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 fell.
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: Okay, what's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: We are back with another show, and we've got a legend in the door-to-door industry.
Speaker: He's written multiple books now, and I'm super excited to have him on the show.
Speaker: We've got the one, the only, Lenny Gray.
Speaker: So thanks for coming on the show with us today, Lenny.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker: Thanks, Taylor.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm super excited.
Speaker: And we were talking just before the recording here, how I just finished your new book that came out.
Speaker: And I've been posting just little like, you know, highlights of it on my Instagram every few days.
Speaker: And it's crazy.
Speaker: We've been getting just message after message.
Speaker: What is that book?
Speaker: I've never seen a book like that.
Speaker: What is that book?
Speaker: So sent off probably 50 messages and should have put it in the title because I kind of got sick of sending out the same message.
Speaker: It's the next door to door, more door to door millionaire.
Speaker: But yeah, so people loved it.
Speaker: So congrats on the book, Lenny.
Speaker: It's a huge accomplishment writing a book like that.
Speaker: No, thank you.
Speaker: I appreciate it.
Speaker: So it's kind of funny.
Speaker: When I wrote the first one, it was really to kind of get out of the door-to-door sales industry.
Speaker: I was kind of doing some other things, and I thought that was kind of my stamp on the industry, and it threw me back in.
Speaker: more violently than ever.
Speaker: So I jumped back in and again, the first book I wrote was eight years ago.
Speaker: So this is eight years in the making and the second book and it definitely, as it says in the title, kind of takes things to the next level.
Speaker: So a lot more experienced, well-versed door-to-door reps seem to appreciate the second book a lot better even than the first one.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that's how I felt for sure.
Speaker: So yeah, I mean, it's got to be a ton of work writing a book like that.
Speaker: I mean, I've thought about writing a book, but I'm like, man, it seems like so much work.
Speaker: So were you always, at what point did you decide that you needed to write even a second book?
Speaker: So I, you know, I was an English minor in college, so I figured I'd put that to good use maybe, I don't know.
Speaker: But didn't really have, you know, a desire to write a book necessarily.
Speaker: But boy, I just had so much experience and so many things.
Speaker: And
Speaker: It kind of another motivation for me was when I first got into door to door sales, like late 90s, right, forever ago, I'm a dinosaur.
Speaker: But when I got into these into this industry, I mean, literally, the company I worked for handed me a training manual that was, you know, 1015 pages long.
Speaker: And I was like, that's it.
Speaker: And I felt so unequipped to go out and knock any doors.
Speaker: And so I just felt with that as my background and then also what I heard and what we still hear in the industry, unfortunately, is kind of the lie, cheat and steal your way to the top.
Speaker: Like, I just, I didn't love that at all.
Speaker: And I'm just so anti that that I thought,
Speaker: you know what, if I just put out what I did and just put it right there on paper and let people know that, hey, you can sleep really good at night knowing you've done door to door the right way, that was kind of my motivation for writing the books.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: And for those that haven't checked out Lenny as much, I mean, we'll post his bio and everything in the show notes, but he's sold thousands and thousands of pest control accounts, been one of the top reps of all time.
Speaker: What's your record?
Speaker: Like 1,300 pest accounts or is it more than that?
Speaker: Yeah, about 1,200, something like that in the summer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Primarily past, but now I run a consulting D2D Millionaire, kind of our consulting arm.
Speaker: And I'll tell you, I've consulted for just about anything and everything you can imagine to knock on somebody's door and sell.
Speaker: So it's, yeah, there's a lot of similarities within industries.
Speaker: There's some nuances that are a little unique.
Speaker: Solar being one of them, you know, there's some uniqueness with solar.
Speaker: But yeah, I've obviously been around the block a couple of times.
Speaker: Yeah, huge.
Speaker: And I came from pest control.
Speaker: I wish I had quit it on better in pest control because I was one of the guys that kind of sucked at pest control.
Speaker: I wish I would have had you training me.
Speaker: I only did like, I don't know, 150 accounts in pest control.
Speaker: So luckily it's gone a lot better in solar for me.
Speaker: But one of the things I love about pest is if you can come from pest, I feel like you can be successful in pretty much any door-to-door thing because solar, it's, I mean, we're just setting up appointments typically when we're out knocking doors.
Speaker: So I was used to getting full signed pest contracts out there.
Speaker: So I'm like, man, all I have to do is set up an appointment.
Speaker: This is easy.
Speaker: I don't have to have them sign anything today.
Speaker: I don't have to collect payment information.
Speaker: Sweet.
Speaker: So I just went out there and, you know,
Speaker: um booked a ton of appointments getting them to actually sit down and sign up sign up for solar that was kind of a different skill but uh for you lenny and all your consulting that you've done now with like solar what are um i don't know maybe some similarities some differences that you notice things that apply across the board what are some things you've noticed have you consulted different solar companies
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, I think the first thing is that the concepts that, you know, I teach in my books are, you know, for the most part universal, right?
Speaker: Like there's nothing about body language or metaverbal, nonverbals.
Speaker: There's nothing that is out there that isn't applicable, not even just in door to door, but just in regular life experience, right?
Speaker: Like there's just things that you can do and the ways you can frame your questioning and your
Speaker: your not just your questioning, but your value building and how you build up the service that you're selling.
Speaker: It's really universal in any kind of communication setting.
Speaker: And I think with my, my solar, uh, my solar consulting that I've done for reps and for companies, it's, it's, it's a lot of, it's kind of more of the same, honestly, that, you know, I don't try to stray too far from the principles that I teach in any industry.
Speaker: In fact, I consulted for a company years ago, um,
Speaker: that actually is valued right now at over a billion dollars.
Speaker: It's a no credit check finance company.
Speaker: And I consulted for them and wrote all their training materials and manuals and kind of got on board early.
Speaker: I think I was one of the first six people in the room at that company.
Speaker: And yeah, they started from just an idea back in 2000.
Speaker: It was just right after I wrote my books, my first book.
Speaker: So it must've been like 2012, 2013.
Speaker: I kind of jumped on board.
Speaker: And for about a year and a half, I kind of put all their processes together.
Speaker: And it was very similar, even though it was B2B.
Speaker: It wasn't even door to door.
Speaker: It was business to business.
Speaker: And again, this company is an absolute rocket ship.
Speaker: And now they're valued at over a billion dollars.
Speaker: They sold like a third of their company for 330 some odd million back in 2019.
Speaker: And it's just fun to see, to help companies to get to that point, regardless if they're solar, they're pests, they're
Speaker: finance it it's a lot of the concepts and principles are very similar yeah definitely and yeah I know you've uh you know done it all you've sold pests you've started your own companies um do you still have your your pest company or are you just doing primarily the consulting now
Speaker: No, I've got my own pest company still, Rove Pest Control.
