually live on the spot or more? like or I doubt it'll be live. Yeah. I don't know what. where Yeah. I think it'll just be, I'll i'll shoot all the content. I'll send it to my team that does my social media and let them put whatever the other i think is cool. Yeah, that's awesome. And yeah, well, with all the other stuff you got going on while you're doing all this traveling, are you taking a step back from, you know, consulting, running your other companies or you're still going be doing all that while you're traveling too? So there's there's a little step back, honestly. Yeah. And in fact, I had to turn down one of my clients to go to their kind of their big corporate event in February. I'm like, I will be in Uruguay and sorry, I'm i'm not going to come back for this. You know, there there will definitely be time. Like I said, I've got to have at least a day a week to just work and talk to people and keep keep my relationships with with the people that, you know, that that I built. i'll I'll be coming back. I'm actually going to be at D2D Con. So I'm going be involved with that and have a booth. And it's going to be, by the way, it's going to be killer. Like it's a big giveaway. Everybody's going walk out of there with just a ton of free stuff from my booth. And it's just going to be so much fun. Anyway, so I'll be i'll be back and forth a little bit. My two oldest kids will graduate from college in April. And, I mean, BYU's playing Notre Dame. I got to come back for that. So, you know, there I'll be a little bit of back and forth. But the last place that we'll go to is we' we're actually in kind of where this whole thought process came is our son that's on his mission right now. He's been out a year. He's in Australia. and we'll go pick him up in Australia next August. That's awesome. so yeah. So. Anyway, maybe I'll go knock some doors with him too as a missionary. I don't know. What the heck? Doesn't matter. But yeah, so we'll start in Europe.
Speaker: Then we'll go to South America. Then we'll go to Asia. And then we'll end up, we'll do like New Zealand, Fiji, Australia. Wow. Go pick him up. And then our our son that just got his call, he's going to Africa for crying out loud. He's going to Zambia. And so I'm like, well, then the next year after that, let's go.
Speaker: Knock some doors if there's doors. I don't know. Huts, I don't know. We'll just go knock doors and talk to people in Africa too while we're down there picking him up. So we'll hit, I guess that'll be all the continents except Antarctica. So that'll be on the next to-do list we'll go knock doors in Antarctica if they have doors there. I'm just picturing you knocking like some hut or something and the door is like falling over. Could be. It could be. Yeah. Most people are great. Usually, generally, the people in the huts are more humble people, right? Right, yeah. Hey, you need your windows washed? Oh, you don't have windows. Oh, wait. I've got think about that. yeah, it should be fun. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, well, so awesome. Can't wait to see what's going on with that. Maybe that's your next book, too. It's like knocking doors, and that'd be a great book you can make. The Door-to-Door World Tour. So, yeah, I thought about that as well. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, Lenny, it's been great having you on for a second time. And then hopefully everyone goes and follows your journey. Yeah, I'm definitely going to be checking that out. And so if guys aren't following you, what's the best place to follow you? Yeah, so Instagram is at the Lenny Gray. And yeah, I mean, if you type in Lenny Gray on any social media, whether LinkedIn or X or Facebook, it's everywhere. So yeah, but I think Instagram is mostly where at least reps from the rep side of things where most people follow me. Yeah. Okay. And then last question, maybe for like a struggling rep, people that aren't seeing results, the fruits yet from doing door to door, what are some key characteristics between, you know, the most successful guys, most successful teams? What are some things that maybe the not successful reps aren't doing as well, just to end off here?
Speaker: I would say that the the mental, we all know if we've done door to door for any amount of time, mentally, it's way more challenging than anything else, right? Anybody can go walk around or nowadays they don't walk, right? You're using a Segway or whatever. So it's it's the mental part. And I always say what happens between the doors between your ears really tells you what type of a rep you are.
Speaker: yeah If you're on your phone and you're, you know answering personal texts or on social media and just, you know, real scrolling or or whatever you're doing, if if you're not dialed in, i think that is just going to elongate your learning curve.
Speaker: And the longer the learning curve goes, the less likely you're going to stick around. Yeah. And i always say, you know, I call it the rule of 600 and you've got to talk to 600 people. If you're a brand new rep, just starting, you can't even decide if you're going to be good at door to door until you've talked to at least 600 people, not knocked 600 doors, actually talked to 600 people. And so got to figure out how, how's the, what's the quickest way I can do that? Because now I've i've got the repetition and now I can really start learning and growing. So I would just think being mentally tough enough to take each door and each conversation as a learning opportunity and then adjusting and changing what you're doing to to make it better the next door. And if you just keep doing that, it's like to me, it's sharpening a pencil, right? You just continue to shave off just a little bit at a time to make that pencil sharper. And that's what every door to door experience should be. Yeah, so good.
Speaker: Love that. And yeah, easy to get distracted these days on the phones. But yeah, the more you can self-analyze, like we talked about in the previous podcast, record yourself, make adjustments. Yeah, I think that's a huge secret. Well, Lenny, thank you so much for coming on with us a second time. Can't wait to see your whole door-to-door across the continent and cross the across the world. Let's do it. So we'll be tuning in. So everyone shoot Lenny a follow. Go follow his next journey on this. And yeah, we'll have to do another one, hopefully before five years. Let's do it. Yeah, so let's do it. Let's do a a door-to-door world tour wrap-up next year or something. Awesome. Thanks, Taylor. All right. Thanks, Leni.
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