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From Supplement Company To Solar Dealer - Dan Cranford
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Transcript
Taylor Armstrong's Solar Success Story
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
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.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you 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.
What is a Solopreneur?
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
00:00:42
Speaker
Hi, what's up, solopreneurs?
Dan Cranford's Journey from Construction to Solar
00:00:43
Speaker
We are here with another episode, and I'm here live in Boise, Idaho.
00:00:49
Speaker
We recently had this guy's business partner on, but we're back here with Mr. Dan Cranford.
00:00:54
Speaker
Thanks for coming on the show with us today.
00:00:56
Speaker
Thank you, dawg.
00:00:57
Speaker
Appreciate inviting me out here.
00:00:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:00
Speaker
And I know you're hesitant to do a podcast, took some braving and dining and dining this guy, but we're excited to have him on.
00:01:07
Speaker
And he's involved in a lot of different businesses now.
00:01:10
Speaker
So we're going to hear all about it, but he's still grinding in solar too out here.
00:01:14
Speaker
So do you want to give us maybe your background?
00:01:18
Speaker
How you got?
00:01:19
Speaker
into solar and everything and what you're up to now yeah um oh man so i got into solar probably 2016 right around there no probably further back when did you get into solar yeah i was 2016 so you're probably 2015 2015 okay well anyways so i i uh had moved to california with my wife my wife wanted to finish some grad school down there i didn't have a job lined up or anything
00:01:49
Speaker
I started working at a construction company as a construction project manager.
00:01:54
Speaker
And I was there for about a month and then they fired me because I had no idea what the hell I was doing.
00:01:59
Speaker
And when I was leaving, I packed all my stuff up and I was leaving.
00:02:03
Speaker
The receptionist said, hey, you should try doing solar.
00:02:06
Speaker
My husband sells solar and he thinks you'd do really good at it.
00:02:11
Speaker
And I was like, well, I know I'll fail at solar because I tried selling things in the past.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:17
Speaker
Not any real door-to-door stuff, but I tried selling cars for a little bit.
00:02:21
Speaker
What I pictured a salesman to be, I knew I couldn't do it.
00:02:25
Speaker
I was like, well, I'll try it because I don't have a job.
00:02:29
Speaker
But as soon as I find a job, I'm going to be done with it.
00:02:31
Speaker
I started going to the meetings.
00:02:33
Speaker
I started selling.
00:02:34
Speaker
One thing I could do is I could work.
The Work Ethic Behind Solar Sales Success
00:02:36
Speaker
I could put in the time and go out and work.
00:02:39
Speaker
I wasn't good with people or confident in any way in doing it.
00:02:44
Speaker
But I pulled ahead right away and was leading business.
00:02:47
Speaker
the team that I was on almost immediately just because I was putting more time in than anybody else.
00:02:53
Speaker
So I made that work for several years.
00:02:55
Speaker
I ended up really liking it because it seemed so much easier than anything I'd done in the past.
00:03:01
Speaker
I'd done a lot of physical labor.
00:03:03
Speaker
You know, we have a sore body and it's just really draining work and getting into this.
00:03:10
Speaker
a solar it was a whole new world to me and like their positive mentality in the meetings it was so foreign to me because like on a on a job site it's just really crude and like negativity just kind of yeah it's pretty normal culture and so it just seemed kind of nerdy or weird at first uh
00:03:32
Speaker
But I caught on to that and kind of realized that that's what I needed to
The Financial Realities of Entrepreneurship
00:03:38
Speaker
do.
00:03:38
Speaker
I needed a more positive mindset.
00:03:40
Speaker
So I kind of got addicted to it.
00:03:42
Speaker
I mean, I went all the way in.
00:03:43
Speaker
I was reading all the books.
00:03:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:46
Speaker
Um, but when I was on the doors, I was so afraid.
00:03:49
Speaker
I would just picture the guy that would teach us like the, the trainings, I would just picture I was him.
00:03:55
Speaker
Cause if I was picture and I was me trying to do my thing, it was just, I couldn't do it.
00:04:00
Speaker
So, um, so I was basically acting like I was him on the doors and it worked really well, made that work for several years, made good money.
00:04:08
Speaker
Um, and then it got to the point where I, I would start hearing stories about
00:04:16
Speaker
other people with other companies just making way more money.
00:04:22
Speaker
Because at the prices we were selling at, other companies that were selling that high, their reps were making like five times the amount of what we were making on the deals.
00:04:31
Speaker
I didn't believe the stories for a long time.
00:04:34
Speaker
it kind of caught on.
00:04:35
Speaker
So I kind of started
Forming a Successful Solar Dealership
00:04:36
Speaker
putting deals through, through some other companies and, um, and seeing that that would work.
00:04:41
Speaker
But what it ended up leading to is I ended up starting a supplement company.
00:04:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:47
Speaker
Uh, cause I was like, actually, I'm going to try to do my own thing.
00:04:49
Speaker
Cause I put all this time in a solar and I decided if I want to put all this time in a cell, I'm going to put it in something that I'm, I'm going to build myself.
00:04:57
Speaker
And so I started a supplement companies, workout supplements, like pre-workout.
00:05:01
Speaker
We started with one product, a pre-workout.
00:05:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:04
Speaker
And, uh, yeah.
00:05:05
Speaker
Do you have some dark mountain?
00:05:06
Speaker
I think I still might have a couple of packets.
00:05:09
Speaker
So yeah, I liked our product.
00:05:12
Speaker
Um, I liked our branding.
00:05:14
Speaker
It was, it was a lot of fun starting that company, but I realized really quickly you had to sell a ton of pre-workout to equal one solar deal.
00:05:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:23
Speaker
And you're selling it online and you picture online like, well, it'd be easy.
00:05:26
Speaker
You just have, you know, thousands of customers everywhere.
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:29
Speaker
I put a lot of time into that company and then I didn't put any money into marketing.
00:05:34
Speaker
I just tried to market it myself as like growing an Instagram and Facebook and trying to talk with people about it.
00:05:40
Speaker
And it grew pretty organically and it was, it had steady growth and, and we were doing well, but my wife had just had our first child and, and,
00:05:50
Speaker
And I was like 30 grand in debt.
00:05:53
Speaker
When I left solar, I had a lot of money saved up and that money went like that.
00:05:58
Speaker
Cause I was putting it into the new business and my, my, my new business, I wasn't taking anything out of it.
00:06:04
Speaker
I was putting it all into new products.
00:06:05
Speaker
So then we came out with a protein and,
00:06:08
Speaker
Like a post-workout.
00:06:09
Speaker
And so it was all going into that.
00:06:11
Speaker
And it turned out where I was just in the hole.
00:06:13
Speaker
And I was like, man, I got my wife, a new kid.
00:06:16
Speaker
And I'm kind of letting them down.
00:06:18
Speaker
I'm not making any money.
00:06:19
Speaker
I'm putting all this time into this company.
00:06:21
Speaker
So I backed away from that a little bit.
00:06:23
Speaker
I was like, I'm going to recommit myself to solar.
00:06:25
Speaker
I need to go make some money.
00:06:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:27
Speaker
Um, so I recruited a little team and we probably had, you know, five guys and me and we went all in.
00:06:35
Speaker
I started, I started my own dealership and we partnered with an installer and, uh, and my deal with my reps were, I would close all the deals and they would set them.
Innovative Commission Strategies in Solar Sales
00:06:47
Speaker
And when I would close them, we would split it 50, 50, which is something that they hadn't heard of before.
00:06:52
Speaker
Nobody was really doing that at the time.
00:06:54
Speaker
They would get like a small,
00:06:56
Speaker
If they were getting a portion of the deal at all, it was a really small portion.
00:07:00
Speaker
So they were all stoked about that.
00:07:02
Speaker
And so they were working really hard and they started making really good money just as setters.
00:07:08
Speaker
And I started making really good money.
00:07:10
Speaker
That $30,000, I mean, was that problem became not a problem like instantly.
00:07:18
Speaker
And then we started making such good money that I was like, I'm selling this stuff.
00:07:24
Speaker
supplement company.
00:07:25
Speaker
I'm not even going to do that anymore.
00:07:25
Speaker
I'm just going to go all in on solar again.
00:07:28
Speaker
Because I was running my own dealership now, making really good money on each deal.
