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 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 Solarpreneur you might ask?
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.
Speaker: What's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: We are back with another episode.
Speaker: I'm your host, Taylor Armstrong, and we're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: I hope you're doing awesome.
Speaker: Hope you're enjoying this fall weather that is coming, starting to get a little crisp in the air.
Speaker: And today we're going to be talking about a little bit heavier subject,
Speaker: And I'll be honest, today I did not want to record, I did not want to get behind the mic, because I had a rough week last week, got kicked in the teeth, got beat up, got thrown down, got spit on, and then got kicked while I was on the ground, metaphorically.
Speaker: But I had the most cancels I think I've ever had in a week.
Speaker: So just tough time.
Speaker: And sometimes it's not all sunshine and rainbows over here.
Speaker: And I'm sure you've experienced some of those weeks as well if you've been in solar for a while.
Speaker: But going through all that...
Speaker: One of the last things I want to do is get behind the mic and talk like I have it all figured out.
Speaker: Because the reality is, I don't.
Speaker: I'm still figuring things out every week.
Speaker: If you haven't noticed by now, this podcast is pretty much an experiment of what's working for me, what's not working, and hopefully bringing a lot of mistakes to y'all that you can learn from.
Speaker: Because I think all of us, even the top guys, there's still things they got to figure out.
Speaker: There's still things they need to improve.
Speaker: So that's where I'm coming from, getting a little vulnerable with everybody, and hopefully that's okay.
Speaker: Hopefully I have your permission, and hopefully you didn't think I was like, you know, God's number one solar salesman on the earth, because truth is I'm still figuring out a lot of things.
Speaker: So today we're going to be talking about really just how you deal with that disappointment, really how you deal with not wanting to continue when it sucks, and when you have weeks like that where you're getting your teeth kicked in.
Speaker: And we also are doing a little preview because next episode we're going to have someone that's one of the top guys in all of solar right now, Christian Maroney.
Speaker: He's coming on next episode and he's been on the podcast previously.
Speaker: He had one of the most popular episodes.
Speaker: So you can go listen to him.
Speaker: But I think today's topic is a good segue into what he talks about because now he's been in the industry for a while now.
Speaker: He's closed 30 deals in 30 days.
Speaker: done some pretty incredible things, but he got pretty real on the podcast we did.
Speaker: And he explained that even a guy like himself, that's one of the top in his company and one of the top in the industry.
Speaker: He has days all the time where he doesn't feel like getting out there, where he fails more than he succeeds.
Speaker: So that's something we talked about is how he continues to keep going.
Speaker: So I'm going to share a little bit of what I do, share a little bit of how I coped with my losses.
Speaker: And hopefully that's a good segue in the next episode.
Speaker: We're going to hear from the man Christian Maroney.
Speaker: But anyway, so I'll tell you what happened last week.
Speaker: I ended up having four cancels on the week, which is insane.
Speaker: Could not believe it.
Speaker: And some of them felt like they were mostly out of my control.
Speaker: But of course, there's always things we can nitpick, do better.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, the first one was a deal from...
Speaker: I closed it about a month and a half ago.
Speaker: He was this Filipino couple.
Speaker: His wife, she had the better credit, so she was the one on the actual solar contract.
Speaker: And what happened with him, he called me saying his wife just does not want to go solar anymore.
Speaker: And I convinced him to get back in the home, to let me back in to go over things.
Speaker: But when I got there, the wife was just freaking out.
Speaker: And I'll tell you, this is the first time I've ever had this happen.
Speaker: But I was threatening them with the cancellation fee.
Speaker: I'm saying, look, man, I get it.
Speaker: I know your wife's not happy.
Speaker: You know, you want to cancel, but would you rather pay several thousand and cancel this or just save money?
Speaker: He's like, well, Taylor, I would.
Speaker: And then in that instant, his wife comes down.
Speaker: She was upstairs and she says, no, make him pay.
Speaker: He deserves to pay for the mistake he made.
Speaker: Make him pay.
Speaker: just super mad.
Speaker: I'm like, whoa, this is the first time that I'm having the wife on my site and wants her husband to pay for his mistake.
Speaker: And turns out they're in a pretty rocky relationship.
Speaker: Husband is actually going to Philippines and he told me he does not like being around her.
Speaker: He wants to get out of the country so he doesn't have to spend time with her.
Speaker: I'm like, whoa, okay.
Speaker: Sounds like you guys got bigger issues than not wanting to go slower.
Speaker: I'm
Speaker: But it was under the wife's name.
Speaker: So not a whole lot we can do.
Speaker: Still a chance maybe it can be saved.
Speaker: But for right now, I had to cancel it.
Speaker: So that was one of the first blows on the week.
Speaker: And then seconds, I get a referral.
Speaker: Get them closed up.
Speaker: They're stoked to go slower.
Speaker: I get a text from them and those that you follow me on Instagram or social media, you probably saw some of this.
