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Secret Weapon for Leading Teams - Ashton Buswell
46 Plays5 years ago
How do you maintain a work-life balance in solar sales? Many people struggle balancing their work from their personal life. This isn't surprising in solar sales with the constant rejection, meeting the quota, and being available constantly for leads and potential customers. In this episode, Ashton will share some of his secret weapons on how he balances his life and give important tidbits on how to lead teams efficiently.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Taylor Armstrong's Journey: Overcoming Financial Struggles
00:00:10
Speaker
I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you 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 the Solopreneur
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
Speaker
A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
00:00:43
Speaker
What's going on, solopreneurs?
Ashton Buswell's Return and Success Story
00:00:45
Speaker
We're back with another episode, and we've got a familiar face on the show.
00:00:50
Speaker
If you haven't heard of him, go back probably about 100 episodes now.
00:00:54
Speaker
He was one of our first guests, but his name is Ashton Buswell.
00:00:57
Speaker
Ashton, thanks for coming back on the show with us.
00:01:00
Speaker
You got it, man.
00:01:01
Speaker
I got the face for radio, for sure.
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, we talked about your ESPN interview last time we had you on the show, so go back if you want to hear about that.
00:01:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:11
Speaker
But Ashton, he's one of the top guys for sure in the industry.
00:01:16
Speaker
We talked about all his records he set last time when he was on, but closed 21 deals in a day.
00:01:21
Speaker
He's had, what was it, 40 deals or something you've closed in a week?
00:01:25
Speaker
Is that the record?
00:01:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah?
00:01:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:28
Speaker
40-something, I think.
00:01:31
Speaker
can't remember yeah but yeah I mean if you haven't heard this guy we've got a couple people I've seen on social media bounce now and that it could close eight deals in a day and we're here to set the record straight the Ashton still has as far as I know the record with 21 in a day so
00:01:51
Speaker
If you see someone saying they're setting records closing eight, then go back and listen to Ashton's podcast.
00:01:56
Speaker
They probably are.
00:01:57
Speaker
It's probably a record for themselves, right?
00:01:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:02:00
Speaker
No disrespect.
00:02:01
Speaker
I mean, that's a problem that we're closing eight in a day, so that's super impressive.
00:02:06
Speaker
But 21 is out of this world for sure.
00:02:12
Speaker
So we're excited to have Ashton back on, and we're going to have a little bit of different focus this time around.
Mentorship and Collaboration: Taylor & Ashton's Partnership
00:02:19
Speaker
But Ashton, he's been
00:02:22
Speaker
Well, funny story about him.
00:02:24
Speaker
When I first talked to Ashton, this was, I don't know if you remember this, but this was probably three years ago or something.
00:02:30
Speaker
I was kind of just getting rolling.
00:02:32
Speaker
And I heard about you from someone that I think came from Legacy, and they're talking you up and saying you're like the top, the best of the best.
00:02:40
Speaker
So I sent you a text, or I think I messaged you on Facebook or something and said, hey, Ashton, can I take you out to lunch and just pick your brain, ask you some secrets?
00:02:50
Speaker
And then Ashton was like, hey, man, appreciate you reaching out.
00:02:53
Speaker
But no, I don't meet with people from other companies.
00:02:57
Speaker
So, no.
00:02:58
Speaker
And now here we are.
00:03:00
Speaker
We just went out to lunch, hanging out together, doing a podcast.
00:03:03
Speaker
So, uh, that's all about the follow up persistence.
00:03:08
Speaker
That's it.
00:03:09
Speaker
That's it.
00:03:09
Speaker
Getting with guys on Ashton's level, got to be persistent.
00:03:12
Speaker
That's funny.
00:03:14
Speaker
But yeah, so anyways, it's been a year and a half probably since we last had you
Ashton's Personal and Professional Updates
00:03:20
Speaker
on.
00:03:20
Speaker
Any major breakthroughs or any changes since the last time we talked that you can think of, Ashton?
00:03:25
Speaker
We'll dig into some stuff.
00:03:26
Speaker
Breakthroughs in my life or breakthroughs in business or what?
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah, both.
00:03:31
Speaker
Both.
00:03:32
Speaker
I bought my dream house.
