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The Next Hire You NEED To Make
76 Plays1 year ago
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Journey
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 fail.
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 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.
The Importance of Hiring in Business
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs.
00:00:42
Speaker
Today, we're going to be talking about the next hire you must make in your business.
00:00:46
Speaker
Whether you run the company you're at, whether you're a manager, whether you're a rep,
00:00:52
Speaker
I think everyone should make this next hire.
00:00:54
Speaker
Let me tell you why.
00:00:55
Speaker
Hey, welcome to the show.
00:00:56
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:58
Speaker
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.
00:01:05
Speaker
In this case, we are here to help you also free up more of your time, be more effective.
00:01:10
Speaker
I think part of the secrets of success are to really just be as effective as possible with your time.
00:01:18
Speaker
And part of that is hiring other people to help you in this job.
00:01:22
Speaker
And that's part of being an entrepreneur.
00:01:24
Speaker
That's part of being a solopreneur.
00:01:26
Speaker
Hey, and so welcome to the show.
00:01:29
Speaker
If you have not left us a review already, that would be much appreciated.
00:01:33
Speaker
We are free and available on Apple, iTunes, or Spotify, wherever you want to listen to your podcasts.
00:01:39
Speaker
We are also on YouTube.
00:01:41
Speaker
And I'm starting to upload the video version.
00:01:44
Speaker
So if you like video content better, you can catch us over on YouTube.
00:01:48
Speaker
So let me explain why I did this episode.
00:01:53
Speaker
For many, many years, I was hesitant to get this one particular hire.
00:01:57
Speaker
And that hire was someone to help clean up my stuff.
00:02:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:03
Speaker
That might sound ridiculous, but hear me out.
00:02:06
Speaker
Some of you know, I recently just had our third kid, actually, absolute madness.
00:02:11
Speaker
I don't know what I was thinking.
00:02:13
Speaker
It's fun, but three kids, it is a lot of kids.
00:02:16
Speaker
And I had a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and now we have a newborn baby most recently.
00:02:23
Speaker
And so if any of you have dealt with kids, it's especially boys.
00:02:28
Speaker
These people are just making messes, ripping the place apart.
Clutter and Mental Health
00:02:32
Speaker
You feed them dinner.
00:02:33
Speaker
The 70% of the food is on the floor.
00:02:36
Speaker
They just toss it everywhere.
00:02:37
Speaker
I mean, these kids are savages.
00:02:39
Speaker
And so I was hesitant for a long time.
00:02:42
Speaker
We're in an apartment.
00:02:43
Speaker
We've been in our house here in California for a little over a year now.
00:02:50
Speaker
And especially now with the baby, I started realizing, okay, I'm coming home from knocking, coming home from closing deals.
00:02:58
Speaker
And now I'm just coming home, picking up the house, trying to get it to at least base level, level where I don't go nuts.
00:03:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:06
Speaker
And I wouldn't consider myself a clean freak or anything near that for that matter.
00:03:10
Speaker
But for me, it just affects me mentally.
00:03:13
Speaker
If it's not at least like a base level of cleanliness, I started to go insane.
00:03:19
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:20
Speaker
So I think anyone who says they're not affected by it, I think you're lying to yourself.
00:03:24
Speaker
You need to have a decluttered space.
00:03:27
Speaker
You need to have a place you can go back to and just be able to recharge a place that's not just wrecked, that's not cluttered up.
00:03:35
Speaker
Hey, and my wife, she's here.
00:03:37
Speaker
She helps.
00:03:38
Speaker
But, you know, with three kids, especially the baby, you can only do so much.
00:03:42
Speaker
And I had to apologize a little bit.
00:03:45
Speaker
to her because I was coming after her.
00:03:47
Speaker
I'm like, all right, what are you doing all day?
00:03:48
Speaker
Why can't you clean?
00:03:50
Speaker
But I have spent my share of time watching three kids and it is it's not easy.
00:03:56
Speaker
So a little tangent there.
00:03:58
Speaker
But what happened was I just started realizing that there's so much to do and I have an assistant already.
00:04:04
Speaker
I'm like, why can't I get someone to help take care of our stuff,
Time-Saving Decisions: Housekeeping and More
00:04:08
Speaker
right?
00:04:08
Speaker
Clean it.
00:04:09
Speaker
And decided to bite the bullet and get a housekeeper.
00:04:13
Speaker
Hey, her name's Mari.
00:04:15
Speaker
She's coming twice a week right now.
00:04:17
Speaker
She may be coming three times a week.
00:04:19
Speaker
Hey, but the reasons why I think you should get one, even if you're not in my situation, maybe you don't have 20 kids like myself.
00:04:27
Speaker
Maybe you don't really know
00:04:30
Speaker
need as much help.