00:07:32
Speaker
My reps were all happy.
00:07:34
Speaker
Everything just felt really good.
00:07:35
Speaker
And a lot of people are telling me like, don't pay your reps 50% of the deal.
00:07:38
Speaker
Like that's stupid.
00:07:39
Speaker
You're paying them way too much.
00:07:41
Speaker
And I was like, man, it's working.
00:07:42
Speaker
It's working really well.
00:07:43
Speaker
These guys are working really hard.
00:07:45
Speaker
They're making good money.
00:07:47
Speaker
I feel good about it.
00:07:48
Speaker
I'm making good money.
00:07:48
Speaker
So we just went with it and did that for a couple of years down there.
00:07:53
Speaker
And it worked out really well.
00:07:55
Speaker
I ended up in the middle of all that starting
Relocating and Adapting to New Markets
00:07:58
Speaker
my cousin.
00:07:58
Speaker
I was down in Southern California.
00:08:00
Speaker
My cousin lives in Boise, Idaho, and he wanted to start a construction company, but we needed or he needed money to be able to buy property of the land and be able to build a house to sell it.
00:08:10
Speaker
Well, I had money and I had access to other people who had money.
00:08:13
Speaker
So he took me on as a 50 percent partner in that business.
00:08:18
Speaker
And I did all the back end work that I could do from afar.
00:08:21
Speaker
And he was up here building houses.
00:08:23
Speaker
So I started making money that way as well.
00:08:27
Speaker
And it kind of got to the point where my wife and I, you know, knew our time in California was temporary for Montana.
00:08:36
Speaker
And I had to get back to closer to elk and deer and that.
00:08:39
Speaker
you know, the rivers and mountains and mountains were calling your name.
00:08:43
Speaker
They were calling my name.
00:08:44
Speaker
So, uh, we were like, well, we have this construction company up in Idaho and the market was taken off.
00:08:50
Speaker
Um, so let's go try it out.
00:08:52
Speaker
So we moved up here about a year and a half ago and, um, brought the solar company up as well.
00:08:58
Speaker
So we've been selling solar here and been building houses.
00:09:02
Speaker
Well, I ended up, I don't know if I mentioned, but I ended up selling that,
00:09:06
Speaker
supplement company yeah um and it's still out there they're still selling supplements but yeah it's a it's a tough industry yeah for sure but it's worked out and so yeah the house building thing's been fun learn how to do that but so right now that's what i mean i'm in solar and then i i also build houses so that's the nice thing about solar
00:09:25
Speaker
is it kind of you can work your own schedule and you you know you do have extra time that you can put in other things and you know if you're doing solar right you're making enough money to where you can invest into something and put time into it and actually have another source to go yeah no i love it yeah and that's always been one of the cool things about solar is all the freedom that people have with it and yeah it's like
00:09:49
Speaker
I would say modern day gold rush, make a ton of money.
00:09:52
Speaker
And some guys maybe get a little greedy, whatever, take advantage and,
00:09:56
Speaker
hear the horror stories, but so much freedom and cool stories like that.
00:10:01
Speaker
I think a lot of us have heard being in solar for a while.
00:10:03
Speaker
But yeah, definitely some stuff to unpack there that I want to ask you more about,
Managing Multiple Ventures in Solar and Beyond
00:10:07
Speaker
Dan.
00:10:07
Speaker
But what I forgot to mention is that Dan, he was basically my first manager when I got solar in 2016.
00:10:14
Speaker
I guess we're kind of different offices, but I know you stepped into kind of like, you know, maybe like regional type helping the teams and all that.
00:10:20
Speaker
So I learned a ton from Dan and Dallon that just came on the show pretty recently.
00:10:25
Speaker
And they partnered up.
00:10:26
Speaker
They're running 2U Power right now.
00:10:29
Speaker
Yeah, doing a lot of deals out here in Idaho.
00:10:31
Speaker
So I know with Dallon, we talked about the Idaho market and figuring all that out.
00:10:35
Speaker
But yeah, like for you, I think you have a unique experience because you've been in all these different businesses.
00:10:40
Speaker
You've been in supplements and you've always kind of been doing solar a little bit on the side.
00:10:44
Speaker
I know now you guys are in like multiple businesses too.
00:10:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:48
Speaker
And yeah, like I'm sure you could grow it bigger.
00:10:50
Speaker
I know you guys haven't had like giant teams and all that, but you've always still been producing with smaller teams and been able to do different businesses, which is cool.
00:10:59
Speaker
Most guys that I see, if they try to do other stuff while they're doing solar, then they just don't have any success at all a lot of times.
00:11:06
Speaker
But you've still been able to, you know, grow and still get a lot of deals.
00:11:10
Speaker
So what do you feel like for people trying to do that?
00:11:13
Speaker
Maybe they're growing other businesses on the side.
00:11:16
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:11:16
Speaker
Do you have any advice, having your feet in so many different businesses, what's been like the way you've been able to do this and still do solar too?
00:11:24
Speaker
Well, I am doing it now.
00:11:26
Speaker
But I would say when I first started that supplement company, I wasn't doing it because I pretty much backed away fully from solar, which was a mistake.
00:11:37
Speaker
Because like I said, I spent all my savings and I ended up taking out a loan and getting in the hole too.
00:11:44
Speaker
So I think my advice would be...
00:11:47
Speaker
don't forget where that money's coming from.
00:11:50
Speaker
You've got to have cash flow.
00:11:52
Speaker
And if you're starting up a new business, it might take a minute before you have any, depending on what you're doing, especially with something like a supplement company or if you started a shirt company or apparel or anything like that, your margins are really so small and you have to sell so much stuff that it's going to take a while to build up before you have any kind of income that you can live off of and
00:12:14
Speaker
Usually when you're doing solar and you're making really good money, you get used to a certain kind of lifestyle.
00:12:18
Speaker
And if you're married, it's really hard to tell your wife, like, all right, we're going to have to, you know, level down.
00:12:24
Speaker
We got to stop spending.
00:12:25
Speaker
You can do that.
00:12:26
Speaker
But it's definitely hard to, you know, once you raise the bar with a certain level of living.
00:12:32
Speaker
It's hard to go back.
00:12:33
Speaker
And so if you're wanting to get into other industries, I'd say don't stop the solar until you, you know, for sure figured out, you know, a way to make income.
00:12:42
Speaker
You might figure out, you know, the business you start is not something that you can fully commit to it and you don't even really like it or or you just don't see yourself being able to grow that business.
00:12:54
Speaker
I'm kind of ADD, so my mind's always kind of all over the place as far as like with the building and the solar, I can kind of bounce back and forth.
00:13:02
Speaker
It's kind of a little natural for me to be like that.
00:13:06
Speaker
But it's, yeah, I've definitely had to refocus myself more on the solar side a lot of times to make sure that there is constant
00:13:15
Speaker
flow coming in.
00:13:17
Speaker
And that's the thing with solar.
00:13:18
Speaker
It's not like we were just talking about.
00:13:19
Speaker
It's not like pest control or other things where you might have some residual coming in after a sale.
00:13:25
Speaker
It's one and done.
00:13:26
Speaker
And it's usually a nice, a really nice payout.
00:13:30
Speaker
But if you stop, then your income stops.
00:13:33
Speaker
And in savings, a lot of people might not realize how fast
00:13:37
Speaker
200 grand will go when you're used to spending you know good amount money that that money goes so fast so yeah i wouldn't bank on your savings getting you by for very long and when you're trying to start a new business you know you want it to work so you're putting a lot of money into that too so yeah yeah
00:13:55
Speaker
So yeah, you definitely got to keep rocking it on the doors for sure.
00:13:59
Speaker
And that's why, I mean, it's not
Team Culture and Productivity in Solar Sales
00:14:02
Speaker
easy.
00:14:02
Speaker
You got to really hustle because now you're working, really got to work just as hard on the doors doing the solar.
00:14:08
Speaker
But now you've got a second project going on too.
00:14:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:14:11
Speaker
Well, yeah, and I think probably maybe you'd agree, but it seems like for me, I have this podcast that I do.
00:14:17
Speaker
I still sell solar myself.
00:14:18
Speaker
But I think part of what's allowed me to still be able to do the podcast and some coaching and all that that I'm doing is because it's like really complimentary to solar.