00:03:34
Speaker
which I'm super grateful for.
00:03:37
Speaker
Was in a position to be able to do it.
00:03:39
Speaker
Bought it actually two weeks before the coronavirus shut down.
00:03:44
Speaker
And I thought, crap, dude, did I just do something bad?
00:03:46
Speaker
Because I just spent all this money or gotten all this debt to buy this house.
00:03:53
Speaker
But luckily, last year ended up being a great year, so it was totally fine.
00:03:57
Speaker
Bought a house, had my fourth daughter.
00:04:00
Speaker
Also a big deal.
00:04:02
Speaker
Congrats.
00:04:03
Speaker
I was a bishop for my church for five years, and that also just ended.
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, congrats.
00:04:08
Speaker
So big change there.
00:04:09
Speaker
What are you doing with all your time now, man?
00:04:12
Speaker
You probably got a lot of extra time.
00:04:14
Speaker
Yeah, still working my guts out.
00:04:17
Speaker
But I have been able to be a primary teacher to my kids, and that's been nice, you know.
00:04:22
Speaker
But business-wise, Legacy's still crushing it.
00:04:25
Speaker
We're still doing really, really well.
00:04:27
Speaker
We've added... I got a promotion in October, or end of September, October.
00:04:33
Speaker
Now I'm a VP of Sales Acceleration.
00:04:36
Speaker
Sorry, Legacy has four different channels now.
00:04:40
Speaker
The summer program, attend to ecotraveling program.
00:04:43
Speaker
We do franchises, and then we also have a...
00:04:47
Speaker
just our regular Legacy Direct.
00:04:50
Speaker
So my job now is to put fuel on the fire on all of the channels instead of just the normal Direct sales team.
00:04:59
Speaker
Those are the life updates.
00:05:00
Speaker
I guess it's quite a bit since the last time we talked.
00:05:03
Speaker
Yeah, been through some stuff.
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:05
Speaker
And, yeah, obviously this year's, well, last year was crazy for everyone, but I know you guys rolled out the Legacy X, the, yeah, traveling, the circus traveling salesman and all that.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:16
Speaker
How are you over that?
00:05:17
Speaker
Are you, uh.
00:05:18
Speaker
I'm not sure.
00:05:19
Speaker
We've got a VT over that.
00:05:20
Speaker
Again, we've got VPs over everything else.
00:05:23
Speaker
My job is just to pick apart anything that we're missing.
00:05:28
Speaker
Just kind of dig into different areas.
00:05:30
Speaker
Our onboarding and training process in 2021 is going to be incredible.
00:05:36
Speaker
And I actually haven't had a whole lot to do with that.
00:05:40
Speaker
Other people have, but seeing how that was an area of improvement and trying to put some energy and focus into that.
00:05:46
Speaker
And working with a lot of different franchise partners.
00:05:51
Speaker
We have like 60 or 70 franchise companies that are...
00:05:54
Speaker
have their own name, their own brand, they're their own people but they want to latch into our scale and some of our trainings and different things like that and so they get the benefit of our volume and all those things.
00:06:08
Speaker
Awesome.
00:06:09
Speaker
Just trying to help across the board is kind of the new role.
Balancing Professional Success with Family Life
00:06:13
Speaker
Big stuff, big stuff.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah, so what I wanted to dive into a little bit, we were talking just off
00:06:19
Speaker
the mic here before this just about how um sad we see people that are really really good at the sales part they're crushing you know but then um you know there's guys getting divorced or having uh some big challenges in like other areas of their life yeah so we were talking about it's a sad thing to see because um yeah i mean i don't think anyone wants to see that guys dominating in sales but then going through divorces other things like that yeah so um i think you're kind of
00:06:48
Speaker
Well, like you're saying, you've been like bishop of your church.
00:06:51
Speaker
You've got four kids now.
00:06:53
Speaker
You've got little kids and all that.
00:06:55
Speaker
I just got, well, I have a one-year-old now, and I can't believe how much time even he takes.
00:07:01
Speaker
I don't know how you do it with four kids than being a bishop.
00:07:04
Speaker
So, yeah, how do you do it, man?
00:07:05
Speaker
What's your secret?
