Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopreneur that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Speaker: What's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: The secret hack to book an extra two appointments this week?
Speaker: And much more.
Speaker: That's what's going to be in today's episode.
Speaker: We're going to jump into it.
Speaker: But before that, just want to give some thanks to all the people that have listened to the show.
Speaker: So I've had massive support and appreciate everyone that shared it.
Speaker: Appreciate the comments I receive.
Speaker: Appreciate everyone that is crushing it in solar and let me know about it.
Speaker: That's what this podcast is all about.
Speaker: And that's what we're here to do with the solar printer movement.
Speaker: And again, that's what we're doing with the podcast is helping you close more deals, generate more referrals, and have a lot more fun, hopefully, as you are out there selling some solar panels.
Speaker: Before we jump into the topic today, I wanted to just invite you, if you haven't already checked out Soul Society, go check it out at soulciety.co.
Speaker: I have been getting great feedback from those that are already on it.
Speaker: If you don't know what that is, go back and listen.
Speaker: I think it was four or five episodes ago.
Speaker: We did the Soul Society breakdown on what it is, what you can expect in the training platform, and why you and your team should be on it.
Speaker: Go listen to that if you haven't already and check out Soul Society.
Speaker: It's going to help you close extra deals every month and really just implement a lot of these things that you're hearing in the podcast today.
Speaker: Okay, and it's so affordable, guys.
Speaker: So go get on it.
Speaker: It's the best training platform that I've seen for Solar.
Speaker: I've done a lot of different training platforms.
Speaker: I think it's the most convenient because it's an app that's literally right in your pocket.
Speaker: So you can go train at any time, at any hour.
Speaker: You don't have to have a login.
Speaker: You don't have to remember your password.
Speaker: You're clicking on the app, you're logging in, and then every month you're getting new content from the best people in Solar.
Speaker: So if you're on it already, the update for this month, we are adding some of the Noxstar content.
Speaker: Taylor McCarthy is going to be added on there here hopefully in the next couple days.
Speaker: So you're definitely going to want to get into that.
Speaker: Let's jump into the episode with all that being said.
Speaker: I want to share with you guys something that I had forgotten about last week.
Speaker: that helped me book an extra appointment.
Speaker: Okay, I only got one appointment from it, but that's because I didn't do it till later in the week.
Speaker: But if you follow what I'm going to tell you, it's going to get you an extra two appointments guaranteed in a week.
Speaker: And who doesn't want an extra two solar appointments for the week?
Speaker: That's an extra two opportunities you have to close up more deals.
Speaker: So here's what it is.
Speaker: Well, before I tell you what it is, I'll preface it.
Speaker: I had a rough week last week.
Speaker: I didn't close anything.
Speaker: And that's the first week that I haven't closed anything in probably a couple months at least.
Speaker: So definitely was frustrating.
Speaker: This was one of the bright spots of the week is what I'm going to share with you.
Speaker: I don't want you to think that all the top guys, sometimes there's days where I go without closing.
Speaker: Sometimes there's days where I go without booking an appointment.
Speaker: So for those that are listening to this, if you had a rough week, if you had a rough day knocking, if you had a rough day in your closes, just throw that to the side, focus on the positive, and make it a better week next week.
Speaker: That's what I'm doing.
Speaker: And that's what you should do too.
Speaker: Okay, so that's why I'm focusing on the couple things that went well for me last week.
Speaker: I'm sharing them with you.
Speaker: So you can focus on the positive as well and focus on the things that are going to move the needle.
Speaker: And I'll be honest, there's always the element of not working enough hours.
Speaker: So that's partly why I didn't close a deal last week.
Speaker: It's because I didn't have my fish in the line as much as I should have.
Speaker: But here's the technique that I was happy about that did get me an extra appointment on the week.
Speaker: So this I actually learned from surprisingly enough, I learned it from missionaries in my church.
Speaker: And the reason I forgot about it is because as many of you know, I did a two year service mission for my church.
Speaker: I was down in Columbia, South America.
Speaker: And the reason I got into sales is because I'm like, all right, if I go out and knock doors selling pest control,
Speaker: Selling Jesus is going to be so easy because I already talked to people.
Speaker: I know how to knock doors.
Speaker: It's going to be way easier knocking doors on my mission.
Speaker: And then I do a summer pest control.
Speaker: I get out to my mission and come to find out we didn't even knock doors in Columbia.
