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 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 up, everybody?
Speaker: Should you knock doors?
Speaker: Should you be out grinding every day?
Speaker: How should you be getting your leads?
Speaker: That's what we're going to talk about today on the podcast.
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Speaker: I hope you liked my intro.
Speaker: Trying out a few different intros.
Speaker: I hope you enjoyed trying to work on my little drum roll intro there.
Speaker: Maybe I should get an actual drum.
Speaker: I know it doesn't really sound like a drum roll starting off the episode.
Speaker: But let's jump into the episode today.
Speaker: So should you knock doors?
Speaker: What I want to talk about is the importance of knocking doors, why I think everyone should be hitting the doors, grinding out there in neighborhoods.
Speaker: If you are already hitting doors every day, grinding super hard, maybe this episode isn't for you.
Speaker: Maybe you've got it figured out.
Speaker: But if you're anything like me, and I know a lot of people in this industry are
Speaker: we struggle to get out on the doors sometimes we struggle with motivation sometimes we wonder why should we knock doors why don't we just follow up with people try to get referrals try to do other methods of lead gen okay so i'm going to tell you why i think it's so important that you get out there on the doors that you make it part of your general routine
Speaker: and get out there multiple times a week.
Speaker: Maybe you have a setter-closer model in your company.
Speaker: Maybe you have other ways of generating leads.
Speaker: But I want to tell you right now that if you're not knocking doors, you are selling yourself short on those other lead gen methods.
Speaker: Because being out there on the doors, it's going to make you that much more effective of a closer.
Speaker: It's going to make you that much more effective at overcoming objections.
Speaker: It's going to make you that much more effective at
Speaker: at just the mental game.
Speaker: Being out on the doors, it's a mental battle out there.
Speaker: And if you learn to master the mental side of things, how much more effective are you gonna be as you're calling online needs?
Speaker: How much more effective are you gonna be as you're closing deals, as you're in homes?
Speaker: It's gonna be a huge difference.
Speaker: So hopefully I can convince you today that you need to be knocking doors, even if it's just a couple times a week.
Speaker: You should be getting out there.
Speaker: You should be grinding.
Speaker: It's going to make you way more successful.
Speaker: So I want to tell you a little bit about my start into door-to-door.
Speaker: And I know I've gone over this a few times.
Speaker: But what some people don't know is that growing up, I was insanely shy as a kid.
Speaker: And part of it was I wouldn't talk.
Speaker: I didn't want to express myself.
Speaker: I felt like no one paid attention to me.
Speaker: And even my parents at times would say, yeah, he doesn't talk very much.
Speaker: He's a shy kid.
Speaker: So I took on this identity.
Speaker: I was shy.
Speaker: I didn't talk to people.
Speaker: I didn't express myself.
Speaker: And what happened, I had my close friends.
Speaker: I had the people I was hanging out with.
Speaker: I would try to talk to them.
Speaker: But as we got into middle school, early high school, I saw that they were kind of taken off into the more popular friend groups.
Speaker: And we're talking about Kanab, Utah.
Speaker: My school was like 250 kids.
Speaker: So pretty tiny, pretty tiny crowd of kids there.
Speaker: But I saw some of my buddies, they were progressing into these cool kids groups.
Speaker: They were starting to hang out with the cooler guys.
Speaker: They were starting to, you know, get the girlfriends, hang out with girls.
Speaker: And I was getting left behind.
Speaker: I was so shy, I didn't want to express myself.
Speaker: And I remember the breaking point of it was, or one of the things that was kind of this straw on the camel's back.
Speaker: I tried out for the freshman basketball team, made it, not saying that much in the school of 250 kids.
Speaker: They practically begged you to come on the team if you have any athletic ability whatsoever.
Speaker: But made it on the freshman basketball team, was stoked, and got a little bit of playing time here and there.
Speaker: I remember after one of the games, the star of our team on the freshman basketball squad, everyone was kind of just saying what they thought of the game.