00:14:26
Speaker
So I do spend a good amount of time, but at the same time, I'm growing in solar.
00:14:32
Speaker
And I probably could sell more if I just stopped doing this podcast and focus 100% on sales.
00:14:38
Speaker
but it seems like for you um sure yeah supplement that's kind of something completely different but now you're in construction i know you're doing some roofs with your some stuff with roofs yeah so do you feel like that's easier where it's kind of complementing solar yeah it has because um like i said when i first started my dealership it was just a dealership we were selling for installers and so what it's allowed us to do is you know now after building houses i'm familiar with permitting and and getting things permitting and
00:15:06
Speaker
you know, I have a team of electricians and everything just from building.
00:15:10
Speaker
So it got to the point after we moved up here where we were like, well, let's just install our own stuff too, because we, you know, I, I have all the connections now to be able to do that.
00:15:20
Speaker
And so they do kind of play off each other and roofing as well.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, we do a lot of roofs up here to be able to do solar.
00:15:29
Speaker
And typically we would just tell the, you know, the solar installer, hey, this one needs a re-roof and then go take care of it.
00:15:35
Speaker
But we use our own roofers and everything to be able to do that now.
00:15:39
Speaker
And so there's a little more profit in it.
00:15:41
Speaker
And so, yeah, they've worked off of each other pretty well here.
00:15:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:15:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:46
Speaker
Well, something else that I want to get into that you mentioned in your story before is just when you first started your deal, or you said you only had like five guys, you built it up, you guys were cranking deals, which is pretty cool.
00:15:59
Speaker
And I think a lot of people in Solor think, oh, the guys that are closing tons of deals, making all the money, they must have giant teams, you know, just like the best setters, all that.
00:16:10
Speaker
Like you only had a team of five.
00:16:11
Speaker
And even with that, I know you guys making a ton of money, closing a lot of deals.
00:16:16
Speaker
So I think that's sometimes a limiting belief that people have is, oh, we got to have this giant team.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:22
Speaker
And the only people making lots of money in solar and closing lots of deals have these big teams.
00:16:28
Speaker
But I like hearing stories like that.
00:16:29
Speaker
And I've heard it from a lot of people.
00:16:31
Speaker
I mean, Ricardo Richie, Adam, the podcast had like, you know, 400 deals in a year.
00:16:37
Speaker
And he really only had like probably maybe six or seven solid setters just giving him deals.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:43
Speaker
I think quality is definitely better than quantity a lot of times.
00:16:47
Speaker
But yeah, what was that like?
00:16:49
Speaker
Do you have any tips on guys that are trying to build kind of a setter closer model like that?
00:16:54
Speaker
Do you do anything to get these sold guys and just be able to produce like that with a team?
00:16:59
Speaker
Well, I wasn't super selective with who I was recruiting.
00:17:02
Speaker
I recruited a couple guys and then they brought on their friends.
00:17:05
Speaker
They had...
00:17:06
Speaker
They'd been doing solar, so they knew how to set.
00:17:10
Speaker
So I wasn't really selective with them.
00:17:12
Speaker
But when I brought them on, I was really clear about a few things because I was in the hole.
00:17:18
Speaker
I was really driven.
00:17:19
Speaker
I got to go make some money.
00:17:20
Speaker
I got to make this happen.
00:17:21
Speaker
So I didn't have an office at the time.
00:17:24
Speaker
And so I said...
00:17:26
Speaker
We're going to go out.
00:17:27
Speaker
We're going to knock.
00:17:28
Speaker
I had our set hours.
00:17:29
Speaker
We'd go knock them.
00:17:30
Speaker
And then what would happen is they would set up appointments throughout the day, throughout the week.
00:17:36
Speaker
And so my rule was we would meet at the Costco parking lot and we would ride out together and come home together.
00:17:45
Speaker
And so I'm the closer.
00:17:46
Speaker
If they book a deal at nine o'clock in the morning, I have to be at Costco at nine o'clock.
00:17:52
Speaker
or I'm sorry, 8.30 to get that deal at 9.
00:17:54
Speaker
But they all had to meet me there.
00:17:56
Speaker
So if somebody booked an early deal, the whole team was kind of paying for it.
00:18:01
Speaker
Which it didn't create any animosity or anything between the guys.
00:18:05
Speaker
I felt like it created more of a team culture.
00:18:08
Speaker
Like we write out together.
00:18:10
Speaker
You know, if you booked this appointment, we're all going to write out together.
00:18:12
Speaker
And then they'd all, you know, hope that that deal would close when we were out there.
00:18:15
Speaker
Or somebody might book a deal for 8 o'clock at night.
00:18:18
Speaker
And so the whole team's just out there super, super late because you know how long deals can go.
00:18:23
Speaker
So at that time, you know, there was a lot of times I was leaving home, you know, at eight and then not coming home till nine, nine 30 at night.
00:18:30
Speaker
It kind of became a normal crazy schedule, which isn't super sustainable if you have, you know, kids and everything and.
00:18:38
Speaker
As we had another kid and they got older, like, I can't do that schedule.
00:18:41
Speaker
I'm not allowed to do that schedule anymore.
00:18:43
Speaker
My wife wouldn't let me do that.
00:18:44
Speaker
But I think that was a big part of it.
00:18:49
Speaker
We were all committed to the schedule.
00:18:52
Speaker
I would get out there early, drop them all off in their area.
00:18:55
Speaker
I would start going to deals.
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:58
Speaker
And, and when you're, I love the setter closer model because when you're, when all you do is sit in deals like all day, every day, you get so good at closing deals.
00:19:08
Speaker
You just learn, you knew you learn how to read people way better.
00:19:11
Speaker
You know, all the points that you want to bring up.
00:19:13
Speaker
You can,
00:19:14
Speaker
feel the vibe in the room which way you need to steer it and then it gets to the point where you're like this you know you pull up to the house and i'm going to close this there's there might be some factors that keep me from closing this but i will i will close this if those don't come up um and so so we were did really well i mean we were doing really well and and i mean they were excited they were making really good money and and everything but
00:19:38
Speaker
I think a big part of it was just that we were all fully committed to that schedule.
00:19:42
Speaker
And if they didn't show up, you know, to ride out with us, I'd say, obviously you can go knock, but you won't knock for us that day.
00:19:49
Speaker
Like put that deal through somebody else because we ride out together, we'll knock together.
00:19:54
Speaker
And so, and they were all really good about it.
00:19:57
Speaker
I mean, there was, I didn't get phone calls with excuses, like why they couldn't come.
00:20:01
Speaker
And, and, and it made recruiting a lot easier too.
00:20:04
Speaker
These guys were all making really good money.
00:20:06
Speaker
And, and so, yeah,
00:20:07
Speaker
you know, it did start to grow pretty quick.
00:20:10
Speaker
I mean, where we, where we did have a fairly good sized team, which I actually probably dropped the ball with that.
00:20:15
Speaker
I didn't, I should have had like smaller manageable teams.
00:20:20
Speaker
I feel like once it grew a little bit, I, I did because we weren't able to write out
00:20:25
Speaker
together as well some of them lived further away and i lost a little bit of control there and so i learned a little bit about management there but mainly from failing at it um so but yeah i was just hearing somebody talk about and jaco talks about this in in one of his management books but just having like teams of like five or six or less yeah well like pods you know
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:48
Speaker
So if you have a team of 12 guys, like split them up and then empower, you know, guys in that group to be leaders and let them, you know, take charge, which is something I didn't do then, which I, you know, should have done.
00:21:00
Speaker
But yeah, that's huge.
00:21:02
Speaker
And I think it's so cool because, yeah, guys are fully bought in.
00:21:05
Speaker
But yeah, any successful setter closer company, I think I've seen similar thing where it's just like you have the clear expectations and guys don't want to live up to that, then
00:21:16
Speaker
They just go somewhere else because I think what the mistake a lot of people make is let's bring guys in and they're so desperate to get in more, get more bodies in the door, get more sledders in.
00:21:26
Speaker
It's like, Oh, you're only able to work like two hours today.
00:21:30
Speaker
That's fine.
00:21:31
Speaker
And then of course other people see that and they're like, okay, let's just drive out.