Speaker: Our mission president was like, no, you guys don't need to knock doors.
Speaker: He just sent us around talking to people on the streets, doing activities with people, playing soccer.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: Maybe if I would have known that, I would have never gotten into door-to-door sales, but glad I did.
Speaker: It's changed my life.
Speaker: But the reason I bring that up is because before I was getting ready to go on my mission, I remember I was asking some of my friends that had done their missions, like, hey, do you guys knock a ton of doors?
Speaker: What's the deal?
Speaker: How do you go about knocking doors?
Speaker: And what I was hearing from a lot of them, they said, Taylor, we don't knock a ton of doors, but here's what we do.
Speaker: Every time we go to an appointment, every time we get like a referral, every time we go to someone's house that we're trying to follow up on, we have this little technique we do.
Speaker: We knock the two houses to the side of it, and then we knock the three houses across the street.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: That's most of what our door knocking is.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, okay, that doesn't sound too bad.
Speaker: And so I started thinking, huh, maybe that's a good idea.
Speaker: Maybe that could be applied to solar.
Speaker: Obviously, I'm thinking this a lot later now as, you know, this was back in like 2012 when I did my mission and was talking about these things a lot.
Speaker: but I'm like, that could definitely be applied to solar.
Speaker: So last week, for whatever reason, as I was going on appointments, this just popped into my head again.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I will say the reason I'm talking about this is because last week I was going to a lot of
Speaker: of appointments from our setters, from our guys that were setting up appointments.
Speaker: I went to a decent amount of them.
Speaker: And so this is more, I guess you'd say applicable for those that are going to maybe online leads, you had to drive out to an appointment, or maybe have a team, people knocking the doors and you're going to some of their appointments.
Speaker: So it's going to be more applicable for that, but it also can be applied if you're knocking your own doors every day.
Speaker: If you're doing purely self-generated leads, you could also do it that because a lot of times you're not going to talk to all the neighbors around the appointments you book.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that's the technique is every time you go on an appointment specifically, make sure after the appointment,
Speaker: Do what these missionaries told me they were doing.
Speaker: Knock the doors next to it, the two neighbors to the side of it.
Speaker: Then go across the street and knock the three neighbors across the street.
Speaker: Why should you do this?
Speaker: Because you already have a name right there.
Speaker: You have a name you can use.
Speaker: And the line that really worked for me last week, if you're driving or something, write this down.
Speaker: This is fire.
Speaker: So you say, think of the name of the appointment.
Speaker: Maybe it's Joe.
Speaker: You say, hey, did Joe tell you I was stopping by today?
Speaker: Did he let you know?
Speaker: He's the one with the Navy flag out front.
Speaker: Did he let you know I was coming by?
Speaker: This worked super well for me last week.
Speaker: It's a name, someone they recognize.
Speaker: And lucky for me, the appointments that I booked last week off this technique, everyone knew this guy in the neighborhood.
Speaker: So it works even better if it's someone that people recognize or something they have out in front of their house.
Speaker: In this case, it was a Navy flag.
Speaker: A lot of people knew this guy.
Speaker: So use this, start applying it.
Speaker: What happened to me is I went to this appointment and he was one of those where he's like, okay, you got 10 minutes.
Speaker: I got to go soon.
Speaker: So I'll pop open my truck bed and set your iPad down there.
Speaker: Show me what you got.
Speaker: And anytime it's that, it's like, come on, man, we can't do this on the truck bed.
Speaker: I can tell you, not many deals.
Speaker: Maybe in the past five years, maybe one or two deals have been closed standing on a truck bed outside.
Speaker: Not many.
Speaker: So, of course, it's, you know, basically a situation where you're just going to give them some basic info and then try to reschedule, which is what I did.
Speaker: But that's why I started thinking about this.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, I drove clear out here.
Speaker: It was like 20 minutes out of my way to this appointment.
Speaker: And I'm like, all right, I need to get something out of this.
Speaker: If I came clear out here, I can't be wasting my time just showing up to these appointments and not getting something from this.
Speaker: So I went over a couple general details with the guy rescheduled for when his wife was there and when he had more time.
Speaker: That's when I decided to implement this.
Speaker: Like, I know this, I know someone was in this area.
Speaker: It was one of our newer reps that was knocking it.
Speaker: I'm like, you know what?
Speaker: I'm just going to do it anyways.
Speaker: Who cares if they already talked to him?
Speaker: And this is something that ran through my head before is I would be like, I'm not going to knock the neighbors of appointments of my setters.
