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The 1 Thing Successful Salespeople and Entrepreneurs Have in Common
45 Plays4 years ago
SOLARCON April 21st - 23rd, 2022
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Thanks to our sponsor Pi Syndicate for this episode!
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Transcript
Taylor's Journey from $50 to 150 Deals
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
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My name is Taylor Armstrong.
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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
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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.
Defining a Solopreneur's Mastery
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
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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.
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The one thing that all great salespeople and leaders have in common, we're going to be jamming on that and much more today in today's podcast.
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So let's jump into it.
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My name is Taylor Armstrong.
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As usual, we're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and
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And hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
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Thanks for making Solar Printer Podcast the first listen of your day on the way out to your area, on the way to that next deal.
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Maybe you're closed and virtual, so you're jamming in this with the podcast in the gym.
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Wherever you listen, appreciate you.
00:01:16
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And especially now because...
Podcast Gap and Hosting Switch
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Well, we had a little mishap.
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If you are listening to this and if you have been a frequent listener, you know that we had about a two week period where a podcast wasn't published.
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And let me just tell you, it tore me apart.
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I was like, come on, why are these podcasts not happening?
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And I'll be the first to tell you it was not by choice.
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I had the podcast ready.
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I had content flying off the shelves, but we had a little issue with our podcast hosting service.
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So I talked about it in my Instagram stories.
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If any of you follow me, go shoot me a follow.
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It's at Taylor J. Armstrong.
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We're also on Facebook.
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But basically what happened, if you didn't hear, is we switched podcast hosting platforms to one called Wistia.
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And long story short, it did not work out.
Advice on Platform Switching
00:02:17
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It was not a smooth transition.
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And very poor customer service.
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So if you're thinking about starting a podcast, do not switch to Wistia, whatever you do.
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And it caused a delay of two weeks just because it created a repeat copy of the podcast.
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All of a sudden there was two copies of the podcast on Apple.
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And then it wasn't publishing them to Spotify.
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I don't know.
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Just a whole mess.
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So I gave these guys two weeks to try to help me get it figured out.
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It was not working.
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And yeah, so we're back to our other...
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podcast hosting platform.
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And some of you are probably like, dude, why, why did you switch if it was going fine before?
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And the reason for that is because Wistia, it's primarily a video hosting service.
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And we were paying for that for our video hosting.
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Sorry to get a little geeky here.
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But, and supposedly they had better podcast analytics.
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It was supposed to be great for podcasts too.
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So I thought, okay, well, if I'm already paying for this, might as well switch it.
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Canceled the old service and it didn't work out.
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So anyways, if you are thinking of switching softwares or whatever...
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you know, platform software as you use, let that be a lesson to you.
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Do you not switch until you have all your ducks in a row, make sure you've demoed whatever you're doing, make sure it's going to be a smooth transition and make sure it works because if you are relying on something to work and it doesn't very frustrating.
00:03:57
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So with that being said though, we are back and I'm glad to finally be back.
00:04:01
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Consistent Tuesday and Friday.
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Okay, we got a lot of super awesome guests coming up.
Upcoming Feature: Tanner Huber
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So next podcast, you're going to hear Tanner Huber, just to give you a little preview.
00:04:14
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And Tanner runs an insanely successful summer sales program for solar.
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And he is, I believe, the first person really to kind of, I know companies were doing it before, but really I think the first person to go all in just on solar as a summer program.
00:04:32
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So you're going to want to hear that podcast, especially we're getting close to summer.
00:04:36
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We're getting heavy on the recruiting.
00:04:39
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If you are trying to get those summer guys coming out or recruiting on college campuses, get guys coming out for the summer, you are not going to want to miss this podcast because they do insane amounts of sales in the summer.
00:04:51
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That's pretty much their entire business model.
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That's going to be on the next show.
00:04:57
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So let's jump into the topic without further
The Importance of Storytelling
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ado.
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Today, we're going to be talking about a super important trait that I think all entrepreneurs, all business people, all salesmen, all people like that, that are good at their craft, they have this one skill in common.
