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Forget About Goals in Solar...Do This Instead
58 Plays4 years ago
Thanks to our sponsor Pi Syndicate for this episode!
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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.
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.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solarpreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
Are Goals the Best Approach for Solar Entrepreneurs?
00:00:42
Speaker
Why you should forget about goals in solar and what you should do instead.
00:00:46
Speaker
We're going to be diving into that and much more in today's episode.
00:00:51
Speaker
Thanks for listening.
00:00:52
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:53
Speaker
I'm your host here on the Solar Printer Podcast.
00:00:56
Speaker
And as usual, you can listen to us free and we are available on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, anywhere you can find podcasts.
00:01:06
Speaker
And if this is your first time listening, we are here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and dominate in the solar industry.
00:01:15
Speaker
Hope you're doing awesome.
00:01:17
Speaker
And we are getting right into summer here.
00:01:20
Speaker
Things should be ramping up.
00:01:22
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So hopefully you are ramping up yourself and locking things down.
00:01:27
Speaker
So today's episode, I'm excited.
00:01:29
Speaker
We got a topic that I think is very interesting.
00:01:32
Speaker
Before we jump into that, just wanted to thank all those that have shared the podcast, who have tagged me on Instagram, on social media.
00:01:40
Speaker
That is really the way we help this show grow, and it just warms my heart every time I get tagged, every time you get a shout-out, and every time you leave a review.
00:01:50
Speaker
So we haven't had any new reviews lately, but hey, if you want to go leave us a review on Apple, iTunes, iTunes,
00:01:57
Speaker
I guess Apple is iTunes, but if you want to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, it would mean a lot, and then we will give you a shout-out.
00:02:06
Speaker
So go say something cool, say something that's helped you, and we'd love to shout you out.
Shifting Mindset: Systems vs. Goals
00:02:13
Speaker
And so today's topic is going to be a little bit different because we are talking about why you shouldn't set goals.
00:02:20
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Most of the time you hear, oh, you need to set goals, you need to set goals, you need to know your numbers, know what you want to hit.
00:02:27
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I'm going to tell you why you shouldn't be setting goals.
00:02:31
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And I'll admit, I did want to get some attention with the title.
00:02:36
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So I do think goals definitely have a role.
00:02:40
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But I'm just going to change your mindset, change your thinking in the way you kind of approach goals.
00:02:46
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Because goals, I think, are a much smaller piece of the puzzle than sometimes we think and sometimes we put emphasis on.
00:02:54
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And so the reason I was reminded of this actually was from a book.
00:03:01
Speaker
And if you guys haven't read this book, I would highly recommend it.
00:03:05
Speaker
It's called Atomic Habits.
00:03:08
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And he actually was the inspiration for this podcast.
00:03:10
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It's by my boy James Clear.
00:03:12
Speaker
So shout out to James Clear.
00:03:14
Speaker
This is a great book.
00:03:15
Speaker
I'd put it probably, I don't know, top five, top 10 for sure books that's helped me in self-development and just goals.
00:03:25
Speaker
And well, we're talking about why you shouldn't set goals, but specifically habits, right?
00:03:30
Speaker
And so at the very beginning of his book, he actually talks about why you shouldn't focus on goals.
00:03:36
Speaker
And as I was going through this, this is the, I think, third time I've kind of gone through his book now.
00:03:42
Speaker
And a little side note, if you do not read books, if you're like me and like to listen to audio versions, well, two ways.
00:03:50
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You can get it on Audible, which is where I usually get my books.
00:03:53
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But I was reminded and reintroduced to a little app.
00:03:58
Speaker
It's called Libby, I believe.
00:03:59
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And guess what?
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You can literally get your library card wherever you're at.
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I assume it's pretty much available everywhere.
00:04:08
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You can download this app and you can check out audiobooks for free.
00:04:13
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So you don't have to spend what is $15 on Audible and get the book.
00:04:17
Speaker
You can go get it for free.
00:04:19
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So no excuses.
Insights from 'Atomic Habits': Process Over End Goals
00:04:20
Speaker
If you are broke starting out in this solar game, go download this Libby app because you can get this book and pretty much any book I've seen on there for free.
00:04:30
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You just check them out.
00:04:31
Speaker
So a little hack right there.