Speaker: They probably already talked to all of these people.
Speaker: But guess what?
Speaker: Every door approach is different.
Speaker: What you're saying is probably a lot different than what the guy in the area is saying, even if it's from your same company.
Speaker: And maybe they caught the people at a bad time.
Speaker: Hey, if anything, you can say, hey, I'm just following up on what they told you.
Speaker: Okay, but I went and then none of these people had been talked to.
Speaker: So I don't know if the rep maybe didn't, you know, get to them or whatever.
Speaker: But even if they have been talked to, just try it out this week.
Speaker: If you're going to appointments or if you're getting out of your own appointment, make sure, just try it.
Speaker: Knock the two sides, knock the one across.
Speaker: I went and knocked the one across to the left.
Speaker: So not the house directly across, but looking across to the left.
Speaker: And that's the house I ended up booking.
Speaker: Hey, the line worked perfectly.
Speaker: I said, hey, did Joe let you know I was stopping by?
Speaker: I was like, oh no, what's going on?
Speaker: Created the curiosity.
Speaker: And then after that, it just became super easy.
Speaker: It was an add-on system too, which that's another pro tip.
Speaker: Make sure to not overlook people that already have solar or new homes that were built with solar.
Speaker: A lot of these people are still paying true-up bills.
Speaker: A lot of them still have excess money they're paying to the utility.
Speaker: Make sure you don't overlook that.
Speaker: But I went and it worked like a charm and got a solid appointment out of it.
Speaker: Okay, so that's the tip.
Speaker: Start doing that.
Speaker: And then another bonus tip with this is, if you haven't already, go listen to Mike O'Donnell's episode.
Speaker: Michael O'Donnell, he was probably, it's been a little bit.
Speaker: You're going to have to go back probably 50 episodes or so.
Speaker: But he's been on the Solar Printer podcast twice.
Speaker: And if you don't know who Michael O'Donnell is, let's be honest, you might be living under a rock because this guy is...
Speaker: probably the top installer in the industry gets multiple golden door awards every year.
Speaker: But Michael O'Donnell, one of my top takeaways from the podcast we did with him actually relates to this.
Speaker: And it is every time he goes to appointments and he does do a lot of preset appointments from his team guys that he needs to go to their closes.
Speaker: So his thing is every time he gets out of an appointment, if he has any time at all, then what he does, he'll go.
Speaker: He calls them mini habits.
Speaker: So you can go listen to his episode here.
Speaker: It's one of his kind of core topics he talks about.
Speaker: But what he does is he goes and he knocks until he gets at least one no.
Speaker: And so he has some stories with it.
Speaker: He tells stories of where sometimes he'll knock after and he'll get four or five yeses.
Speaker: Everyone wants to see a proposal for their home.
Speaker: So he has to keep knocking until he gets at least one no.
Speaker: So that's related to if you want to take it to another level and
Speaker: implement that bonus tip, do what Michael O'Donnell does, go till you get at least a no.
Speaker: And I know most days he doesn't leave, he doesn't go back home until he gets at least one no on the day.
Speaker: And he tributes just that little mini habits too.
Speaker: you know, dozens and dozens of extra closes on the year just by doing that.
Speaker: And if you are going to these, you know, preset leads or appointments that other people on your team book, then make sure you're also getting some self-generated deals in there.
Speaker: Everyone knows that's where the money's at.
Speaker: It's nice just showing up to appointments if you do have a set or closer model.
Speaker: but do these little things and that's going to get you it makes you the extra money on the year that's going to be the difference the separator for you and just these little things it's the small and simple things that are going to change the outcome of your of your story and of your success so don't overlook those things hope that tip helped you okay start doing that it's going to get you an extra two appointments again if you are just knocking your own doors
Speaker: then just try it.
Speaker: Make sure even if you have, you know, a late appointment or something that you booked yourself, go and, you know, knock the neighbors.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And do what Mike O'Donnell says and get at least one no before you leave the area.
Speaker: So hope that helps.
Speaker: Hope that gets you an extra few appointments this week.
Speaker: Share it with your team.
Speaker: Share it with someone that could use an extra appointment or two this week.
Speaker: And we will see you guys on the next episode.
Speaker: Peace.
Speaker: Hey Solarpreneurs, quick question.
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?
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.
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.
Speaker: And it's called Solcitee.
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.
Speaker: Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
Speaker: So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