Speaker: I think we lost that game.
Speaker: Didn't go well.
Speaker: Everyone was kind of talking about it, strategizing what could we change to win the next one.
Speaker: And as we're all talking, this star of our team, he straight up looks at me and says, well, don't ask Taylor.
Speaker: He's not going to say anything.
Speaker: He doesn't have opinions.
Speaker: He never talks anyways.
Speaker: And he calls me out in the middle of the locker room, and I just feel destroyed.
Speaker: I get this sunken feeling.
Speaker: I'm like, man, I'm a part of this team, but the star of the team doesn't think I have anything valuable to say.
Speaker: He doesn't even hear me talk, doesn't know what I'm going to say.
Speaker: So at that point, I was pretty devastated.
Speaker: I'm like, man, how am I going to be successful in anything?
Speaker: How am I going to keep up with my friends that are getting invited to parties now, that are hanging out with the girls?
Speaker: And I was devastated.
Speaker: So at that point, I took on the responsibility to start to break out of my shell.
Speaker: I tried everything possible, and I was an awkward kid too.
Speaker: So a lot of times when I made the effort to talk more, things came out awkward.
Speaker: got made fun of, being chubby, things like that.
Speaker: Just your typical nerd.
Speaker: I was more of the band geek.
Speaker: I was the music guy.
Speaker: And that's what I was good at.
Speaker: That's what I wanted to spend my time on.
Speaker: But I knew that if I wanted to progress, even if it was in music, I knew I needed to break out of this shell of shyness to a degree.
Speaker: So from that point on, I tried to do everything possible to talk more and always smiled a lot.
Speaker: I think that's one of the things I did to try to break out of that shyness is I would always smile.
Speaker: At high school, I tried to turn around, be happy, be positive, smile.
Speaker: And then what happened?
Speaker: I get made fun of for smiling too.
Speaker: People said I smiled too much.
Speaker: I said, Taylor, why are you smiling?
Speaker: Why are you smiling in class?
Speaker: Everyone else is serious.
Speaker: Why are you smiling?
Speaker: Why do you always smile when you talk?
Speaker: It turned into that.
Speaker: I was like, man, how do I get out of this?
Speaker: Now they say I'm smiling too much.
Speaker: I'm finally starting to talk.
Speaker: Now it's the smile.
Speaker: That was my high school experience.
Speaker: I slowly broke out of it.
Speaker: I feel like I'm still an introvert, definitely.
Speaker: but I try to interact with people.
Speaker: And that's part of why I got into door-to-door.
Speaker: The reason I tell you that is because fast forward freshman year of college, I heard about this pest control company that was hiring.
Speaker: I saw their pay skills, how you could make thousands of dollars by going out and knocking on doors.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay, I've been shy all my life.
Speaker: I don't think I can be successful.
Speaker: with how I am currently, with not wanting to talk to people, with having a nervous knot in my stomach every time I approach an adult.
Speaker: So why don't I just go out and do this?
Speaker: How else am I going to break this spell?
Speaker: How else am I going to break out of my shell, out of my shyness?
Speaker: So that was the first time I started, tried to do something that I didn't think I could do.
Speaker: And that's why I got in door-to-door sales in the first place.
Speaker: It helped me break out of that shyness.
Speaker: It helped me really just conquer my fears of talking to anyone.
Speaker: It helped me control my emotions better.
Speaker: It helped me express myself.
Speaker: And it's a work in progress.
Speaker: I tell everyone I was never a natural salesman.
Speaker: I stopped to work extremely hard.
Speaker: And that's why you hear this podcast created today.
Speaker: Is because I want to surround myself with the best of the best.
Speaker: I know guys like me.
Speaker: I'm not the natural sales guy.
Speaker: I'm not the guy that's going to go out and get...
Speaker: you know, 10 cells in a day.
