Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Online or Offline Solar Leads? Solarpreneurs Debate
59 Plays5 years ago
Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and 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. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask 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 what is going on on
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Solarpreneurs. We are back with another show. We're doing something a little bit different, and we have a familiar face on the show. And for those of you watching, we're going to be start doing some video too. So we've got us both in our home studios, but we have today back on the studio, uh, James Swiderski what's up, James? Thanks for coming back on the show. Yeah, man, it feels like home feels like, yeah, you're good house. Thank you. Appreciate it. And so for our solarpreneurs, some of you are probably wondering what the heck is James doing back here? Um, we had him on probably a couple months back. Just kind of told your story, why you ultimately left the podcast and started doing some different things though. Um, for those that are wondering why James is back, I'll just tell you why. Um, so we have been working together.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I actually hired James, um, around the time that we had him back on to tell his story of kind of what went down, why he left the podcast. I actually hired James after that. Cause now he is working, um, primarily with coaches, consultants, helping them build their brands and helping them launch courses, things like that. So I thought, well, James he's he's, he knows the solar stuff and he's good at helping coaches and everything. So why don't we figure out a way we can work together? So since then we've been working together, have some excited things, exciting things coming out. Um, he helped me kind of put together the Solciety, which we'll be talking about more it's in a beta testing right now. So for those that are on the wait list, go join the wait list. If you haven't already solciety.co.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
But after that, I invited him to actually be an instructor in on the course. And obviously you have a ton of insight to have done solar online Legion. So I'm had some valuable stuff to share. So that's why he's back on. We're going to be doing just a little bit content here and there. And I think there's still a lot of value he can add. So yeah. So happy to be here. Yeah. So James, today we're jamming on, um, just, you know, the lead gen, we're talking about a whole lot just over the past couple of days, just online versus offline. And so can you give us like your background? You did the online lead gen. You basically had an agency with for years. So I don't know. You want to give your background in that role. So yeah, I've done. Um, I've done it all for lead gen.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
So started out as a sales rep, a solar rep, like everybody and did not do online leads. Uh, a lot of people think I just came out of the gate in my solar career, started doing social media, all that good stuff, but, uh, it's completely the other way around for the first three years of my career, I never generated a single lead online. It was all in person, uh, strategies, which we'll talk about, um, whether it's door knocking. I did a little bit of that, bu
Recommended
Transcript
Taylor's Journey to Success
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 fell.
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 Solarpreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
James' Return and Collaborations
00:00:41
Speaker
What is going on, solopreneurs?
00:00:43
Speaker
We are back with another show.
00:00:44
Speaker
We're doing something a little bit different.
00:00:46
Speaker
We have a familiar face on the show.
00:00:48
Speaker
And for those of you watching, we're going to start doing some video too.
00:00:52
Speaker
So we've got us both in our home studios.
00:00:55
Speaker
But we have today back on the studio, James Swiderski.
00:00:59
Speaker
What's up, James?
00:01:00
Speaker
Thanks for coming back on the show.
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, man.
00:01:02
Speaker
Feels like home.
00:01:03
Speaker
Feels like home, Taylor.
00:01:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:05
Speaker
You're a good host.
00:01:06
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:07
Speaker
Appreciate it.
00:01:08
Speaker
And so for our solopreneurs, some of you are probably wondering what the heck is James doing back here?
00:01:13
Speaker
We had him on probably a couple months back.
00:01:17
Speaker
Just kind of told your story why you ultimately left the podcast and started doing some different things.
00:01:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:23
Speaker
So for those that are wondering why James is back, I'll just tell you why.
00:01:28
Speaker
So we have been working together.
00:01:30
Speaker
I actually hired James around the time that we had him back on to tell his story of kind of what went down, why he left the podcast.
00:01:38
Speaker
I actually hired James after that because now he is working primarily with coaches, consultants, helping them build their brands.
00:01:46
Speaker
and helping them launch courses, things like that.
00:01:48
Speaker
So I thought, well, James, he knows the solar stuff and he's good at helping coaches and everything.
00:01:54
Speaker
So why don't we figure out a way we can work together?
James' Background in Lead Generation
00:01:57
Speaker
So since then, we've been working together, have some exciting things coming out.
00:02:03
Speaker
He helped me kind of put together Soul Society, which we'll be talking about more.
00:02:07
Speaker
It's in a beta testing right now.
00:02:09
Speaker
So for those that aren't on the wait list, go join the wait list if you haven't already, soulcide.co.
00:02:15
Speaker
But after that, I invited him to actually be an instructor in on the course.
00:02:20
Speaker
And obviously you have a ton of insight to have done solar online Legion.
00:02:25
Speaker
So, um, had some valuable stuff to share.
00:02:28
Speaker
So that's why he's back on.
00:02:30
Speaker
We're going to be doing just, you know, a little bit content here and there.