00:21:34
Speaker
We'll go do two hours on our own drive out together.
00:21:37
Speaker
Yeah, because you'll always have a guy who comes in and they want to do their own schedule.
00:21:44
Speaker
And I think most managers are down with that right off the bat because they're like, well, whatever you can work.
00:21:49
Speaker
Like if you can even get me one lead a week, like it'll be great.
00:21:52
Speaker
But it does.
00:21:53
Speaker
It causes big problems because the other reps, even if, I mean, you can't really hide this stuff from them.
00:21:59
Speaker
Like they see what's going on and it messes with the culture and then they start to get
00:22:04
Speaker
lackadaisical or well I don't need to work like all the hours I can work my own I don't need to write out with the team and so it yeah I noticed the effects of that several times yeah and I think the community aspect is huge too because I'm part of a big team right now
00:22:20
Speaker
So like, yeah, it gets tougher and tougher to do it with big teams.
00:22:23
Speaker
But what's been what I've seen just being part of a big team is there's not like a necessary requirement, like people can still be part of the team.
00:22:31
Speaker
But the people that are doing stuff like that, they're going same areas, four or five people meeting up and going out.
00:22:36
Speaker
So they're still meeting.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:38
Speaker
And they're the ones posting the deals.
00:22:40
Speaker
So they're almost like creating the culture within people are seeing they're like, okay, this is why they're having success because they're all going out together.
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:47
Speaker
They're doing these car groups.
00:22:49
Speaker
They're holding each other accountable.
00:22:51
Speaker
So even for those listening, even if you're part of a big office, I think that's a huge thing you can do is just like Dan said, create these little pods of people, go out together.
00:23:01
Speaker
And even if it's a bigger office, you can still form part of it.
00:23:05
Speaker
Like we have guys posting on our team group.
00:23:07
Speaker
I think we got like,
00:23:08
Speaker
70 80 people in this grooming right now but yeah so that's a big team but guys will post hey we're in this area today we're down in chula vista who's meeting me down here and these guys are you know naturally the leaders these guys are producing the most typically um so yeah i think it's super important but yeah a lot easier to manage when it's just you telling me at costco yeah
Challenges in Idaho's Solar Market
00:23:29
Speaker
and i don't know how sustainable that is when you know like the way we were doing it
00:23:33
Speaker
you know, whenever the first deal is, we all ride out together.
00:23:36
Speaker
Cause it, all my guys were single, they weren't married or didn't have kids.
00:23:40
Speaker
So their schedules were open and, and they understood that, but you know, you have people on a team with, with kids and whatnot, they might need a more set schedule, which is fine.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:52
Speaker
I think you had to get used to meeting at the same time and leaving, just believing and being together as a team going out together.
00:23:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:00
Speaker
coming home together too.
00:24:01
Speaker
I think coming home together was a big part of it because we were able to share a lot of stories on the way home and a lot of kids would have questions on, you know, things they could do at certain parts of their pitch and, yeah,
00:24:12
Speaker
You know, and we'd celebrate together, go out to eat or whatever.
00:24:16
Speaker
We had a really good day.
00:24:17
Speaker
So, yeah, it was nice.
00:24:19
Speaker
It worked out really well for us at that point.
00:24:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:21
Speaker
Would you guys have, like, meetings or would you pretty much count that as a meeting?
00:24:24
Speaker
The meeting would be – so it would take, like, 25 minutes to get out to the area.
00:24:27
Speaker
And so the meeting would be in the car on the way out.
00:24:30
Speaker
So, yeah, I would train – I would be as proactive as I could about it.
00:24:35
Speaker
You know, not just, you know, listening to music on the way out or whatever, but I'd really try and –
00:24:41
Speaker
get more production somehow out of all of us you know um and so yeah we would we would talk and yeah and train each other on the way out yeah yeah that's awesome well it's cool hearing that and um yeah it worked well i know but now you're doing similar thing in idaho so i want to switch gears a little bit and we did a podcast with dylan your business partner and talked about
00:25:05
Speaker
a few of these things but i want to hear your perspective too so what's what's it been like um transitioning to idaho like what do you think of the market has been tougher than california or what's been your experience so far in it's definitely a different market from california and i knew it would be i was familiar with the market before we came here because before i actually moved up here with the help of dalen actually this is before dalen even came on as a partner yeah
00:25:31
Speaker
his brother-in-law lived up here and had done sales and said, Hey, he might, you know, try selling some deals for you.
00:25:38
Speaker
So I reached out to him and he was interested.
00:25:40
Speaker
So I started and I started getting leads online up here and they were all over the place in this Valley.
00:25:47
Speaker
And he,
00:25:48
Speaker
he would drive to them and right away he started closing them and, and the systems here.
00:25:53
Speaker
So some, one thing that's different about Idaho is the systems here are way bigger than California.
00:25:59
Speaker
Average deal in California might be four and a half kilowatts and it used to be bigger than that.
00:26:03
Speaker
But as the utility rates go up, the average systems as a price keep going down.
00:26:08
Speaker
Well, we've done, you know, multiple 25 kilowatt systems here just on, you know, houses kind of out in the country.
00:26:15
Speaker
They have a shop and they weld back there, but yeah,
00:26:17
Speaker
electricity here is so cheap people don't worry about you know running the ac half the people in california don't run ac you know you're sitting in a deal closing it and you're sweating the kids are running around sweating and that's not people don't do that here i mean it's set at 69 70 degrees in the summertime and you tell somebody in california that they're like that's crazy i would never do that even if it was free that just seems crazy yeah
00:26:43
Speaker
But everybody does it here because we've never had to adapt to really expensive electricity.
00:26:48
Speaker
So, everybody's just used to having a nice, cool house in the summer.
00:26:52
Speaker
So, the systems here are really big, which is nice.
00:26:55
Speaker
But electricity here is so cheap that you do have to cut the price down quite a bit.
00:27:01
Speaker
And we've never sold on just savings or that's not been our big sale point.
00:27:05
Speaker
Even in California, we were cutting their bill in half.
00:27:07
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:27:08
Speaker
It wasn't all about that.
00:27:09
Speaker
There was, you know, you point everything else out and then that's kind of the cherry on top.
00:27:14
Speaker
Well, here, even if you cut the profit down pretty minimal on a deal, they're most likely still going to be paying more with solar than they were.
00:27:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:23
Speaker
you know, with the utility.
00:27:25
Speaker
So you have that.
00:27:26
Speaker
And then because these systems are so big and expensive, their tax credits here are huge.
00:27:34
Speaker
And so the most people here aren't making the type of money where they can really take full advantage of a tax credit.
00:27:41
Speaker
I know there's a lot, a lot of sales reps out there that might sell it.
00:27:45
Speaker
Like you're getting this $25,000 check next year.
00:27:47
Speaker
And, but like to sell, honestly, you know, there's a lot of people might,
00:27:53
Speaker
Out of a $25,000 tax credit, they might only get $5,000 out of it.
00:27:58
Speaker
At which, if they were to apply the full tax credit, their payment would still be a little bit higher than where they're at with the utility.
00:28:04
Speaker
So without a tax credit, then it makes it a little tougher to sell.
00:28:07
Speaker
But on the doors, and you've seen this since you've been out here knocking, you've
00:28:12
Speaker
it's way easier on the doors than California.
00:28:15
Speaker
People are much more willing to talk.
00:28:17
Speaker
It's normal for them to step outside and chat with you and show you around, which makes knocking a lot easier.
00:28:23
Speaker
It's a lot easier to knock when people are easier to deal with.
00:28:29
Speaker
But selling, actually sitting down and selling deals, it's not any easier here for sure than in California.
00:28:36
Speaker
And it's, you know, when things happen, like,
00:28:39
Speaker
the rates go up on a solar loan.
00:28:42
Speaker
In California, it doesn't really affect you too much because there's still such good savings there.
00:28:46
Speaker
Well, here, it does affect you quite a bit.
00:28:49
Speaker
I mean, the market has slowed down a fair amount here.
00:28:53
Speaker
And that's one of the reasons we got into installing our own is we wanted to have control over the quality of the work, but also we needed to be a little bit more profit in the deal and that we'd be able to be more competitive with our pricing if we were to do that.
00:29:06
Speaker
So it kind of led us into that.
