Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: What's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: We are back with another episode and in the office here today.
Speaker: Got the American flag in the background.
Speaker: Go America.
Speaker: But even cooler, we have the Italian stallion in the house himself.
Speaker: We have our Ricardo on the show today.
Speaker: Ricardo, thanks for joining us on the podcast.
Speaker: Thanks for having me, brother.
Speaker: It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker: It'll be fun and if you haven't heard about this guy, he's been tearing it up in the solar industry.
Speaker: You've been in what, six months since June or something?
Speaker: May, June, yeah, six, seven months.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So he's been in seven months.
Speaker: He's taken the industry, I think, by a storm.
Speaker: He's done some incredible feats he's achieved that we're gonna talk about today.
Speaker: um so yeah it's just been a cool scene this progression and just some of your records ricardo um as far as like revenue can you tell us some of your like records that you've had so far in the industry yeah i guess i i don't know as far as industry records because i don't know what everyone else is doing but as far as me yes my biggest month was august it was 1.9 millions in revenue if we account for contracts sold
Speaker: As far as accounts go, June was 44 accounts.
Speaker: And those are my two biggest ones.
Speaker: I guess biggest week is 20 that I did in June still.
Speaker: That's about it as far as I know.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty incredible.
Speaker: And what's even crazier is, yeah, he came in doing this, you know, with six months in the industry, very little time under his belt.
Speaker: And yeah, so we're going to hear about your story, Ricardo, why you got into the industry.
Speaker: And, yeah, I mean, you got your Italian accent.
Speaker: That's no excuse for you.
Speaker: Still closing deals up the storm.
Speaker: Do you feel like that helps you?
Speaker: People are like, oh, where's your accent from?
Speaker: I tend to use it, I guess, right?
Speaker: I try to use everything I can as an advantage.
Speaker: So I guess, yeah, I use it as a connection point if I need to.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: People always think I'm Canadian, so I do the same thing.
Speaker: It helps.
Speaker: I have no reasoning for mine.
Speaker: But yeah, good topic of conversation.
Speaker: So yeah, let's hear about, you started in Pest, do you wanna kinda tell about, I guess, why you switched over to Solar, what it was like in Pest?
Speaker: Yeah, well I started in Alarms originally.
Speaker: My first year in Alarms at Vivint, and then I went to Pest, and then I went to Solar.
Speaker: So it's three years in the industry, I've been to basically all the industries so far, but my first year in Alarms was great.
Speaker: I had a short summer, so I was still in college, I played college soccer.
Speaker: So I had about a two, two and a half month summer, did great, had fun.
Speaker: Next year, I kind of decided to take it seriously as I graduated college.
Speaker: After that, I saw the first year and I was like, all right, this is real.
Speaker: You know, it's when you realize I wanted to actually give it a shot and go 100%.
Speaker: That's when I did PEST, had a great summer last year.
Speaker: I was technically a rookie in PEST, and so I guess I broke the industry rookie record.
Speaker: before so I had a big year last year and then just transferred over to solar I guess through the offseason I was still gonna go back then talk to Jason back and forth we knew each other from Vivian days I kind of checked solar out I kind of got comfortable with it and then the more I saw just the industry and what's going on I just decided it was just the place to be so I made the switch and then the rest is history
Speaker: Yeah, let's go.
Speaker: I've heard legends about your pest control day.
Speaker: You tell me if this is true, but you'd be up, go grab your McDonald's breakfast sandwich out on the doors by like 9am and just work like all day.
Speaker: Yeah, it was a grind.
Speaker: It was an absolute grind, yes.
Speaker: It was last summer, was it May 1st to I guess I went to about mid-September, so four and a half months.
Speaker: And it was 10 a.m.
Speaker: on the doors, no matter what.
Speaker: I either have a McDonald's sandwich or no sandwich, no breakfast at all.
Speaker: Straight on the doors and then knock until 8, 9 p.m.
Speaker: every day, four and a half months.
Speaker: It's brutal.
Speaker: Absolute grind, but it paid off.
Speaker: It was good.
Speaker: Definitely got me ready for solar, whereas it's not as grueling.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, and no, that's one of the things I respect about Ricardo the most is he just has that, like, take no prisoners mindset that I've seen.
Speaker: I remember in one of our meetings, we had someone, I don't know, just kind of making excuses about why they weren't working as much.
Speaker: And you basically told them, like, look, this is what I did in pest control.
Speaker: I didn't eat.
Speaker: And that person was like, Ricardo, but were you happy doing that?
Speaker: And you're like, dude.
Speaker: I don't care if I was happy.
Speaker: I'm out there to make money.
Speaker: I'm out there to go 100%.
Speaker: And I'm like, man, this kid is hard.
Speaker: This kid goes all out.
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: Would you say that's been one of the biggest factors in your success is just going all out and just being 100% committed like that?
Speaker: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker: I think that's a big factor to it.
Speaker: And I feel everybody, once you get to a certain point, everybody has sales skills.
Speaker: Everybody knows what they're supposed to be doing.
Speaker: Someone's more talented, someone's less talented, right?
Speaker: But everybody knows what they're going to do.
Speaker: Everybody knows how to make sales.
Speaker: So that point is just how much are you actually going to work?
Speaker: How many excuses are you going to make?
Speaker: Or are you actually going to do what you're going to do?
Speaker: So for me, one big thing is I've just been really careful
Speaker: as far as the goals that I actually put out there and what I tell myself I'm going to do.
Speaker: Because when I actually tell myself I'm going to do something, then I have to do it.
Speaker: And I hold myself accountable to that 100%.
Speaker: So sometimes I've been scared, quote unquote, to put out big goals.
Speaker: Because then I know if I put out big goals, I'm going to have to work 40 hours a day to do it.
Speaker: But I will.
Speaker: And so it's just being really careful of what you tell yourself.
Speaker: And once you tell yourself you're going to do something, then you just have to do it.
Speaker: If you told yourself you're going to sell X accounts, X amount of accounts by X number of days, you're just going to have to do it and just have to do whatever you're going to do, whatever you have to do to do it.
Speaker: So that's kind of been my mindset throughout, especially past last year.
Speaker: I kind of carried that into solar.
Speaker: I feel like that helped me a lot.
Speaker: produce big numbers in solar.
Speaker: That's what I see a lot in solar is, obviously commissions are a lot bigger, big accounts.
Speaker: It's easy to get complacent when you have six, seven, eight, 10 accounts on the month and you're like, oh, I made a bunch of money.
Speaker: People stop working.
Speaker: carrying that mindset over from past to where it's all about volume, volume, volume, and just work, work, work, and don't worry about the actual end result as much.
Speaker: And then as long as you do that, then the results come and that's what helped me kind of get big volume on there.
Speaker: But yeah, it's just about, for me, it's just about work.
Speaker: If you're telling yourself you're gonna do something if you have a goal, right?
Speaker: Everyone's goals different if somebody's happy selling five accounts a month ten accounts a month That's what you want to do.
Speaker: That's great then do what you need to do to achieve that But if you're gonna tell yourself you're gonna do 20 30 40 accounts a month You need to match that with your actions.
Speaker: You can't just talk and not do it Yeah, if you're gonna say that then you just have to go all in and actually go work for it.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that's huge and yeah a lot of guys you hear about in the industry they can't them and
Speaker: You know how it is in door-to-door.
Speaker: There's a lot of guys from Utah, Idaho, guys working on farms and stuff like that.
Speaker: And, I mean, this guy is from Italy.
Speaker: Were you out there, like, you know, making wine or something?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I played soccer.
Speaker: I played professional soccer back in the days.
Speaker: Yeah, okay.
Speaker: So do you feel like that's kind of where your competitive drive comes from is just, like, pushing yourself in sports or I don't know?
Speaker: Do you?
Speaker: 100% I think I definitely get that from sports.
Speaker: I'm just super competitive in everything I do in general.
Speaker: A bit too much sometimes, but I'm super competitive.
Speaker: Definitely comes from sports.
Speaker: And so I just kind of see it.
