Transcript
Speaker: Look, in the solar business, there's really only two types of people.
Speaker: There's the ones that crush it, make six, seven, and eight figures, and then there's everyone else.
Speaker: The question is, which one will you be?
Speaker: Over the last four years, we've studied the sharpest solar sales and marketing professionals and how they build multi-million dollar incomes using only the best sales and marketing strategies.
Speaker: So how do these solarpreneurs do what they do and what makes them so successful?
Speaker: This podcast is your answer.
Speaker: Join us and thousands of sales pros, marketers, and entrepreneurs as we take the solar industry by storm and uncover what it takes to sell more solar with less effort.
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast.
Speaker: What's going on, Solarpreneurs?
Speaker: I am stoked for today's episode because today we have a very special guest.
Speaker: His name is Alio, and correct me on your last name, is it Sejibin?
Speaker: Is that how you say it?
Speaker: Yeah, Sejibin.
Speaker: Sejibin, okay.
Speaker: Alio Sejibin, he's the Brazilian master here.
Speaker: Master of Brazil and he is also the regional manager and VP of sales for a legacy on the East Coast, right?
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: So I'm Taylor Armstrong here and we're excited to have him on.
Speaker: I first heard Leo at Door to Door Con in January and his story was very inspiring.
Speaker: Just how he kind of grew up in Brazil, moved to Utah at a young age.
Speaker: And then now he's just been dominating the solar industry and just his hard work.
Speaker: The guy's a family man.
Speaker: How many kids you got, Leo?
Speaker: Three beautiful kids.
Speaker: Three kids.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Imagine that.
Speaker: I can barely take care of myself and do solar at the same time.
Speaker: He's managing guys and managing kids.
Speaker: So, it's awesome.
Speaker: So, yeah, Leo, let's hear your background story and just kind of how you got, just kind of your upbringing, how you got into solar.
Speaker: And I know you started a business at 23.
Speaker: Let's kind of hear about all that.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Well, Taylor, thank you for having me on.
Speaker: Everyone who's on the call, thank you or will watch us at some point.
Speaker: I appreciate you guys taking your time here.
Speaker: I'm humbled to be on this call.
Speaker: And
Speaker: hope that you can get some type of value out of this.
Speaker: So as Taylor mentioned, I was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, very humble upbringing at a young age.
Speaker: My mom and dad had an opportunity to move to the United States.
Speaker: So they moved to Utah when I was just a young lad many, many years ago.
Speaker: And I grew up a typical immigrant life, right?
Speaker: So I had
Speaker: You know, money was always a really, really hard thing for me.
Speaker: And to put that into perspective, you know, I remember at a young age, me and my brothers would, we would have to wake up at like 4 a.m.
Speaker: and we'd have to fold all the newspapers and put them in a bag.
Speaker: And then my mom and my dad would wake up after us and then they'd go deliver newspapers in Sugarhouse, Utah.
Speaker: So me and my brothers, I was probably nine or 10 at the time.
Speaker: You know, so I vividly remember things like that.
Speaker: You know, I often would have to go, I'd have to wake up early, go to school, obviously come back, go straight to soccer practice, come back from soccer practice.
Speaker: I'd go straight to Domino's Pizza, work at Domino's Pizza, get my paycheck, come back, give it to my mom and my dad so that they could pay for rent and groceries.
Speaker: And, you know, it was just that type of upbringing.
Speaker: But, you know, I had incredible parents who loved me dearly, who loved
Speaker: taught me some really important principles about, you know, where I came from and why I'm on this earth and, you know, all the important things as a, as a, as a young kid.
Speaker: But at a young age, I learned that, you know, I've got to go out there and kill the eat and have to be a hustler.
Speaker: So I'm grateful for it.
Speaker: I've got six brothers and sisters.
Speaker: They're I've got one brother who's a cardiothoracic heart surgeon.
Speaker: I've got another, I've got a sister who runs a huge woman's organization in Utah and
Speaker: who's on, you know, CNN and goes to the national, goes to NATO and represents these big groups.
Speaker: And Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just another brother who was a big tech guy and yeah, just big family all out there conquering the world.
Speaker: So as I stopped and look back at like the sacrifices of my mom and my dad,
Speaker: I'm forever humbled and grateful for everything that they provided for us.
Speaker: And, you know, everybody out there is doing their best to demonstrate their gratitude for the sacrifices of their parents.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's my upbringing.
Speaker: So at the age of 19, I went and served an LDS mission for my church, went to Minnesota, which is ironic.
Speaker: So I'm from Brazil.
Speaker: I speak Portuguese, English, or the coldest place on earth.
Speaker: And there I learned some valuable lessons that I'm forever grateful as well.
Speaker: And one of that is how to knock doors and communicate with people.
Speaker: and persist through adversity.
Speaker: I actually met a gentleman by the name of Chris Lee, who's a big click funnel guy, QB of life.
Speaker: I met him on my mission.