00:29:09
Speaker
And so instead of looking at like, oh, crap, this market's crap.
00:29:11
Speaker
We can't sell here.
00:29:13
Speaker
We've kind of pivoted and figured out how we can get the cost down to make it more sellable.
00:29:17
Speaker
So that's good.
00:29:19
Speaker
Yeah, we've made it work, but it is a totally different market from California.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah, I've seen that.
00:29:24
Speaker
And if you haven't listened to the podcast, we're doing it with Dallin Pinker.
00:29:28
Speaker
He's a business partner.
00:29:29
Speaker
You can listen to that because we got into that quite a bit too.
00:29:31
Speaker
Just differences in selling and, you know, how to deal with nicer people.
00:29:35
Speaker
Because I was just telling Dallin, it's funny out here.
00:29:37
Speaker
You kind of have to deal with it different because people, you know, sometimes maybe waste your time a little bit more because they're too nice that they'll just talk to you for an hour.
00:29:44
Speaker
I'll talk to you for an hour.
00:29:45
Speaker
And then you're like, oh, I've got this.
00:29:47
Speaker
And then you move forward with the solar.
00:29:50
Speaker
I'm like, oh, no, no, no.
00:29:51
Speaker
We're not going to do that.
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:54
Speaker
Been here for two hours.
00:29:55
Speaker
So yeah, we went over that a little bit.
00:29:59
Speaker
But I like what you're saying though, is like always figuring out ways to be more
Starting a Solar Installation Business
00:30:03
Speaker
profitable.
00:30:03
Speaker
And I think that's what great business people are doing.
00:30:05
Speaker
They're constantly like evaluating, how can I be more profitable here?
00:30:08
Speaker
How can I maybe custom costs here?
00:30:10
Speaker
And it's cool that you guys are starting to roll out your own installs.
00:30:13
Speaker
So yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.
00:30:16
Speaker
I know you talked about how you have more connections, just being in construction.
00:30:21
Speaker
um and all that out here but what has it been like rolling out your own installs has that been like harder than you thought easier than you thought um it has been our biggest our biggest uh issue with it really is just being able to partner with the lending company okay
00:30:37
Speaker
Over the years, they've become a lot more stringent on who they'll partner with.
00:30:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:43
Speaker
And so some of the top ones that, you know, that you would, that normally use in a deal, I mean, they want to see a lot of income coming into the company or cashflow to even consider partnering with you.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:57
Speaker
Whereas before, you know, it would have been a lot easier.
00:31:00
Speaker
So yeah.
00:31:01
Speaker
Right now, we can only install cash deals.
00:31:06
Speaker
As far as the install, the very first install we did, I don't know if Dallin talked about it at all.
00:31:11
Speaker
Yeah, he didn't talk about it.
00:31:12
Speaker
Yeah, our very first install was a 26.5, I think, kilowatt system.
00:31:15
Speaker
That's huge.
00:31:16
Speaker
Ground mount on a hill.
00:31:17
Speaker
Nice.
00:31:17
Speaker
And so probably the hardest thing.
00:31:24
Speaker
situation you could do for solar.
00:31:26
Speaker
I mean, rooftop solar, we've done those really simple, but to do the ground mount and, and, uh, you know,
00:31:35
Speaker
get all the footers dug and all the permitting for that and it was uh it was definitely a challenge but it was actually probably a good place to start we look at that system and it it looks all it's the coolest looking system i've seen because we went back through and all the pipe on it we painted it black you know well we this i mean it's like a 13 million dollar property between the house and his property we're like we gotta and he had a parade of homes coming up and it was it's right there good yeah
00:32:01
Speaker
yeah we had to make it look really good so yeah we painted all that black and we put like this cool skirting around it and in it it uh yeah so the challenge of actually installing was is wasn't bad at all i mean we we've learned as we went we had no idea what we were doing yeah um and i look at it and i'm like how the
00:32:22
Speaker
hell did we even do that we had no idea you know and that thing looks freaking sweet nice um but yeah so that that end of it actually went pretty smooth yeah that's awesome so will they count because i'm just thinking for people that want to like start up their own installs and all that like do they can't if you have a dealer but you're doing installs through different people they won't look at that and
00:32:43
Speaker
kind of consider that.
00:32:43
Speaker
They'll look at that.
00:32:44
Speaker
They'll look at that too.
00:32:45
Speaker
Yeah, because they're just looking at, they really want to see bank statements and see, you know, what kind of money you have coming in.
00:32:53
Speaker
And so, like I said, we've had smaller teams, but a lot of these
00:32:58
Speaker
They want to see over 500,000 coming in a month.
00:33:01
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:33:02
Speaker
And so, you know, a lot of the bigger installers, they can, you know, easily partner with these guys.
00:33:08
Speaker
We're, you know, we're a smaller team and, you know, the guys do well, but there's not enough of them to where we consistently have, you know, 500 grand coming in every month.
00:33:17
Speaker
And so that's been a little bit of a challenge.
00:33:19
Speaker
There's some that, you know, don't require that.
00:33:22
Speaker
But they've had really high interest in the past.
00:33:25
Speaker
We always like to use a little bit lower interest, but they're all getting higher now to where they might be options for us.
00:33:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:33:32
Speaker
That's cool.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah, well, no, it's a different type of game for sure when you're doing your own installs.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah, we were talking about this with Dallin too, but just anyone can pretty much go start their own dealer and just be like a glorified manager running a dealer.
00:33:48
Speaker
Got a lot of buddies that just become one-man dealers and don't even recruit a team.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:53
Speaker
But yeah, it's a whole different ballgame.
00:33:55
Speaker
You're running all that.
00:33:57
Speaker
And on top of that, you're also running, you know, your construction company.
00:34:02
Speaker
Yeah, Dallin told me about other businesses you guys are thinking of getting in and all that.
00:34:05
Speaker
So it sounds like a lot you're doing.
00:34:08
Speaker
But yeah, I asked Dallin this too.
00:34:10
Speaker
What's some advice?
00:34:11
Speaker
Because I know he's kind of more recent than you guys have been working together.
00:34:15
Speaker
But what has it been like rolling with a partner?
00:34:17
Speaker
Because I think before, correct me if I'm wrong, but you were pretty much doing everything yourself.
00:34:22
Speaker
I guess supplement company, you had a partner, right?
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah, I had a partner in that.
00:34:26
Speaker
yeah but do you have any advice people that are trying to as down this we'll hear what you say but do you have any advice people trying to work with a partner maybe some stuff you learned from the supplement company that yeah ways to communicate or stuff that you would do different working with a partner yeah i might have some advice that could be helpful i would say if you're going to start a company or a dealership
00:34:49
Speaker
I would always do it without a partner.
The Dynamics of Business Partnerships
00:34:52
Speaker
I would start that on your own because getting it started is pretty easy.
00:34:57
Speaker
Whatever company it is, to get it started, to form your LLC and...
00:35:03
Speaker
start getting some equipment or whatever you're doing or start getting materials and start getting a couple jobs under your belt.
00:35:11
Speaker
It's easy to do yourself.
00:35:13
Speaker
And what happens is it puts you in a position where now instead of just taking on a partner and you do it together, now you can actually –
00:35:22
Speaker
sell a portion of it to a partner now you have something marketable you can come on you know for you know x amount you can buy into the company and you can show them as profitable and you know they can see they're going to get the return back so so they have that but um you definitely want to be careful about who you start because with my building i had i have a partner i have a partner with the solar now
00:35:45
Speaker
and i have um or i had a partner yeah with the supplement company and so i did learn i did learn some things and i knew dalen really well before he came on as a partner i knew he was a hard worker i knew he was extremely loyal yeah he stuck with that first company that we were with forever even when he knew like i had left and started making a lot more money we both left like yeah
00:36:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:09
Speaker
You had left too.
00:36:10
Speaker
And down.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:11
Speaker
He was still there.
00:36:12
Speaker
And we were both making, you know, instead of like $200 a kilowatt, now we're making $1,500 a kilowatt on a deal.
00:36:19
Speaker
And I'm like, how are you still there, dude?
00:36:20
Speaker
Like, um, just like the, because they're selling really high, but paying out really little, but, and I have no hard feelings against that company because they taught me how to sell.