Speaker: I guess the way I try to look at it is not as much of an end result.
Speaker: You know, where a lot of people in the industry try to look at how many accounts have you sold, how much revenue, how much money have you made, all these type of things.
Speaker: Obviously, that's important.
Speaker: But that just comes from just focusing on the work and just do it.
Speaker: And then I don't like to spend too much time about how many accounts, what am I going to do, what's the actual result.
Speaker: I just like to focus on what do I have to do.
Speaker: I know what I have to do.
Speaker: I'm just doing it.
Speaker: The rest is just going to happen.
Speaker: And that comes from sports.
Speaker: Just worry about training, worry about what you got to do, and then the rest follows.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: And yeah, I mean, you've probably seen it.
Speaker: Some of the best recruits, some of the most successful people in this industry have the sports backgrounds, super competitive.
Speaker: And really, that's what it is.
Speaker: I mean, any successful guy I see, they're not that focused on like the money part of it.
Speaker: Like they're making door to door sell their sport, basically.
Speaker: And they don't care about numbers so much.
Speaker: They just want to be the best.
Speaker: I see that in you, for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember I asked you once if you were going to win, like, competition, and I think you were going to be gone that month, and you were just like, oh, I'll figure out a way to win it, something like that.
Speaker: Like, man, so, yeah, Ricardo, he definitely, you know, takes it to an extreme with the competitiveness.
Speaker: But what would you say, Ricardo?
Speaker: I don't know, have you helped people or maybe people that don't have that sports background?
Speaker: Do you know of any way to, I don't know, help –
Speaker: people become more competitive or like help push themselves more if because yeah as you've seen in meetings not everyone is like you so how do you transform these people and really like light that fire under them i guess um everybody has some sort of competitiveness in them to a certain degree some people have it more some people have it less but it just takes good leadership right because you can see when some of the leaders actually step up and you want to create that competitive environment right i i love to create that competitiveness yeah
Speaker: and it usually comes from me or other people that are competitive in the office but you have to just make it a priority of actually creating that culture because if you're not creating that culture and you're just making it look like nobody's competing everybody's just doing their thing and coasting and being comfortable that just spreads into the office and everybody's numbers go down so
Speaker: I try as much as I can to take my competitiveness, but I put it on to other people.
Speaker: Like I'll trash talk somebody in a joking way, but just compete, right?
Speaker: Just challenge people around you, especially if you're in a leadership position.
Speaker: You want to make sure that you're just always carrying that energy as far as like call people out, throw competitions, make sure people care about them.
Speaker: but just kind of carried that energy.
Speaker: And I've just noticed that the entire office just follows what the top guys are doing, right?
Speaker: So if the top one, two, three guys in the office are being competitive and competing against each other, putting competitions up, the rest of the office will kind of follow that as long as they're involved.
Speaker: If the top guys are kind of doing their own thing and not worrying about it, then you'll see everybody else levels just kind of go down.
Speaker: So it follows leadership, I think.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: And I've heard from a lot of people in the industry and a lot of guys we haven't had on the podcast.
Speaker: It's like basically your team is going to do half the production that you do.
Speaker: And twice the mistakes that you make pretty much, they're going to follow whatever you do along with the production.
Speaker: So that's why I've seen any company I've been with
Speaker: You know, it's no, I guess, mistake on it.
Speaker: All the top producers, their teams are producing more too.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Which I think you've seen a lot.
Speaker: So no, I think that's huge.
Speaker: And so, yeah, you said you switched from pest control to solar, Ricardo.
Speaker: And so how did you, what was that transition like?
Speaker: And I don't know, do you feel like there's stuff that helped you a lot in pest control that you're now applying in solar?
Speaker: Yeah, a lot of changes.
Speaker: I mean, I think there's definitely a lot of things there.
Speaker: Sales is sales at the end of the day, right?
Speaker: You can sell pest control, you can sell solar, you can sell alarms, you can sell anything.
Speaker: Once you know how to sell the principles of it, you'll apply that anywhere.
Speaker: But there's definitely things that I took from pest control that helped me a lot in solar.
Speaker: And so I guess I just like to take skills and cross them back and forth.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: On there, the transition was easier than I thought, honestly.
Speaker: You know, when you're in other industries, especially guys that are in other industries will relate with this, but you're looking at solar and you hear about the commissions and the money and it looks like this promised wonderland type of thing, right?
Speaker: But then everybody makes it sound so hard and it's this big sale.
Speaker: Those are all things to just kind of de-incentivize people from actually moving over.
Speaker: Once I made the transition and I checked solar out, then it was easier than I thought.
Speaker: It's pretty easy sales.
Speaker: When you actually think about it and you break it down, solar is a pretty easy sale.
Speaker: At the end of the day.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: And so it's just about the way you keep it in your mind.
Speaker: It's just not overcomplicated, but transition is pretty simple.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's good.
Speaker: And I think you'd agree.
Speaker: I came from pest control, too, and it's like...
Speaker: I don't know anyone that's still selling pest control like you got to switch to solar man.
Speaker: It's like yeah all the guys are doing it.
Speaker: To each their own but I mean yeah.
Speaker: Yeah because I mean yeah I mean we're saving people money day one I mean Ricardo's making a million bucks like yeah it's like crazy what you're doing and then yeah what you're saying earlier is pest control you're knocking what 9 a.m.
Speaker: to 10 p.m.
Speaker: pretty much.
Speaker: Yeah it's
Speaker: Yeah, it's a summer, so yeah, 10 to 8, 10 to 9, so the summers are brutal, 10 to 11 hours a day.
Speaker: I think it was great for me to really kind of cement that work ethic on there, because I mean, solar, if you're smart and you can actually set up referrals and work smart, you can still be a high producer without actually having to grind, which is great.
Speaker: pest control, if you're gonna wanna be a top guy, you just have to work your face off.
Speaker: No matter how good you are selling, you can sell any door you talk to, you still have to sell 10 or 12 a day.
Speaker: So you still have to work your face off, and I think that just really helped in cementing that work ethic of like,
Speaker: Okay, until you have seven in a day in pest control, you're not even started.
Speaker: My day would start when I had seven or eight, right?
Speaker: Because until then, it doesn't even start.
Speaker: So that just helped me develop that mindset of just not being satisfied.
Speaker: If I'm a 10 on that week or 12 or if I'm a 30 on the month, I could just sit back and relax.
Speaker: I'm like, it's not even started, right?
Speaker: I'm just trying to always push it.
Speaker: So that kind of helped.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: And I've seen you turn it on and off in solar, but yeah, we were just talking before recording here.
Speaker: Ricardo, he's been on some trips this month.
Speaker: It's December and Christmas coming up.
Speaker: And you've had a couple referrals in, still made like, what, 60 grand in the past couple weeks just from a few referrals, like barely working.
Speaker: Barely, yes, probably.
Speaker: So that's what's crazy is, I mean, it's cool that you had, you can push yourself that level, you know you can hit those levels of work in like, you know, 12, 15 hours in a day if you need to.
Speaker: But then you can also, you know, tone it down and you're still getting results, which I think is awesome with the solar industry.
Speaker: I've gotten lazier in my time because pest control, that was me like six years ago now.
Speaker: So sometimes I feel like I need to go back and do a summer pest so I know what it's like to, like,
Speaker: It definitely gets you lazier, 100%.
Speaker: But yeah, I like to go on and off.
Speaker: I mean, 12 months because solar is obviously around, so you're off the summer thing.
Speaker: It's year round.
Speaker: So I personally, I don't know if anybody can, but I don't want to sustain 12 months of working 12, 15 hours a day just grinding because I would just, you know, it would just burn you out completely.
Speaker: Just about working smart.
Speaker: And so I'll have one or two months where I'm just going to push really hard, do a ton of accounts,
Speaker: the third month, I'll tone it down a little, work on the pipeline, make sure everything gets installed.
Speaker: Still work, you'll still put up those accounts.
Speaker: but not going as hard.
Speaker: And then just kind of manage that as far as like, it's helped me kind of recharge throughout the year.