00:07:07
Speaker
Like juggling all these things and keeping your wife happy and all these things.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah, no, I love that.
00:07:12
Speaker
That's a topic I love to talk about a lot.
00:07:15
Speaker
I think the misnomer of a balanced life is that it's not... A balanced life is not I spend equal amounts of time with my family as I do work, as I do, you know, at church and my physical health and things like that.
00:07:33
Speaker
I think a balanced life is really a harmonious life.
00:07:37
Speaker
So if your life is in harmony...
00:07:40
Speaker
then you can work your guts out.
00:07:43
Speaker
You'll probably spend more time at work than anywhere else.
00:07:48
Speaker
And that's okay.
00:07:50
Speaker
That's not a bad thing.
00:07:51
Speaker
If everything else is in harmony.
00:07:54
Speaker
My wife is a freaking champion, man.
00:07:57
Speaker
I just was on an eight-day trip.
00:07:59
Speaker
And with COVID and a brand new baby, she said, you go.
00:08:02
Speaker
I went by myself.
00:08:04
Speaker
She was at home with all four of those girls.
00:08:06
Speaker
Oh, she didn't go on the trip?
00:08:07
Speaker
No.
00:08:07
Speaker
And a two-month-old.
00:08:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:08:09
Speaker
So some people might be like, Ashton, you're stupid.
00:08:13
Speaker
That's on your way to divorce?
00:08:16
Speaker
Or that's a problem?
00:08:17
Speaker
But we're in harmony, her and I. And it didn't strain our relationship at all.
00:08:25
Speaker
And I think she's a champion.
00:08:28
Speaker
Like 100% an absolute rock star.
00:08:32
Speaker
But it's about doing things in harmony.
00:08:34
Speaker
My wife really...
00:08:36
Speaker
wants to have like she's an introvert she needs some time by herself as a mom of kids she's just clobbered all day we've got a decent sized house now and throughout the day she's got four girls within like 10 feet of her you know because i just want to be around mom all the time so to have our our relationship in harmony i need to make sure that my wife
00:08:59
Speaker
I need to do heavy lifting when my wife works out.
00:09:03
Speaker
If she can get a workout every morning, she'll be good for the whole day.
00:09:07
Speaker
It's kind of her brain off time.
00:09:10
Speaker
She likes exercising.
00:09:12
Speaker
She likes feeling fit.
00:09:14
Speaker
And she's doing a great job.
00:09:15
Speaker
If you looked at her right now, you'd be like, you did not just have a baby two months ago.
00:09:18
Speaker
She looks incredible.
00:09:20
Speaker
And that, you know, at one point I was working my guts out.
00:09:24
Speaker
I was a bishop.
00:09:25
Speaker
I was a part of a, I played indoor soccer twice a week at night.
00:09:33
Speaker
And I was a busy person, but we were in harmony and balanced together in our relationship.
00:09:40
Speaker
as long as I made sure that she got her morning workout.
00:09:44
Speaker
So anyway, I think that it is unfortunate when I hear, it actually breaks my heart when I hear that people get divorced.
00:09:52
Speaker
And sometimes divorce is really actually the best thing.
00:09:57
Speaker
And I'm not the judge, so if it's the right thing and it's supposed to be that way, okay, I get it, understandable.
00:10:04
Speaker
But if it's because people are spending more time and energy
00:10:08
Speaker
and not focusing in on their family because of work or other things, it breaks my heart.
00:10:15
Speaker
A couple other things that I do, man, that I... If you were to ask me what my greatest accomplishment has been... It's not the 21 deals... In solar... I just looked, and it was 22.
00:10:27
Speaker
For the record, what is 22?
00:10:29
Speaker
He's close.
00:10:32
Speaker
I should know that, right?
00:10:33
Speaker
But it's been a few years since I did that.
00:10:36
Speaker
But anyway, so...
00:10:39
Speaker
Probably my greatest accomplishment in solar, I've been in solar seven years now, is that I've taught a bunch of solar reps, hundreds of solar reps, to go on a weekly date.
00:10:51
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:10:52
Speaker
And that has nothing to do with solar.
00:10:55
Speaker
I've taught a lot of people how to close deals and words to say and not say and all those things.
00:11:00
Speaker
But I've convinced a lot of people that date night is the most important appointment of their week because I truly believe it.