Speaker: And when I got back from my mission, I was approached by all of these guys.
Speaker: Hey dude, you can make so much money.
Speaker: Just all these bros trying to recruit me.
Speaker: And I was like, well, listen, I'm dirt poor.
Speaker: I'm engaged.
Speaker: If I'm going to do this, I want to talk to somebody who I know and trust.
Speaker: I called Chris up and he sat in front of me and pitched me on an alarm pay scale.
Speaker: And it's like, man, if you sell one alarm a day, you'll make $50,000.
Speaker: That was a big thing.
Speaker: One a day is 50K.
Speaker: And I was like, geez, even if I do half of that, if I do a third of that, if I can come home with 10,000 bucks, it would be life changing for me and my future wife and stuff like that.
Speaker: And so I remember at a really, really early stage of this,
Speaker: I was like, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to be number one and I want to shatter records.
Speaker: I remember vividly thinking that if I do this, I'm going to be number one.
Speaker: I'm going to shatter records for this company.
Speaker: And so me and a few guys in Utah were kind of testing it out.
Speaker: And so I was like, hey, just I want to know what this is like.
Speaker: Let's jump in a car.
Speaker: You know, I got to knock some doors here.
Speaker: And so while we were driving, it was me, solar guys out there.
Speaker: We were in the car.
Speaker: Chris gave me like a rundown on the pitch, gave me a contract and a yard sign and said, okay, go out there.
Speaker: And I said, I just want to be on my own.
Speaker: I don't want anybody to shout at me.
Speaker: Let me figure this out.
Speaker: Let me stumble through this myself.
Speaker: And lo and behold, three doors later, I ran into like a borderline drunk lady who was like, yeah, I'm
Speaker: petrified of burglaries and I sold her an alarm system and I became obsessed with selling.
Speaker: I couldn't believe, and the pay skills are so bad back then.
Speaker: I couldn't believe that in an hour of work, I made $200.
Speaker: It just blew my mind, which is funny now because pay skills are so different.
Speaker: They're so much more competitive, but it absolutely blew my mind.
Speaker: And so I became obsessed with sales.
Speaker: I became obsessed with
Speaker: With everything like that.
Speaker: So me and my wife would be going out on dates and we'd have like 30 minutes beforehand.
Speaker: I'd park the car.
Speaker: My wife would stay in the car and I'd go out and knock doors.
Speaker: I just became so obsessed with it.
Speaker: And we started the summer.
Speaker: I think I had 16 preseason sales.
Speaker: And the closest guy, the next guy had like 80 or 70 preseason sales.
Speaker: So I was like starting with a massive deficit.
Speaker: And then we started the summer in Vegas when the economy just completely tanked.
Speaker: And I remember getting three sales a day, four sales a day, two sales a day, seven sales a day.
Speaker: And I just slowly started climbing.
Speaker: And then I remember the week where I was competing against that number one guy and just blew past.
Speaker: I think I sold 18 or 19 alarms that week and then just, just completely took over.
Speaker: I made, yeah, I made $278,000 that year or that in that little time period and completely changed my life.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: I've never looked back, man.
Speaker: Started my own company a few years later and it's been awesome.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah, that's insane.
Speaker: Well, thanks for sharing that.
Speaker: And here's the question.
Speaker: Were you better than Chris Lee?
Speaker: You beat Chris Lee.
Speaker: Hey, you can tell Chris Lee this.
Speaker: At some points, Chris Lee came and shadowed me.
Speaker: You can tell I told him that.
Speaker: All right, yeah, Chris Lee, he's a good guy.
Speaker: We had him on the podcast a couple months ago, and I was actually just with him in Nashville, too.
Speaker: We're staying in the same house there.
Speaker: I'm forever grateful for that man.
Speaker: I'm forever grateful for that man.
Speaker: Yeah, Chris Lee is the real deal.
Speaker: I like him a lot.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, definitely let him know that you, that you trained him at some point.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Well, that's cool.
Speaker: And I feel like, well, it's no coincidence.
Speaker: Your parents must've just taught you how to work insanely hard from a young age.
Speaker: Cause I mean, look at all the success you got.
Speaker: I know we've got some parents listening to this podcast.
Speaker: Was that the biggest difference?
Speaker: Your parents just taught you guys to work like crazy and just motivated you?
Speaker: Or what do you think the difference was?
Speaker: How come all your family is so successful now?
Speaker: Man, that's a good question.
Speaker: I, uh,
Speaker: Yeah, I had, man, the example of my parents is something that, you know, will forever be.
Speaker: you know, important in my life.
Speaker: And as I've got kids now, I stop and reflect about all the times that my mom and my dad would counsel me and my brothers through life.
Speaker: And, you know, I think we take for granted how lucky we truly are to live in an incredible country where we have just endless opportunities, you know, we literally can go and do whatever we want in this country.
Speaker: And, you know, there's so much bickering between politics and all this type of stuff.
Speaker: And there's so much pressure out there that's going on.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: at the end of the day, we do live in an incredible country with endless opportunities.