Speaker: That's what's helped me kind of being sustained is if I did six months all out, I would be gone right now.
Speaker: I wouldn't be selling any accounts because you'd be burned out.
Speaker: But putting two, three months hard, take a month more, relax.
Speaker: You just kind of recharge yourself still.
Speaker: And the crazy thing about solar is if you sell 10 accounts that month, when you're chilling, you still made a hundred grand.
Speaker: So you're going to recharge, solo the less accounts, and relax, and then you'll kind of get ready for another sprint.
Speaker: But that's how I like to do it is just kind of time it and then go hard.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: And I think all the people getting huge results, they're doing little mini blitzes like that and just push themselves really hard for a little bit.
Speaker: So for those listening, if you haven't done a blitz like that, if you're like me, before I met you guys and all of the team here, Ricardo, I was just kind of happy putting in my...
Speaker: four or five hours for the day and not pushing hard but that's something I've seen that's different for you guys is you yeah you really go and you push hard and your results speak for themselves because that's when you got the you know 40 what was that 44 deals in a month 44 that was one of your hard pushes since you're at what 130 accounts for the year is it uh I think I got the scorecard this morning on pull this up okay um uh we'll go check on that
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, seven months, he's had 179.
Speaker: Yeah, incredible.
Speaker: So gotta be definitely near the top of the industry, if not setting industry records here.
Speaker: So pretty crazy.
Speaker: So yeah, can you talk about, I mean, this huge month you had 43.
Speaker: and you had the 1.9 million in revenue.
Speaker: What did it take that month for our listeners that want to go out and do something like that?
Speaker: You tell them how much you were working and maybe the mindset that you had to have?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Those were two different months.
Speaker: So the 44 was in June and that was my most accounts in a month.
Speaker: And then 1.9 million was in September.
Speaker: Actually, I said August.
Speaker: It was September.
Speaker: And that was just like sold less accounts.
Speaker: I just sold bigger accounts.
Speaker: And that's something I've got better at doing as I learn how to not burn out and kind of sustain is I started selling a couple less accounts, but I sell them bigger and higher to where you obviously make up, you have to work a little less, but it's sustainable.
Speaker: So yeah, in June, we were in a blitz for two weeks out of the month.
Speaker: And so the first two weeks in June, we were here in San Diego, went hard.
Speaker: June was like core summer for me.
Speaker: So I just took it really hard.
Speaker: June and July, that's when I pushed the most, probably this year.
Speaker: And so my schedule was,
Speaker: Kind of a pest control schedule if you want to say that that's what I wanted to do I said I want to take the skill and what I did last year in the grind and apply to solar and see where it goes because I don't see a lot of people actually do that and so 11 a.m.
Speaker: Probably I was out either on the doors or appointments obviously my setters have done a great job so all these numbers and all what I've achieved it took me have some awesome setters helped me obviously set some solid leads and helped me kind of manage my time to where it's actually efficient
Speaker: And so I tried to either be on the doors at 11 that month.
Speaker: When I achieved that, if I had an appointment, I had all my setters schedule appointments first thing in the morning, like 9.30, 10 a.m.
Speaker: first appointment.
Speaker: I tried to have them scheduled two-hour time slots all day long.
Speaker: So I teed them up either myself.
Speaker: I would just go.
Speaker: If there were any leads from other setters, I would just set them up myself and tee up my whole day or have them tee it.
Speaker: But I would have the first deal at 10 a.m.
Speaker: So wake up, hit the gym, whatever I got to do, 10 a.m.
Speaker: on my first deal, close that.
Speaker: That means by noon you already have a sale.
Speaker: Anybody that's in the industry knows when you get the momentum, when's the best time to get a sale?
Speaker: It's after you just got a sale.
Speaker: So you just want to build that momentum.
Speaker: I'd have a sale almost probably at least through the blitz, two weeks.
Speaker: I probably had a sale before noon every single day when I did that.
Speaker: so by noon you have a sale go to the second appointment between noon and two try to get my second before late afternoon and then either go knock to find another one or get a set but the goal was about three a day two to three a day every single day that's that's kind of what we're going for yeah and i would just try to have this schedule built before that so where you can do that the the biggest things that i've seen when you start getting big numbers in solar is just actually time management because it's hard to actually fit in and
Speaker: Something will go wrong with an account you have to get a redesign you're gonna sit in a house for three hours and you just actually have to make the time the physical time for you to be there and actually Make sure it works and so I kind of was pretty particular about two hour time slots and just have every single two hours just booked So I would have something I would double book appointments for flakes.
Speaker: Yeah, I just wanted to make sure there was no excuse like I
Speaker: No, oh, the appointment flake, they didn't sit, I didn't have time.
Speaker: I double booked appointments if I had to to make sure that whenever one flaked, I would just run to the other one.
Speaker: So I was basically running appointments all day, every day.
Speaker: I would have one backup, two backups.
Speaker: Sometimes we would triple book a slot.
Speaker: So I would go to a two o'clock, they flake, I go to the other one, they flake, I go to the third one.
Speaker: And so we just wanted, yeah, I just had backups making sure that there were no excuses going on.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: Yeah, I've seen that.
Speaker: Like all the top guys, you know, Mike O'Donnell, Chance Pranschinski, the guy that came on.
Speaker: He had like 16 a month.
Speaker: Same thing.
Speaker: These guys are like triple booking their appointments.
Speaker: And I think that's the key is if you want to hit big numbers like this, you just have to stack the appointments like crazy.
Speaker: So if you got nothing on the schedule, then, yeah, you got to make sure you're sitting in, you know, three, four appointments a day, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To set yourself up.
Speaker: Yeah, it's volume.
Speaker: You just need to make sure no excuses there, right?
Speaker: If you're getting two, three appointments, you have two or three appointments on the schedule, you just got to know one or two of those appointments will flake, potentially even all three.
Speaker: So when I go on these pushes and I want to make sure I go for big numbers, I just don't want there to be any excuse.
Speaker: As we talked about earlier, I don't want to be the guy that has three appointments on the schedule, they all flake, and then I just go home at night with no deal and I said, oh, well, they all flake.
Speaker: It's not my fault.
Speaker: I just want to take ownership for that and make sure I have seven, eight, nine on the schedule.
Speaker: I know half of them will play because that's just how it goes for the most part, but I just want to have the backup.
Speaker: Just plan for the worst case scenario and then if it's better, if they all sit, we have closers, you can spread appointments.
Speaker: There's always a way to take more appointments.
Speaker: There's not a way to have appointments when you don't have them, right?
Speaker: So I'd rather be double booked than not have any.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's awesome.
Speaker: That's the way to do it.
Speaker: And so, yeah, huge numbers, huge month.
Speaker: But what's more impressive to me than probably any of that is just like the revenue of the month.
Speaker: You had 1.9 million.
Speaker: And do you know how many accounts that took to do the 1.9 million?
Speaker: Probably around 37, 38, somewhere around there.
Speaker: Yeah, still a ton.
Speaker: But what's crazy, I mean, we're selling smaller systems typically.
Speaker: We're not like Texas or anything.
Speaker: So smaller systems than a lot of these other states.
Speaker: But Ricardo, when I first met him, he's telling me the prices he's selling at.
Speaker: And I'm like, man, I've never heard anyone consistently selling every single account at such high revenue.
Speaker: And not only is he selling a ton of accounts, but you're selling them through the roof.
Speaker: And you're not price gouging people.
Speaker: But it's like here where we're at, you can charge extremely high.
Speaker: And people are still saving boatloads of money.
Speaker: So that's something I've seen from you.
Speaker: And it makes sense too.
Speaker: Why not make what you're worth?
Speaker: and then you know make a high commission you're still going to cut the customer's bill in half a lot of times where people that i see that don't know how to sell aren't well trained they're just trying to you know compete on rock bottom prices and always you know sell for cheaper cheaper cheaper so yeah something i respect a ton so i don't know you want to talk to us a little bit ricardo about like what's allowed you but i don't know maybe that mindset shift and why you decided to just start like
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: That's huge for me and that's something I actually took from pest control.