Speaker: But they text me saying, hey, Taylor, we're going on a vacation out of the country.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: We just feel like this is too big of a decision for right now.
Speaker: We don't want to think about it during our vacation.
Speaker: So please just cancel it for now.
Speaker: And it blew me away because they're a referral.
Speaker: They had already gotten multiple quotes.
Speaker: I showed them how we were better.
Speaker: They agreed that we were better.
Speaker: The trust is there.
Speaker: And matter of fact, they knew one of the owners of our installer.
Speaker: So all these things, they should have had massive trust.
Speaker: They still put it off and cancel the deal.
Speaker: Then the third one, close it up.
Speaker: It was a one-legged.
Speaker: So obviously that was probably my mistake.
Speaker: Usually doesn't go great closing one-leggers.
Speaker: Just met with the wife.
Speaker: She said she'd talked to her husband.
Speaker: They wanted to go solar.
Speaker: Close them.
Speaker: And then I get a text the next day.
Speaker: Hey, my husband said that this sounds way too expensive.
Speaker: Let's go ahead and cancel it out.
Speaker: He doesn't want.
Speaker: He's all mad.
Speaker: So my mistake closing the one legger.
Speaker: So yeah, I mean, those were some of the cancels.
Speaker: There was one more on the week.
Speaker: Similar situation.
Speaker: They were saving tons of money.
Speaker: Older couple moved into the home four or five months ago.
Speaker: Stoked to go solar and get a text from the next day to cancel because they didn't want a loan.
Speaker: They didn't want the debt.
Speaker: So there were things I could have done, but some of it to a degree was out of my control.
Speaker: I should not have probably met with the wife without the husband.
Speaker: That could have solved that problem.
Speaker: I should have probably dug out concerns.
Speaker: And so there's a million things you can say I should have, would have, could have, but sometimes there's not a whole lot you can do.
Speaker: And I think my lesson learned is just to ask the hard questions at the end.
Speaker: And I'll get into that a little bit more here.
Speaker: But just not be afraid to ask hard questions because sometimes we're so excited that we got the deal that we don't ask the hard questions at the end.
Speaker: Okay, so those were some of the cancels.
Speaker: And what I want to talk about is how I coped with them, how you can too.
Speaker: And then hopefully just gives you an idea to not get devastated.
Speaker: I wanted to curl up on a ball.
Speaker: Just call my solo career quits.
Speaker: Throw away the podcast.
Speaker: But I'm back at you and I'm not giving up.
Speaker: That's the most important thing.
Speaker: There's only two things you can do.
Speaker: You either give up and quit or you keep going.
Speaker: So you got to keep going.
Speaker: Okay, so here's the three things that I feel like helped me through this and I feel like can help you too.
Speaker: So number one, and that is to keep experimenting.
Speaker: Okay, we're talking about how you cope with failures.
Speaker: Keep experimenting.
Speaker: What do I mean by keep experimenting?
Speaker: Well, you got to realize that basically all cells training, everything that people are doing, no matter how good they are at cells, it came from an experiment at some point.
Speaker: People experimented with some technique, some way of saying something that worked.
Speaker: And it worked.
Speaker: So they kept doing it.
Speaker: So for you, if you're thinking of calling it quits, this is a great way to kind of recharge yourself.
Speaker: Just know that you need to keep experimenting.
Speaker: You need to take whatever happened and use it as a lesson you can learn from, not as a failure.
Speaker: You can either look at it as a failure or a learning opportunity.
Speaker: And if you look at it as a learning opportunity, it's going to make it way easier to cope with some of these cancels or whatever you're going through.
Speaker: So for me, I talked about just asking the hard questions after the sale.
Speaker: And that's a lesson really I took from last week.
Speaker: Because if I would have had the audacity to just go ahead and ask the harder questions, I think I could have saved some of these.
Speaker: What do I mean by harder questions?
Speaker: I mean, ask them stuff like, hey, Mr. Homeowner, how do you justify taking out $71,000 in debt in order to do this project?
Speaker: Pretty bold question, right?
Speaker: One of the deals that canceled, they were doing a new roof
Speaker: and a system is going to cost them $71,000.
Speaker: So would that be hard to ask?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Would it cause them to cancel in the moment?
Speaker: Maybe, probably not.
Speaker: But would you rather drag out the concerns now and see if you can tackle them or wait till later, leave them to their thoughts and let doubt fester in their mind and them just text you and cancel like they did to me?
Speaker: So that was one of the biggest lessons I learned.
Speaker: Figure out hard questions to ask.
Speaker: Hey, how do you guys justify taking out $71,000 going into debt to do this?
Speaker: Hey, so Mr. Homeowner, what happens to some people is they overthink this in two days and just make this a big decision.
Speaker: It's a lot of money.
Speaker: It's just solar panels, just saving a little bit.
Speaker: So in two days, when you guys wake up and you're not as excited about it, what are you going to do at that point?
Speaker: stuff like that.
