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Core 4 Ecosystems of Successful Solar Teams
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In this episode, we go through what main ecosystems for communication solar teams should employ to improve productivity. Your team needs every avenue for mutual accountability, transparency, and an overall culture that goes beyond hitting numerical quotas.
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Transcript
Taylor Armstrong's Success Story
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong. I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you 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 solopreneur you might ask? 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.
The Core Four Ecosystems
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs. we're going to be talking about the core four ecosystems that you should have to drive production and increase morale and really drive the culture of your team. So if you are struggling with having a great culture or maybe ah struggling with your production right now, these are some things that can really help your team. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Taylor Armstrong. We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:01:08
Speaker
Hope you're ramping up for the summer. And reminder, we are free and available on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, wherever you can find your podcasts. We're coming at you every Tuesday and Friday. So please go leave us a rating or a review and let us know the type of content you would like to see on the next episode. We are coming up to our first month the summer time of this podcast. We're recording End of April. Can't believe it. I was actually just knocking last weekend and ran into my first pest control guy out there. And I'm like, what what are you doing out here? It's not summer yet. And he's like, yeah, summer's already started for us. And just reminding me how quick things fly i I thought it was still, you know, early spring and we're already we're already knocking on the heels of the summer.
Joining the Summer Blitz
00:01:52
Speaker
If you would like to join us for our first Blitz of the summer, click the link in the show notes. We have a application you can fill out to talk with myself or someone on our team and would love to consider you for our next Blitz. but that being said, let's jump into some things. Maybe you're trying to build a better team culture yourself.
00:02:09
Speaker
Maybe you're trying to improve some things on your team. Maybe you've got a small squad within your team. You're trying to implement some different systems that can help you drive production right now and build up
Ecosystem 1: Active Group Chats
00:02:20
Speaker
for the summer. So i'm going to go through four different, you could set call them ecosystems that we use within our team in San Diego. We have a team of around 100 out here. And um these are some things that we find give us a lot of success. So the first one is number one, you got to have a cranking group chat. And there's a few ways to do this for us. Our team uses a communication system called Pronto. um This, I think, created specifically for door to door. But ah it's nice, has lots lots of different features where you can ping announcements, and you can create different threads in there, makes it really easy share, you know, photo, video.
00:02:59
Speaker
And um what's best is you can plug people in there that have those pesky Android phones. You know, if everyone had iPhones, maybe you wouldn't need communication apps like this, but... Unfortunately, there's people out there that are still clinging on to this ancient technology called Androids. So it makes it easy. They can get the Pronto app, have the same communication, makes a consistent experience. We, of course, use iMessage for different group chats. And um we find that you know a big general chat on Pronto works great for that. But where we have a bigger team, we divide them into smaller groups. We have you know smaller leadership threads that we just use iMessage for. But ah depending on the size of your team, maybe you're a small team, maybe you could just start with iMessage, create your group chats in there. But the key with this is you need that consistent daily dose of communication across your teams. For us, that looks like we post clock out photos. So when we're done knocking for the day, we'll post a clock out photo.
00:03:57
Speaker
Hey, this is the last door. And we'll post a clock in photo. You know, when we first go out, post the picture in front of the first door. And um we just really try to make it a culture of praising each other, building each other up. Times that our team is doing the best typically coincides with the times when we are most active in the group chats. Funny enough, right? Because you'll find that typically when people aren't working, they like to hide behind not commenting, not showing up in the group chat. And it's usually pretty easy to find out who's actually out there working and who's dragging their feet just based on their activity in the group of communication, the chats. So if you want to have a rocking team, make sure you develop an ecosystem within your group chats.
00:04:37
Speaker
And that is the first pillar of your ecosystem for your team. And ah yeah, and you know, make sure you as much as possible get people to comments. I've had to get after my teams here and there where we post something, there's only one or two comments, only one reply. It's like, come on, guys, let's build each other up. Let's support the chats. Let's ah pump each other up in this ah group, this team communication, because that's what drives production. So that's number one.