Speaker: When I sold pest control as my company, we used to sell really high kind of premium pest control.
Speaker: So we were charging probably two to three X the normal industry price for a premium service.
Speaker: And I learned through my time there that it's never about price.
Speaker: It's never about price.
Speaker: When you make it about the price or you try to save people more money to get the deal,
Speaker: You're just not selling right or you were just never trained on how to properly sell The reality is at the end of the day customers don't care about price.
Speaker: They care about value, right?
Speaker: And so you can deliver more value selling a lot higher if you're right if you're doing things correctly then selling cheap So I see it two ways number one
Speaker: is valuing my time so the most important thing for selling high revenue high accounts is you have to value your time like i'm really busy as we said we're doubling appointments triple stacking appointments when i'm pushing my time is actually really valuable throughout those times because i can go and we can go sell a lot of accounts i'm not going to take time out of my day to go sell an account and make
Speaker: a small commission on it.
Speaker: This is not worth my time.
Speaker: It would just be a dumb business decision, so to speak, right?
Speaker: Opportunity cost.
Speaker: So the way I look at it is when I'm getting those pushes and I have a lot of accounts going on, I have to maximize every single account to be efficient.
Speaker: I have had times where I'm in a deal and I'm closing the account.
Speaker: It's a small account.
Speaker: The customer's price shopping me.
Speaker: They're trying to get it down.
Speaker: It's a small, cheap deal.
Speaker: I'm not making much money on that deal, and I know I have another one.
Speaker: I'll leave.
Speaker: I'll be like, sorry, I'm down.
Speaker: See you later.
Speaker: And I'll go to the next one because I'm trying to maximize my time and actually spread efficiency on there.
Speaker: And so that's the number one is just valuing your time, knowing that
Speaker: what you do is worth it.
Speaker: I mean, the customers, if you're selling the right way, you're not selling on savings, right?
Speaker: I mean, in California here, for everybody in other states, you guys are not selling on savings as much, but California, it's very easy to save people money.
Speaker: So what I see a lot of guys do is they just compete on bottom price.
Speaker: Or I can save you 50%, 60%, 70%.
Speaker: At the end of the day, the customer does not care.
Speaker: They would have been way better off if you save them less money.
Speaker: Say you save them 20%, 30%.
Speaker: but they got a quality product, quality system, and you explained it correctly, so they're actually educated as far as what they're doing.
Speaker: As far as you just throwing them a random number that's really cheap, but they actually don't understand what's happening, they don't know what's going on, and they're getting crappy equipment.
Speaker: So for me, it's just all about value.
Speaker: Because at the end of the day, I've had customers, I try to make it a point, when I go to customers that already shopped around and have other quotes, I usually get the deal, and I try to make it a point to be the most expensive quote they've had.
Speaker: For a purpose, it's just for, if you're selling correctly, price doesn't matter.
Speaker: So I try to prove that to myself and as you're getting better at sales and understanding psychology and understanding how it actually works,
Speaker: It just doesn't matter.
Speaker: So once you understand that, all you're really worrying about is delivering value to that customer and make sure they understand solar, understand all the benefits, not just the savings money.
Speaker: And once you do that and you explain it correctly, the customer will be the first one to see the value and agree with you as far as price doesn't matter as much.
Speaker: So I try to deliver that and then yeah, it's just valuing my time.
Speaker: Just try to hold strong.
Speaker: I have lost deals on price and I refuse to drop my price.
Speaker: And that's just...
Speaker: psychological thing for me.
Speaker: Once you do it one time, you're just gonna keep doing it and I don't wanna be the guy that keeps doing it.
Speaker: I'd rather lose a couple of deals and just hold firm on my price and make sure I can actually deliver value.
Speaker: And in the long run, that just made me so much more money than just try to get cheap deals.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So it's just know your value.
Speaker: And there's something about customers can sense that and they respect it.
Speaker: They can respect it.
Speaker: You don't want to buy from somebody that's trying to low value or being cheap.
Speaker: You don't want to buy from the guy that tells you, I can save you a lot of money.
Speaker: I'm the cheapest one you've ever seen.
Speaker: No one wants to buy from that guy.
Speaker: You want to buy from a guy that's an expert and that you respect and that actually knows what you're talking about.
Speaker: So as you're holding price and you're firm and you're up front with your customers, you gain a lot of respect from them.
Speaker: When customers go like, okay, I'm going to shop this around.
Speaker: I want a cheaper quote.
Speaker: It's about price.
Speaker: I'm just very upfront and very direct about the fact that, look, this is not the cheapest you're going to get.
Speaker: Matter of fact, it's probably one of the most expensive ones, but here's why.
Speaker: And just be very strong and know why.
Speaker: And that just gains a lot of respect and it got me a lot of deals.
Speaker: As opposed to probably a lot of deals.
Speaker: If I would have tried to undercut them or go cheaper, I would have lost them.
Speaker: As opposed to holding my price and being the most expensive and saying why and holding strong on that.
Speaker: Got me a lot of deals out of that.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: And yeah, it's, I mean, it's awesome because that's why you're so, especially right now, we're just talking, that's why you're making so much per account when, you know, you're on vacation and stuff.
Speaker: You only have to sell one deal because you're selling them at a higher, you know, revenue and all that higher price.
Speaker: And yeah, it's true.
Speaker: I go to a lot of these marketing conferences and stuff like that, and all these guys, they just talk about there's no advantage to be middle-of-the-pack pricing.
Speaker: Not at all.
Speaker: You'd be the most expensive or the cheapest, but there's never going to be an advantage.
Speaker: Yeah, you don't want to compete with what everybody's selling because it just makes you like everyone else, especially in such a saturated market like San Diego is.
Speaker: Everybody's got a solar quo here, everybody knows about solar, everybody's already sat down and everybody sells at the same price and it's pretty cheap.
Speaker: In San Diego everybody sells pretty low.
Speaker: So if I'm showing up to a house and I'm pulling up the same proposal with the same presentation with the same pricing, what's the homeowner going to do?
Speaker: I've already seen this a million times.
Speaker: I'll let you know, right?
Speaker: You're not going to be able to actually have any leverage to close that deal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If I'm actually showing up at a house, my price is significantly higher, but I'm actually able to back it up and know why that is and deliver value and make myself way different from everybody else that showed up.
Speaker: That's why I'm going to get that deal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: it was a high revenue and I had more margin and everyone's happier.
Speaker: The customer's happy because they finally got solar and they didn't believe any of the other guys.
Speaker: So they're in a better situation.
Speaker: I'm in a better situation because I got a higher margin.
Speaker: The company's happy, so everyone's happy.
Speaker: Yeah, and I'm sure you've probably sold people maybe the exact same product that they got with another company.
Speaker: But the thing is, they're not getting you from it.
Speaker: They're not getting your level of education.
Speaker: I mean, obviously you had the better sales skills to actually help them take action.
Speaker: So that's the thing, sometimes we're using the same panels, but for those that are listening, what experience are you delivering your customers?
Speaker: What's the level of education you're getting in them?
Speaker: And then I think it's good questions to ask for those that are like, you know, like you want to be making
Speaker: a lot on these deals.
Speaker: We're not doing pest control to make a couple hundred bucks, right?
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: You want to have the highest margin possible, you obviously have to back it up, right?
Speaker: You can't just go give a crappy experience and not take care of your customers and try to charge higher, right?
Speaker: Because it's not going to work.
Speaker: You have to back it up with experience and actually, like, with the experience that they get.
Speaker: But as long as that's there, I've had plenty of customers that have been undefensed about solar and they've been kind of even wanting solar.
Speaker: You find so many people that have been wanting solar, nobody were actually able to sell them the way they wanted to be sold, right?
Speaker: Everybody's always trying to push their agenda or do it the way they want to sell it to where if you actually just listen to your customers and understand what their needs are,
Speaker: It's never about the money.
Speaker: It's never about saving more money.
Speaker: It's always about they don't understand one thing, they don't understand the second thing.