00:11:10
Speaker
And it's fun for me to see.
00:11:12
Speaker
Some of them have gone to other companies now or started their own companies and things.
00:11:15
Speaker
It's fun for me to see them on social media posting about date night every single week.
00:11:20
Speaker
And I'm like, yes, that's so good.
00:11:22
Speaker
But that's an important part of having a balanced life.
00:11:24
Speaker
That's a really important part of being successful.
00:11:27
Speaker
If you're not married yet and you're dating somebody, you need to make sure that they're the most important thing.
00:11:32
Speaker
If you're married and have kids, your kids are still number two to your spouse.
00:11:37
Speaker
Your spouse should still be number one, which is kind of hard when you're a brand new parent.
00:11:42
Speaker
You love that little thing like crazy, and that little thing loves you like crazy.
00:11:45
Speaker
My little three-year-old, she's following me around the house and just loves spending time with Dad, and I absolutely love spending time with her.
00:11:53
Speaker
And I love her, but I need to make sure that I love my wife the most.
00:11:57
Speaker
And that will do nothing but benefit my kids and benefit my wife and all of that.
00:12:01
Speaker
So anyway, sorry for the long rant on that.
00:12:05
Speaker
But date night with my wife is my most important meeting of my entire week.
00:12:10
Speaker
Yeah, I love that.
00:12:10
Speaker
Every week.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah, no, I had to learn that too.
00:12:15
Speaker
Because, yeah, for me it was just kind of whenever we had time, we'd be like, oh, we're too busy this week, we'll do a date night.
00:12:22
Speaker
Right.
00:12:23
Speaker
You know, next week or something.
00:12:24
Speaker
But I think for me, it's just blocking out the time.
00:12:27
Speaker
Well, that's probably what you tell everyone.
00:12:29
Speaker
If you're not blocking out the time,
00:12:31
Speaker
Then other deals are going to come up, other events, whatever.
00:12:35
Speaker
Right, right.
00:12:36
Speaker
But yeah, if it's just like you expect it every Friday night, then it's going to happen.
00:12:41
Speaker
Is that your date night, Friday nights?
00:12:42
Speaker
It used to be Friday night because I like big money Saturday.
00:12:45
Speaker
I usually try to work 9 to 9 on Saturday because everybody's home on Saturday.
00:12:49
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:12:51
Speaker
But one of my daughter's dance lessons got pushed into Friday night.
00:12:54
Speaker
And so we had to push our date night to Saturday night.
00:12:57
Speaker
So every Saturday night, it's in the calendar.
00:13:00
Speaker
I'm expecting it every single week.
00:13:01
Speaker
My wife's expecting it every single week.
00:13:04
Speaker
And like you said, it used to be, when we first kind of committed to this, I committed to this when I got asked to be a bishop at church.
00:13:10
Speaker
I was like, man, I'm already a pretty busy dude.
00:13:11
Speaker
Now you're going to add another, like,
00:13:14
Speaker
20 or 30 hours a week on top of all that as a bishop.
00:13:18
Speaker
And I thought, you know what, I need to make sure that the main thing is the main thing.
00:13:22
Speaker
My main thing is God and my wife, right, and my family.
00:13:25
Speaker
And so I committed to my wife when we were in the car, still kind of blown away that we were asked to be, to do that, take that responsibility on, that we were going to do a date night.
00:13:35
Speaker
And it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.
00:13:37
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:13:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:39
Speaker
Well, yeah.
00:13:39
Speaker
And I think that's super important in this job.
00:13:42
Speaker
Will you not?
00:13:43
Speaker
Is if you're out on a door, I feel like anything that's going on in your personal life, it's showing up on the doors.
00:13:49
Speaker
Yes.
00:13:49
Speaker
You have to meet almost impossible.
00:13:51
Speaker
Anytime I'm going to fight with my wife or like stuff is going on, it's always like the worst day on the doors.
00:13:56
Speaker
Right.
00:13:56
Speaker
Because I'm like, all right, people, I don't feel good.
00:13:59
Speaker
I don't have a good mindset.
00:14:00
Speaker
People are going to be seeing this out there.