Speaker: And I think that, you know, my mom and dad really instilled that in us at a young age, that we can go and do anything we want to do if we go and give it our all.
Speaker: And I mentioned this in door to door con, my dad was always a huge believer in, in our foundation as human beings, right?
Speaker: Everything is built upon a foundation.
Speaker: Any, any,
Speaker: Any good man or good woman out there, if you peel back the onion long enough, you'll realize that their foundation, their core is stronger than anything else.
Speaker: And if we invest in that foundation, we can be extremely successful.
Speaker: And success is different for everybody, of course, but whatever success is for us, it just takes a super solid foundation to go out there and achieve those type of goals.
Speaker: So yeah, my mom and dad,
Speaker: spent a lot of time teaching us and mentoring us about our foundations and I'm forever grateful for that.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: And well, yeah, you got a family super successful.
Speaker: Are your parents, are they like kind of, are they surprised at all that you guys have had so much success or were they like expecting that you guys would all be at this level?
Speaker: Yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker: You know, I think my mom and dad, you know, as most immigrant parents, you know, they're just, they're doing their best to.
Speaker: Sorry, I just got a call.
Speaker: Do you have me?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm here.
Speaker: Yeah, you're good.
Speaker: So I think my mom and dad.
Speaker: That's to make sure that we had our vibe, you know, and so I think in my mom and dad's eyes, they said, listen, like.
Speaker: our lives are dedicated to providing the best opportunity for our children here, right?
Speaker: And most first generation immigrants are like that.
Speaker: So everything that they did was for us.
Speaker: And I think that to pay it back to them, I think we'll each one of the Sagemans and, you know,
Speaker: they have this burning desire to make sure that their, that their, their legacy that they leave behind is completely ironed by the legacy that their parents built for them as well.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I think we, we all have like this extra chip on our shoulders to go out there and, and make sure that our,
Speaker: our parents' hard work and dedication isn't in vain, you know?
Speaker: So if I sit down with my brother, who's a heart surgeon right now, I'm sure there were times where he wanted to give up and go do something else, but he owed it to his parents and he owed it to his brothers and sisters and he owed it to his creator to go out there and, and continue to push hard.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah, incredible.
Speaker: Well, I think I'm super interested in that because we actually just found out my wife's pregnant.
Speaker: So we're going down that road too.
Speaker: I guess I can say that now because we probably won't release this episode for another couple of weeks.
Speaker: So I'm sure we'll have announced it to the world by then, but you heard it here first.
Speaker: So keep it on the down low, Leo.
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: But yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker: And yeah, I definitely learned a lot of lessons just from how kids were raised, especially in first generation families like that coming from different countries.
Speaker: So super inspiring to hear that story.
Speaker: But let's kind of transition into how you got into solar.
Speaker: So I know you came from the alarm background and we've actually had a lot of successful people that came from alarms that are in solar now.
Speaker: Our VP of sales at my company is, do you know Rob Grimer?
Speaker: I shared my mission with Rob.
Speaker: That's what I thought, because he went to Minnesota too.
Speaker: Yeah, I threw my Mitch with Rob, that's crazy.
Speaker: Yeah, he's a good guy.
Speaker: I'm going to say hi.
Speaker: Big hug.
Speaker: Okay, all right.
Speaker: I'll give him a smack on the tush from you.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, you guys just come out, you're all workhorses, so alarms, that's kind of a common factor.
Speaker: We've seen these alarm guys come out and crush it in solar too.
Speaker: But how did you get in the solar industry, and why did you decide to leave alarms and make the switch to solar?
Speaker: Great, great question.
Speaker: So I, I worked for that original alarm company for two years.
Speaker: I broke, like I mentioned, I broke all the records there and, um,
Speaker: Became a regional manager after that point.
Speaker: And then the following year, there was a lot of turmoil and alarms in general in Utah.
Speaker: A lot of the financing companies pulled out of Utah and it put a lot of companies in a bad spot.
Speaker: And I kind of saw the writing on the wall with my current company.
Speaker: And I remember one night I sent an email out to the CEO that said, Hey, listen, I know there's a lot of stuff going on right now.
Speaker: I'm interested in buying your infrastructure.
Speaker: and starting my own alarm company with your blessing, you know, and that can protect you from X, Y, and Z. And it helped me, it'll help you and everybody wins.
Speaker: And ironically, he emailed me back that night and said, Hey, I'm booking you a flight to LA.
Speaker: Come out here and let's talk.
Speaker: And I flew out there and essentially inked a deal to start my own company called shield protection.
Speaker: So Freddie Katoda is another good, good friend of mine.
Speaker: He's the VP of sales for skyline alarms.
Speaker: And we started a company together called shield.
Speaker: And it was super successful, man.
Speaker: We had a lot of success there.
Speaker: A lot of the big solar names out there came from my little alarm company, Shield Protection.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: We did alarms.
Speaker: We did it really well.