Speaker: They want to make sure they can trust you.
Speaker: They want to have somebody they can rely on.
Speaker: As long as you can deliver all those things, price doesn't matter.
Speaker: So I try to give my customers a lot of education.
Speaker: Keeping it simple, you don't want to overcomplicate, but my customers, after they get solar, they know everything about it.
Speaker: They know their equity, how that affects them.
Speaker: They know a lot of things and how they get benefits.
Speaker: other than just saving.
Speaker: They understand inflation, all those things that we talked about.
Speaker: And so that's number one, to where they feel like they actually got a lot of value and education after they talk to me, as opposed to just being another guy that's trying to give them solar panels.
Speaker: They actually know what they're doing and know what's going on, and they know what they're talking about.
Speaker: Number two, I mean, I have a personal assistant.
Speaker: They'll have their phone number.
Speaker: I create group chats with all my customers.
Speaker: They get cookies.
Speaker: They get pizza right after we sign up.
Speaker: We're in constant communication.
Speaker: I have my assistant talk to all of them nonstop.
Speaker: If they have questions, they call her directly.
Speaker: They call me, but they get straight, constant communication with me at all times.
Speaker: They always know what's going on.
Speaker: And so those are all valuable things that if I'm going to take the time to go out of my way and do that and deliver that to my customers, I'm going to also value my time and make sure that we're compensated for that.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: So yeah, not only charging higher, but actually backing it up.
Speaker: So we're not saying, you know, sell crap and then don't give them service and still charge higher because.
Speaker: You don't want to do that.
Speaker: Yeah, it's going to be rough.
Speaker: And, you know, we all want to get referrals too.
Speaker: So I don't think Ricardo will be getting referrals if he's doing that.
Speaker: But no, that's huge.
Speaker: And so I think a lot of things that are something that reps get concerned about is just like, oh, Ricardo, if I sell this price high, what happens if the guy goes and shops me out, then I lose the deal later, maybe I don't get a referral.
Speaker: So for you, is it more like just a mindset change?
Speaker: I know you're talking about build more value, but I don't know, is there anything specific that you tell customers or try and pre-frame it?
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Sometimes if I know they're a shopper, if I know that customer is that type of person, I will pre-frame it, but it just comes from your mindset, number one.
Speaker: It literally, customers can sense
Speaker: how you're feeling and what you think.
Speaker: Customers can sense your energy.
Speaker: They can sense whether you actually believe what you're saying or not.
Speaker: And so, guess what?
Speaker: If you try to sell somebody really high and you don't think what you're doing is worth it, and you think that the customer is actually gonna shop it, guess what?
Speaker: They're gonna shop it.
Speaker: sense it in you that you're not confident in what you're actually doing and once they make that call and say hey I just got a quote and it's a lot cheaper you're gonna fumble on that and then you're gonna drop price and it doesn't work so once you're actually convicted and have conviction
Speaker: and what you're doing, I get those calls, not a lot, but here and there, I get those calls, I'm like, hey, we just shopped it and I just found one that's a lot cheaper.
Speaker: I'm like, great, that's fine, I just hold strong.
Speaker: I never drop a price, I'm like, that's cool.
Speaker: I'll go back and I'll ask questions and figure out what they're looking for, and again, it's never about the money.
Speaker: Once you actually go back, then if somebody's shopping for a cheaper price or they're gonna shop you in the backhand, it just means they didn't trust you in the first hand.
Speaker: or you didn't do a good enough job actually building value and selling them.
Speaker: So what I see is a lot of my customers don't shop at all because they have all that value and all that stuff that they got from my presentation that they didn't get from anybody else.
Speaker: So they don't actually go out of their way to do that.
Speaker: When that happens, you just want to actually be able to back it up.
Speaker: Don't fumble, don't be afraid, just actually explain to the customer, yes, I told you, it's definitely more expensive
Speaker: but here's why.
Speaker: And then, and X, Y, Z, like, if you want it cheap, I can do it cheap.
Speaker: We're gonna lose X, Y, Z. Do you want me to do that?
Speaker: And most of the time the answer is no, because it's never about money.
Speaker: It's actually about value and having a customer experience that they're comfortable with, right?
Speaker: So that's my biggest thing is pre-frame it if you have to, I'll do it here and there.
Speaker: Like if I know the customer is a shopper,
Speaker: they're actually going to go out of their way to search or they know they're actually doing that I'll pre-frame that and I will even give customers option through my sale right as I'm through my Sally final it's that type of person you want to get them to agree to what you want to agree on but it's got to be their decision and not yours right so I will tell people a lot of times look we have a couple different options there's low mid high here's what you got with everything
Speaker: blah blah blah and i'll just get them to what you actually want most of the time nobody tells you the cheapest they either tell you middle or high and most of the times when you actually explain it people would rather be sold higher and have a good experience than be sold cheaper and not have a good experience yeah
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, super important.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that, giving them options.
Speaker: And, yeah, I think the biggest thing is you're educating them.
Speaker: Obviously, people have the level of trust.
Speaker: They feel like you educate them for keeping communication with them.
Speaker: Probably very few people are going to, like, change their mind if you're giving them that level of service.
Speaker: so that's what i've seen too is you can give them that um service mindset and i guess it's like grant cordone says too whatever objections you have in your clothes are going to come up um as you're talking to customers so for those that are listening that have um i guess um fears about this then you're going to reflect that on your customers so do whatever you need to do sell yourself first right
Speaker: You have to sell yourself first.
Speaker: Once you believe what you're doing is actually worth it and you can back it up, the customers will follow the same.
Speaker: I mean, at the end of the day, your job is not to convince the customer to believe in what you're doing.
Speaker: Your job is to convince the customer that you believe in what you're doing.
Speaker: As long as the customer can sense certainty in me that I'm 100% certain as the expert that that's what they should do, they will just...
Speaker: follow that but they need to see the certainty within you to follow that yeah that's huge so Ricardo I know we don't have a ton of time but I think people are curious to know you closing at such a high you know revenue high prices and then closing so many accounts can you walk us through just maybe like your general closing structure and maybe I don't know anything you feel like are super helpful in closing and getting people to take action today and not think about it or go get multiple quotes and stuff
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: It goes back to, first of all, well, the way I structure my clothes, let's say, is obviously rapport building is huge for me.
Speaker: Any of my customers, most of them I have a really good relationship with, like as far as I'll connect with them a lot, to where you want to try to make it as personal as possible.
Speaker: to where they're not, I'm not the solar guy, I'm Ricardo, they know what I do, they know my background, they know all that stuff.
Speaker: It's just a lot harder, there's a much deeper connection when they can actually connect to Ricardo and I'm at their dinner table and I'm hanging out with their family and joking and playing around with the dog and all those things as opposed to just be the solar guy that's trying to sell on solar, right?
Speaker: There's a much different level of connection there.
Speaker: So I feel like trust and connection is number one.
Speaker: So that's the biggest thing that will help you to actually push through those deals that are a little more choppy or just actually get people to take action.
Speaker: It's all on trust and connection.
Speaker: If you don't have that and you're going to try to push somebody to do something and you don't have that connection, they're just going to kick you out of the house, right?
Speaker: It's not going to work.
Speaker: So if you're going to want to do that and close at a high rate and have that upper hand,
Speaker: when you want to go actually close and push, you need to create a really solid connection first because that gives you that.
Speaker: So I spend about five or ten minutes when I sit down at the table just joking around.
Speaker: I don't even probably start talking about solo for the first five or eight minutes.
Speaker: I don't want to feel like I'm just there to sit down and tell them something.
Speaker: Take time to ask them questions, just get to know them, get to know the family, just hang out.
Speaker: then I'll start asking a lot of questions about solar related stuff.
Speaker: I guess the biggest mistake I see people do is you'll see, actually it's mind blowing the amount of deals I've gone where people already sit down with solar people.
Speaker: Say you'll sit down and I see a lot of new reps or just a little unexperienced reps, they'll just sit down and start selling.
Speaker: And start selling right away and you're gonna try to sell the customer how you think they wanna be sold.