00:04:32
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If you are cheap or if you're broke or just don't want to spend money on Audible or
00:04:38
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buy in the book so go grab atomic habits and so the way this applies to solar is this sometimes we focus so much on what our goals are oh we're gonna close 200 deals this year we're gonna you know hit this number all those things but we're not focusing on the process like how are we actually gonna get to that how are we gonna achieve it so when I say forgetting about setting goals
00:05:06
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That's what I'm talking about is we need to be remembering what is the process to actually hit these goals.
00:05:12
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When we're hyping ourselves up, when we're wanting to hit huge numbers, how are we going to actually do it?
00:05:17
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And this is what James Clear talks about in the book is consider focusing more on the systems and the habits to get you to that goal rather than the actual number.
Case Study: Sunrun's Focus on Conversations
00:05:30
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So he compares it.
00:05:31
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He has some interesting comparisons.
00:05:33
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He says if you're a coach, your goal might be to win a championship.
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Your system is the way you recruit players, manage your assistant coaches, and conduct practice.
00:05:42
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If you're an entrepreneur, your goal might be to build a million-dollar business.
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Your system is how you test product ideas, hire employees, and run marketing campaigns.
00:05:51
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And there's a few other.
00:05:53
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One compares it to being a musician as well.
00:05:58
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And then he asks a question.
00:06:00
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He says, if you completely ignored your goals and focused only on your system, would you still succeed?
00:06:05
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For example, if you were a basketball coach and you ignored your goal to win a championship and focus only on what your team does at practice each day, would you still get results?
00:06:16
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And if you think about it, you probably would, right?
00:06:19
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If you focused on, all right, we're going to do these things every day.
00:06:22
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We're going to take 500 three-point shots.
00:06:24
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We're going to take 500 layups.
00:06:27
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Whatever the system was, probably would get some pretty excellent results, right?
00:06:32
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And so in solar, what are your systems to achieve success?
00:06:36
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What are your systems to close deals?
00:06:39
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What are your systems to take your company to that next level?
00:06:42
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Because if you have these lofty goals, but you are not focusing on systems,
00:06:46
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probably gonna be very tough to make those improvements so what happened to me recently is I actually went to I have some friends over at Sunrun here in San Diego shout out to Sunrun which was Vivint Solar for those that didn't hear they were acquired by Sunrun right they have some awesome leaders over there some guys that are doing insane numbers some guys that are getting great results their most successful teams and
00:07:15
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from what I've heard are here in San Diego.
00:07:18
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And I was invited, I went and checked out one of their meetings, got a few friends over there.
00:07:21
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So I'm like, oh, go check it out, see what they're doing.
00:07:25
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I went to this meeting and I was curious to see that they went and started their numbers, their goals, and they did it a little different than I had typically seen.
00:07:39
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They didn't really even set goals for how many deals they were gonna close that week.
00:07:44
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They didn't set goals for necessarily how many appointments they were going to get in.
00:07:49
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What they did set goals for was this, is how many conversations were they going to have that week?
00:07:56
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So I went through and my friend Mike Brand, he goes and who's the kind of regional manager, he goes through and asks everyone, hey, how many conversations are you having this week?
00:08:08
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And people are throwing up their numbers, 30, 40, whatever, however many conversations.
00:08:14
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And I was like, Mike, that's interesting.
00:08:16
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How come you don't set goals for like how many deals you're going to close?
00:08:22
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And I think they did, but it wasn't really the focus.
00:08:25
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And he said, Taylor, if I can get my guys to focus on the input rather than the result, then I know the result is going to come.
00:08:35
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But we don't care about that.
00:08:36
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If we can get our guys focusing on what they're going to input, then 100% we're going to get results out of it.
00:08:43
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And that's been our focus.
00:08:44
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That's how we've had way better results on our team.
00:08:47
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I'm like, huh, that's interesting.
Personal Experience: Conversation Numbers to Sales Success
00:08:50
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But I got to thinking that's actually pretty true.
00:08:53
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If you focus just on what your input, what are the things that you can control, then you're going to get outcome from it.
00:09:01
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You're going to get results from it.
00:09:03
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And too often we're focused on just the results, but we're not focused on what we're going to input.
00:09:11
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And I put this to the challenge.
00:09:13
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A couple weeks ago, I'm like, all right, I'm not even going to set goals for numbers.
00:09:17
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I usually say I'm going to go get three deals this week.
00:09:20
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I'm like, you know what?
00:09:20
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Forget about that.
00:09:21
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I'm just going to focus on I'm going to do my 35 conversations.