Speaker: So for you, brainstorm, what are some difficult questions you can ask your customers after the sale?
Speaker: Hey, and these people, all of them that I closed, they seemed really solid.
Speaker: They didn't seem like people that I needed to ask hard questions for, but it probably would help solidify them.
Speaker: Probably would have dragged out concerns.
Speaker: So that's something that I took.
Speaker: from last week.
Speaker: And that was the lesson I learned.
Speaker: So keep experimenting, write down ways how you can experiment, how you can improve things.
Speaker: And who knows, maybe you're going to be the next Grant Cardone, solar cells guy, whatever.
Speaker: Maybe you're going to be the one that writes a book about this stuff.
Speaker: Because anyone that does anything great, they're just experimenting, they're sharing their results.
Speaker: And that's what I'm trying to do here on the podcast.
Speaker: So that's the first thing, keep experimenting.
Speaker: Okay, and then number two and three, this is more just kind of how to recharge.
Speaker: For me, it's basically how to reset emotionally.
Speaker: And again, you're going to hear more of this on the next podcast we do with Christian.
Speaker: But number two is just do something different.
Speaker: Have like a side hobby.
Speaker: Have something you like doing during the week.
Speaker: For me, most of you know, I've talked about it in the podcast.
Speaker: I took up jujitsu.
Speaker: I'm doing that during the week.
Speaker: It's something that I look forward to.
Speaker: It's a new hobby.
Speaker: I'm learning new skill and it's just kind of like something I look forward to outside of cells.
Speaker: And I know when everything goes wrong, I can go to jujitsu.
Speaker: I can feel like I'm choking people out and doing something awesome.
Speaker: So it's something I would recommend.
Speaker: Take up a new skill, a new sport, a new hobby, and it really helps to recharge, helps you energize and energizes you outside of your work.
Speaker: And really, it's going to help you recharge every day.
Speaker: And then lastly, this might be a no brainer, but hand in hand with that is just make sure to exercise.
Speaker: This is one of the biggest secrets for me.
Speaker: Exercise is hardly anything physical.
Speaker: To be honest, I don't care that much how I look, but exercise for me, it's about how I feel way more mental for me than physical.
Speaker: then wanting to be stronger, wanting to look better.
Speaker: It's more just physical and it gives me the confidence.
Speaker: So for you, exercise, it's going to help you emotionally.
Speaker: It's going to help spiritually, physically, mentally.
Speaker: I think it helps in all of the above.
Speaker: And a lot of ideas I have for the podcast, for sales, for life in general.
Speaker: Guess what?
Speaker: It comes while I'm exercising or running right now.
Speaker: I've been training for a half marathon.
Speaker: So a lot of weird stuff comes in my head.
Speaker: Sometimes freaky stuff when I'm running, right?
Speaker: but a lot of cool stuff comes in my head, okay, because it gives you time alone to ponder, just be with your thoughts, to listen to podcasts, and consume good content.
Speaker: So just those last two, getting a new hobby, and then exercise, and I think those are key, you know, throwing some meditation in there too, something I've been trying to start doing more and more.
Speaker: But if you can do that, for me, that helped me cope with a lot of the negative I felt last week.
Speaker: But it's a new week.
Speaker: We're going to get after it.
Speaker: So if you're listening to this and you had a tough week, start doing those things.
Speaker: Remember that this whole sales game is just a big experiment.
Speaker: Take it as a lesson.
Speaker: Learn from it.
Speaker: And I can't wait for you guys to hear from Christian Maroney.
Speaker: He's going to be again on the podcast.
Speaker: Next episode, we're going to hear what he's doing, what he's been up to, how he's continued to up level himself from a year ago when he was last on the podcast.
Speaker: You're not going to want to miss out.
Speaker: This guy is crushing it.
Speaker: So thanks for listening.
Speaker: And sorry, I had to hear my sob story.
Speaker: But hopefully it's okay that I got all vulnerable and just shared what I'm feeling.
Speaker: But that's it.
Speaker: I'm taking it.
Speaker: I'm throwing last week away and I'm starting over.
Speaker: I feel like I was, I don't know, whatever.
Speaker: sucky sport team you can think of right now that just got blown out of the water but those games it's like you don't go back and watch the film you throw it away and you just reset you go to next week so that's what I'm gonna do okay obviously you can't go back and you know learn from the lessons but sometimes you just gotta reset keep moving forward so I hope that helps we'll see you guys on the next episode keep crushing it and thanks again for listening to the show love you peace out we'll talk soon
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
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.
Speaker: One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
Speaker: What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
Speaker: You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
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 Solarpreneur.
Speaker: We put them together all in one sheet.
Speaker: So you can go, you can hit the ground running.
Speaker: Especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet.
Speaker: So go download it right now.
Speaker: It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We will have that in the show notes.
Speaker: Go download it right now.
Speaker: And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
Speaker: That's going to show you how.
Speaker: So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.