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:02
Speaker
So I think to what you're saying, you're teaching people to handle their other parts of their lives.
00:14:09
Speaker
I would imagine that's helping them a ton in their cells and knocking doors and everything.
00:14:15
Speaker
I would hope.
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah, the balance.
00:14:16
Speaker
I mean, different kind of, for all your listeners out there, a little different podcast than normal.
00:14:22
Speaker
I believe, and talking more about life stuff, but I believe that we all need to have balance time every day.
00:14:29
Speaker
I started doing...
00:14:31
Speaker
door-to-door 2005 selling satellite dishes in the summer months.
00:14:35
Speaker
And the summer programs, I did satellites for three years and I did alarms for three years.
00:14:39
Speaker
Summer programs are intense, man.
00:14:41
Speaker
You move to an area, you live there, you eat it, sleep it, drink it.
00:14:46
Speaker
From when you wake up until way past when you're supposed to be going to bed, you're just thinking about the sales, right?
00:14:53
Speaker
And if you run on
00:14:55
Speaker
If you're just redlining it like that all of the time, you get burnt out.
00:14:59
Speaker
And so I would just preach to everybody, you gotta have some balance time.
00:15:04
Speaker
So all of us need that.
00:15:06
Speaker
And that can be your relationship with your spouse and stuff, but like some balance time of, I'm gonna schedule in time to not think about work.
00:15:15
Speaker
And that's a hard thing to do.
00:15:17
Speaker
Especially if you're a 100% commission person like I am, like you are.
00:15:21
Speaker
It's like, well, I always have to be on.
00:15:24
Speaker
Well, you get worn out if you're always on like that.
00:15:27
Speaker
I started in 2005.
00:15:28
Speaker
I took a couple years off.
00:15:29
Speaker
But I still have energy to do this stuff because I make sure that I have good balance.
00:15:34
Speaker
I exercise.
00:15:36
Speaker
I try to read.
00:15:37
Speaker
I'm not that great of a reader, but I try to read.
00:15:40
Speaker
I spend time with my wife, spend time with my kids.
00:15:42
Speaker
One of my goals every day before 10 a.m.
00:15:44
Speaker
is to have a meaningful conversation with God, with my wife, and with all four of my kids.
00:15:51
Speaker
Now, my meaningful conversation with a two-month-old is looking at her in the eyes and just cooing at her and trying to get her to smile at me.
00:15:59
Speaker
But if I can have a meaningful conversation,
00:16:02
Speaker
With those five people, God, or sorry, those six people, God and my wife and my four girls, before 10 a.m.?
00:16:10
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:16:10
Speaker
That's incredible.
00:16:12
Speaker
Not that I can all of a sudden now go work all day until midnight.
00:16:16
Speaker
I mean, I can sometimes and I do sometimes, but if I've intentionally done that,
00:16:22
Speaker
before 10 o'clock every day, then I'm living a more harmonious life because I've given the main thing, the attention.
00:16:31
Speaker
And they need more attention than just that.
00:16:34
Speaker
But if I'm having a wake-up, I make sure that I wake up and I'm the one that feeds my daughters while my wife's working out, I'm feeding my kids, I'm connecting with my kids before school when we weren't just at school in my own house for distance learning, I would be the one that would walk them to school.
00:16:50
Speaker
And it was awesome, you know.
00:16:52
Speaker
So we would have a meaningful connection for my girls' life.
00:16:56
Speaker
Hopefully they'll always remember their dad was there for them in the mornings.
00:17:00
Speaker
And my dad wasn't.
00:17:02
Speaker
My dad left early, but he was there for me at night.
00:17:05
Speaker
He would leave early so he could come back and be there for soccer and wrestling practice and all those things, right?
00:17:11
Speaker
And that's how he was able to connect with us.
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah, I love that.
00:17:16
Speaker
And yeah, well you mentioned you just got done being a bishop five years and what was that probably like?
00:17:22
Speaker
I don't know, how much time were you spending being a bishop?
00:17:25
Speaker
15 hours a week?
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah man, all day Sunday I was like, turned my brain off of work.
00:17:30
Speaker
And my brain, Sunday was work, or was church and family.
00:17:35
Speaker
But I'd spend definitely a full eight-hour day on Sunday, sometimes 10 hours.