00:09:26
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It wasn't even that many, but I'm like, I'm just going to go do 35 conversations for the week, see what happens.
00:09:34
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So I go out.
00:09:35
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I'm knocking my doors.
00:09:36
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I'm having my conversations.
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I'm tracking them.
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I got my counter app.
00:09:41
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You can download just an app called Counter.
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And I have a little tab in there.
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I'm clicking every time I have a conversation.
00:09:49
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So I get to 10, 20, 30.
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And I'm at like about 30 conversations.
00:09:55
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And I still don't have a deal.
00:09:57
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I'm like, shoot, was Mike Pran wrong?
00:10:00
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I'm putting in my input.
00:10:01
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Where's my deals on the week?
00:10:04
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So long story short, we get clear to Saturday.
00:10:07
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I don't have a single deal on the week yet.
00:10:09
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At this point, I'm starting to get a little nervous because I don't have a deal by Saturday.
00:10:14
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I'm like, all right, something's a little off.
00:10:17
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Something's going on.
00:10:19
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But then what happens on Saturday, I get conversation 31, had a few appointments that day, closed my first deal.
00:10:28
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I get to conversation, I think it was 32, closed my second deal.
00:10:33
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And they weren't, I guess they weren't necessarily from those conversations, but bottom line is once I hit those numbers, once I hit my conversations, I ended up getting the two deals, buzzer beater on the last day.
00:10:47
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And I didn't get three, but I got my two on the week.
00:10:50
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It is, you know, I'll take that, get two on the week, right?
00:10:55
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And so what happened?
00:10:56
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that I learned from this.
00:10:58
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It's just that sometimes we are, you know, so focused on what the outcome is going to be.
00:11:05
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But I realized that if I can just focus on that input, focus on the numbers I'm putting in, sometimes we're not going to see those results instantaneous.
00:11:14
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But if you just put in that effort, focus on your input,
00:11:18
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then almost every time the results are going to average out.
00:11:21
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And this is something that every new rep needs to learn is that cells is just the numbers game.
00:11:26
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We talk about the numbers game, right?
00:11:28
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But if you can track, measure, adjust, track your inputs, then you can figure out really what you need to be doing.
00:11:35
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And it shouldn't be rocket science at that point.
00:11:37
Speaker
Okay, and so that's the topic of today's episode.
00:11:42
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Just focus on those systems.
00:11:45
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And another side note is James Clear.
00:11:47
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He has an awesome newsletter I would recommend.
00:11:50
Speaker
That's the author of Atomic Habits.
00:11:52
Speaker
So you can go to jamescler.com, put in your email address, and he sends out these bad-to-the-bone newsletters every week.
00:12:01
Speaker
Definitely suggest getting on that list and reading his book.
00:12:06
Speaker
And something we've done in our office is just we do little book clubs.
00:12:10
Speaker
So I think this is a great idea for you team leaders, you company owners.
00:12:14
Speaker
Start a little book club in your office.
00:12:17
Speaker
And the great little way you can get your guys involved in meetings is just having them read and then talk about the different sections.
00:12:25
Speaker
So this is actually what we're doing within our office is going through Atomic Habits.
00:12:29
Speaker
And then we would talk about the section, key takeaways, assign someone, maybe someone that doesn't participate as much, assign them to give a little book report.
00:12:38
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So great little side note idea for your meetings.
00:12:42
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That's the topic of the day.
00:12:44
Speaker
Focus on your systems more than the goals.
The Temporary Nature of Achieving Goals
00:12:47
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Just to wrap it up here, James Clear, he goes through a few problems just as a result of focusing way more on the goals rather than the systems.
00:12:58
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So just to highlight a few of them, he says achieving a goal is only a momentary change.
00:13:04
Speaker
Imagine you have a messy room and you set a goal to clean it.
00:13:07
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If you summon the energy to tidy up, then you have a clean room for now.
00:13:10
Speaker
But if you maintain the same sloppy pack rack habits that led to a messy room in the first place, soon you'll be looking at a new pile of clutter.
00:13:20
Speaker
And so really, I mean, this can be applied to anything, but specifically for solar,
00:13:26
Speaker
You know, fix the output, fix the inputs and outputs will fix themselves.
00:13:31
Speaker
So if you're not, if you're getting out on the doors at different times, if you are whatever you're doing in solar,
00:13:38
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If you are making a less number of calls, maybe you're stoked to hit that two cells on the week.