Speaker: We've built that in some areas.
Speaker: We've sold it.
Speaker: We've started again.
Speaker: We've built, we've sold.
Speaker: We're kind of back in growth mode right now.
Speaker: We're in five states, have about six offices in those states.
Speaker: And so we're, yeah, we're back, you know, running, which I think it gives me a unique perspective.
Speaker: As far as my consulting goes, there's some uniqueness with that because when I consult for people, I'm running a business day-to-day.
Speaker: I'm not just saying, hey, this worked 10 years ago or this worked whenever.
Speaker: I'm literally running a business day-to-day right now, knocking doors with sales reps, going out in the field.
Speaker: Nothing's too big for me, I guess.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: And I love, yeah, I think it's so much more powerful being trained from that perspective, being like, no guys, I was literally out last weekend and this thing works for me.
Speaker: I'm not just saying this, it's 10 years ago.
Speaker: So I think it's super powerful on something I try to do in my podcast is share what's currently working as I go out on the doors myself and close deals.
Speaker: But that being said, I mean, you've been in this forever since 1998, right?
Speaker: That's when you first started.
Speaker: So I didn't even know door-to-door existed.
Speaker: Then I was like five years old at that point.
Speaker: There weren't cell phones either, crazy enough.
Speaker: Like the technology nowadays is probably what's the most different of anything in the industry to me.
Speaker: Like talking to people is kind of talking to people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You kind of have your skill set for communicating with people.
Speaker: That hasn't changed as much as just the technology.
Speaker: I mean, it's just awesome.
Speaker: I literally remember logging my area on the back of a flyer.
Speaker: I'd write the addresses of the homes and check it if I sold them or exit out if I didn't sell them, they told me no.
Speaker: Or if I had a call back, I'd put their number and I literally was handwriting everything.
Speaker: It wasn't until...
Speaker: I think my third year selling door-to-door that I even had a cell phone.
Speaker: And it wasn't a smartphone, obviously.
Speaker: It was just a regular dial-up cell phone.
Speaker: So yeah, I think technology has made the door-to-door industry even a little bit, it facilitates even more sales.
Speaker: I mean, that's why you see these guys nowadays just killing it.
Speaker: And I think a lot of it has to do with, well, there's more material out there to be trained on.
Speaker: But then secondly is, I think technology is just a huge piece in helping people to maximize their daily schedule.
Speaker: yeah no doubt i mean it's crazy all the different tools and softwares we have like you know the rep cards the cells rabbit all these different types of things the scooter you probably didn't have the segues and all that back when you first started right no i just had sneakers that was it yeah that was my a to b so i'm graffitis yeah yeah
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: Yeah, I started in 2012.
Speaker: And even then, they were just starting to come out with a few things.
Speaker: But they handed us, you know, our chunk of chalk, and we're out there just chalking the neighborhood.
Speaker: John X's on big X's in front of the house that said no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, that's changed a ton and definitely made it easier, I think.
Speaker: But yeah, so Lenny, I want to jump into kind of maybe a few specific things.
Speaker: I'm sure a lot of guys will go read your book, but I want to share, maybe jump into a few things that I thought were super cool in your book that I learned.
Speaker: And then maybe you can like elaborate on a few of them and tell your experiences and kind of how you even thought of these things.
Speaker: So I'm just going through a few of, you know, the sections of your book.
Speaker: And one of the things in the first part, you talked about like earning time and just being more time efficient, basically on the doors.
Speaker: And something that I had never really thought of was this whole three door rule where you're, you know, only if you don't talk to someone in three doors, you go, you know, you look for someone that's for sure going to be there the next time.
Speaker: So that was really cool and something I've been like, you know, talking about training about because I had never really specifically thought of that.
Speaker: How did you come up with that for your guys?
Speaker: Was that just like based on your experience?
Speaker: You thought, oh, I'm gonna for sure get someone on the fourth door.
Speaker: How did you come up with these time efficiency things?
Speaker: Yeah, so I think that door-to-door sales to me is insanely boring if I don't have somebody standing in front of me and you don't make any money, right?
Speaker: Like the only way you make money in door-to-door sales is you're actually talking to a homeowner.
Speaker: And so when I was out knocking doors early in my career and I'd just knock on door after door and nobody was home or I was just not getting a good response, like to me, it's like...
Speaker: I just, it was, like I said, just insanely boring for me.
Speaker: And I just, I've always got to be doing something.
Speaker: I'm just kind of one of those guys that's always got to be busy.
Speaker: And I just, I just hated that.
Speaker: So I just kind of decided, okay, if I knock three doors and nobody answers, then I don't care if I have to walk a block or two blocks, I'm going to see kids playing out in the yard or a garage door open or somebody out doing yard work.
Speaker: I just, I got to just talk to a human being because- Right.
Speaker: I can only have conversations in my head for so long to where I just bore myself.
Speaker: So that's kind of what it grew from.
Speaker: My three-door rule is just, you know what, just go out and talk to people.
Speaker: Because again, really, you're only being effective.
Speaker: You're only making money.
Speaker: You're only having fun with this job if you're actually talking to another human being.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's huge.
Speaker: And yeah, how many people waste so much time just going door after door.
Speaker: And I think even with new reps, you've probably seen this too, Lenny, but you get these new reps that are still like scared to go knock a door.
Speaker: And some of these guys, I can't believe it, they're like crossing their fingers sometimes that people don't answer the door.
Speaker: It's like they feel like they're out working, but they're like, oh, yeah, I'm just not having sex.
Speaker: I didn't talk to anyone, but I was still working.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Flyer guy, right?
Speaker: Like, if I can throw a bunch of flyers, then I'll feel like I'm, I'm being productive.
Speaker: So probably the wrong, probably the wrong industry.
Speaker: Like, come on guys.
Speaker: But yeah, so that's something that's been helping.
Speaker: I just kind of like more specific for our guys.
Speaker: Cause I always thought of that, but we never had like a set rule in place for our teams.
Speaker: Like, come on guys, go talk to someone for sure.
Speaker: After three doors.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I know you have some other sections, but anything else, I guess, as far as like managing time on the doors, anything else that have helped your teams and your guys out a lot for people you've consulted?
Speaker: Yeah, for me, a lot of it too is a big thing I preach on is what are you thinking about in between the doors, right?
Speaker: Like where does your mind go?
Speaker: I think the best reps that I've been around are the reps that in between the doors, they're looking for ways to improve.
Speaker: They're actually having those conversations with themselves about,
Speaker: What happened on that last door?
Speaker: What could I have done better?
Speaker: You know, could, could I have, maybe if I asked this question or man, I totally blew it when I asked that question, I asked that yes, no question.
Speaker: That was horrible.