Speaker: Owned it for six years, but there was a massive, massive trend that was happening.
Speaker: And one thing that I'm forever, I'm extremely grateful for is the ability to kind of see trends and see, you know, the direction of things.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Alarms at the time was a massive game of cannibalism.
Speaker: It was a massive game of taking over each other's accounts.
Speaker: There wasn't a lot of growth in it.
Speaker: And then I saw these big players leaving the alarm industry and going into solar.
Speaker: And I started to dig into this, you know, this, this wave that was happening.
Speaker: And I became, again, just obsessed with, with all of that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So here, here's a product that can save customers money.
Speaker: That's highly incentivized by state and federal government.
Speaker: That is good for the environment that has less than 1% market penetration.
Speaker: There's so much upside to this business that, um,
Speaker: I don't know if I can sit back on the sideline and allow this to happen without being a part of that.
Speaker: Now, keep in mind, I had a paid off house, paid off cars, paid off everything.
Speaker: And I had residual income from my alarm company, but we were sitting pretty good in Missouri, pretty, pretty darn good.
Speaker: And I remember my wife and I shared this at door to door con.
Speaker: I remember my wife and I, we were literally in the process of designing our dream home.
Speaker: It was on a lake.
Speaker: It was on eight acres.
Speaker: My wife had,
Speaker: like I already talked to like the contractors and everything.
Speaker: I remember vividly not being able to sleep one night being like, I have to get involved in this industry.
Speaker: Like I cannot, I will, I will forever regret my decision for settle in complacency rather than going out and really tackling this and being one of like the front runners in this new wave.
Speaker: And then I remember waking up and talking to my wife about it and I said, Jamie, I said, I,
Speaker: I will never be happy if I don't go and chase this.
Speaker: I've got too much experience.
Speaker: We're too, too poised and positioned to not go and swing at this thing.
Speaker: And being as supportive as she is, she said, well, Leo, I trust your judgment.
Speaker: And then again, I went to my, my friends and they introduced me to solar and I got connected with the current company that I'm in right now and sold my alarm company.
Speaker: put my house up for rent, went from being a CEO of an alarm company to being a sales representative for another company.
Speaker: I went back to knocking doors and that's how I got into the solar journey, man.
Speaker: I launched South Carolina for legacy power and went out there and
Speaker: Installed four megawatts or installed one megawatt in four months and had the fastest growing team and then became a regional manager and then slowly just worked up to now being the vice president of sales over everything east of the Mississippi River.
Speaker: So it's been a massive blessing, but it's crazy how it all happened.
Speaker: Yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think a lot of most successful people I talk to have similar stories where they kind of had to take almost a step back to go into maybe the solar industry or a better opportunity.
Speaker: And I wasn't exactly the same.
Speaker: I mean, I came from the pest control industry and definitely wasn't a heavy hitter or anything like you guys.
Speaker: But yeah, I was making decent money and is what I knew how to do.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, for me, I just saw that a lot of my friends that were in the solar industry were knocking doors half the hours that I was and they were making double that amount.
Speaker: So I'm like, all right, if you're making that, then I'm going to come out and do this.
Speaker: But, um, yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker: So what would you say to those people that are afraid of taking risks?
Speaker: Do you think that's a big part of your success?
Speaker: Have you had to take a lot of risks to get to where you've gotten to today?
Speaker: Or is that a, I mean, any business had to take risks, right?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I think, I think, you know, there's, there's, there's a huge, like risk is inevitable, but there's calculated risk and there's like not calculated risk.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I think that,
Speaker: You know, it's really interesting as I like look back and reflect on my life.
Speaker: Sometimes I get like anxiety.
Speaker: I'm like, I cannot believe that I made some of those choices.
Speaker: Like it didn't make sense, right?
Speaker: Like looking back, it didn't make sense.
Speaker: I would leave from being CEO of a relatively successful company, paid off everything and just completely rolled the dice and jumped into solar, right?
Speaker: Yeah, that some would view that and sometimes I do this when I'm in front of a big crowd of people and I said who would have made that decision, right?
Speaker: And it's interesting getting missed mixed reactions from the crowd, right?
Speaker: Some people live their life based on security other people live their life based on opportunity, right?
Speaker: Yeah, and not one or the others is right or wrong.
Speaker: I think to each is his own but
Speaker: Sorry, I just got another call there.
Speaker: You got me?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That happens sometimes.
Speaker: My phone never stops.
Speaker: I think calculated risk is a very, very important part of success, right?
Speaker: But I think there's ways to position yourself
Speaker: to really put yourself in the most optimal position to take risk.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And during door to door con, I spoke a lot about our, our personal foundations.
Speaker: Well, a big part of that is making sure that your finances in order, right?
Speaker: So for everyone that's hearing this, put yourself in the situation.
Speaker: One situation is you have $50,000 savings.
Speaker: All of your bills are in, are in line.
Speaker: You've got good amount of money coming in and, um, an opportunity presents itself.