Speaker: Okay, I know I've had a good amount of success now, but that's because I've gotten mentors, I've sought out coaching, I've sought to surround myself with the best of the solar industry.
Speaker: And I credit that with the success that I have been able to attain.
Speaker: Okay, so if you are like me, if you feel like
Speaker: you need to break out of your shell more if you feel like you need to have that success or find that extra success even more reason for you to get out on the doors even more reason for you to get out of your comfort zone do something that challenges you yes that's the first point i wanted to make is it's going to help you develop your communication skills if you can get out there if you can make a priority to go out and knock those doors
Speaker: Got and get in areas.
Speaker: It's going to help you develop that better.
Speaker: It's going to help you again like I mentioned in your closes.
Speaker: And the second reason is if you are trying to get in the online legion, I know the purpose of this podcast is to help people conquer all aspects of the solar game.
Speaker: So we're talking online leads.
Speaker: We're talking the follow-up.
Speaker: We're talking the referral getting.
Speaker: So if you can knock on doors, it's going to make you that much more successful with all these other things.
Speaker: With online lead gen, even more so.
Speaker: If you can knock on doors, how much easier is it going to be to recognize those patterns of how people communicate to what makes people tick?
Speaker: You look at any online marketer, they're taking a lot of similar techniques and they're applying it into online lead gen.
Speaker: So if that's something you think you'll do in the future is dive into online leads, dive into marketing more online, go out and knock doors.
Speaker: It's going to help you.
Speaker: It's going to help you make that jump.
Speaker: A good example of that was Steve Larson.
Speaker: He was on the podcast, it was probably a year and a half ago, so you can go back and listen to that episode.
Speaker: But he's one of the top online marketers today in the episode we had on with him.
Speaker: He talks about his experiences starting off in door-to-door sales and pest control.
Speaker: And he has stories all the time where he's talking about how things applied when he's knocking doors and how they're helping him now in online marketing.
Speaker: making millions online, one of the top online marketers I would say today.
Speaker: And he's drawn from those experiences he's learned in knocking doors, pest control.
Speaker: Another example just recently in Door-to-Door Fest, talked about it in the previous episode,
Speaker: We had a kid during a Q&A, he was asking the speakers, there's a question panel where everyone is asking speakers their questions.
Speaker: And one of the kids, he asks, hey, I have a call center.
Speaker: You guys are talking a lot about door knocking techniques, but how can I apply this to my call center?
Speaker: How can I apply these same lines, these same concepts you're talking about to the call center?
Speaker: And guess what the answer was?
Speaker: The answer was that you don't need to change really anything.
Speaker: Okay, the same techniques that they're talking about on the doors.
Speaker: You can apply those directly to your phone, to your call centers, to your leads, to when you're talking to people on the phone.
Speaker: It's going to work across the board.
Speaker: Cells is cells.
Speaker: Yeah, granted, there's tweaks you make.
Speaker: There's little things you adjust.
Speaker: There's little things you change.
Speaker: But you don't need to reinvent the wheel.
Speaker: If it works on the doors, guess what?
Speaker: There's a really good chance it's going to work on the phones, in your telemarketing, in your call centers.
Speaker: It can all be applied.
Speaker: And even more reason to say that Chris Lee, he was actually the one more than anyone that was saying they could apply.
Speaker: Chris Lee, he has, that's how he does his business is one.
Speaker: Tons of entrepreneur of the year awards, stuff like that.
Speaker: He's got his call center in Washington.
Speaker: That's how he gets, he gets online leads and they close them on the phone.
Speaker: They close them on video chats on calls.
Speaker: And he was one of the biggest, um,
Speaker: Yeah, biggest contributors to that answer.
Speaker: He said, look, man, you don't need to change anything.
Speaker: Just apply what you learned and dump it into the call center.
Speaker: Okay, so it doesn't matter.
Speaker: Door-to-door is going to help you.