00:17:43
Speaker
And then Monday night sometimes, and just at a random meeting throughout the week.
00:17:49
Speaker
So, I don't know, 15 to 20 hours.
00:17:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's demanding.
00:17:53
Speaker
Probably, yeah.
00:17:55
Speaker
And you were, so it was for like the young single adults, right?
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:59
Speaker
You were bishop for that?
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, my congregation was 18 to 30 year old singles.
00:18:04
Speaker
Talk about an interesting...
00:18:06
Speaker
Not an interesting group of people, but an amazing group of people.
00:18:08
Speaker
Just like a unique time in their lives, you know?
00:18:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:11
Speaker
Well, it's funny because that's probably most of the guys that, you know, you're mentoring in yourselves and stuff.
00:18:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:17
Speaker
My sales team is pretty close to that.
00:18:19
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:18:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:21
Speaker
Really felt like you're doing the same.
00:18:22
Speaker
Doing the same thing.
00:18:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:23
Speaker
No, that's awesome, though.
00:18:24
Speaker
My dad, he was a bishop, so I went through all that, not seeing him on, for him it was like Tuesdays and Sundays.
00:18:31
Speaker
He was always doing like the meetings and stuff like that.
00:18:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:34
Speaker
um but yeah that's crazy five years a huge time dedication and you're focusing obviously on you know these kids and all that i guess i'm that age group too and i guess i'm still a kid but yeah so five years obviously not a religious podcast here but what did you i don't know what what did you take away would you what was your biggest lesson oh man if you want to you know and it's religious which is which is a big part of who i am but god's love
00:19:03
Speaker
for everyone is just incredible.
00:19:06
Speaker
I had part of my responsibilities, you know, running the congregation, but also had people come in and repent and confess sins.
00:19:13
Speaker
And I was asked to be like a judge in Israel.
00:19:16
Speaker
I'm not the judge.
00:19:17
Speaker
I'm not Jesus.
00:19:19
Speaker
But I was a representative of Jesus on earth.
00:19:22
Speaker
And anytime anybody came in,
00:19:25
Speaker
and had a challenge that they were dealing with or a problem that they were doing or some songs were really pretty serious things that were against what God tells us to do in the Bible, right?
00:19:35
Speaker
And all that I ever felt, every single time, not a single time did I not feel an immense amount of love for the person I was talking to.
00:19:44
Speaker
God is such a God of love that that's what I felt.
00:19:48
Speaker
And it was neat and I couldn't help but it allowed me to help to be more gracious and merciful to myself
00:19:55
Speaker
I'm an overachiever.
00:19:56
Speaker
I'm a perfectionist.
00:19:58
Speaker
I'm drive, drive, drive, and screw up.
00:20:01
Speaker
Fall short all the time.
00:20:02
Speaker
Every day, I screw up.
00:20:04
Speaker
And I couldn't help but think that God must love me too, just like he loves all these people, because every time they come in and they need help, all that I feel is just an immense amount of love from Jesus for them.
00:20:15
Speaker
So why wouldn't that be the same for me?
00:20:17
Speaker
And I think that it is.
00:20:19
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:20:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:20
Speaker
Now I can tell you're a guy that's super genuine.
00:20:22
Speaker
I mean, I was in here with John Soriano, the other manager here that we're talking to in the office.
00:20:29
Speaker
Ashton's come up.
00:20:30
Speaker
He's like, hey, I love you, man.
00:20:31
Speaker
I love you.
00:20:32
Speaker
I think I said, I heard you say, like, I love you, man, like three times to him.
00:20:36
Speaker
And I'm like, wow.
00:20:36
Speaker
I don't think I've ever said, like, I love you to any of my people in management or anything.
00:20:42
Speaker
That's funny.
00:20:43
Speaker
So I can tell you, you're a super genuine person.
00:20:45
Speaker
And I think people feel I love him.
00:20:47
Speaker
It's probably...
00:20:48
Speaker
You know comes across some people that you manage and everything do so I don't know what's how did you learn to help?
00:20:55
Speaker
Is that kind of your secret to helping these kids and stuff and I don't know people you work with just loving them or anything you learned and just like helping some yeah, that's a great that's a great call out I Love is a lot of who I am And did I get that is that nature or nurture?