Speaker: put that same situation where you're $30,000 in the negative, you don't know how you're gonna pay your next month's rent, and an opportunity presents itself.
Speaker: The opportunity is the same, but how we decide on what to do with that opportunity is polar different based on our situation, right?
Speaker: And so I'm a huge believer in putting ourselves in the best opportunity to take calculated risk.
Speaker: So when my wife and I decided to go out there and jump in the solar, you know, we had our finances in order, our relationship was aligned, our spiritual and healthy well-being were all aligned.
Speaker: So that what some would consider a risky decision was actually very calculated.
Speaker: And we were able to go and do that and be extremely successful.
Speaker: Now,
Speaker: I'm not trying to say that you have to be completely like stable to make any of these types of decisions.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: But it does help.
Speaker: It does help a lot of times.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But if you're planning on jumping in solar and you might not be in that same type of situation, I would hope that the leaders that you're going to go work with have a plan in place to help you get on track to make sure that you're positioned the right way.
Speaker: I think that's where leadership comes into play because not everybody is,
Speaker: is in the same situation that I was in when I jumped into solar.
Speaker: But hopefully, these solar companies that are all around there, they have people in place that can help others make that transition as seamlessly as possible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I agree with all that.
Speaker: And something I would add to that too, for all our solopreneurs is just look for people like Leo or look for people that you want to be mentored by and go work with those people too.
Speaker: Because I know there's lots of solar companies out there.
Speaker: Maybe some pay more than others, but really if you're not growing, even if they have the best pay structure, if they have crappy leaders and they're not people that you want to be mentored by, then I think that's almost taking a step back too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So for those that are looking for better opportunities, go look for guys like Leo or people that are crushing it in the industry and go work with them.
Speaker: Even maybe if it means that you have to take a step back like Leo did, go start as a door knocker.
Speaker: And so for you, Leo, I know you started from bottom of the totem pole again.
Speaker: How fast was that transition?
Speaker: from knocking doors again to now being like, um, your VP on the East coast.
Speaker: So I still knock on doors.
Speaker: I was on doors on Saturday with a bunch of sales reps.
Speaker: I try to never detach myself from that.
Speaker: I believe that's the most important thing that anybody can do, regardless of what your title is, regardless of what your position is.
Speaker: You should always be knocking on doors.
Speaker: One is to stay relevant, understanding the process, understanding, you know,
Speaker: where sales reps concerns are.
Speaker: We can't become so detached from that.
Speaker: I think that's, you know, critical, but I started, I started there in South Carolina, I believe it was June of 2015.
Speaker: And then we quickly turned into the number one office for, for my company.
Speaker: And then we broke off.
Speaker: So I've got a philosophy, which is growth over margins.
Speaker: I won't dive into that too much.
Speaker: That's probably another topic there, but there's a variety of ways on building.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: One way is there's a philosophy out there that, you know, and we've all ran into these individuals who they everything that they're worried about is margin.
Speaker: They just want margin, margin, margin, margin.
Speaker: Well, I'm the polar opposite of that.
Speaker: I would rather give out margin for growth.
Speaker: To me, at the end of the day, the most important thing is to grow.
Speaker: It's not having a little and making a lot.
Speaker: It's to make a little over a lot, right?
Speaker: That philosophy to me is the way that you expand, you gain influence, your company grows, culture grows.
Speaker: It's strong momentum is strong.
Speaker: You slowly turn into a monster, right?
Speaker: Based on the philosophy of growth over margin.
Speaker: So if you ever rub shoulders with me, you know, I'm constantly pushing growth over margin philosophy.
Speaker: Leaders that give, leaders that assist and have an abundance mentality.
Speaker: are usually the leaders that have massive organizations with them.
Speaker: It's because they are familiar with that philosophy.
Speaker: So we had that philosophy.
Speaker: I'm a big believer in that.
Speaker: In South Carolina, we launched.
Speaker: I pushed Margin to the right people.
Speaker: Jory Sullivan's a massive name in the industry now, one of my regional managers, a variety of other people to come and help build.
Speaker: I pushed Margin out there and we slowly went out there and built a massive organization.
Speaker: So it took me, I think,
Speaker: a year, maybe eight or nine months until I was promoted to being a regional manager.
Speaker: At that point, I oversaw New Jersey and South Carolina.
Speaker: And then it was probably five or six months after that, that was promoted over all of the East Coast.
Speaker: And so that goes from Vermont all the way down to Florida.
Speaker: We recently launched Illinois.
Speaker: So my family and I moved out here, but I'm on a flight every single week visiting teams and knocking on doors and training and recruiting and putting out fires and helping out with
Speaker: our partner relationship with Sunrun and so forth.
Speaker: So it's been big, but it's been, it's been awesome.
Speaker: And again, I, I attribute that not to my own, not to my own stuff, but more just, you know, working relentlessly hard, recruiting training and, and being positions to be being, being well positioned financially, emotionally and everything to go and help others grow and achieve their goals.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Explosive growth.