00:13:43
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But what happens sometimes, this happens to me all the time, but sometimes I'll hit my numbers for the week.
00:13:52
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I'll hit my three deals on the week early.
00:13:55
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And then what do I do?
00:13:56
Speaker
I slow down.
00:13:57
Speaker
So this is why if you're always focusing on the input rather than the actual outcome, it's going to get you a way better result over the long term.
00:14:07
Speaker
Because there are weeks where I get zero, right?
00:14:09
Speaker
But then there's weeks where I get three pretty quick.
00:14:13
Speaker
If I would have kept pushing, then maybe I would have got six that week if I would have focused on the inputs.
00:14:18
Speaker
And then the next week when I got zero, still would have averaged a three week, right?
00:14:23
Speaker
So that's why I think it is important to just focus on those inputs.
00:14:28
Speaker
And then any other highlight here?
00:14:33
Speaker
Well, yeah, this is actually his other problem.
00:14:34
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Goals restrict your happiness.
00:14:36
Speaker
That's problem number three.
00:14:39
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He says, goals create an either or conflict.
00:14:41
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Either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment.
00:14:47
Speaker
And so this week or the week that I hit my conversations, it made me honestly just more satisfied because I knew, okay, who cares if I get my deals?
00:14:58
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If I hit those numbers, then I'm going to be happy with whatever the outcome is.
00:15:03
Speaker
And obviously, if you are getting the same outcome over and over, if you set a goal to have 40 conversations and you're getting zero deals for weeks, then you've got to adjust your input.
00:15:14
Speaker
But if you know that on average, if you have 40 conversations in a week and you're going to get a few deals out of it, then you don't have to have that either or effect.
Sustained Success: Importance of Systems
00:15:25
Speaker
You can know that you did your input and that's probably going to average out.
00:15:30
Speaker
Okay, so another important problem he highlights with it.
00:15:35
Speaker
So yeah, I think that's pretty much it.
00:15:37
Speaker
So I would invite you go read that book.
00:15:39
Speaker
And he goes through just kind of the whys of it.
00:15:41
Speaker
But again, focus on your systems.
00:15:44
Speaker
What are your systems to get the deals?
00:15:45
Speaker
What are your systems to achieve whatever goal you have?
00:15:49
Speaker
And he compares results, or sorry, the goals to kind of the planning of it.
00:15:58
Speaker
He says goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win.
00:16:06
Speaker
Having a system is what matters.
00:16:07
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Committing to the process is what makes the difference.
00:16:11
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So use your goals as direction.
00:16:13
Speaker
Use your goals as kind of a roadmap, but the system is what is going to actually get you there.
00:16:19
Speaker
So that's what I would invite you to focus on this week as you're out there in your deals.
00:16:25
Speaker
Focus on that system.
00:16:26
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What is your system in place to get those deals locked down?
00:16:30
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And then you can apply that and everything else in solar.
00:16:32
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What's your system after you close the deal to keep the customer happy?
00:16:37
Speaker
Focus on that and you're going to have an awesome experience in solar.
Sponsor Acknowledgment and Resources for Listeners
00:16:42
Speaker
Hope that helps.
00:16:43
Speaker
Send that to someone.
00:16:45
Speaker
that is focusing too much on their goals this week.
00:16:48
Speaker
And leave us a review if you got something valuable out of this.
00:16:52
Speaker
And just to wrap it up, we'd like to thank our sponsor, Pi Syndicate, for supporting the podcast.
00:16:58
Speaker
So if you need help with your finances, taxes, or anything to do with money, go hit up Pi Syndicate.
00:17:04
Speaker
Let them know you heard about them from the Solar Printer podcast, and they will hook you up with the Solar Printer special.
00:17:11
Speaker
So with that being said, we'll see you on the next one.
00:17:13
Speaker
Hope you crush it this week.
00:17:15
Speaker
Peace out.
00:17:16
Speaker
What's up, Solopreneurs?
00:17:17
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:17:19
Speaker
Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
00:17:30
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:17:37
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:17:40
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:17:44
Speaker
So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and I would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solopreneur.
00:17:58
Speaker
we put them together all in one sheet so you can go you can hit the ground running especially if you're new you do not want to not have this sheet so go download it right now it's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com again that's top 10 the number 10.solarpreneurs.com don't forget the s on solarpreneurs
00:18:20
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:18:21
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:18:23
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:18:29
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:18:30
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.