Speaker: Now you don't know how the customer wants to be sold until you just ask.
Speaker: And you just listen.
Speaker: Right, so as opposed to sit down and start selling, selling, selling, now the customer's just gonna be taken back.
Speaker: What I do is I get to know them first, I ask a ton of questions about solar first.
Speaker: So I'll ask them, hey, is this the first time you actually sit down with somebody?
Speaker: Have you said most people have sat down before here, right?
Speaker: It's California, everybody's already sat down with solar.
Speaker: So, okay, when's the last time you actually sat down?
Speaker: What did they tell you?
Speaker: What did they go through?
Speaker: What were they explaining to you?
Speaker: What was the reason why you didn't end up doing it?
Speaker: If you just do that and just ask them those questions, I promise you'll get 30% more deals.
Speaker: Because I've done so many deals where I literally sit down and I just go, okay, so you guys have done before, yes.
Speaker: What did the guy explain you?
Speaker: This, this, and that.
Speaker: Okay, so what was the reason why you didn't end up doing it?
Speaker: And that will say the dumbest reason to where if you literally just asked the question, you would have solved that concern and gotten an easy sale, right?
Speaker: I've gotten so many of those to where you're like, how did the rep before me get it, right?
Speaker: Because they probably didn't ask enough questions that they never got to that concern.
Speaker: If you're just selling, selling, selling, maybe they have one little dumb concern and you don't ask that question and they don't buy it because of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right and they'll tell you I got to think about it or any of those things never hear from them again So literally just taking five minutes to ask questions will lay down all their objections and all their problems Yeah Just doing that and asking why have you guys not done this before?
Speaker: Do you have any weird questions or anything that you feel like you should know?
Speaker: They'll ask you they'll literally lay out all their concerns now at that point once they build the connection I asked them all the questions
Speaker: Now they trust me and they like me as a person, Ricardo as a human being.
Speaker: After that, I talk to them about solar, I ask them why they haven't done solar in the past, they've told me why they haven't done it, they told me all their concerns.
Speaker: Now it's easy, what do I have to do?
Speaker: They like me, all I have to do is just handle those concerns.
Speaker: sales done.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: It's pretty simple.
Speaker: So I guess a lot of my sale is done in the first 10 or 15 minutes is building the connection then actually get the objections.
Speaker: And then after that, I'll get into my closing process.
Speaker: I'll have a presentation to where I focus a lot on building value.
Speaker: So you won't catch me talking about savings until the very end.
Speaker: I will not mention savings at all.
Speaker: I'll have a presentation where we're just talking about actual equity in the house,
Speaker: inflation rates where prices are going up, all those things.
Speaker: I'll have them pull up power bills.
Speaker: I'll explain how the rates are going up.
Speaker: Net metering 3.0 is coming out.
Speaker: It's just information.
Speaker: Getting people to take action is about actually educating them in the right way.
Speaker: California, we have net metering 3.0.
Speaker: Utility rates are changing.
Speaker: Prices are going up like crazy.
Speaker: Addison territory is going to time of use.
Speaker: All those things are happening.
Speaker: Customers have no clue.
Speaker: All they know is they just get a higher bill.
Speaker: They don't know why that happened.
Speaker: They don't know any of those things.
Speaker: If you can actually educate them and explain them what's happening and how fast it's happening, that's the biggest thing to create actual urgency out there.
Speaker: And so I'll explain all of those things, create value into owning solar, equity, locking in the rates, all those things.
Speaker: And then at the end, now what I've done is I've had the connection.
Speaker: I've had...
Speaker: all their objections laid out basically what they had before some preconceptions they have about solar stuff their friends have told them they had a bad experience all of that stuff i laid out on the table before i don't want to hear any of those objections after i try to close yeah right the worst place to be in is you go through the presentation without asking those questions and then you get unloaded all those objections at the end yeah you've already given your presentation you've taken you don't have any power anymore at that point
Speaker: and all you're doing is you're taking that objection and you're trying to backtrack it and it's just a lot harder so i don't want to get any objections by the time i'm closing i i don't close until i know for a fact that when i'm closing it's done when i go for the close i know there's zero objection there they're just going to sign up and that's it i won't close until that's the case so i'll take everything out
Speaker: Get all their objections, get all the questions.
Speaker: As I'm going through my presentation, check in with them very often, every 20, 30 seconds.
Speaker: Any question, concerns, get everything out.
Speaker: I want to get all their objections out before I actually go close.
Speaker: Now, I'm going to handle all of them.
Speaker: throughout my presentation.
Speaker: If I have them all laid out before, through my presentation, I'm gonna handle all those concerns that they gave me at the beginning, and I'm gonna fish out new concerns that they might have.
Speaker: So as I'm taking them all out, by the time my presentation done,
Speaker: There's nowhere else.
Speaker: All their concerns are handled.
Speaker: They understand everything.
Speaker: They agreed with me on everything I said.
Speaker: I'm gonna go close.
Speaker: Customers sign up 100% of the time.
Speaker: Because there's no concern anymore.
Speaker: But you never want to go close.
Speaker: Or what I see a lot of people is you try to push that close and try to close them.
Speaker: Now you might be able to get that deal if you just push it and then the next day they call you to cancel, right?
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: A big thing is yes, you want to push them, sometimes customers need to push, they need some sort of urgency there, but you want to do that once all their concerns are already handled, because now it also makes sense.
Speaker: As opposed to try to just push them through without handling concerns, you might be able to do it here and there, but they'll just cancel.
Speaker: You want to retain that customer.
Speaker: Or they'll call later, they'll shop, any of those things.
Speaker: So I just want to make sure throughout my whole process is really just made and designed to get concerns out and get, and most of the time for solar is concerns, not objections.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As when people, I mean, really, the only way people don't buy solar is because they don't understand it.
Speaker: Period.
Speaker: That's the only way.
Speaker: And once you come from that standpoint of it's not that you don't want solar, it's not that you're anti-solar, it's not that you don't like solar, you just don't understand it.
Speaker: Once you come from that place, all you have to do is get the customer to understand it.
Speaker: Once they understand it, they'll do it if you do it the right way.
Speaker: And so coming from that frame of mind for me is just about
Speaker: Okay, what is it that you don't understand?
Speaker: What are some of the concerns?
Speaker: What are some of the things that your friends have told you that you don't understand?
Speaker: Once they handle all of that stuff, any logical person will do it because it just makes sense.
Speaker: And so you just have to be really good at explaining that in a way that does make sense and makes them feel like they understand what they're actually doing.
Speaker: as opposed to just being pushed into solar panels.
Speaker: Yeah, okay, that's huge.
Speaker: And so let me ask you, what if someone says, like beginning, you're going through the questions, says, okay, Ricardo, but yeah, we're not gonna, this is all good, but yeah, just so you know, we're not gonna sign up today.
Speaker: We're gonna have to think about it.
Speaker: How do you get what's your advice on getting people to take action that maybe you resolve their all their concerns, or at least you think you did you went through your process, they trust you, but it's like, oh, well, we need to take some time.
Speaker: So I know that's what's we get questions all the time about that.
Speaker: So what's been helping you with that?
Speaker: So the big thing for me is coming back to how you carry yourself, value your time, and actually hold strong.
Speaker: That's the number one thing that helps me close all those deals.
Speaker: I don't get a lot of those objections at all to begin with.
Speaker: Just for the way I carry myself and pre-framing.
Speaker: All of that is, you don't handle that objection at the end of the sale.
Speaker: If you get to that and you get it at the end of your sale, you've already lost.
Speaker: If you're just going through your sale and you get, I gotta think about it at the end, you can try to overcome it, but...
Speaker: You probably lost the sale or you're gonna have to circle back like once you've given all your presentation And they say I got to think about it.
Speaker: You just haven't sold them well enough.
Speaker: I gotta go back and so I do a lot of work at the beginning of pre-framing and making them understand what's actually gonna happen and then the way I carry myself so when I'm there when I pre-frame the sale I'll say something along the lines of obviously, you know, we've been really busy We came from Cindy whatever neighbors.