Speaker: I gotta, you know, I gotta eliminate that.
Speaker: And so I think what's going on in your headspace in between doors is such a crucial skill because,
Speaker: Nowadays with our cell phones, right, which I didn't have to bother me, that ding and beep and buzz and do all these things.
Speaker: And you can have so many notifications from whatever social media platform you use or emails, text messages.
Speaker: You can just get bothered so much out knocking doors.
Speaker: It's how do you stay focused going door to door?
Speaker: How do you keep your head in the game?
Speaker: Because all of us know that have done this before.
Speaker: like door-to-door sales is 90% mental, right?
Speaker: Like 10%, yeah, you're out, you know, knocking doors or you're out in the heat.
Speaker: I get that.
Speaker: That can be hard.
Speaker: That can be difficult.
Speaker: But the reality of it is the hardest thing is, is just having in your head space, you know, making sure your head's in the game, head's right.
Speaker: I got a guy mowing the lawn out here.
Speaker: Apologize.
Speaker: I think he's going the other way though.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: He might be coming towards us.
Speaker: might have to run from the lawnmower.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is real life.
Speaker: No, he's going to, he's going to roll right behind me and I think he's going to be out of here.
Speaker: So maybe we just give him a sec.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All the solarpreneurs can say hi to the lawnmower man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Lenny's Lenny's out in the hood as we speak.
Speaker: So he might just go hit some doors after this.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: So actually he's going to keep mowing.
Speaker: So, um,
Speaker: It's not too loud.
Speaker: I can't hear it too much.
Speaker: It's probably fine.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But yeah, and then another thing I was... Sorry, we finished.
Speaker: I was just going to say just one other thing that I talk about in the book is the importance of, in my sense of lawn mowing, cutting lawns.
Speaker: That was another section of my book.
Speaker: And I've got a little bit of flack for that, honestly, on like the D2D Millionaire YouTube channel and that kind of stuff.
Speaker: Like people are like, how can you cut across lawns?
Speaker: And I kind of share an experience that I had, you know, my only really bad experience cutting lawns.
Speaker: But that's another thing is just efficiencies in between doors.
Speaker: That's how I save a lot of time.
Speaker: And I actually have a little equation I put in the book there of,
Speaker: If you're walking across somebody's driveway and down the sidewalk and up on the porch and going that routine versus just cutting across the lawn, how much time you could save in a three or four month period, it's mind boggling just how those seconds add up day to day.
Speaker: Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker: And that's something that I know a lot of pest companies train in that.
Speaker: But when I got in solar, I told people, oh, you guys, like none of the guys I worked with cut lawns.
Speaker: And I was like, wait a second, you guys don't like cut across the lawns?
Speaker: Like, no, you're going to make people mad.
Speaker: I'm like, come on, guys.
Speaker: It's going to save tons of time.
Speaker: So especially for solar, I don't know what it is about solar, but most solar guys aren't trained on that, I guess.
Speaker: Probably just because we knock less doors than pest control and alarms we're used to being.
Speaker: We're probably the lazier sales reps and just knocking fewer doors.
Speaker: So I think that is a good thing that our solar guys need to hear.
Speaker: It's got to cross lawns.
Speaker: You know what I do if I was selling solar and I was cutting across lawns, I'd make sure when I'm cutting across lawns that what I'm doing is I'm actually looking at the rooftop.
Speaker: Like I'm kind of doing a little bit of an inspection, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm seeing, you know, maybe where the sun's hitting the roof.
Speaker: So I think, and then if you approach that home and somebody calls you out on it, like, oh, you were cutting across my lawn.
Speaker: It's really easy to say, you know what?
Speaker: I was just doing a quick inspection of your roof, you know, just kind of looking, you know, at the sun angle or the roof angles and seeing if a,
Speaker: solar panels would be really good for your roof or something along those lines to where, again, I mean, with the pest, right, you're looking at the lawn and the grass and the ground and you're trying to observe bugs.
Speaker: Well, I think the same concept could apply in solar and it might help your pitch to somebody if you actually have some data on, yeah, as I was kind of coming across your yard, I kind of noticed up here this, that, or the other.
Speaker: I think it could be used to your advantage during kind of that initial conversation.
Speaker: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker: Yeah, something we do is look at their electric panels.
Speaker: So that's almost the same concept because electric panels, you can tell if someone has a red sticker on their panel, that means they have solar.
Speaker: And a lot of times, you know, you're not necessarily trying to knock most of the homes that do have solar.
Speaker: So yeah, same concept, but I think anytime you can save some time and then...
Speaker: point out that we have a tool we use too that I've been talking about in the podcast.
Speaker: It's a app.
Speaker: So it's a sun seeker app.
Speaker: So you can show them basically the angles where the sun is hitting their roof.
Speaker: So yeah, I like that strategy.
Speaker: You're cutting across the lawn.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you do have someone approach you, it's pull up the sun seeker app and say, Hey, no, I was just looking at your roof.
Speaker: Here's actually how the angles are hitting it.
Speaker: Have you heard what's going on in the neighborhood?
Speaker: Did Kathy cross the street tell you, um,
Speaker: So yeah, I love that part of your book and saving time.
Speaker: And then another thing that I thought was really good that you mentioned, I think in a later chapter, just like on training your reps is you have them send you like recordings.
Speaker: I know you're talking a little bit about that, just kind of analyzing door after door.
Speaker: Then you talk about having your reps send recordings of their interactions and that's been one of the number one ways you mentioned to help your reps.
Speaker: So do you have like with companies you're consulting, do you have
Speaker: Is that something you like have them do, have all the new reps do is send recordings or is it like guys are struggling and you say, okay, you've got a donut, you bagel this day, you need to send a recording or what's your philosophy with that?
Speaker: So I think this is one of the most key points of how you, you know, as a manager or as an owner of a company who can influence the most amount of reps in the, you know, the most efficient way possible, right?
Speaker: When we talk about saving time, it can even be off the doors.
Speaker: And so for me, when I started requiring that of my sales reps to where you have to send me so much audio per day, per week, whatever.
Speaker: I mean, I'll give you an example.
Speaker: So I was in Boston last week with my office, got, I don't know, a dozen or so reps there.
Speaker: And in the matter of probably six, seven hours while they were on the doors, I reviewed over 40 audio recordings from that group of reps,
Speaker: And I've had reps that since I've kind of tweaked a few things that they were doing that you can only hear on the doors.
Speaker: You cannot hear in a role play, right?
Speaker: You could only hear some things on the doors.
Speaker: Once I heard them, we've had these reps that were struggling to sell daily.
Speaker: They have sold every day since I was out there last week.
Speaker: And not that I credit it all to myself,
Speaker: But realistically, you can do your reps a lot of favors by going on the doors with them.
Speaker: That's a good thing.