00:21:13
Speaker
I don't really know I don't know if it came from my parents and my family and
00:21:18
Speaker
that we're always just loving up on each other, or if it came from just who I naturally am, I don't really know.
00:21:24
Speaker
Or just a bunch of life experience.
00:21:27
Speaker
I'm of the theory and thought that people are good.
00:21:32
Speaker
That there aren't many people that wake up every day and say, you know what, I want to go screw somebody today.
00:21:38
Speaker
And most people wake up and they're like, you know what, I want to go help.
00:21:41
Speaker
I want to go do some good today.
00:21:43
Speaker
I'm going to provide for my family today.
00:21:46
Speaker
And so I give people the benefit of the doubt all the time.
00:21:49
Speaker
I assume a positive intent.
00:21:50
Speaker
If somebody cuts me off on the road or if somebody, you know, yells at me when I'm knocking on the doors, I'll just laugh it off.
00:21:58
Speaker
Like, you're probably just having a bad day, but I bet you're a good person.
00:22:00
Speaker
You know, and I just kind of beat that into myself.
00:22:05
Speaker
that people are good and it allows me to love a lot easier and better because you're probably doing your best because I know I'm doing my best and I think maybe some of it comes from empathy I don't know where I got an empathetic bone but I'm real empathetic towards other people because and it might have been because I moved around a lot as a kid and I was always the kid for different parts of my life was the kid that didn't have any friends
00:22:35
Speaker
You know, because I just moved somewhere.
00:22:38
Speaker
And I knew what it felt like to be that guy.
00:22:42
Speaker
And so I wanted to not be that guy.
00:22:44
Speaker
And so I try to show love from there.
00:22:48
Speaker
Yeah, well, no, and I think it's probably helped you in so many different areas.
00:22:51
Speaker
Because I don't know if you read the book.
00:22:53
Speaker
I think it's called The Greatest Salesman in the World.
00:22:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:56
Speaker
Great book.
00:22:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's kind of the focus.
00:22:58
Speaker
I haven't read it in a long time, but from what I remember, that's like the main focus of the book.
Enhancing Sales through Genuine Care
00:23:03
Speaker
He's got opening all these secret scrolls.
00:23:05
Speaker
He thinks it's going to be something different, but then the main secret is like he's loving his customers type thing.
00:23:11
Speaker
He loves every person that he has interaction with.
00:23:15
Speaker
So, yeah, I don't know.
00:23:16
Speaker
Maybe it's something subliminal.
00:23:17
Speaker
Like if you're loving, I mean, if you love everyone, you're knocking on doors, it's probably going to come across like, man, this guy actually likes me.
00:23:24
Speaker
I don't even know this guy.
00:23:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:26
Speaker
They're buying it from you.
00:23:27
Speaker
Right.
00:23:27
Speaker
So, yeah, to me, that's got to be one of your big secrets.
00:23:30
Speaker
I think it's probably coming comes across and everything you're doing, interactions you're having and people love someone that's genuine and
00:23:37
Speaker
They can feel the love and all that.
00:23:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:40
Speaker
Could be.
00:23:40
Speaker
You might have unraveled one of those secrets right there.
00:23:43
Speaker
Yeah, maybe I identified it.
00:23:45
Speaker
But cool.
00:23:46
Speaker
So I know we're short on time here, Ashton.
00:23:48
Speaker
I know we got a meeting coming up.
00:23:52
Speaker
But, yeah, so last time we talked about the sales things.
00:23:57
Speaker
Before I let you go here, any final, I guess, leadership tips or anything you want to share with our listeners before we say goodbye here?
00:24:07
Speaker
Yeah, one thing that, again, not the secret sauce, but that I would just say as far as leadership and people that really want to do well at this in any sales job, particularly with solar reps and door-to-door alarm reps, pest control reps, is you've got to sell lights out yourself before people want to follow you.
00:24:31
Speaker
Some people are natural born leaders and so they'll do great as a leader naturally.
00:24:38
Speaker
But in our business, particularly door to door, people don't follow you unless you're doing it yourself.
00:24:45
Speaker
So if you want to build a big following, if you want people to want to follow you, learn from you, you can come up with all the content in the world.