00:36:29
Speaker
And you know, if it wasn't for them to teach me how to do that, I never would have figured it out.
00:36:33
Speaker
And so.
00:36:34
Speaker
And they did eventually start paying a little bit more, but yeah.
00:36:36
Speaker
And they still was super loyal though.
00:36:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:39
Speaker
So he was super loyal, which is something I really liked.
00:36:43
Speaker
I knew he would be a good partner.
00:36:45
Speaker
And when we moved up here, one thing I really felt like I would need help with was recruiting.
00:36:51
Speaker
I wanted to start building teams and managing them and help training guys.
00:36:56
Speaker
And so I brought him on with that role.
00:36:59
Speaker
He ended up moving up here from California.
00:37:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:02
Speaker
you know, with his family.
00:37:03
Speaker
And, um, but yeah, I think that's, that's probably the biggest piece of advice is I would not start anything with a partner.
00:37:11
Speaker
Um, you know, a lot of times you're talking with your buddy and you think of a good idea together and you want to take off with it, but your buddy, a lot of times that's as far as he really wants to go.
00:37:21
Speaker
And then you start taking off with it and you're putting in all this time and effort and you're seeing like your buddy's just kind of waiting and playing back like, Oh man, like,
00:37:29
Speaker
I'm excited for you to start making us some money.
00:37:33
Speaker
And that's the vibe you get.
00:37:34
Speaker
And then what happens, you can, you know, when you have it 50, 50 and your partner's not putting in the time and effort, then it's really, it's hard to make that partnership work.
00:37:45
Speaker
And so, and I knew Dallin, I wouldn't have that issue with Dallin.
00:37:50
Speaker
Um, but, um,
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:51
Speaker
I would always start by yourself and then, and then be really, really careful about who you bring on as a partner.
00:37:58
Speaker
And you might not, you know, after you start yourself, you might say, you don't need a partner.
00:38:02
Speaker
You know, you can do all these things yourself and there's great money.
00:38:04
Speaker
And when you bring on a partner, you, you got to know that, you know, what you're making, your profit pretty much going to get cut in half.
00:38:13
Speaker
I mean, you just, or whatever percentages you come up with, but a big portion of it's going to be gone now.
00:38:17
Speaker
And you have to,
00:38:18
Speaker
kind of factor that in and look like, am I even going to be able to get by if I all of a sudden don't have this income coming in?
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:27
Speaker
You know, and it depends on how you organize it with your new partner.
00:38:30
Speaker
But generally, they're going to want to start getting payment or payment on the deals that are getting done, especially if they're putting a lot of time in, which they should be if that's, you know, the type of person you pick.
00:38:42
Speaker
So, yeah, there's some different things you want to pay attention to there.
00:38:45
Speaker
You definitely want to be careful, careful about it.
00:38:48
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's tough.
00:38:49
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, many people heard the podcast in the beginning, but I originally had a partner in on the podcast.
00:38:55
Speaker
And even that got super tough.
00:38:57
Speaker
That wasn't even like a real business in the beginning, really.
00:39:00
Speaker
But like even just coordinating podcasts with another guy, and then he wanted to take it one direction, I want to take it another direction.
00:39:07
Speaker
He started making some money off of it.
00:39:09
Speaker
And then like, you know, okay, how are we going to split this up?
00:39:11
Speaker
We didn't have any agreements in place, nothing like that.
00:39:14
Speaker
So yeah, I can imagine it's...
00:39:17
Speaker
It can stunt your growth because you might be really starting to grow this business and you might have a business partner who's just not putting in the time and you're really motivated, driven, and you can see where it's going and where you can get it to, but you realize how much effort and time you're putting into it.
00:39:32
Speaker
And it gets to the point where you're like, man, I don't know if I even want to get to that point because I don't want to get to that point and just having given time.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:40
Speaker
This guy, you know, all that money and, you know, everything from.
00:39:45
Speaker
And so you start to hold yourself back, which is the last thing you want to do.
00:39:49
Speaker
You don't want to have to, you know, pull on the reins.
00:39:52
Speaker
You want to go full in.
00:39:53
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:39:55
Speaker
So, yeah, you definitely want a partner who you feel will.
00:39:57
Speaker
And that's what I really like about Dallin is we're both competitive in nature.
00:40:03
Speaker
And so we've both done 75 hard twice.
00:40:08
Speaker
The second time we did it was here in Idaho.
00:40:10
Speaker
We did it together.
00:40:11
Speaker
And we both finished it.
00:40:14
Speaker
And, you know, we knew we would because we didn't want to go to the –
00:40:19
Speaker
you know him the next day or him kind of mean be like yeah yeah I failed it's so stupid but it transfers into just normal work life too like
00:40:28
Speaker
Dallin doesn't want to see me doing all the work and him feel like, oh man, he's doing, he wants, you know, he wants to be the one that's like doing all the work and pulling everything.
00:40:37
Speaker
Obviously he wants to see me doing that too, but, but that's kind of where it works is we, we do that, you know, we kind of are both putting in as much as we can to, to keep it afloat.
00:40:47
Speaker
And there's sometimes, you know, Dallin is, you know, he's leading, you know, and, and I'm,
00:40:52
Speaker
you know, feel like I'm barely getting by.
00:40:54
Speaker
And then there's times when I feel like, you know, I'm leading and, and, and it's good to be able to have that kind of dynamic in, in a, in a partner.
00:41:02
Speaker
Yeah, no, I see that.
00:41:04
Speaker
And I know I'm both you guys for a long time and we're both competitive and,
00:41:07
Speaker
It's funny, these guys dragged me to the gym at 6 in the morning.
00:41:11
Speaker
I'm more like a 7 a.m.
00:41:12
Speaker
type of guy.
00:41:13
Speaker
Got to drive to the gym at 6 a.m.
00:41:15
Speaker
with both of them.
00:41:16
Speaker
And Dalton was telling me that you guys just have great, you won't text each other if you're going to the gym.
00:41:21
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:41:21
Speaker
Because you don't want to hear that one's maybe not going or feeling tired today.
00:41:26
Speaker
Well, yeah, because there's times when I get up at 5, and if I wake up my boy, our younger kid...
00:41:33
Speaker
then i'll have to take him and down's got a young kid too sometimes he might wake his kid up and he has to put him back down but he won't text me like hey i might not make it because he doesn't want to discourage me from going and same with me so yeah it helps i i went for i never really had a lifting partner but i can see now yes it's nice having that accountability 100 percent
00:41:56
Speaker
Well, yeah.
00:41:57
Speaker
Last question, Dan, before we start wrapping up here.
00:42:00
Speaker
I didn't really get into this with Dallin, but I know both of you guys, you got little kids.
Balancing Work and Family Life
00:42:05
Speaker
You're both have your feet in a lot of businesses and doing a lot.
00:42:10
Speaker
So like for people that have kids and they're trying to run businesses with family, I know you said your wife doesn't let you do some of the things that maybe you did before and all that.
00:42:19
Speaker
But what's it been like?
00:42:20
Speaker
just as far as like you know raising your kids having that dynamic with your wife do you have any advice for entrepreneurs or maybe people managing teams where they gotta worry about their family or i don't know mistakes you made or thing that's working well in business as well also trying to be there for your wife raise the family and all that yeah it's definitely tricky it sometimes feels backwards because
00:42:45
Speaker
When you're our age, we still really have to hustle to set ourselves up for the future.
00:42:51
Speaker
There's a lot of time that needs to be put in.
00:42:54
Speaker
And this is when our kids are young and they're growing up.
00:42:57
Speaker
And I realized this during COVID when we couldn't really knock in California.
00:43:02
Speaker
And I was home a lot more.
00:43:03
Speaker
And I built relationships with my... I only had one boy at the time.
00:43:07
Speaker
But I got a lot closer to him.
00:43:09
Speaker
And I realized, man, if I wasn't working so much, I'd be able to...
00:43:13
Speaker
keep this really good relationship.
00:43:15
Speaker
Boy, I know him a lot better.
00:43:16
Speaker
I understand him better.
00:43:18
Speaker
He sees that I love him.
00:43:19
Speaker
He listens to me better.
00:43:20
Speaker
Like this is just working so well.
00:43:22
Speaker
It seems backwards that, you know, you have to work so hard when these kids are growing up and it seems like they need you.