Speaker: Yeah
Speaker: So, because of these new regulations, whatever I'm going to explain to them, like the net meter in 3.0, any of those things, because of these new things going on, we've just been slim.
Speaker: Like, all the neighbors are trying to get in.
Speaker: So, to be honest with you, I don't have a lot of time.
Speaker: I'm just going to be pretty straight up with you.
Speaker: That just sets up the tones to where I'm like, dude, I'm not here to waste the time.
Speaker: I'm not here desperate for your sale.
Speaker: I'm like, dude, if you don't want solar, I don't care.
Speaker: Don't get it.
Speaker: Like I'll give it to your neighbors, right?
Speaker: You just want to have that, you're never desperate for a sale.
Speaker: And so for me, you're never gonna catch me try to beg quote unquote a customer or try to push him into it.
Speaker: I just told myself, I was like, look, I'm doing so many homes, I don't have time at all.
Speaker: It's kind of more of like a favor of me showing up and actually getting it done.
Speaker: When it comes from that frame, they value your time a lot more and they're not gonna give you all those objections.
Speaker: But I'll say something along those lines and then pre-frame it.
Speaker: So I'll say, look, we've been super busy every time everybody's trying to get in before end of the year when the tax credit changes, any of those things.
Speaker: So I'm just going to be really straight up with you.
Speaker: I'm going to check a couple of things.
Speaker: This might or might not work for you.
Speaker: If it doesn't work, I'll be the first one to tell you because I don't have time to waste.
Speaker: So you don't want to waste time.
Speaker: I don't want to waste time.
Speaker: So if this doesn't work for you, I'll stand up and leave in five minutes.
Speaker: OK, if this works,
Speaker: What I'll do is we'll go through it and as long as it makes sense, we're a little crushed on time, so I'll help you file the application and get going.
Speaker: Sounds fair?
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: At that point, I agreed on two things.
Speaker: I'm either going to tell him it doesn't work and that's going to be on my terms, or we're going to keep going and I'm going to do it.
Speaker: And I said, my time is scarce, right?
Speaker: I don't have a lot of time here.
Speaker: I'm doing all the neighbors.
Speaker: I don't have time.
Speaker: Within five minutes, I will know if this works for you or not.
Speaker: If this works, we're going to keep going and sign up.
Speaker: Basically, that's what I told them.
Speaker: If it doesn't work, I'll stand up and leave.
Speaker: Fair?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: After that, that's it.
Speaker: The sale's done right there and then, right?
Speaker: After I stayed there for five minutes and I tell them, okay, you're qualified, they've already agreed as far as I handle their concerns at that point and as far as it all makes sense, they will sign up because we've already pre-agreed on that.
Speaker: Now, you don't want to make it a big deal.
Speaker: It's kind of like a little thing that you push in there.
Speaker: You don't want to say before the sale, hey, if this makes sense, you'll sign up, right?
Speaker: I'm signing a contract today.
Speaker: 25 years.
Speaker: But you're setting the intention to what we're doing.
Speaker: We're scarce on time.
Speaker: Here's what we're doing.
Speaker: I don't want to waste your time or mine.
Speaker: I'm going to look at this for five minutes.
Speaker: If this makes sense, I'll help you get going.
Speaker: If not, I'll get up and go to your neighbor's school.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: At that point, I have all the power there.
Speaker: I either tell them yes or no, but I'm holding all of that.
Speaker: I never give them the power of saying yes or no, if that makes sense at that point.
Speaker: Boom, dude, that's fire.
Speaker: So anyone that's not closing as many deals as you need, go back and listen to the last couple of minutes.
Speaker: Because, yeah, I think if you do that, yeah, because I mean, it's just any time the customer can sense that desperation, begging for the sell, it's like getting that girl in high school.
Speaker: People want what they can't have, right?
Speaker: And that's what you're doing.
Speaker: Absolutely, they want what they can't have.
Speaker: And people, if you ever think about, I mean, one of the best things you can do to increase your sales is actually think when you're being sold something, right?
Speaker: I always go back and I think about when I go shop cars, right?
Speaker: I go buy a car at the dealership or I go do a couple of things and I'm like, dude, I would have bought this thing if the sales guy was a little better, but I didn't, right?
Speaker: So when you go back and think of how you're actually sold and what you respect,
Speaker: you are not gonna buy from somebody that's begging you for sale.
Speaker: If somebody came to you begging you to buy a car, you wouldn't buy that car.
Speaker: You would buy from the guy that's busy as hell, that barely gives you any time, and that's like, dude, quick, yes or no, I'm busy, I've got a million things going on.
Speaker: You wanna buy from that guy.
Speaker: You don't wanna buy from the guy that's desperate.
Speaker: Because you see that guy is busy, he knows what's happening, he's the expert, he's quick.
Speaker: Same thing with everything.
Speaker: If you apply that to your life,
Speaker: you don't wanna, I mean, that's just how you wanna put yourself.
Speaker: Because you wanna be the guy that's the expert, that's busy, that you know what they're doing, and you know exactly their situation, and that's honest, and that's straight up.
Speaker: Like, I'm very honest and blind with my customers.
Speaker: I've sat down, and as I said, once you do the pre-framing,
Speaker: It goes back to valuing your time.
Speaker: If I do that five, 10 minutes of the initial meeting with the customer and I understand they're not a buyer, because you'll get better and better with time understanding they're a buyer or they're not a buyer.
Speaker: When the first two to five minutes in the house, I'll already know if they're signing up or not.
Speaker: And when I'm sensing my time and I know they're not a buyer and they're giving me weird objections or they're not following you or all those things, sold your time.
Speaker: Get up and leave.
Speaker: I do that all the time.
Speaker: When I'm at a table, I'm valuing my time and I'll tell customers these things and I pre-frame it and I get everything done right and I go through my process.
Speaker: If they don't agree with me or they don't want to follow the process, I'll leave.
Speaker: I'll say, okay, no problem.
Speaker: This doesn't work for you.
Speaker: Goodbye.
Speaker: I get up and leave.
Speaker: But you have to have that kind of strength and that comes from you first.
Speaker: It's the same as holding price.
Speaker: It's the same as holding your time valuable.
Speaker: It comes from you first.
Speaker: If you're trying to go through this process and you sit down with a customer and now the customer's not following your process and they're like, no, I want a quote and then I'm gonna shop again, you know those customers.
Speaker: When they sit down and they're like, look, just so you know, I just wanna get a quote today and then I'm gonna get another quote and then another quote and then I'll compare.
Speaker: I want to sit with that guy.
Speaker: He's wasting my time.
Speaker: You think I'm going to sit there for an hour and give him a quote just so this dude can go shopping somewhere else?
Speaker: I'm not going to do that.
Speaker: I'll say, look, here's what we're doing.
Speaker: I'm busy.
Speaker: I don't have time for this.
Speaker: If this makes sense, I'll get it going today.
Speaker: Does that work?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Goodbye.
Speaker: See you later.
Speaker: I'll leave.
Speaker: Go somewhere else.
Speaker: But you just have to hold your time first.
Speaker: When you do that, then the right people, they're actually ready to go.
Speaker: They're all going to sign up with you.
Speaker: And I'm not saying don't handle objections, I handle a ton of objections through the sale, but you have to be good at knowing when it's a no-go or if it's somebody that's actually not gonna happen.
Speaker: Don't waste an hour of your time.
Speaker: Why would you do that?
Speaker: Just to feel like you gave it a shot when you know you're actually not gonna get the sale.
Speaker: And if you have enough experience,
Speaker: you will know.
Speaker: If you're newer, I would say sit through all of them because it takes time and experience to actually understand that.
Speaker: If you're a newer guy and you're starting to close right now, when I started closing, I would sit through all of them.
Speaker: I would go through objections and just bulldoze them and just try to go through them all.
Speaker: Then with experience, you understand, there are some people who are just not going to buy.
Speaker: Just don't waste your time.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's the main thing.