Speaker: But I think even a more efficient, depending on how many reps you have too, the better approach would be how many of these reps can I influence today?
Speaker: And that could be done in higher volumes by actually requiring them to send you audio or video of them actually interacting with real people on the doors.
Speaker: Yeah, that's money.
Speaker: So when you're training new reps, is it like a set schedule where you say, okay, you're new, you have to send X amount of recordings or just kind of like based on the week or do you have anything specific set up in your company where it's, um, they have to send a certain number or how does that work?
Speaker: So, yeah, when they're new out, you know, they have to send their manager at least weekly.
Speaker: And we try to get the manager that's there with them day to day to knock with them.
Speaker: Then kind of more of the upper level training would be, you know, you've gone a couple weeks, your manager's kind of critiqued you that he's kind of given you everything that he could give you as far as advice and ways to improve.
Speaker: Well, then if we need some higher guns to step in or just a different point of view, then we'll ask the manager to go ahead and send either me or some of my sales department heads, just some more experienced reps.
Speaker: Then they'll be required to send audio to them just to make sure, again, to me, how one person's sales can be...
Speaker: very different than how another person sells.
Speaker: So how a manager, what that manager hears versus what I may hear could be different.
Speaker: And I might connect or my manager might connect differently than another rep.
Speaker: So I think, you know, it's kind of that concept of, you know, you just surround people with goodness and greatness, and then it's going to rub off on them eventually in one regard or another.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, I like that.
Speaker: Yeah, something that our, I mean, companies I've been with struggle to kind of figure out is just like the schedule of how much should you have a new rep's shadow?
Speaker: Like if they're struggling, what do you do with them?
Speaker: Do you just say, try something else?
Speaker: So for you, as you've had your pest company, what does it look like for a new rep that's coming on first year?
Speaker: They don't have much experience.
Speaker: Do you have them shadow X amount of times?
Speaker: Or how do you onboard these new reps to have success?
Speaker: And then I guess, what have you seen other successful solar companies that maybe you've consulted do that's been working?
Speaker: So what we do is we actually have, I've developed an online training program.
Speaker: And my online training program is probably 40 plus hours of training.
Speaker: Plus I have three pre-season events that we do training as well that are probably another 12 hours.
Speaker: And so before anybody's knocked a door, they've gotten,
Speaker: at least they have the opportunity to a lot of it is up to them, right?
Speaker: The in-person stuff is, is pretty much a given.
Speaker: Everybody attends that.
Speaker: Um, the online stuff is kind of at their pacing.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, you could have up to 50 hours of just, you know, training before you knock a door.
Speaker: And I I've written a training manual for my own company.
Speaker: That's, you know, another 170 pages long or something crazy.
Speaker: It's like book three.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So again, I wanted my experience with my reps to be very different than what I had as a rep when I first started, you know, back in the day in the late 90s.
Speaker: Like, I just want it to be totally different.
Speaker: So we have 50 plus hours, you know, that a rep could get in preseason training.
Speaker: Then when they get out there, really, I'm kind of more of the mindset that, yeah, shadowing is good.
Speaker: And, you know, a manager should get out with his reps that first couple days, first three days, at least one time.
Speaker: And probably weekly their first month on the doors.
Speaker: Second month, probably at least every other week, unless a rep's struggling, then you go back to weekly.
Speaker: But, I mean...
Speaker: Again, for me, we just, we got to put the time into each rep because every rep learns differently and trains differently.
Speaker: So they might do a little bit of shadowing, but for the most part, all the preseason training has like videos and audio.
Speaker: And it's basically like they've been on the doors even without knocking a door.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: And then say they're coming to shadow, they're still struggling.
Speaker: What do you have?
Speaker: Do you have a system in place where it's like, okay, this isn't working for you.
Speaker: Like come shadow, you shadowed, you know, X amount of times it's not working.
Speaker: What do you do with reps that are struggling and just, you know, aren't getting it?
Speaker: So I think of one experience I had a few years ago with a rep who in all honesty probably most companies wouldn't have hired him.
Speaker: We hired him because he had a friend of a friend, right?
Speaker: He's kind of one of those guys.
Speaker: And I actually personally wrote a script out for him that he could just memorize because he just wasn't getting the concepts of the initial approach and how to qualify people, those things I write about.
Speaker: He just, he wasn't understanding it.
Speaker: So I literally just wrote him a script to fit his personality and who he was and what his strengths and weaknesses are.
Speaker: And that script worked, you know, he stuck it out the whole summer.
Speaker: He didn't kill it by any means, but he made money more than he would have made, you know, working fast food, you know, during the summer.
Speaker: So sometimes it just takes that customization too.
Speaker: And not that it's easy and especially for, you know,
Speaker: Companies that hire hundreds and thousands of reps, it's probably an impossibility.
Speaker: But if your company's on the relatively smaller size, like my company, we don't hire more than, I mean, we'll be in the range of probably 40 to 80 hires a summer.
Speaker: Like that's all like door to door is an important part of our company, but it's certainly not the only way we grow.
Speaker: So the reason we've kept it at that number, one of the reasons is it's just it's easier to manage and make sure every rep has a good experience.
Speaker: So I know a lot of solar companies are in that ballpark probably.
Speaker: They're not hiring hundreds of reps.
Speaker: It's tens of reps like I am.
Speaker: And so I think you have a chance to connect and train specifically to each rep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker: Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker: Yeah, I ask you these questions just because, I mean, this benefits me.
Speaker: This is a lot of stuff we're going through currently.
Speaker: So that's one of my favorite parts of doing the podcast.
Speaker: So I'm like, man, what are we struggling with with our reps right now?
Speaker: I'm going to ask an expert about it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I love it.
Speaker: And that's, you know, that's the thing.
Speaker: That's what I love about this industry right now is for the most part, not like 100%, but for the most part, most companies and most people are pretty open and want to help each other.
Speaker: Like, we want to preserve the industry and give it a good name.
Speaker: And now there's people that are just proud that they knock doors, right?
Speaker: When before when I started, it was kind of like this.
Speaker: I knock doors.
Speaker: I know it's kind of greasy and grimy.
Speaker: And I just I'm kind of a loser because I just knock doors.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Now it's like there's this pride like that I've seen in the last two decades take over now it's like yeah I knocked doors like I'm proud of that and and I think if the more that sharing that's done and the more integrity in the industry I think just the better I mean for me if whether it's my kids or grandkids or whatever like I'd love for them to be able to knock doors I think
Speaker: door knocking is like a microcosm of life.
Speaker: And there's so many lessons to be learned that help reps beyond when they're knocking doors.
Speaker: I'm more about building the individual than just making sure they have a successful summer where they made money, but they had a light sheet and still to do it.