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And that skill is this, it's storytelling.
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Speaking of storytelling, I'm going to tell you guys a story to kind of crank this point across or get this point across rather.
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Last week, I closed my couple deals on the week.
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Got my two.
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One of my deals, you guys may have seen me post about him, but he was this super cool, black, older guy.
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Gave me a great video testimonial.
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Was stoked to go solar.
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And I was just fired up about this guy because it's super smooth.
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We cut his bill.
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He had a $400 bill.
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We literally cut it in half.
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Okay.
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Stay out of San Diego because you can cut people's bills in half here.
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Okay.
00:06:05
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You don't need to come here.
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It's a terrible market.
00:06:07
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But we cut this guy's bill in half.
00:06:09
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He was stoked about it.
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He even calls me the next day, which sometimes, as you know, you get a call from the customer the next day.
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Usually that's a bad thing, right?
00:06:18
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Usually they have more concerns or not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes they're trying to cancel, whatever.
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So he calls me the next day and instead of like having concerns or trying to cancel, he says, Taylor, I'm just so excited about getting this alert.
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Can you remind me how quick we can get it up there again?
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He literally calls me just to say how excited he is and that he wants the solar up there ASAP.
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So needless to say, I did not think I was having issues with this guy.
00:06:48
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I thought it was a slam dunk, walk in the park, but it can't ever be that easy, right?
00:06:55
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We all know when deals seem easy, usually something happens.
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Usually their roof doesn't pass.
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Usually they need a panel upgrade, whatever.
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So sure enough, this guy,
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was not as easy as I thought.
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Okay.
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I get a call from him on Saturday, which was like three, four days after the sale.
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And he, now he goes from a hundred to zero says, Taylor, I'm going to need to cancel the project.
00:07:24
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Luckily I was in the neighborhood.
00:07:27
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So that's the first lesson.
00:07:29
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Make sure you go back to people that are canceling.
00:07:31
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Right.
00:07:33
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Try to get back in front of him because if we're trying to save him over phone or through text, it's going to be a lot more difficult.
00:07:40
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So I got back in front of him and turns out he had gotten a much cheaper quote.
00:07:46
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Okay, they were just online, shopped me out, got a cheaper quote.
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He was a military guy, so they told him they were giving him a great military discount, which people love.
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Should have done that too.
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And he's like, yeah, I think I'm going to go with these guys.
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So I was like, come on, dude, let's figure out, let's get you the best deal.
00:08:14
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So we sat down, we pulled out his other quote, started looking through it.
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And again, this is something you need to be doing.
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Make sure you're comparing if you can with the customer, if they go shop, you all right.
00:08:27
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If they have something way cheaper.
00:08:30
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And of course, I noticed that he's getting way lesser warranties.
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The equipment's not quite as good.
00:08:36
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I think they're using maybe like a string inverter.
00:08:41
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I don't remember exactly, but we looked at all the stuff.
00:08:43
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The main thing though, was he was getting a much less lesser warranty.
00:08:48
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I think it was like five years on the roof, 10 years on the workmanship.
00:08:53
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We were giving them
00:08:55
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30 year warranty across the board.
00:08:57
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Okay.
00:08:57
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I pulled out all the stops, gave them a great backing, a great warranty.
00:09:03
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So what I did, I knew this wasn't going to be enough to save them.
00:09:05
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Okay.
00:09:07
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So I did have to drop the price a little bit.
00:09:09
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Okay.
00:09:10
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Cut out some of my commissions, which is whatever.
00:09:13
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Okay.
00:09:13
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But the main thing I did end up saving this guy, which is great.
00:09:18
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And the way I did it is I told stories, right?
00:09:22
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Instead of just saying, Tony, you're going to be getting a way better warranty.
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Come on, just do it.
00:09:29
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You're going to get XYZ.
00:09:32
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That's that.
00:09:34
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The main thing that helped me save this customer is I said, Tony, look, you are getting a better warranty, but here's why that's important.