Ecosystem 2: Team Correlations
00:05:02
Speaker
Number two is you got to have rocking correlations. You know, there's different ways of doing your correlations, your team meetings. I came from the pest control background. I came from a summer sales background. So anyone that's done summer sales, you're doing meetings every single day. You're going over numbers, doing a team cheer, typically doing some type of role plays before you get out there.
00:05:22
Speaker
And so if you are like a blitz team or a summer team, would definitely encourage that. I think it's super important to have that daily correlation when you are a summer or a blitz team. But if you are a year round team, you know, to have a daily meeting 365 days a year. i think that's a bit much, you know, maybe you got younger guys that could use that.
00:05:42
Speaker
For us, we do twice a week. We have our correlations. We we do them on Tuesdays and Fridays. And um this is just how we've been able to maintain and um not have a be like, okay, year round, we're doing this every single day. We get together, we plan them for about an hour and a half, have someone that opens the correlation, goes through announcements, goes through numbers, does the whole praise, praises production up to that point in the week, goes over you know the weekly, monthly numbers.
00:06:10
Speaker
And um our team is a bigger team, so we're not diving like super specific in the numbers, but just go over top five closers, top five setters on the week, stuff like that. And then from there, the person that opens the meeting, we have a setter trainer and a closer trainer. So we have a whole kind of leadership calendar that will go and do this beforehand. That person will announce the trainers and then they'll train about 45 minutes.
00:06:35
Speaker
Then we get everyone together at the end, do our whole rah-rah team cheer. Let's get out there, guys. Come on pump everyone up. And then we're off. Try to hit straight to doors after that. And so that works well for us. Of course, you need someone driving the chats, making sure people show up. So you got to give people reasons to show up for the meetings. If you don't remind people, if you don't do a little pump up in the pronto in the team chat, we have our attendance.
00:06:58
Speaker
is ah a lot lower. So it's really important to assigning someone, you know, just kind of manage when they're opening and closing our group chats for the day. And we find we get way better attendance if we are sending out those invitations and keeping the interaction high in the group chats. Hey, so So that works well for us. Anything over an hour and a half correlation, I've just noticed that guys, they get burned out.
00:07:20
Speaker
You know, most cells are ups. They have ADD, struggle with attention. So anything more than an hour and a half, i think it's just too much. And we get complaints when it runs long because guys, they just can't pay attention for that long typically. Our hour and a half correlation has worked well for us twice a week. And if you are summer blitz team, make sure you do the daily correlations. Definitely.
Ecosystem 3: Accountability Calls
00:07:40
Speaker
Okay. Number three, we do an accountability call for our team. so this is a weekly basis. Again, our team, we're a big group. We got 100 people. So obviously it's not when you have that many people, it's tough to really dig into specific numbers, hold everyone accountable in a big correlation like that. So it works really well for us. We divide it into squads. So I run my squad within our bigger team here in San Diego. And then we will have a once week Zoom call where we go over specific numbers, specific goals. We hold each other accountable. So we call guys out if they don't hit up hit their specific numbers. And I've actually done a podcast on um how we structure this weekly call with our squad. So um we can link that podcast if you want to dig deeper.
00:08:23
Speaker
deeper into that. But I think super valuable to have um if you are a bigger team, divide it into squads and do that, you know, hyper accountability, do that just a smaller support group so guys can feel like they have that support, that accountability within the team helps so much. And um yeah, helps guys feel like they can just just hide under the big group and not be accountable to anyone.
Ecosystem 4: One-on-One Meetings
00:08:48
Speaker
And then last but not least, number four, the fourth pillar, the fourth ecosystem that you should have in your team is one on ones. A super important one on ones. It's just a way for your team members to be heard. So if you are a leader, I would recommend running a one on one with your guys.