00:43:29
Speaker
You can build that relationship with them better.
00:43:31
Speaker
And then once you start making money, you know, you get older and you don't have to work as much.
00:43:36
Speaker
These kids are in college or whatever, and they're in high school or
00:43:41
Speaker
they're gone yeah and they that that opportunity to build that relationship is almost not there anymore and so that part seems i i can never yeah it's tough but i i sometimes think you know maybe your kids need to see your work ethic they need to see like hey this is like i respect you know what what he does and and it just kind of maybe forms that in them i think a lot of my work ethic came or comes from
00:44:06
Speaker
you know, my dad and he worked really hard and still does.
00:44:10
Speaker
And he never complains about it or anything, but
00:44:14
Speaker
Step one, if you don't have kids or a wife, make as much money as you can.
00:44:20
Speaker
Save and invest that money.
00:44:22
Speaker
Don't just spend it on stupid crap because you will for sure need it.
00:44:27
Speaker
If you can figure out how to invest that and get some residual income to kind of start paying your bills, that will free you up in the future to spend more time with your wife and kids.
00:44:36
Speaker
If you're already married...
00:44:38
Speaker
And you have kids that need you around in door to door.
00:44:42
Speaker
I think our wives a lot of time get used to us having, you know, kind of a whatever schedule.
00:44:49
Speaker
And so when you really need to ramp it up and put more time in, they might not understand it.
00:44:56
Speaker
Whereas in a normal job, you know, especially in California, they're working eight hour days and they're driving an hour and a half to get to work.
00:45:03
Speaker
So they're gone.
00:45:04
Speaker
They might be gone.
00:45:05
Speaker
11 hours of the day and so if you weren't doing solar you you would be doing something like that and so i would just i would just get used to um you know a lot of the times it's it's just that you need to step it up put the time in really commit to that time and you know let your wife see that you know you're working those hours let her hold you accountable let her know like what you're trying to do what
00:45:30
Speaker
What you're trying to accomplish, because if she doesn't see results or doesn't feel like you're actually out there working, she might start, you know, wanting you home more because she might not see what you're, because you're not, you know, bringing in the bacon or whatever the way you should be.
00:45:48
Speaker
But if, you know, you say, hey, I'm going to send you a picture and I get to the doors, I'm committed.
00:45:54
Speaker
I'm going to start knocking at one o'clock and I'm going to knock till, you know, eight o'clock and I'm going to do it these days.
00:46:00
Speaker
And you send her a picture of your first door and say, it's got to be at this time and I'm going to send it to you.
00:46:05
Speaker
And that way, if you don't send a picture to her, you know, she knows that you're not on the doors and you feel stupid about it.
00:46:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's good.
00:46:12
Speaker
And then take a picture of your last door so that she knows you're out there hustling.
00:46:19
Speaker
You're not just playing around.
00:46:20
Speaker
But, yeah, definitely spend time with your kids, though.
00:46:23
Speaker
One thing I have changed is, like, I don't work Saturdays or Sunday.
00:46:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:29
Speaker
I used to work every Saturday.
00:46:31
Speaker
You know, when we were going really hard, I was working really long days, and I was working Saturday, too.
00:46:36
Speaker
I didn't see my wife a lot.
00:46:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:39
Speaker
I make sure my weekends are all about, you know, my wife and kids.
00:46:43
Speaker
It's all about them, what they want to do and trying to build that relationship with them.
00:46:50
Speaker
So that's awesome.
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:50
Speaker
I love that.
00:46:51
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, like you're saying, there's going to be different phases.
00:46:55
Speaker
You're going extremely, if you're single, so this, yeah, go extremely hard six, seven days a week, I would say.
00:47:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:00
Speaker
Cause there'll be a time when you're married with kids where you'll look back and especially with the way the solar market is right now, you're in a place where you can be making a ton of money.
00:47:09
Speaker
Well, you might be married five years from now with kids and in a situation where you just don't have that kind of income and you'll look back and be like, man, I wish I would have worked way harder.
00:47:20
Speaker
I wish I had invested some of that money.
00:47:22
Speaker
I wish I hadn't wasted it all on this stupid crap.
00:47:25
Speaker
Make smart decisions because you'll either be thanking yourself later on or you'll be kicking yourself in the butt.
00:47:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:32
Speaker
What is it to say?
00:47:33
Speaker
You can either live with the pain of discipline now or the pain of regret later.
00:47:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:38
Speaker
And the pain of regret is cuts way deeper.
00:47:41
Speaker
You don't want to have that.
00:47:42
Speaker
Discipline actually feels good.
00:47:44
Speaker
That's a good pain.
00:47:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:45
Speaker
A hundred percent.
00:47:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:46
Speaker
But no, and I love to what you're saying just about having just kind of the accountability with your wife when you have different goals.
00:47:53
Speaker
We actually had a guy on our team hit 50 deals in a month last month in California.
00:47:58
Speaker
You know, 2023, we're recording this.
00:48:00
Speaker
And it's funny, he said pretty much the same thing.
00:48:03
Speaker
Like every night he'd get home after he was done selling and his wife and kids would like give him like the accountability check.
00:48:11
Speaker
like dad dad did you get your three deals today or whatever and like like super bought in so i love what you're saying about getting a family bought in and i think some of my best time selling when i would win competitions and things like that is i would literally have my wife like drop me off in my area yeah just like leave me there yeah that's like some weird things that's smart well because we did 75 hard and i've died you know the first time i did it
00:48:34
Speaker
I finished 75
The Impact of the 75 Hard Challenge
00:48:35
Speaker
hard.
00:48:35
Speaker
I did phase one and then I didn't end up doing phase two or three.
00:48:39
Speaker
There's not a fourth.
00:48:40
Speaker
I don't think so.
00:48:42
Speaker
I've only done, I haven't done any of the phases.
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:44
Speaker
So I did phase one, but anyway, so I got really good at doing what I said I was going to do.
00:48:49
Speaker
But for some reason I felt like 75 hard had this special power to where I felt like there was somebody holding me accountable or like somebody was helping me out.
00:48:59
Speaker
I, I, I don't know what it is.
00:49:01
Speaker
And I,
00:49:02
Speaker
I tried to figure out like what, what gave me that extra, you know, juice to be able to stick with that for that long, because there's been a lot of things that I haven't been able to stick with.
00:49:11
Speaker
And, and so I was talking with Dallin and he was saying something he did like during his competitions and stuff.
00:49:18
Speaker
And this is something you can try with your wife and kids is say, all right, these are the things I want to do.
00:49:23
Speaker
I want to knock these hours.
00:49:26
Speaker
You know, these are the time I'm going to be on the door.
00:49:28
Speaker
I want to make this many phone calls a day.
00:49:31
Speaker
And whatever it is, you know, it doesn't have to be a lot of things, but I'm committed to do these things for, you know, 80 days or whatever it is.
00:49:38
Speaker
And, and if we, if I do it for the 80 days, we're taking a family trip, or it could be just you and your wife.
00:49:44
Speaker
We're taking a trip.
00:49:45
Speaker
We're going to go, you know, to Costa Rica and we're going to spend a week there all inclusive.
00:49:50
Speaker
Right.
00:49:51
Speaker
And get your wife super jacked about that.
00:49:53
Speaker
That's right.
00:49:55
Speaker
Because, you know, your wife is going to get a point where she might be irritated because you're working so much.
00:50:00
Speaker
But if she knows that you're working towards this thing that's going to benefit the family, she's also going to be pushing you.
00:50:06
Speaker
You know, and if one of those things is reading 10 pages a day, you know, before you go to bed, well, did you get your pages in?
00:50:13
Speaker
Like, I know that's going to take time away from me.
00:50:16
Speaker
But like get that done because I want to go on this trip.
00:50:20
Speaker
And so I thought that was a really cool thing.
00:50:21
Speaker
So he did when he was in competition or doing, you know, like his challenges with solar and whatnot.
00:50:28
Speaker
And it's something I actually never did, but I've started doing now, but because it gets your wife bought in and she holds you accountable and it's something like she really wants you to achieve.
00:50:37
Speaker
And if you bring your kids in on it, I haven't done that yet, but I imagine there's a pretty strong force behind that too.