Speaker: I'd much rather just develop somebody to make them a better human being so that they can go off in life when they're done knocking doors.
Speaker: Heaven forbid they knock doors as long as I have.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: I don't wish that on anybody, but, but you know, if they go on and they become an attorney or they become a business owner themselves, or they become, you know, you know, they work in a business in the, in the sales department, whatever it is, like, I just want them to be awesome.
Speaker: I'm going to give you one quick experience too, before the next question, if that's okay.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: A couple Sundays ago, I was just at my church and somebody who had knocked doors for me happened to be visiting his family who was there.
Speaker: And he comes up to me and, you know, give a hug.
Speaker: Like he worked for me for a couple summers.
Speaker: I love the kid.
Speaker: And he's like, listen, he's working at a software company right now.
Speaker: And he's in the sales department at the software company.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And he's like, listen, I just got to tell you.
Speaker: He's like, man, I'm going to make six figures this year in software sales.
Speaker: And he's like, I owe it all to you.
Speaker: Like, I credit you for teaching me the right way to do it because I'm doing everything you taught me in software sales.
Speaker: And I'm absolutely killing it.
Speaker: And I tell you, I mean, it's like I got to hold back the tears a little bit.
Speaker: I'm like, I'm just so proud.
Speaker: He's like, it's like another son of mine.
Speaker: I'm just so proud of him.
Speaker: And that to me is what it's all about.
Speaker: Like, I couldn't care less if somebody works for me.
Speaker: And it's one one and done.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like to me, I'm going to put as much effort and energy into that one person that's one year as I am somebody that's been with me for eight years.
Speaker: You know, I just I want to develop individuals and people because beyond the doors, there's just so much more that you can learn and take from the door to door experience just into your life for personal growth and just betterment of you as a human being.
Speaker: Yeah, that's so cool.
Speaker: Yeah, you got to feel good about that.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it's happened too.
Speaker: It's one of the only reasons I've kept this podcast going is just from guys saying, hey, this, this helped me a lot.
Speaker: I love your podcasts, because I've, you know, it's hard work to keep content like that going.
Speaker: I'm sure with your books too, with like, if you, if you hadn't had so many people buy your first book, do you think you would have written a second?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, well, that's, that's a, nobody's ever asked me that question, Taylor.
Speaker: That's a great question.
Speaker: I don't, I don't know if my motivation, let me think about that person.
Speaker: I don't know if my motivation to write my second book book was based on the success of my first book.
Speaker: I, I think I felt like I left a lot out and I, you know, I'd get a lot of feedback from people that have said, man, you should have, I want you to write more inspirational stuff.
Speaker: Like I didn't, I get all the tactical things.
Speaker: I didn't feel inspired or, you
Speaker: you know how do you deal with competition since door-to-door is so popular now it's like I have a whole chapter devoted to competition how do you get better or how do you make yourself better than the competition how do you beat your competitors so to speak so I just felt like there was a lot left to be written and honestly what did it for me was was COVID like I was kind of homebound and I was stuck and I'm like oh I need to fill my time with something I'm going insane
Speaker: So that's really when I started writing that book.
Speaker: The second book was just kind of when I was kind of quarantined, I guess, at home with my family.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Well, we're glad for COVID that, you know, sped up the process, hopefully.
Speaker: It did.
Speaker: I had the outline written for a while, but I, yeah, I didn't have any goal as far as when to actually put it out there.
Speaker: And I was just like, dude, I can, I can crank this now because I got a lot more time at home than I used to.
Speaker: So that's awesome.
Speaker: But no, I love what you're saying just about, you know, how all the people that are sharing way more abundantly, because I mean, as you probably know, when at first door to door, even, you know, five, 10 years ago, there was nowhere near this amount of like information.
Speaker: you only learn from your managers.
Speaker: Now you got, you know, podcasts, you got books like yours, you got, you know, Sam Taggart doing a lot of stuff, all these guys sharing their content.
Speaker: So it makes it so much easier to just learn and, you know, have kind of more pride in the industry.
Speaker: I mean, I was buying shoes just, I think it was two weeks ago and, um,
Speaker: I was with my wife and she was like saying, she's like telling the shoe salesman, hey, he just needs some good shoes for knocking doors, for going out indoors.
Speaker: And when she said that, I'm like, come on, Dave.
Speaker: He's not going to know what that is.
Speaker: Don't embarrass me.
Speaker: But then he was like, oh, that's cool.
Speaker: Knocking doors.
Speaker: Yeah, I got some perfect shoes for that.
Speaker: I'm like, I'm like, all right, I don't need to be embarrassed about knocking doors and take more pride in it.
Speaker: So it's true, all this content, you know, helping us give ourselves a good name, I think.
Speaker: definitely more positivity.
Speaker: So Lenny, the last kind of section, the last thing you just mentioned is just the competition and for our solarpreneurs, our solar guys that listen to this, I think that is a huge thing in the solar industry because as you've probably seen, there's been tons and tons of alarm guys, pest control guys, a lot of them are switching to solar.
Speaker: We have huge commissions, so it's a great industry.
Speaker: But that especially I'm in San Diego, which is probably the most competitive solar markets.
Speaker: Definitely one of the most.
Speaker: So it's something we struggle with here a ton is just like, oh, you're the fifth guy to the point where it's like if we mentioned solar at a doorstep, we're getting the door shut instantly.
Speaker: So we've had to kind of, you know, change the way we approach things.
Speaker: So for you, like, as you've consulted solar companies, and I know applies in pest control, as well, what are some strategies?
Speaker: What are some things you do when you are getting more competitive areas when you're getting no, you're the fifth guy at my door?
Speaker: Can you talk about some little strategies you've helped your guys with?
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's a great question.
Speaker: So I think the first thing is you just, you call it what it is, right?
Speaker: Like, don't wait for the person to say you're the fifth company to come on my door today or this week or this month or whatever.
Speaker: Like, just call it what it is.
Speaker: Like somebody answers the door and it's, you know, it's, Hey, they're just the solar guy.
Speaker: I know you've been hit up by 20 other companies in the last few weeks or whatever.
Speaker: Like don't, don't wait.
Speaker: And this, this is a principle that I teach in a technique that I think is important is you don't wait for a concern that
Speaker: for the customer to actually say the concern.
Speaker: You bring it up first, right?
Speaker: If you can address the concern first, it just adds to your credibility.
Speaker: And I think the respect factor goes up for you as a door-to-door sales rep, if you can already bring that to their attention.
Speaker: So we talk about name dropping, right?
Speaker: If we know my name dropping principle from the first book.
Speaker: So if you name drop and if you can actually address their concern for them before they bring it up, like that's huge.
Speaker: Because you know, if I'm the person answering my door and I open my door and I see solar, then I'm already looking for the reason why I'm going to turn that person down.