00:04:31
Speaker
But I would encourage you just look at how much time are you spending cleaning up your stuff.
00:04:37
Speaker
If you're cooking, how much time is that taking?
00:04:39
Speaker
If you're shopping, if you're picking up groceries, how much time is that taking?
00:04:43
Speaker
In the very minimum, you should be using stuff like the Walmart,
00:04:48
Speaker
grocery delivery service.
00:04:50
Speaker
You can get Walmart Plus.
00:04:51
Speaker
They'll just drop off the groceries at your door.
00:04:53
Speaker
So that's the first step.
00:04:54
Speaker
I would never shop for your own groceries.
00:04:56
Speaker
But the next level is just realize how much time are you spending cleaning, doing laundry?
00:05:02
Speaker
Is it taking a whole Sunday?
00:05:04
Speaker
For me, it was like evenings I was cleaning a little bit.
00:05:07
Speaker
Then Sundays, it was practically all day Sundays.
00:05:10
Speaker
I was just cleaning just to get it back to like a livable level.
00:05:13
Speaker
And I realized that's not sustainable.
00:05:16
Speaker
I'm first of all, I need to be able to recharge.
00:05:18
Speaker
We're hustling during the week.
00:05:20
Speaker
We're closing deals.
00:05:21
Speaker
We're entrepreneurs, right?
00:05:23
Speaker
So we need to use our time to recharge.
00:05:26
Speaker
And if we're just cleaning the whole time when we're not working, then it's going to be tough to recharge.
00:05:32
Speaker
So I'm going to tell you guys how I was able to find a house housekeeper and how you can do the same thing.
00:05:39
Speaker
And hopefully it helps someone out there.
00:05:41
Speaker
Even if you think you're not spending a bunch of time, consider it.
00:05:45
Speaker
So step number one is just realize how much time are you taking to clean, right?
00:05:52
Speaker
So I already mentioned that a little bit.
00:05:54
Speaker
But how is it affecting your mental bandwidth?
00:05:56
Speaker
Maybe you're like me.
00:05:57
Speaker
Maybe you just came to accept that you're never going to live in a perfectly clean place.
00:06:02
Speaker
Maybe you've got kids.
00:06:03
Speaker
You're just like, OK, this is how it's going to be.
00:06:05
Speaker
But just think about how is it affecting you?
00:06:08
Speaker
How is it affecting your mind?
00:06:11
Speaker
And then consider just tracking your time throughout the day, throughout the week.
00:06:15
Speaker
Something I've talked about many times is doing a time study.
00:06:18
Speaker
It's just tracking how you're actually spending your time because then maybe you're spending more time than you thought.
00:06:24
Speaker
Just cleaning, cooking, doing dishes, doing laundry.
00:06:27
Speaker
It all adds up.
00:06:28
Speaker
And then number two, if you want to get a housekeeper, it's not as hard as you'd think.
00:06:33
Speaker
Part of what was blocking my mindset around it is just number one, that is going to be too expensive.
00:06:39
Speaker
I'm here in California where minimum wage is practically 20 bucks these days.
00:06:43
Speaker
And then number two, I'm just like, how do you find these people?
00:06:46
Speaker
It's like, do you have to, I don't know, know someone?
00:06:49
Speaker
Do you have to do all these complicated job posts, go through all these interviews?
00:06:53
Speaker
So it was just part of not knowing and then thinking it was complicated.
00:06:56
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to try and tackle this.
00:06:58
Speaker
But it actually turned out to be quite a bit easier than I thought.
00:07:02
Speaker
So here's what I did.
00:07:05
Speaker
I originally went and I started doing some job postings.
00:07:08
Speaker
I didn't really know what I was doing.
00:07:10
Speaker
I just put out a job post that said, hey,
00:07:12
Speaker
looking for someone looking for a housekeeper, working two to three times a week, part time, family of five.
00:07:22
Speaker
Let me know or apply below if you have two plus years in managing a household, have worked in housekeeping before, something along those lines.
00:07:32
Speaker
Pretty easy.
00:07:32
Speaker
You can ask chat GPT, Google, make you a job posting.
00:07:36
Speaker
Really simple.
00:07:37
Speaker
Okay, so I did that.
00:07:39
Speaker
And I posted on some job boards.
00:07:41
Speaker
That was my first
Finding Affordable Housekeeping Solutions
00:07:42
Speaker
idea is, OK, I'm going to post on like some Facebook groups in my area.
00:07:46
Speaker
I'm going to post online.
00:07:49
Speaker
I did that and it didn't work that great.
00:07:52
Speaker
I got a few responses back just on Facebook groups.
00:07:56
Speaker
Most of them were like, hey, stop being lazy.
00:07:58
Speaker
Clean your own house.
00:08:00
Speaker
No one's going to want to do that.
00:08:01
Speaker
So I'm like, okay, Facebook groups, people are just trolling.