Speaker: Listen to that.
Speaker: So eight, nine months regional manager, and then growing it into an empire.
Speaker: That's incredible, man.
Speaker: So shout out to your team and your guys for that.
Speaker: What, so was it more recruiting?
Speaker: I guess how many, did you start with just a couple of guys and then grow it into all these different offices or how did you build it up to so many guys?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: There was, there were, there were leaf speech, right?
Speaker: the company that I worked for was a functioning company before I had got there, right?
Speaker: I got in a year into its inception.
Speaker: But a lot of it was, you know, you're going to have attrition from leaders, right?
Speaker: You're going to grow, you're going to like outgrow some territory.
Speaker: Like South Carolina, we got to the point we had 80 salespeople in South Carolina doing massive volume.
Speaker: I think we were installing four megawatts a month in South Carolina.
Speaker: And naturally we had to like shift people around.
Speaker: So it gets to a point where you reach explosive growth.
Speaker: and you have to in order to keep growing you have to start expanding territory and you start becoming a little strategic with where you position people and so forth and so we experience explosive growth and naturally just got pushed into more and more territory which was Maryland and New Jersey and so forth and and by the law of attrition some leaders fell out and so forth and so a lot of it was positioning a lot of it was just growth and a lot of it was was influence right I believe that
Speaker: you know, one of the hardest things I think in this industry for, for a lot of people is, is working for someone that, that they may or may not respect.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: There's a book called the speed of trust, which is an awesome book.
Speaker: I highly recommend people reading it, but cool.
Speaker: You know,
Speaker: Warren Buffett can go and ink a deal with McDonald's and it would probably take them five minutes to ink that deal because there's so much trust with Warren Buffett.
Speaker: The amount of money that's saved there, the amount of attorneys and the amount of bull crap that they avoid simply by the integrity of the man and the history of Warren Buffett.
Speaker: Sorry, I just got another call there.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: That it's so easy to ink that deal.
Speaker: And then you flip that on the other spectrum is that, you know, when people don't know each other, when there's not a lot of trust, when there's not a lot of background, when there's a lot of variety of things, that trust is
Speaker: It's not there.
Speaker: So it's very slow and it's very expensive.
Speaker: It takes a lot of money and attorneys and this and that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And how does one get to the point where they're trusted by others?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's the question.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: How do you get to a place where when if you're if you're placing a place, a position or whatever that people trust you, they admire you and they want to go and work.
Speaker: Well, a lot of that has to do with your personal volume, right?
Speaker: Like what have you personally done?
Speaker: Have you been able to grow organizations?
Speaker: Do you bring value?
Speaker: Are you someone of integrity?
Speaker: Do you care about individuals?
Speaker: Like all of those things go into play.
Speaker: And so again, I'm grateful for the opportunity I had in South Carolina because I believe a lot of the questions that might've been asked in this situation were avoided because of,
Speaker: the production that we did in South Carolina, both personally and as an office.
Speaker: So when I did get promoted and so forth, I believe that I was received with open arms from the current leaders in those positions.
Speaker: Wow, incredible.
Speaker: And that's the beauty of the industry, in my opinion, is that anyone can come in here and do the things needed to kind of gain that credibility or that trust.
Speaker: Like right now, I handle a lot of the recruiting for my company and
Speaker: We have guys that come in that have been in the sales industry and different types of jobs.
Speaker: A lot of them just come in from Indeed or the job posting sites, whatever.
Speaker: So some of them come in and think they're heavy hitters and all that.
Speaker: And they want to be, they want to start managing the team.
Speaker: And I'm like, look, man, come in and gain the trust first, show that you can lead by example.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: start pushing some deals through and that's how you're going to get to the management and they're like oh but I have all this experience and I'm like well yeah but if we put you in as a manager right away then then how are you going to have that trust no one's going to see that you put in the effort to get there
Speaker: So I think it's huge that people can come in and do that.
Speaker: But like you've said, I'm sure you've experienced a lot of growing pains as well.
Speaker: So what were some of the growing that fast?
Speaker: I mean, I know there's probably a lot of issues that you had to tackle.
Speaker: What were some of the growing pains that you guys experienced?
Speaker: And what did you do to resolve the things in the early stages?
Speaker: Yeah, good question.
Speaker: So yeah, with any type of hyper growth, you're going to deal with friction.
Speaker: And that's, that's a beauty of business, right?
Speaker: So I think number one is just, um, as you think about trial, and again, this goes back to my door to door concept, but when you think of trial and tribulation, that's an inevitable part of business.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's going to experience that.
Speaker: If you're a leader, you're going to experience, you know, a lot of pressure and so forth.