Speaker: Okay, and then last point, it's going to help you closing the deal.
Speaker: And my example with this is when I closed 150 deals in a year in 2019, got my Golden Door Award.
Speaker: If you're watching the video version, you can see it right behind me here.
Speaker: And this award, the majority of these deals were from our setters.
Speaker: We had a setter closer program.
Speaker: So I did get a lot of the leads I closed from these setters that we had knocking for us.
Speaker: Okay, but the point I make with this is I remember all the leads I closed.
Speaker: When I was at my best closing, when I had my big days,
Speaker: The big reason I had success closing was because I was trying to knock at the same time.
Speaker: So anytime I would go knock on my own, even though I had my pipeline pretty much full a lot of days with preset leads, if I made an effort to go out and knock, to go out and warm up, if you will, before my closes,
Speaker: it gave me so much more success as I got in the homes.
Speaker: Because I was warmed up.
Speaker: Think of Steph Curry shooting his free throws, going through his crazy routine.
Speaker: It's the same thing with knocking doors and going to deals.
Speaker: If you can get that warm-up phase, if you can overcome those objections.
Speaker: It's going to make you way more resilient in deals.
Speaker: I remember any time I would go to a deal where I'd warmed up knocking, I just felt like way more empowered to overcome objections.
Speaker: I felt like I couldn't be phased by anything in a close.
Speaker: Because usually if you can get an appointment on the doors, usually a close is going to be
Speaker: easier a lot of times than the effort you have to put in to book an appointment.
Speaker: Not always, but a lot of times it will.
Speaker: If you can get in a door, if you can take someone from not really interested on the door, get in their home, get the appointment, then it's going to help you develop that skill even more.
Speaker: Okay, so just a couple thoughts I had.
Speaker: Okay, and hopefully you don't think I'm too big of a loser.
Speaker: I'm trying to improve.
Speaker: I'm trying to bring you guys the best.
Speaker: But at the same time, it's helping me improve.
Speaker: It's helping me be better.
Speaker: It's helping me break out of my shell, which is another purpose of this podcast, another selfish reason that I do this podcast.
Speaker: But I just hope that I can share some value with my solopreneurs, with my peeps, help you guys achieve the level of success that you haven't been able to attain yet.
Speaker: And go share this with someone if you know someone that is struggling to get out on the doors.
Speaker: Encourage them, motivate them, and set your targets high.
Speaker: The reason I'm doing this podcast today is we're actually having a little debate in the next episode with James Swiderski, who is the previous co-host of the podcast.
Speaker: We've been fortunate enough to convince him to come do some research
Speaker: guest episodes come out and drop some value on the podcast.
Speaker: I'm doing this today because actually next episode we have a little debate coming up.
Speaker: We debate online versus offline needs and I'm a huge proponent of the door knocking.
Speaker: He appreciates it, but that's not his background.
Speaker: It's not where he came from.
Speaker: That's the topic of our little debate we have.
Speaker: We agree on some things.
Speaker: We don't agree on a few other things.
Speaker: So if you want to hear more on the online versus offline leads, make sure to tune in to next episode.
Speaker: But I wanted to give you guys a little preview and hopefully convince you of the importance of going out, hitting those doors.
Speaker: Remember, the hardest door to open is the car door.
Speaker: So get out there, run to the first door if you need to, and we'll see you on the next show.
Speaker: Peace.
Speaker: Hey SolarPrinters, 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 solar professionals
Speaker: 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 solar learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with the top performers in the industry.
Speaker: And it's called Sol Society.
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?
Speaker: Less than $3.45 a day.
Speaker: Currently, Soul Society is closed to the public and membership is by invitation only, but solopreneurs can go to soulciety.co to learn more and have the option to join a waitlist when a membership becomes available in your area.
Speaker: Again, th is is exclusively for Solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now.
Speaker: Thanks again for listening.
Speaker: We'll catch you again in the next episode.