00:08:04
Speaker
Okay, I'm not going to do that.
00:08:06
Speaker
So then I went to ZipRecruiter.
00:08:09
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
00:08:14
Speaker
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.
00:08:20
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
00:08:25
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called SolarScout.
00:08:28
Speaker
But it's not a door knocking app.
00:08:30
Speaker
It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:08:34
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.
00:08:44
Speaker
It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
00:08:48
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to use Solar Scout in San Diego, so I decided to partner
Tools for Solar Success: SolarScout
00:08:52
Speaker
up.
00:08:52
Speaker
But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about Solar Scout on my show.
00:08:56
Speaker
You need to give my listeners a great deal, and they did.
00:08:59
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.
00:09:08
Speaker
That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
00:09:11
Speaker
Okay, back to the show.
00:09:14
Speaker
And if you didn't know, you can go to ZipRecruiter.
00:09:17
Speaker
Indeed is the other popular one.
00:09:19
Speaker
They have free postings you can make.
00:09:22
Speaker
I think it's like your first post.
00:09:24
Speaker
They let you sponsor it for the first three days, I believe, at no charge.
00:09:28
Speaker
It's like a trial offer they have.
00:09:30
Speaker
And then if you continue it, it's like 50 bucks a day or something.
00:09:33
Speaker
so you can go on there you can have a free sponsor post that's going to get a lot of applicants and i had way more success with indeed and then zip recruiter but i threw it out there got all these applicants and i was like okay sweet i've got so many options now um but then here's what i finally ended up doing and you're you're gonna laugh because i just basically did all that for nothing but the way i would actually recommend getting one if you can
00:10:00
Speaker
And what I thought of later is I'm like, okay, you know what?
00:10:03
Speaker
There's people that I go to church with that might actually have recommendations.
00:10:07
Speaker
So I think what made it more simple for me and what I did is I asked a Mexican lady that I go to church with, hey, do you know anybody who would be interested in doing some housekeeping for us?
00:10:21
Speaker
And she said, oh, see, mi hermana.
00:10:23
Speaker
Yes, my sister, you know, she doesn't speak English, but yeah, my sister, she would, she has done this and she'd be interested.
00:10:31
Speaker
And so long story short, I ended up hiring the sister of a lady that I go to church with and made it simple, knew I could trust her.
00:10:41
Speaker
She came referred and plus trying to teach her kids Spanish.
00:10:45
Speaker
I'm always trying to improve my Spanish.
00:10:46
Speaker
I'm like, okay, perfect.
00:10:48
Speaker
Mexican housekeeper.
00:10:49
Speaker
Doesn't get better than that.
00:10:52
Speaker
And ended up going with her.
00:10:53
Speaker
Okay, so
Benefits of Hiring Help
00:10:55
Speaker
that is... So all the explanation aside...
00:10:59
Speaker
Step number two is just put the fillers out there.
00:11:02
Speaker
First, try to get a reference or referral.
00:11:05
Speaker
But if that doesn't work, then I would recommend just go straight to Indeed.
00:11:09
Speaker
You can get the free sponsored posts and just get tons of applicants pretty quickly.
00:11:14
Speaker
And then the third thing to do this is make sure you actually interview them, sit down with them, whether it's a referral or whether you are actually hiring someone from a job posting.
00:11:25
Speaker
Sit down with them, do an interview, ask them about their experience, you know, just like you'd interview someone in solar.
00:11:31
Speaker
Don't just hand them the job like you want them to take it seriously.
00:11:34
Speaker
Right.
00:11:34
Speaker
So make sure you tell them you're going to do a month trial period.
00:11:39
Speaker
I would not hire anyone right off the bat.
00:11:40
Speaker
Tell them you're going to do a month trial period.
00:11:42
Speaker
That way, if they're crazy, if they're late, if they're who knows, just not doing a good job, you don't like them.
00:11:51
Speaker
Remember, they're going to be in your house.
00:11:52
Speaker
They're going to be in your personal space.
00:11:54
Speaker
So if you do a month trial like that, then you're just going to say, hey, we're going to bring you on, see how this goes for a month.
00:12:01
Speaker
We may or may not bring you on permanently after that, but we're going to see how it goes.
00:12:05
Speaker
That way they will take it seriously.
00:12:08
Speaker
You'll be able to get a feeler if you think that person is doing a good job or not, and it's going to be much better.
00:12:14
Speaker
So make sure you do an interview, ask them their experience, and then bring them on for a month trial.
00:12:20
Speaker
And that's it.
00:12:21
Speaker
So for me, it's just been an absolute game changer.
00:12:24
Speaker
I can tell you, I'm just way happier when I come home.
00:12:28
Speaker
It's not a wreck.