Speaker: But as you get better, that's something I think helped me so much at actually getting high numbers is just keeping my time open and valuable as opposed to wasting it with people.
Speaker: I would rather sit on my laptop, do account management for an hour, as opposed to sit with a guy that's wasting my time, right?
Speaker: A lot of times I've left deals, say I was in a deal, and I sit down and I'm like, this guy's going to waste my time for two hours.
Speaker: So he's gonna ask all the questions, get in all the details, keep two hours of my time, and then get a quote, right?
Speaker: And I'm like, dude, I don't have time for this.
Speaker: See you later.
Speaker: And I'll leave, knock the door next to him, and sign him up on the spot, right?
Speaker: So just hold your time valuable to where you can actually go and do better things.
Speaker: Yeah, well, that's huge.
Speaker: Yeah, one of the biggest mistakes I see, especially in newer reps, is they just spent two hours with Grandma Betty, that's 96 years old.
Speaker: Never gonna buy.
Speaker: They're never gonna buy.
Speaker: And they thought, they just built a great rapport for two hours.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's tricky.
Speaker: Yes, that's one thing.
Speaker: It's being really careful of that.
Speaker: Especially you see in your reps all the time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, I've met this grandma.
Speaker: She's amazing.
Speaker: She's the nicest lady on earth.
Speaker: She's for sure going to do it.
Speaker: When you show up and then you're like, yeah, grandma never had an intention of buying solar.
Speaker: She's an awesome.
Speaker: She wasted two hours of your time.
Speaker: So it's just being able to have that difference of when you're working, I'm working.
Speaker: I'm there to get revenue, make sales, get going.
Speaker: I'm not going around to have two-hour conversations.
Speaker: If I wanted to do that, I'd go hang out with my friends.
Speaker: So I'm just keeping my time valuable and make sure that you're optimizing.
Speaker: I'm pretty particular about it, maybe too much, but I go by the 10 minute, 30 minutes, an hour, like I'm just holding my time so much, especially when I'm out on the doors, because it's so valuable, especially in solar, is...
Speaker: Five minutes more, five minutes less could be the difference between me getting an account that's 30 grand or not, right?
Speaker: If I wasted 20 minutes too long with a guy that's not going to buy, then I show up to the next appointment late, and maybe that was a 30k lay down and I didn't get it because I was late.
Speaker: So, solding time to always being efficient, that's one big thing for me.
Speaker: that's awesome yeah huge powerful concept right there so for our listeners make sure you know the value of your time make sure you go through and really ask yourself was i utilizing my time to you know maximum efficiency in those deals in those appointments because
Speaker: Any top producer, especially Ricardo, it's a huge concept that's helped him a ton.
Speaker: So Ricardo, I know we're speaking at time.
Speaker: I know we're getting short on time as we speak here.
Speaker: But last couple things.
Speaker: First of all, before I forget, where can people, I don't know, reach out to you, connect with you, hit you up on social media?
Speaker: Yeah, I guess I'm always on my Instagram.
Speaker: That's my biggest thing.
Speaker: So Ricardo Richie7, I guess you can put a handle after that.
Speaker: So that's where I'm the most active or the easiest to reach is Instagram.
Speaker: That's the last way.
Speaker: Sweet.
Speaker: So we'll put that in the show notes.
Speaker: Go hit him up when you hear this.
Speaker: Let him know you appreciate him for, yeah, this game-changing nuggets advice you've heard on the show today.
Speaker: And then last question, Ricardo.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess biggest thing for people that are struggling,
Speaker: Maybe they're going through a slump right now or maybe they're starting out and not having much success.
Speaker: Is there any last advice you'd give or any final tip you'd give for those people?
Speaker: Yeah, I think biggest thing is just focus on the process.
Speaker: Forget about the outcome.
Speaker: That's the biggest thing.
Speaker: I guess that's the number one thing that helped me become a top producer is completely forget about the outcome.
Speaker: Like if I sell 20 deals in a week or I sell two deals in a week, I don't necessarily care as long as I know I've done everything I could have done.
Speaker: I've had weeks where I've sold five deals, three deals, four deals, and I was happier than a week I sold 10 or 15 or 20 because I know that that week I sold four, I went all out, and four is all I could have done that week.
Speaker: As opposed to I had weeks where I did 10 and I'm like, dude, I was lazy, I could have done 15.
Speaker: So everybody has that, is just forget about outcome and just go back and focus on the process.
Speaker: Now if you're struggling, you're in a slump, you're probably just overthinking things.
Speaker: If you're new to the industry and you're like, is this gonna work for me?
Speaker: I don't know if this works for me.
Speaker: I promise you it works.
Speaker: You've seen there's thousands of people out there doing this, selling, making plenty of money, being successful.
Speaker: It's not rocket science.
Speaker: Sales is not rocket science.
Speaker: So it's simple as long as you have a right mentor, have somebody to follow, have somebody that gives you good advice, and then just implement.
Speaker: It doesn't come overnight.
Speaker: You see all the people that are successful.
Speaker: You can see myself, a ton of other top reps.
Speaker: It takes time to get to that point.
Speaker: We didn't just wake up one day and we're the top rep.
Speaker: It takes time, and so just go through the learning curve, embrace it, just know that as you're going through that, either learning curve or slump, focus on the output, do as much as you can, just work.
Speaker: Literally just fall back and work.
Speaker: One of the things that,
Speaker: gives me the most peace in general and I don't really stress a lot about sales at all.
Speaker: I know the outcome will come as far as I put in the output.
Speaker: I know, and hard work and work ethic is so important, just because it gives you that peace of mind.
Speaker: I know that if
Speaker: you know, stuff happens.
Speaker: I know that if I really need to, I'm having a really bad month and I really need to go get results, I know, because I've done it, I can go on the doors for 16 hours every day.
Speaker: I know that for a fact.
Speaker: And so that just gives you peace of mind in the back of your head, knowing that if things are great, great.
Speaker: If things are not working for you, I know for a fact I can drop everything and be straight for four months, 16 hours at the end of the doors.
Speaker: I know I can do that.
Speaker: So once you know that, it just gives you so much peace of mind of actually going out.
Speaker: And if you're not getting the results you want, go work.
Speaker: Get 12 hours on the door.
Speaker: I promise you, you go 10 hours a day on the doors for a week straight.
Speaker: I promise you'll get sales.
Speaker: No way, no way you don't.
Speaker: Right, so just, it's just about having that confidence in yourself.
Speaker: Of like, I can work hard, prove yourself you can do those things.
Speaker: Like, prove yourself you can do hard things.
Speaker: Work out hard, go around a marathon, do hard stuff, be uncomfortable, have hard conversations.
Speaker: When you can prove yourself you can do all those things, it just gives you so much peace of mind.
Speaker: Because you know, look, if stuff goes bad, if I need to do stuff, I can do hard stuff.
Speaker: I can go 16 hours a day and I'll be fine.
Speaker: So once you give yourself that backup,
Speaker: then it just gives you so much more peace to actually go through things and enjoy the process and get better.
Speaker: And if you keep trying it, you're not getting the results you want, actually go to backup option, go work 12 hours a day.
Speaker: And do that for two weeks straight and then see what happens.
Speaker: Boom, fire, that is money right there.
Speaker: So guys, once again, go give Ricardo a shout out, let him know you appreciated him on the show today.
Speaker: And yeah, I think that's a wrap.
Speaker: Just focus on the process, not the outcome, like you said.
Speaker: And then especially if you are struggling, don't be afraid.
Speaker: Ask yourself, am I really putting in the hours that I need to?
Speaker: Am I putting in the max effort?
Speaker: Because that's the first step to getting over that hump is really putting in the effort that you need to.
Speaker: So Ricardo, thanks again for coming on the show today.
Speaker: I'm sure people will hit you up and appreciate it.
Speaker: I'm sure we'll have you on for a follow-up episode.
Speaker: And yeah, peace out.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Great here.
Speaker: Yeah, we had fun.
Speaker: It was good to be here.
Speaker: Yeah, thanks, man.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Hey, Solar Pruners.
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