Speaker: And if it's somebody just had already come out or I already have solar panels, which obviously you can see unlike pest control, which I love about the solar industry is you can see if somebody's already a customer.
Speaker: You don't have to find that out by having them tell you that.
Speaker: So if it's, you know, you're the 20th guy to come knocking on my door, just call that like you see it, like right out the gate and don't wait for that to come up.
Speaker: And then depending on your company and how your company different differentiates from the others, that's how you start to, you know, to build your case for your company versus the companies that have come by and that have
Speaker: already approached them and have knocked on their door and talked to them about solar before.
Speaker: What is different about you and your company versus the other 20 people?
Speaker: And consider this, like I just think an overarching principle for door-to-door sales is if I go to a door
Speaker: And it's in a 20-year-old neighborhood.
Speaker: And I know for 20 years, sales reps have been knocking on that door five to 10 a year.
Speaker: So we're talking hundreds of sales reps.
Speaker: And I kind of envision like the carcasses of the dead door-to-door sales reps that have been just shunned off the doorstep, just laying there beside the door.
Speaker: And I'm like, how can I be different?
Speaker: How can I bring a different energy, a different approach that these other 100 to 200 have been turned away for?
Speaker: How can I connect with this person and actually make a better opportunity for them for what I'm selling versus what everybody else has in the past?
Speaker: And I will tell you this, strangely enough, and some people are surprised to hear this, when I knock doors,
Speaker: My goal isn't to sell everybody I talk to.
Speaker: My goal is to get people further along in the sale than I think anybody else has that has knocked on that door.
Speaker: So I don't care if I end up with a sale.
Speaker: What I like is even when I hear the, oh, you almost got me on this.
Speaker: I was so close.
Speaker: Like I've said no to everybody, but I almost said yes to you.
Speaker: Like that to me is a win.
Speaker: I'm like, cause I know nobody else would have got you that far.
Speaker: that means that I actually succeeded on that door.
Speaker: So sometimes you take those little victories when you know you connected with somebody on a different level than the other hundreds of reps that, that, uh, that have not like, that's when, you know, you're actually improving and getting better at doing this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: It reminds me of the guy in the Bible.
Speaker: Was it King Agrippa or something?
Speaker: He's like, you almost converted me to Christianity.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You almost converted me to solar.
Speaker: Not quite.
Speaker: We'll get there.
Speaker: But you almost got me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, and that's huge.
Speaker: And yeah, I mean, you talk about some of the strategies in your book and also just like what I love too is you talk about, you know, the demographics, just some different strategies you can utilize to, you know, talk to different types of people.
Speaker: That's something that's helped us out in solar with our teams a lot.
Speaker: It's just identifying the demographics you're good with.
Speaker: And then, like, for example, we have quite a few Mexican guys on our team.
Speaker: They'll go hit up the Mexican neighborhoods and it's like, they're celebrities out there.
Speaker: They're speaking the language.
Speaker: They're having success with that.
Speaker: And then you talk about just like the ways you would sell the different demographics of people, depending on who they are, you're going to treat them different.
Speaker: White collar versus, yeah, what was it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so things like that.
Speaker: And how do you, and I mean, pest control, how do you, can you talk about that a little bit with your strategies, demographics?
Speaker: Another thing we recognize in solar is like new move-ins, older homes that we're going to target differently and use that data to our advantage.
Speaker: So how are you having your guys kind of utilize that different customer data and how have you seen it in maybe solar companies you've consulted too?
Speaker: So yeah, in the book, I break down three demographics that I think would encompass any person you're going to talk to, not saying they're the only demographics.
Speaker: We can kind of make those a little bit more granular if you really want to dial it down for specific industry.
Speaker: But we talk about in the second book, I talk about blue collar, white collar, like you said, somebody who goes into the office every day, wears a white collar, is kind of more of a business person versus maybe the person that is...
Speaker: you know, works blue collar, maybe they clean houses like my mom did when I was growing up.
Speaker: My dad's a policeman.
Speaker: You know, he was more blue collar.
Speaker: Maybe that's what it is.
Speaker: There's different ways to approach those type of people based on the economics and, you know, how they live and those types of things.
Speaker: We talk about older people versus younger people.
Speaker: And I kind of break down the different generations, you know, and now we have millennials that are owning homes or buying more homes than
Speaker: Then, you know, boomers and, you know, Generation X and my generation and those types of things.
Speaker: So I kind of break that down a little bit about how to approach those type of people, because somebody who is a first time homeowner or homebuyer, you're going to treat them very differently than somebody who's been in their house for years.
Speaker: 20, 30 years or who has owned multiple homes, right?
Speaker: And then we talk about males versus females, which I think is a fun one too, because there's just different ways to approach men than there are women.
Speaker: And I think it's, you know, even just in the questioning, the things that you ask, the assumptions that you make, you can take people a lot farther, male and female, just based on doing it, you know, doing the questions or asking the questions just a little bit differently.
Speaker: And so that's kind of a fun one for me too, that chapter that kind of goes into those demographic breakdowns.
Speaker: And I think for solar, like I said, for me, sometimes you could go more, I would think that the blue collar, white collar one would probably be the most applicable that at least I've taught in consulting with solar companies of how to approach those people when you're talking about a large ticket item like a solar system.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's great stuff.
Speaker: And then with, you know, the older folks, something we utilize in or that I've learned from a lot of successful guys is just going on with the time management.
Speaker: If you notice people are, you know, older, guess, guess what?
Speaker: They're probably going to be home in the afternoon.
Speaker: So you're seeing the handicap stickers, stuff like that.
Speaker: Go to those homes in the afternoon.
Speaker: Because John and Julie that are in their 30s working class, they're probably not going to be home in the afternoons.
Speaker: So that's something we've been teaching our teams and our listeners to is just utilizing all the different information.
Speaker: It's super nice.
Speaker: Now I'm going along with the technology.
Speaker: I mean, go on these Zillow apps, you can see the new homes.
Speaker: You have like the cells, the knocking apps.
Speaker: They're showing you most of these demographics, what their estimated income level is.
Speaker: how many people are probably in the household, things like that.
Speaker: So I think that's another huge advantage we have compared to probably when both of us started is makes it so much more easier.
Speaker: If you can approach a house, be like, Oh, you guys have what?
Speaker: Seven people in the house.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you know, all this data and it just creates so much more trust.
Speaker: A lot of times you have a name, you have their income, you have all this different information you can utilize.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think, you know, I think in ways that COVID has kind of changed the world a little bit too, is it, you know, the different strategy of knocking afternoons versus evenings.
Speaker: I talk a little bit about that in the book.
Speaker: That's, that's changed, right?
Speaker: I mean, COVID actually changed that for us to where,
Speaker: More and more people are working from home and they can live wherever they want and work however they want to work.