Speaker: And so hyper growth, it solves one problem, but it creates other problems.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so I think one of the problems that we experienced, you know, in, in, on the East coast is,
Speaker: having the systems in place to make sure that a guy from Craigslist or a guy from McDonald's can go into our program and in a week be relatively successful and door to door.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so having that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: create the least amount of friction for a sales representative to go through one channel and out the other channel be successful was was was a process right and we're dealing with you know at this point the company is is very big you know it's not as fluid as it usually was right where the ceo is making all these decisions now there's people in place to make decisions so there's again there's another book called um
Speaker: I forgot it.
Speaker: I'll mention it later, but it essentially talks about the evolution of business and you hit what's called white water at times where, you know, when you first start a business, it's fun and exciting and there's all sorts of momentum and you're like, it's very, you know, from the ground up and, and there's a lot of fun there.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But then as you evolve as a business, you need to start because of all the growth and all the strong culture that's being created, you have to start putting systems in place to make sure that the chaos is somewhat organized.
Speaker: And then once you put in the systems, it kind of gets rid of some of the fun.
Speaker: You know, what could have, what would have gone straight to the CEO and it would have been a simple yes or no, now has to go through the marketing department, which then has to go to the financial department, which then has to go to sales, has to be approved by all the departments for then it's happened and kind of slows things down.
Speaker: And in this book, it's called predictable success is the book.
Speaker: It's called white waters.
Speaker: And you'll experience a lot of attrition.
Speaker: A lot of salespeople will leave during that time.
Speaker: Oh, it's not what it used to be.
Speaker: Let's bring the fun back.
Speaker: Let's do this.
Speaker: Let's do that.
Speaker: At the end of the day, these systems and these processes are what take
Speaker: sorry, I just got another call there, are what take what's called predictable success.
Speaker: And every business wants to get to the point of predictable success.
Speaker: When you can call your business, you've got metrics in place, you know, the, the, the,
Speaker: the levers to pull to control your business in order to have a longterm sustainable business, you have to get to predictable success.
Speaker: And so on the East coast, we hit some white waters where it was fun.
Speaker: It was growing.
Speaker: Culture was strong.
Speaker: We recruited a ton of people.
Speaker: We had five, 600 sales representatives on the East coast and, and we had to set up, you know, and this is right when I got into it.
Speaker: So I had to come up with, you know,
Speaker: a leadership chart where I had to create regional managers.
Speaker: And then we had to create responsibilities and, and, and all these systems for regional managers, pay structures and bonuses and all that stuff to make it make sense for them.
Speaker: Then we had to do the same thing with managers, management, assistant managers, different roles and responsibilities, who reports to who, and then linking that up with our partner, which was sun run, which is sun run and making sure that all chains of communication is happening.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: across the board.
Speaker: I mean, that's, that's a huge task.
Speaker: It's a huge, huge undertaking.
Speaker: And, and of course you're going to hit turbulence there when you're dealing with sales representatives who are commission only.
Speaker: So dealing with that was, was eventful to say the least, but we got through it.
Speaker: We got the systems, we got better and all of this helped us grow as leaders.
Speaker: And it's been, it's been cool.
Speaker: And now we're, we're reaping the reward of those systems, but with all systems, you have to refine it and you'll deal with, you know, growth all the time.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: Well, yeah, you guys have definitely had some crazy growth.
Speaker: And are you still continuing to grow at the level that you were before?
Speaker: Has growth slowed or what's kind of your vision for the future?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So winter is always, you know, an interesting time in, in, on the, in the Northeast, right?
Speaker: California, you guys don't experience this like we do.
Speaker: We have a incredibly harsh winter, especially in Illinois, we had a negative 40 degrees.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: That's going to stifle some growth, but I believe overall, you know, we're, we're growing and we're growing rapidly here.
Speaker: And, you know, as mentioned, you know, with, with growth comes different types of struggles.
Speaker: We're launching new markets, new products, new services.
Speaker: We're,
Speaker: we're constantly fine tuning our leadership program and we're constantly bettering, you know, different things.
Speaker: One thing I've noticed, it's never perfect.
Speaker: It will never be perfect.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If you're a leader, like you can never sit back and back, huh, the castle is built.
Speaker: I can, I can fold my arms down and enjoy the castle.
Speaker: There's always pieces of the castle that are going to be broken.
Speaker: That's what leadership is.
Speaker: It's always solving things, whether in your personal life or in the lives of other people or organizations.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: Yeah, when one problem is solved, another problem arises.
Speaker: And that's what excites me about business, though, right?
Speaker: That's the fun part of business, right?
Speaker: It's constantly evolving it.
Speaker: But we're growing steady and strong.
Speaker: You know, we, as I mentioned, we've launched multiple states.
Speaker: And, you know, once we figure out the utility and states and all this type of stuff, then other utilities open up.
Speaker: And so it's constantly changing.
Speaker: And it's been fun.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Well, Leo, I know we barely scratched the surface on what we can learn from you, but it's been incredible to chat with you and learn from your experiences.
Speaker: Where can people find more about you and what you're doing and I guess your company?
Speaker: Sorry, say that one more time.
Speaker: You kind of chop in there.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I just said, where can people find out more about you and what you're doing and then also your company?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm on social media.