00:50:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:43
Speaker
Where you say your buddy,
00:50:45
Speaker
I mean, 50 deals in a month.
00:50:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:48
Speaker
I mean, you make more that month than most people do in five years.
00:50:52
Speaker
Yeah, no doubt.
00:50:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny.
00:50:54
Speaker
I actually heard that in the Ed Milet podcast, too, that he used to do that.
00:50:57
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:50:59
Speaker
And yeah, when he didn't have money, just set his sales goal and he would hit it and stay at like the Ritz-Carlton or for a weekend somewhere super nice that he couldn't really afford.
00:51:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:09
Speaker
He was, you know, around also year round, like the type of people that you're trying to, you know, get to someday.
00:51:15
Speaker
So that's, yeah, that's genius.
00:51:16
Speaker
Super smart.
00:51:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:18
Speaker
Well, Dan, it's been awesome having you on and definitely a different perspective because usually we just have, you know, more solar guys on that haven't been in as many businesses as you have.
00:51:28
Speaker
So it's been cool hearing the perspective of a businessman.
00:51:31
Speaker
like yourself well thanks for having me dude i hopefully there was some type of value for somebody out there because i that's he said he had to like bribe me to be on here it wasn't because i was like i don't want to be your pie i just didn't want to destroy your base here or your guys i just didn't know there's any actual value i'd have to share with anybody so hopefully there was something there for somebody
00:51:53
Speaker
No, I think so.
00:51:54
Speaker
And anyone listening, hopefully you'll reach out to Dan, let them know there was some value.
00:51:58
Speaker
You appreciate him coming on the show today.
00:52:00
Speaker
So speaking of that, if people want to reach out to you or maybe pick your brain about business or starting a deal or construction, anything like that, what's the best place to reach out to you, Dan?
00:52:10
Speaker
Probably Instagram.
00:52:12
Speaker
I think my Instagram is CranSpot, C-R-A-N underscore spot.
00:52:18
Speaker
My last name is Cranford, so it's short for that.
00:52:20
Speaker
And if you want to come to Idaho and build a house here, we can build a house for you.
00:52:26
Speaker
And get you solar.
00:52:28
Speaker
And get solar on that thing.
00:52:29
Speaker
yeah okay well uh reach out to him we'll put we'll link that in the show notes if you guys want to reach out to dan and uh any final just to wrap up here dan any final like i don't know words of wisdom for maybe a struggling rep or uh any other lessons um i would wrap up here oh i can i would say do 75 hard if you're struggling in any way
00:52:50
Speaker
Just commit to doing 75 hard.
00:52:52
Speaker
Look at all the things you have to do on there and just commit yourself to doing them.
00:52:57
Speaker
Because if you do that, if you complete 75 hard, even if you don't complete it, you'll get a taste of what it would do for you.
00:53:05
Speaker
And the benefits that you will get from doing something like that, you'll take with you forever.
00:53:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:11
Speaker
And so I would say, or if you're not struggling, do it.
00:53:14
Speaker
But that's been a huge thing for me.
00:53:16
Speaker
That's changed a lot for me.
00:53:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:18
Speaker
I remember you were one of the people that convinced me to do it for the first time too.
00:53:23
Speaker
I know it helped me a lot in a ton of different areas.
00:53:25
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:53:26
Speaker
So if you don't know what that is, that's Andy Frisella's challenge thing where you do, you know, it's like two workouts a day, grading 10 pages, gallon of water.
00:53:36
Speaker
I think that's it.
00:53:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:37
Speaker
no gallon of water progress picture yeah you got to take a progress picture every day no alcohol and then yeah the 10 pages have to be out of a physical book so you can't just listen to it yeah and it can't be on your phone you have to physically read it which is good you have a book in your hand you kind of reconnect to like how people used to read you know back in the day yeah and the diet right
00:54:02
Speaker
Diet, yeah.
00:54:03
Speaker
Andy talks about a lot of people who are struggling.
00:54:05
Speaker
That's kind of where they go to is alcohol and it's one of the worst things you could do if you're struggling, especially because it's not something that is going to help you advance past that.
00:54:17
Speaker
It's going to numb it for a minute.
00:54:20
Speaker
So that's a big part of it.
00:54:21
Speaker
No alcohol for 75 days.
00:54:23
Speaker
And I've had buddies try 75 hard and that's their big hang up.
00:54:26
Speaker
They have a hard time.
00:54:28
Speaker
That's where they keep failing is
00:54:30
Speaker
You know, 15 days in, they have to have a drink and they can't get past that.
00:54:34
Speaker
But, but yeah, the challenge is there's nothing on there that's, you know,
00:54:39
Speaker
really, really hard to do.
00:54:40
Speaker
The probably the hardest thing really is the two workouts.
00:54:43
Speaker
One of them has to be outside.
00:54:44
Speaker
They both have to be 45 minutes long.
00:54:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:48
Speaker
And it's a scheduling.
00:54:49
Speaker
And that's why I get up early and go to the gym is because I got used to doing that.
00:54:53
Speaker
When I was doing 75 hours, I had to get my first workout done early so that I'd have time to get a second workout in.
00:54:58
Speaker
But once you do, I mean, you'll realize how much free time you have had that you weren't using and how non-productive you've
00:55:06
Speaker
you know, been in the past and, and I'm about due to do it again.
00:55:11
Speaker
Actually.
00:55:12
Speaker
I need to get on that.
00:55:13
Speaker
I know.
00:55:14
Speaker
Yep.
00:55:14
Speaker
I did it one time and I need to do it again too.
00:55:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:17
Speaker
What I like about it is you're just practicing, keeping commitments to yourself.
00:55:20
Speaker
And I know you talked a little bit about that, but you can't keep a commitment to yourself.
00:55:24
Speaker
Then, then like, how should we think that we're going to keep commitments to other people?
00:55:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:28
Speaker
And it's hard to see that until you do it.
00:55:30
Speaker
I mean, when you start keeping those commitments consistently over and over and over, you start to trust yourself.
00:55:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:36
Speaker
which gives you a ton of confidence because you're like, you know that when you decide you're going to do something, it will be done.
00:55:43
Speaker
And it gives you chills at that point because you're like, oh, shoot, I just committed.
00:55:48
Speaker
It's happening.
00:55:49
Speaker
It's not like I'm still thinking about it.
00:55:50
Speaker
Like you've committed to it and it will happen.
00:55:53
Speaker
So you train your mind to really trust this person.
00:55:56
Speaker
Like this person is going to do whatever you tell it to do.
00:55:59
Speaker
So be careful what you tell it to do.
00:56:01
Speaker
Like you're going to do it.
00:56:02
Speaker
And because that's what I do.
00:56:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's super powerful and really empowering.
00:56:07
Speaker
So I think that's a good way to end it.
00:56:09
Speaker
So I would definitely, whoever's listening, consider doing 75 hard for sure.
00:56:13
Speaker
And yeah, and that's been awesome.
00:56:17
Speaker
Yeah, hit Dan up if you want to hear more about starting a dealer or starting an installation company.
00:56:21
Speaker
I'm sure he's happy to share some more tips.
00:56:24
Speaker
But thanks again for coming on the show today, Dan.
00:56:26
Speaker
It's been real.
00:56:26
Speaker
Hell yeah, brother.
00:56:27
Speaker
Love to have you on in the future.
00:56:28
Speaker
Yeah, thank you.
00:56:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:56:29
Speaker
Appreciate it.
00:56:29
Speaker
All right, peace.
00:56:32
Speaker
Hey, solarpreneurs.
00:56:32
Speaker
Are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your sales increase?
00:56:38
Speaker
Well, so was I. And the truth is I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going wrong.
00:56:44
Speaker
So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time.
00:56:46
Speaker
We are doing a free sales diagnostic.
00:56:49
Speaker
We'll break down your sales process, figure out the holes in your business and see how we can help you improve.
00:56:57
Speaker
So at now we have six bucks for this month.
00:57:00
Speaker
So book a call now.
00:57:01
Speaker
Don't miss out.
00:57:02
Speaker
What you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
00:57:07
Speaker
That's taylor at solarpreneurs with an S dot com.
00:57:11
Speaker
I'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out the time that works best.
00:57:16
Speaker
So shoot that email and let's increase your sales.