00:24:53
Speaker
But unless you're actually doing the work and getting the sales, getting the installs, you're going to have a pretty small following.
00:25:02
Speaker
If you want to go crush it yourself first while bringing people along with you, and then people will be like, dang, that dude did 22 in a day?
00:25:12
Speaker
I want to talk to that guy.
00:25:13
Speaker
How did you do that?
00:25:14
Speaker
What did you do?
00:25:15
Speaker
Well, it wasn't an overnight success.
00:25:17
Speaker
It took years of busting on a lot of doors.
00:25:20
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:25:21
Speaker
But if you can do that, if you can crush it, my goal every year, my role changed last year, it kind of ate me up a little bit, but my goal every year was to do 100 installs a year.
00:25:30
Speaker
I did it five years in a row.
00:25:32
Speaker
Last year with my role changing, I did 80, and it kind of beat, it like,
00:25:36
Speaker
beats at me that I didn't do 100 this year my goal is to do 60 because I've got a bunch of different responsibilities and stuff but if you can go do 100 a year in solar every single year people are going to want to follow that if you can go 200 a year in alarms every single year people want to follow that if you can do 300 a year in pest control every single year people are going to want to follow that true
00:25:57
Speaker
And so you've got to develop your leadership skills and all that stuff, but in our job, you've just got to sell, man.
00:26:02
Speaker
So that would be the advice I would give to anybody.
00:26:05
Speaker
If you want to go be a leader in this industry, in the door-to-door world, you have to sell yourself.
00:26:11
Speaker
Sell first and show people that you can do it.
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah, no, super true.
00:26:15
Speaker
And yeah, I think that's a big mistake.
00:26:17
Speaker
A lot of people just want to go out and hire a team of appointment setters or something and have all these appointments when they're not even doing it themselves.
00:26:24
Speaker
I think it's a general rule.
00:26:25
Speaker
Your team's going to do half as much of the volume that you're yourself doing.
00:26:29
Speaker
Right.
00:26:30
Speaker
So if you're only selling two a month, how much can you expect your team to do?
00:26:35
Speaker
Not a lot.
00:26:35
Speaker
And I see that.
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:36
Speaker
I see that in a lot of dealers, a lot of smaller companies.
00:26:39
Speaker
So I love that.
00:26:41
Speaker
Well, Ashton, thanks for coming on.
00:26:43
Speaker
And yeah, again, go back and listen to his first episode where we get into kind of some more sales specific stuff.
00:26:50
Speaker
But it was great to jam on the leadership and lessons you've learned.
00:26:54
Speaker
You know, helping other people.
00:26:56
Speaker
All about the love.
00:26:56
Speaker
So go follow him on social media.
00:27:01
Speaker
I think he's on Facebook and stuff.
00:27:02
Speaker
Send him a message.
00:27:03
Speaker
Let him know you heard the podcast and appreciate it.
00:27:06
Speaker
And with that, we'll let you go, Ashton.
00:27:08
Speaker
Thanks again for coming on.
00:27:09
Speaker
You got it.
00:27:10
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning into today's episode.
00:27:13
Speaker
I know when I got into the industry, I had almost no resources like this.
00:27:17
Speaker
So I hope this show is helping you get the success you deserve.
00:27:21
Speaker
If you found value from anything in this episode today, think about someone who can benefit so you and I can help people fulfill their potential.
00:27:29
Speaker
Zig Ziglar said, if you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want.
00:27:34
Speaker
So I promise by sharing this, it will help you grow and improve.
00:27:37
Speaker
The value bombs on today's show will take you one step closer to success, but it's always to the degree that you apply and execute the principles.
Efficient Deal Closing: Upcoming Video Training
00:27:46
Speaker
I've spent the last few years interviewing the top solar experts and helping other reps and businesses discover their potential.
00:27:53
Speaker
If you want more help achieving your goals, then I put together an exclusive video training on three hacks that help me close multiple deals a week while knocking less than 10 hours.
00:28:03
Speaker
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Speaker
So go check it out at webclass.solarpreneurs.com.
00:28:08
Speaker
Once again, that's webclass.solarpreneurs.com to get exclusive access to the training and take your skills to the next level.