Speaker: I'm not like, if you jump on my Facebook page, my Instagram page, you'll mostly see a lot of my family stuff.
Speaker: People are more than welcome to follow me on Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker: And, you know, my company is lgcypower.com.
Speaker: It's been great.
Speaker: There's a lot of great companies out there.
Speaker: So I don't want to put a huge plug in for my company.
Speaker: I would just say...
Speaker: Solar in general for anyone that's listening solar in general is a phenomenal opportunity whether that's whether we're blessed To have you with my company or a variety of other companies out there.
Speaker: It's an awesome opportunity for anybody out there I would if I were you or anybody I would align myself with a company that has my same philosophy and a company that's going to help me become a happier individual that at the end of the day you guys we have a Certain amount of time here on this earth.
Speaker: We have a certain amount of time within an industry
Speaker: And at the end of that time period, we want to make sure that we've become better.
Speaker: We want to make sure that we are financially more sound, that we've done something good for, for the inhabitants of humanity.
Speaker: And, and if, if you can link up with a company that delivers on all those fronts, then you're blessed.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so again, um, if anyone's interested or if I can help out in any way possible,
Speaker: My name's Leo Sageman.
Speaker: Phone number is 801-815-0621.
Speaker: Call me, text me anytime.
Speaker: I've got zero agenda other than just try to help people.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, very giving.
Speaker: Anyone that puts their phone number out on the show, that's, you know, they're giving because you're at risk of getting a thousand text messages.
Speaker: But we don't have quite that many listeners yet, but I'm sure we'll grow it up to that many.
Speaker: But Leo, it's been awesome having me on the show.
Speaker: And then the last question I had for you is just, what would you say is the number one biggest difference between your top reps, your successful guys versus the
Speaker: low producers.
Speaker: I know you've managed a ton of guys.
Speaker: What's been the biggest difference that you've seen?
Speaker: The biggest difference I will say is people's personal foundations.
Speaker: If you have a super strong foundation, you guys, you can go and achieve anything.
Speaker: If you have a strong foundation, you'll work harder.
Speaker: You'll listen better.
Speaker: You'll be more patient at home.
Speaker: You'll be more patient with customers.
Speaker: Your, your, your ability to, to,
Speaker: push forward is a lot greater than if you have a broken foundation.
Speaker: So we didn't even get into much of this, but I would just implore everybody out there to focus on their personal foundation first.
Speaker: And then on top of that, tackle on sales ability, finance, all these things that your companies teach you all the time.
Speaker: I think that's incredible.
Speaker: The guys that are able to go out there and make real money in this industry is because they have an
Speaker: unwavering ability to persevere through, through hardships.
Speaker: And there comes a time in door to door, there comes a time in solar where you break past a wall or a lid and you make more money than you could ever have thought.
Speaker: But it takes a lot of perseverance to get to that point.
Speaker: And you can only persevere with a strong foundation.
Speaker: That's incredible.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, thanks again for your secrets, for your tips, Leo.
Speaker: Incredible advice, suggestions you've given us today.
Speaker: And hopefully we're going to have you on the podcast in the future and dive deeper into some of this other stuff.
Speaker: But yeah, thanks again for everything you've shared.
Speaker: We're going to link to your social media and all that.
Speaker: So hopefully people can follow and give Leo some love.
Speaker: Give him a shout out if you heard this.
Speaker: And we'll definitely support you in any way we can as well, Leo.
Speaker: So thanks for sharing with our solopreneurs today.
Speaker: We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Have a good one.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Thanks, Bill.
Speaker: Hey, Solopreneurs, hopefully you enjoyed the episode with our Brazilian friend and solar master, Leo Sageman.
Speaker: Go ahead and give him a like on Facebook, hit him up and let him know you appreciated him coming on the show.
Speaker: For next week, we're going to have someone that I would consider the godfather of solar lead generation.
Speaker: If you've been in solar for any time at all, you're going to have seen this guy's ads.
Speaker: His name is Bill Murphy.
Speaker: He is the beast of lead generation.
Speaker: He is the master of solar legion.
Speaker: So do not miss his words of wisdom on next week's episode.
Speaker: You're not going to want to miss what he has coming up with a live event as well.
Speaker: Tune in next week.
Speaker: And once again, let us know your thoughts.
Speaker: Let us know what you think as far as topics and suggestions for future episodes.
Speaker: And with that, we will see you next week.
Speaker: Peace.
Speaker: Wow, what another amazing episode of the Solarpreneur Podcast.
Speaker: Now, before we take off here, do us a favor and go leave an honest review on your platform of choice or wherever you're listening to this podcast.
Speaker: It helps us get the word out about the Solarpreneur movement and impact more entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and marketers just like you.
Speaker: And hey, don't forget to head over to Facebook and join the Solarpreneur group for more daily content
Speaker: That's going to impact you and help you take your sales game to the next level.
Speaker: See you guys in the next episode.