00:09:44
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There was a lady I helped out several months ago.
00:09:48
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She had gotten a bunch of cheap quotes.
00:09:52
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And matter of fact, her cousin had gone
Stories in Sales and Customer Trust
00:09:57
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solar with a cheaper company.
00:10:02
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And they had only a 10-year warranty on all the equipment up there.
00:10:06
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Guess what happened?
00:10:08
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No, Taylor, what happened?
00:10:09
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What happened?
00:10:11
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Yeah, her cousin, he had to, the company went out of business.
00:10:18
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And that 10-year warranty was,
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The manufacturer was only covering the 10 years.
00:10:23
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So after that, guess what?
00:10:25
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He had to buy basically an entire new system.
00:10:29
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He had to contact other people to service him.
00:10:32
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All that money he spent on this cheap system, now he had to pay for essentially two cheap systems.
00:10:42
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And so all of a sudden, his best price was...
00:10:45
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just like doubled in price when he could have paid a little bit more and got something that would have lasted him, you know, 35, 40 years, probably.
00:10:56
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So I'm not saying that's going to happen to you, Tony, but don't you think it's good to spend a little bit more and not have the same thing happened as what happened to this customer's cousin?
00:11:07
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And boom,
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That story is what I saw something flip in his head, right?
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And finally, no matter all the facts, I started spitting about him about this product, this warranty, but it was that story where I saw something switched in his head and he finally opened up.
00:11:28
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He finally listened a little bit better.
00:11:33
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So I'm not saying it's going to work a hundred percent of the time.
00:11:36
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But make sure whatever you're doing, you are doing, tell stories.
00:11:40
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And you notice that this entire podcast, we've been talking almost 10 minutes now, right?
00:11:47
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And guess what?
00:11:48
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That 10 minutes was just a story pretty much the whole time, right?
00:11:54
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So that is the point of today's topic.
00:11:58
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Make sure you keep storytelling in mind.
00:12:03
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And it's so important.
00:12:04
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We had, I'm in the, uh, this knock star training group right now, Taylor McCarthy, Danny Pesce.
00:12:12
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They've been on the podcast, some of those most popular episodes, but we talked almost the entire time about objections last week in our little coaching call.
00:12:25
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And their whole thing was how to overcome objections and
00:12:30
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Danny Pesce, he called it the objection rebuttal formula.
00:12:33
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He says, agree.
00:12:35
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Number two, restate as a question.
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Number three, overcome the objection.
00:12:41
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Number four, anecdote or story.
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Number five, transition.
00:12:46
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So every top sales guy is using stories.
00:12:50
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They have endless stories pretty much about different customers, different situations.
00:12:57
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So if you do not have a story for every single objection you try to overcome, for every single situation where someone could cancel, you are going to lose deals.
00:13:08
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Make sure right now, today, I want you to go in your notes.
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You should have a little objection journal.
00:13:16
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I would encourage everyone to keep their objection journal in their notes section of your iPhone.
00:13:22
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Hopefully you have an iPhone.
00:13:24
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I'm sure you crazy Android users, there's something similar to a notes section, but go into notes section, create a folder for objections and make sure you put a story.
00:13:34
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If you don't have your own stories, then it gets your manager, people in your office say, Hey, do you have any customers where they said they were moving soon, where you actually helped them move?
00:13:47
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Do you have any like stories around that?
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Write it down and then start using that.
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Use that in your presentations.
00:13:56
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So that is the point of today's episode.
00:13:58
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And just a couple, I guess, supporting factors to go with this.
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I was looking up some stats before.
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Here's a stat.
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If you can remember it, it says people are 22 times more likely to remember a story than a statistic.
00:14:14
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So you're probably going to forget that statistic just barely, but you're not going to forget the story.
00:14:19
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At least hopefully not.
00:14:22
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So make sure you're writing them out, practice your stories.
00:14:25
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Then another thing that's been super powerful for me in my closing conversations and in my overcoming objections, get pictures or videos with your customers.