Speaker: And so I don't think, you know, back in the day, and I share this experience in the book about the company that I work for that just let experienced reps just work prime time after five months here.
Speaker: And it just, it was a complete disaster.
Speaker: And nowadays, I mean, we're seeing sales numbers,
Speaker: before five o'clock being better than they've ever been.
Speaker: And a lot of that is just due to, I think reps are getting smarter and that they follow the three door rule, like we talked about and those types of things.
Speaker: But I just think there's more opportunities in the day now because people are working from home and have a little bit more flexibility in their schedule.
Speaker: So it's not just the older folks that you necessarily need to target, even though that's a great demographic to target during the day because they're home most of the day.
Speaker: But I even think just that
Speaker: you're going to run into more just nine to five type people who now work from home and have a different schedule than they used to have.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: That's a good point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Speaking of COVID, I mean, with your company, how did you guys change your strategy?
Speaker: What was it like knocking pest control with COVID last year?
Speaker: Did it affect your guys a ton or?
Speaker: Oh yeah, it was a challenge.
Speaker: I mean, here's the interesting thing.
Speaker: So we got a late start because we wanted to make sure we sent a few guys out to different markets and some markets, honestly, we didn't knock any doors.
Speaker: because their governors or whatever, it was kind of put in the state's hands on what to do.
Speaker: And so some of our markets that the governors were just a little bit more leery to have people out and about, maybe more blue states.
Speaker: We won't get into the politics.
Speaker: So we couldn't knock in those offices.
Speaker: So we had to put people where we could knock.
Speaker: And then when we did knock again, we started probably a month later than we were used to.
Speaker: But our numbers, like our averages were off, just off the charts crazy last year.
Speaker: We lost a lot of reps though, because a lot of reps, you know, it's a pandemic.
Speaker: My parents don't want me knocking, you know, this, that and the other.
Speaker: So we did lose a lot of reps.
Speaker: We didn't have a ton of reps like we would have liked, but the reps that stuck around and actually did it, we got them in the right state to knock.
Speaker: It was an awesome summer.
Speaker: It was just shortened.
Speaker: And like I said, it was just, it was different.
Speaker: But we made it through it, you know, just like everybody else that's still out knocking this year.
Speaker: Like we did it and that's an accomplishment, but it was definitely different.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No doubt.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Luckily things are getting a lot better, but that's what I noticed.
Speaker: I mean, with solar, some guys let them affect it more than others, but even in California, which obviously is one of the most strict States for COVID and everything, even here, it's like most areas after a couple months, people really just kind of like sick of being stuck inside.
Speaker: So, you know, I noticed that guys actually came to the door.
Speaker: It's like, they're like, Oh, cool.
Speaker: There's actually people that exist.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'll talk to you.
Speaker: So it's like, almost like they're nicer.
Speaker: And, you know, some people freaked out, but I was surprised with even in a state like California, it was, you know, after a few months, most people just got kind of over it and sick of it.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: Big thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, Lenny, last thing I wanted to ask you just before we wrap up here is you've, you know, been in this forever.
Speaker: I'm sure experienced some huge highs and some lows.
Speaker: So what's been like your big, I don't know, toughest thing you've had to go through and maybe your biggest failure or something like what have you learned from that to kind of keep you going and all this?
Speaker: I don't, I think you're probably,
Speaker: Out of all the guys I've had on the show, you've probably been in this, you know, door to door for the longest out of anyone I had.
Speaker: So you've gone through a lot.
Speaker: So can you tell our listeners what's, I don't know, that biggest low that you experienced and how you got through it, what you learned from it?
Speaker: Yeah, no, I love that question.
Speaker: So for me, it was probably my third year knocking.
Speaker: I was knocking in Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker: And I had, I mean, that was my best summer, you know, at the time.
Speaker: It was, I think I sold about 700 accounts that summer in Jacksonville.
Speaker: I actually got kicked out of the Jacksonville office, had to go up to Macon, Georgia for a month because we sold too many accounts.
Speaker: Me and the other guy that were selling in Jacksonville was kind of funny.
Speaker: Anyway, so we were selling there and I had that summer, I had four zeros.
Speaker: So, and here's, you know, for somebody that's averaging seven plus a day to get a zero, you know, that's hard to do actually.
Speaker: But I had four of them.
Speaker: And at that point, when I started getting these zeros, I kind of told myself, and I think I write about this maybe in my first book a little bit, but I kind of told myself that, you know what?
Speaker: When I wake up every morning, I have the same number of sales as everybody else, and that's zero.
Speaker: And so I can let that negative momentum of yesterday carry over with me today, or I can just start fresh and
Speaker: And I can pretend that every day, or I mean, that's the reality, I don't need to pretend, but every day I start out with the same number of sales as everybody else.
Speaker: And I'm in control of my own destiny every single day.
Speaker: And so for me, it was just that perspective of going, okay,
Speaker: Can I have bad days?
Speaker: Could I have bad doors?
Speaker: Could I have bad hours or two hours?
Speaker: You know, can I have a bad week?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: You know, but at the end of the day, I have a new opportunity at every door and every day to start fresh, to start over again.
Speaker: And I don't have to carry any negative baggage with me.
Speaker: I think, in fact, in the second book, I hit on that a little bit too, is just the difference between carrying negative momentum and positive momentum.
Speaker: Because the funny thing to me is I'd have reps literally,
Speaker: I'd have reps that they're doing.
Speaker: I'd have reps that were doing great.
Speaker: Like they'd have three or four sales, pest sales, you know, before five o'clock.
Speaker: And then they'd say, I'm good.
Speaker: Like I kind of hit my goal for the day.
Speaker: So I'm done.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh my gosh, what are you doing?
Speaker: Like you've got this positive momentum going, like keep it going.
Speaker: Cause I will tell you this, the fourth and fifth sale of a day, they're a lot easier than the first sale of every day.
Speaker: And, and that's the hardest sale to me.
Speaker: So if you're, you know, negative momentum can carry over if you let it, but the other side of that coin is the positive momentum.
Speaker: Like if you're selling, if you're in a groove and it's kind of like, you know, can you imagine a basketball player in a, in a game, if they're just on fire and they're just lighting it up, you know, three quarters into the game, they've got 35 points and they're hitting threes and they're finishing and they're, you know, hitting their free throws.
Speaker: And then they're like, all right, coach, I'm good.
Speaker: Like I'll just play the next game.
Speaker: Like I don't need to play the fourth quarter.
Speaker: I'm good like that.
Speaker: That's ridiculous.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Nobody would ever do that.
Speaker: So I think door to door sales reps take themselves out of the game when they've actually got some good positive momentum.
Speaker: And so that's, that's like the worst thing you can do.