00:12:29
Speaker
And what I would recommend you have these people start in is just have them come two to three times a week for a minimum of three hours.
00:12:38
Speaker
And in this time, I think the biggest thing you can offload right now is just have them help with your laundry.
00:12:44
Speaker
Okay, laundry, it was taking me at least five hours a week, probably, possibly more when you talk about all the laundry redo for these kids.
00:12:52
Speaker
Hey, but even if you're not spending a lot of time, like if you could free up an additional, I don't know, three to four hours a week, do you think you could put that additional time of something that could potentially make you more money?
00:13:05
Speaker
knock a few more doors, follow up with a few more referrals, follow up with some leads, you name it.
00:13:12
Speaker
Even if you could free up maybe just three, four hours that you spend cleaning or doing laundry, what would that mean for you?
00:13:19
Speaker
What would that mean in your business?
00:13:21
Speaker
So consider that, just bring them on and have them do everything.
00:13:24
Speaker
three hours, um, at 10, three hours a day for three times a week.
00:13:30
Speaker
That's nine hours.
00:13:32
Speaker
Um, everyone should be able to afford this.
00:13:34
Speaker
It's not that expensive.
00:13:35
Speaker
Even if you're in an expensive place like California, um, ours, we're paying her $18 an hour, which, you know, is kind of the going right out here.
00:13:44
Speaker
Most places it's cheaper than that and that's it.
00:13:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:47
Speaker
So I come home, laundry's done.
00:13:49
Speaker
It's all put away.
00:13:52
Speaker
Um, wife's happier.
00:13:53
Speaker
Kids are happier.
00:13:54
Speaker
I can actually spend more time with the family because I'm not sitting there cleaning when I get back.
00:13:59
Speaker
And it's just been so much easier.
00:14:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:02
Speaker
And I got a lot of these concepts from a book called buy back your time.
00:14:06
Speaker
So if you're looking for more resources,
00:14:09
Speaker
or more ways to explore how you can free up more of your time, I would definitely recommend that book.
Maximizing Productivity as a Solopreneur
00:14:14
Speaker
It's called Buy Back Your Time.
00:14:15
Speaker
But these are the two hires I would make, whether you're a rep, whether you own the business, whatever.
00:14:20
Speaker
I think everyone could benefit from number one, some type of virtual assistant, which I've had for a while now.
00:14:26
Speaker
And number two, a housekeeper, someone helping clean things.
00:14:30
Speaker
And I don't love cleaning.
00:14:31
Speaker
I don't think anyone does.
00:14:33
Speaker
So it's just...
00:14:34
Speaker
It's been super helpful and didn't want to go another day without recommending it to all my friends on the podcast.
00:14:40
Speaker
So I hope this helps somebody.
00:14:41
Speaker
If you are spending too much time cleaning or doing things that you hate doing, then consider getting a housekeeper.
00:14:49
Speaker
It changed my business.
00:14:51
Speaker
I hope it changes yours.
00:14:52
Speaker
Hit me up if you have more advice, more thoughts on freeing up your time.
00:14:57
Speaker
This is a topic I'm fascinated by and always looking to be more efficient.
00:15:01
Speaker
So I'll
00:15:02
Speaker
Always be thinking about that and stay tuned.
00:15:05
Speaker
We got some exciting guests coming up here in future episodes.
00:15:08
Speaker
Actually, next episode, you're not going to want to miss this.
00:15:11
Speaker
We have Jordan Stupar.
00:15:12
Speaker
He is coming on and just dropping some bombs.
00:15:14
Speaker
If you have not heard of this guy, Jordan Stupar, he was Grant Cardone's top sales rep for, I believe, a couple of years before he went and started his own sales consulting company, similar to what Uncle G does.
00:15:29
Speaker
So this guy, he is blown up.
00:15:32
Speaker
You might've seen him.
00:15:33
Speaker
He has this little objection cards, cool product where he teaches people to overcome.
00:15:38
Speaker
It's like a deck of cards that has the objections on it.
00:15:40
Speaker
Really cool product.
00:15:41
Speaker
And this guy's blown up.
00:15:41
Speaker
So make sure you come and see what he has to say.
00:15:45
Speaker
He talks about how to scale your business, how to overcome objections better and a whole lot of other stuff.
00:15:50
Speaker
So tune in.
00:15:51
Speaker
He's coming on the next episode.
00:15:53
Speaker
And thanks again for tuning in guys.
00:15:54
Speaker
So we'll see you on the next one.
00:15:57
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
00:15:58
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:16:00
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.
00:16:10
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:16:17
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:16:20
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:16:25
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.
00:16:38
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.
00:16:47
Speaker
So go download it right now.
00:16:49
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:16:53
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:16:58
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:17:00
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:17:02
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:17:04
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
00:17:09
Speaker
That's going to show you how.
00:17:11
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.