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You've seen me do this.
00:14:38
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If you follow me also, I've talked about it on the podcast, but if you can pull up a picture and have a specific story to go that with that,
00:14:46
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of that customer, even if it's not in the same area, you'd be shocked.
00:14:50
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I'll pull up a picture of, you know, some customer I have that's 50 miles from the appointment I'm in right there.
00:14:58
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But I'll say, Hey, I don't know if you know these people, they live in the area, whatever.
00:15:03
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They don't have to be neighbors, right?
00:15:05
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You're not going to lie, but you can pull up a picture.
00:15:08
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And then if they can see that that story is tangible, if they can see the actual person with it,
00:15:14
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For me, it's been making my stories way more powerful because they're not only hearing it from my mouth, but they're seeing it on a screen.
00:15:21
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They're connecting it with the emotion of it.
00:15:25
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And that's the other important point.
00:15:27
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Number three is make sure you have it as emotional as possible.
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Focus on how it makes you feel, how it should make the other person feel.
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And I know I could have better stories.
00:15:40
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Sometimes we get too factual.
00:15:41
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We're focused on statistics, things like that.
00:15:45
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But if you can make it painful, if you can have that person go through the journey with you, feel the same emotions that were felt on that story.
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Like the way I overcome that objection is I tried to convey as much pain as possible in this lady's cousin because she had this painful situation and
00:16:07
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The cousin had to buy an entire new system, basically.
00:16:11
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And it was a nightmare.
00:16:14
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So much hassle to go through.
00:16:15
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Okay, so try to convey that to whoever you're telling the story to.
00:16:23
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Make them feel the emotion and that's going to cut deep.
00:16:26
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That's going to be the thing that separates you from the other people slinging solar out there.
00:16:32
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So I hope that helped today.
00:16:34
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Send this to someone who could use a tune-up on their storytelling.
00:16:39
Speaker
And remember, stories are super important for anyone that is trying to lead a
00:16:44
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Anyone that's trying to run effective meetings for all you managers out there, you should be utilizing stories in your meetings.
00:16:52
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Keep a story journal, not only for your customer objections, but also just crazy things that happen in your life, right?
00:17:01
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Because how many times could something happen?
00:17:04
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You could tie it back to a principle you could teach in a sales meeting, right?
00:17:09
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For me, I'm constantly doing this.
00:17:10
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You're hearing me talk about like movies.
00:17:12
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You're hearing me talk about random stuff that sometimes probably should have nothing to do with sales, but I try to tie it back to a sales principle.
00:17:22
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All right.
00:17:23
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So keep track of those stories.
00:17:25
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It's something I've tried to do.
00:17:26
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Okay.
00:17:27
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Again, create this stories folder in your iPhone notes section and keep those stories rolling.
00:17:36
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So I hope that inspired you to start mastering the art of storytelling and improving on that.
00:17:43
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And that is the topic of today's episode.
00:17:46
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Hopefully it helped.
00:17:47
Speaker
Guys, don't forget, leave us a review.
00:17:50
Speaker
If this helped you, share it with someone.
00:17:52
Speaker
Tag me in a story, in a post, on the social medias.
Introducing Solciety: A Solar Learning Community
00:17:57
Speaker
And don't forget, tune in to next episode.
00:18:00
Speaker
We're going to have Tanner Huber on.
00:18:01
Speaker
He's going to be talking about how to recruit an army for summer sales.
00:18:06
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So we'll see you on the next episode.
00:18:08
Speaker
Go crush it this week.
00:18:10
Speaker
Peace, y'all.
00:18:12
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
00:18:14
Speaker
What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day?
00:18:23
Speaker
For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
00:18:36
Speaker
That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry.
00:18:47
Speaker
And it's called a Solciety.
00:18:48
Speaker
This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day.
00:19:08
Speaker
Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
00:19:14
Speaker
So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
00:19:22
Speaker
This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
00:19:29
Speaker
We'll see you on the inside.