00:09:04
Speaker
um If you can, once a month would be great. Maybe have a little bit bigger team. For us, we've been doing it once a quarter. I think that's at a minimum, you should be doing one on ones with your team once a quarter. It's just really powerful with these one-on-ones because you can dive into personal issues guys are going through, can dive into just ways to support them that they're not going to bring up sometimes over a phone call in a group setting. So I found that so many times I've been able to help guys just get over some mind blocks just by asking questions and listening. Half the time that people are struggling with their production, it's not because they don't know how to sell. It's not because they don't know the techniques or what to do. Typically because they're having a mental block or they're going through a personal struggle or there's just could be any number of reasons, but it allows you to dive deeper in these one-on-ones to figure out how to specifically help the members of your team.
00:09:53
Speaker
Just help boost up their morale. It really shows guys that you care about them. They're not just a number. When you sit down for 20 minutes, Say, hey, how you been? How's your personal life? How's your relationship with your spouse, significant other? How's relationship with your roommates, whatever, depending on what the situation is. Just get a feel for their personal life and make them feel that they are a valuable member of your team and it will help you so much. And guys, you'll retain guys a lot better.
00:10:21
Speaker
um when you give them that personalized attention. And yeah, I mean, just a quick personal story on our end here. um It's also valuable if you can do ah daily phone calls with your guys. Okay. And I'm not great at this, trying to get better, but at least a few times a week, if anything, great to call just especially the key members of your team, do a checkup on them, get a temperature check. Hey, how's the week going? What are you struggling with? Anything can help you with? Another great way to help people feel like you care about them. And so I made one of these calls just over the weekend. We had one of our i one of the members on our team that was ah struggling a little bit. He hasn't been able to really get an appointment. He's a newer guy to our team and he's transitioning from a restaurant job job. Shout out if he's listening to this. But um he was going through a hard time. So we said so I'm like, hey, I've got an hour before i'm my next appointment. Let's link up. Let's go get an appointment. let's get you that first appointment. So we went, we met up, we met up in the neighborhood.
00:11:18
Speaker
um i he so He saw me book an appointment and then I said, okay, now it's your turn. And I followed him. He got an appointment shortly after. And just that little influx of energy, just that phone call and checking in and scheduling something, I think he really appreciated it. And it made um yeah just a difference for him on the week. And then also we were able to help him make a plan to transition out of his business restaurant job that he's leaving. And so things like that, if you're not if you're not a leader who's checking up on your reps, then they're just going to fly by the wayside. You're not going to be help them with things like that. So those are at the core four ecosystems that we use for our team. Just one more thing one more time to review it. The first one is the pronto, the group chat, whatever form of communication you use as a group. Make sure you keep that rocking, clock ins, clock outs. Number two is your correlations at least twice a week. or daily if you're a Blitz or summer team.
00:12:13
Speaker
Number three, accountability call, some type of weekly accountability where you go through numbers specifically for your squa smaller squad. And number four, the one-on-ones, doing check-ins with members of your team face-to-face and helping them on a more personal level. So if you're a leader, I would encourage you to get an ecosystem similar that.
00:12:34
Speaker
Hopefully that gives you some ideas of things you can use to improve your team's production and improve your effectiveness as a leader. And if you're not a leader, you can start on a smaller scale leading yourself with some of these activities or leading one or two people. Maybe you got one or two setters you're leading, one person you're mentoring. Do some type of check-ins with them and give them that accountability. You can start these things on a smaller scale. So I I hope this is something that can help you and your team this week. Hope you are gearing up for the summer and are ready to throw down and get some insane sales and build some insane momentum for the summer season. We will see you on the next episode. Thanks for tuning in I love you. See
Introduction to SolarScout App
00:13:14
Speaker
you next time. So some of you already know that I run my own door door sales team here in San Diego. And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
00:13:26
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage. Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:13:39
Speaker
It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood. It's been working for a lot of teams across the country and now I'm on board too. I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show. you need to give my listeners a great deal. and they did.
00:14:04
Speaker
So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up. That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
00:14:17
Speaker
Okay.
Launch of Solciety Community
00:14:18
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, quick question. 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.
00:14:30
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. 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. And it's called Solciety.
00:14:55
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 day.
00:15:14
Speaker
Currently, Sol Society is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to solsociety.co to learn more and join the learning experience now. This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to solsociety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.