Speaker: If you're knocking doors, even if you're getting people far, you're setting a lot of appointments and you just got things going.
Speaker: Like we all kind of get in that zone sometimes knocking doors, like never give up.
Speaker: I mean, I tell the story about my 4th of July, you know, back in,
Speaker: 2000, I sold 23 pest accounts in one day.
Speaker: That was my personal record.
Speaker: And I had plans.
Speaker: My wife, I was going to take her out to dinner on the beach and we were going to do all this.
Speaker: We had reservations and all that went out the window because I had sold 15 by five o'clock and I was just like, honey, I'm so sorry, but I got to keep going.
Speaker: And I just went till after dark to hit this record.
Speaker: And guess what?
Speaker: We went to dinner the next night.
Speaker: No big deal.
Speaker: Like it was still there.
Speaker: The restaurant didn't go away or, you know, sail out to the ocean, whatever.
Speaker: So anyway, I just think making those little sacrifices when things are going good is so important because you never know.
Speaker: You can have 23 one day in that same year.
Speaker: I had zeros four times.
Speaker: And again, it was just, that's the nature of sales, right?
Speaker: It's mercurial.
Speaker: It moves around all the time.
Speaker: You never know what you're going to get.
Speaker: The weather's going to be bad one day.
Speaker: It's going to be a little tougher, whatever it is.
Speaker: You just make the most of when it's going good.
Speaker: And when it's going bad, just don't carry that negativity over with you day to day or even door to door.
Speaker: Yeah, that's so powerful.
Speaker: And that chapter in the book was super cool.
Speaker: You talked about, you know, the basketball players.
Speaker: And I think that applies more than pest control probably to solar is because people can go out and sell a single solar deal.
Speaker: They make 10 grand in a single solar deal.
Speaker: So we got, you know, so many reps that go out, they sell one for the month.
Speaker: They're like, oh, I'm good.
Speaker: I just made, you know, 10 grand in a month.
Speaker: I don't need to do anything.
Speaker: It's like, imagine how much.
Speaker: Don't do it.
Speaker: So yeah, it's a trap that so many guys fall into, especially in the solar industry.
Speaker: So I think that's something super powerful you talk about in the book for our listeners.
Speaker: If you can get in that momentum, don't be satisfied with one, especially if you're out there getting appointments, closing deals, never be satisfied and make it a competition, which I know is another thing you talk about in your books.
Speaker: So Lenny, we appreciate all you're doing for the industry.
Speaker: Your books changed a lot of lives.
Speaker: And yeah, there's going to be more and more people hitting us up, asking what book is that?
Speaker: So we'll spread the word as much as we can.
Speaker: So for guys that want to go buy it, I've got it here.
Speaker: People are watching the video.
Speaker: Can you tell people where to find out more about you and buy the book and maybe connect with you more?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: So yeah, my books, I've got any kind of version you'd want.
Speaker: I actually narrated the audio versions of both books.
Speaker: Those seem to do better than even the paperback now forever.
Speaker: It was, you know, the paperback outsold everything.
Speaker: But right now it's odd.
Speaker: Everybody's likes audio and I get it.
Speaker: If you're driving from area to area, you can just
Speaker: you know, pop me on in your car and you'll hear my voice.
Speaker: I recorded them.
Speaker: In some vein, I think the audio book, just recording it was, you know, for eight hours or 10 hours, whatever they were, was harder than writing it.
Speaker: In some respects, it was kind of brutal, but I just felt like my voice and the way I hit certain things and talk about certain things, I just thought it was more powerful.
Speaker: So anyway, I got the audio, Kindle,
Speaker: You can get the paperback, got a hardcover.
Speaker: All of it can be found on Amazon.
Speaker: That's really my main place where all the books are sold.
Speaker: My website is another place to connect with me, lennygray.com.
Speaker: I've got a blog that I keep up very regularly, probably, I don't know,
Speaker: 10 plus years of blog content that some of which is not found in my book.
Speaker: So if you want to hit that, I think that's just Lenny gray.com slash blog.
Speaker: Um, I've got some additional training for purchase for, for people probably more in the management ownership of the business that want to, you know, uh,
Speaker: teach their reps what to learn in the preseason before they actually start knocking doors.
Speaker: I've got some videos of my reps and me doing critiques of them on the doors.
Speaker: That kind of stuff's on my website as well.
Speaker: I mean, I'm on Twitter.
Speaker: At Lenny Gray, I think Lenny B. Gray, maybe somebody got me first, I guess there's another Lenny Gray out there.
Speaker: And then LinkedIn is another one, probably I'm most active as far as social media goes on LinkedIn.
Speaker: So those are some of the ways to connect with me.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, guys go by the book.
Speaker: It's helped me a lot.
Speaker: It helps helps helped our teams.
Speaker: And yeah, hit Lenny up, let them know you appreciated him come on on the show.
Speaker: We definitely appreciate it.
Speaker: And we look forward to seeing what you can do any any you got book three in the in the plans, Lenny, or any future plans you got more books or anything like that?
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: Actually, somebody asked me that not too long ago and I've got some ideas with book three and actually what it'll be just, I'll just kind of throw it out a T and this is a big tease.
Speaker: Cause like I said, it was eight years between first and second book.
Speaker: Second book just came out this year.
Speaker: So, but it's going to be with these companies that I'm consulting for when I'm literally,
Speaker: working with billionaires and how to make a billion dollar company.
Speaker: And so it's not just going to be based on door to door.
Speaker: I don't think you make billion dollar companies just on door to door.
Speaker: There's a lot of other facets of growing a business.
Speaker: And I want to include some of these entrepreneurs and business owners that I'm working with that, that are running billion dollar companies that, that to me would probably be the next book that yeah, it might be door to door billionaire is, is where we might need to go for book three.
Speaker: But anyway, that's kind of my,
Speaker: my thesis for it or kind of my, uh, my thoughts on it, at least initially.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: You heard it here first.
Speaker: So guys go follow Lenny.
Speaker: He's doing awesome stuff for all of us knocking doors and changing the world.
Speaker: So thanks again for coming on the show, Lenny.
Speaker: And we'll hopefully have lots of guys connecting with you and we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Thanks Taylor.
Speaker: See you guys.
Speaker: Hey SolarPrinters, 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 solar professionals.
Speaker: and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
Speaker: That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new solar learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with the top performers in the industry.
Speaker: And it's called Sol Society.
Speaker: This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it?
Speaker: Less than $3.45 a day.
Speaker: Currently Sol Society is closed to the public and membership is by invitation only, but solopreneurs can go to solciety.co to learn more and have the option to join a waitlist when a membership becomes available in your area.
Speaker: Again, this is exclusively for Solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now.
Speaker: Thanks again for listening.
Speaker: We'll catch you again in the next episode.