00:02:34
Speaker
And I think there's still a lot of value he can add.
00:02:37
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:02:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:39
Speaker
So happy to be here.
00:02:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:43
Speaker
So James, today we're jamming on just, you know, the lead gen.
00:02:47
Speaker
We were talking about a whole lot just over the past couple days, just online versus offline.
00:02:53
Speaker
And so can you give us like your background?
00:02:55
Speaker
You did the online lead gen.
00:02:57
Speaker
You basically had an agency with Joseph for years, so...
00:03:00
Speaker
I don't know.
00:03:01
Speaker
You want to give your background in that real quick?
Transition to Running a Lead Generation Agency
00:03:03
Speaker
So yeah, I've done, um, I've done it all for lead gen.
00:03:07
Speaker
So started out as a sales rep, a solar rep, like everybody and did not do online leads.
00:03:13
Speaker
Uh, a lot of people think I just came out of the gate in my solar career, started doing, um,
00:03:18
Speaker
social media, all that good stuff, but it's completely the other way around.
00:03:22
Speaker
For the first three years of my career, I never generated a single lead online.
00:03:26
Speaker
It was all in-person strategies, which we'll talk about.
00:03:31
Speaker
Whether it's door knocking, I did a little bit of that, but mostly it was like kiosks, movie theaters, things like that, that my company had set up.
00:03:39
Speaker
So my background is actually very similar to Taylor and most guys in the industry.
00:03:42
Speaker
It's just jamming on the traditional lead gen strategies.
00:03:46
Speaker
But I really started getting into kind of the internet marketing side of things from an early, not exactly early, but it was somewhat early perspective on my career.
00:03:57
Speaker
And that's when I just kind of hit that bug.
00:03:59
Speaker
I got that social media, internet marketing type of bug.
00:04:03
Speaker
entrepreneur bug and started looking for ways to generate leads besides just being at the movie theater or the kiosk or any of that stuff.
00:04:12
Speaker
And it's not that they were ineffective.
00:04:14
Speaker
I easily closed probably a hundred deals just from like kiosks, for example, at a mall.
00:04:21
Speaker
or a movie theater on a weekend.
00:04:22
Speaker
So like, it was very, very effective.
00:04:25
Speaker
But I just didn't enjoy it.
00:04:28
Speaker
And it just didn't capture my attention the same way like online lead stuff did.
00:04:33
Speaker
So that's kind of like how I got started.
00:04:36
Speaker
I just want to go into this before we kind of go into
Debate: Traditional vs. Online Lead Generation
00:04:38
Speaker
this debate.
00:04:38
Speaker
Like I have done all of the offline stuff.
00:04:41
Speaker
I'm not just coming in and saying like, ah, it sucks.
00:04:44
Speaker
Don't do it.
00:04:45
Speaker
Like there's a specific type of person I think that should.
00:04:49
Speaker
And then what you just said about the lead gen side.
00:04:52
Speaker
So after I briefly kind of put my solar rep career on hold, I went out and started a consulting and advertising agency for solar professionals.
00:05:01
Speaker
Maybe some of you have worked with me.
00:05:02
Speaker
I know we have some past clients that have worked with us.
00:05:05
Speaker
And we just did lead gen, Facebook ads, Google ads, all of that stuff for me.
00:05:10
Speaker
different companies.
00:05:11
Speaker
And we've worked with companies like Sunrun, Vivint, some of the big players within the industry, and I've made a lot of people a lot of money.
00:05:19
Speaker
So I've got a lot of thoughts, a lot of opinions.
00:05:22
Speaker
My general opinion is I'm more on the pro online lead gen strategy for solar than Taylor is.
00:05:29
Speaker
And kind of our purpose of this episode is to kind of go head to head, provide some perspective to see what you should be doing.
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:38
Speaker
So before this, we were thinking of bringing in like a town hall debate moderator.
00:05:42
Speaker
Give us like the full experience here.
00:05:44
Speaker
Like Trump, Biden.
00:05:46
Speaker
Let's get it on.
00:05:48
Speaker
Who's Biden?
00:05:49
Speaker
Who's Trump?
00:05:50
Speaker
I'm Trump, man.
00:05:52
Speaker
You're Trump.
00:05:53
Speaker
That's a bunch of crap, man.
00:05:54
Speaker
Make Legion great again.
00:05:56
Speaker
I'm going to get a hat that says that.
00:05:58
Speaker
Make knocking great again.
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:01
Speaker
All right.
00:06:02
Speaker
But so we didn't get that this time.
00:06:04
Speaker
Maybe we'll bring someone on for the next one.
00:06:06
Speaker
So for our listeners, let us know.
00:06:07
Speaker
Well, you didn't tell them what it actually was.
00:06:09
Speaker
It was Iron Man versus Captain America.
00:06:12
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:06:12
Speaker
That's what it was.
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:14
Speaker
And we all know who's Iron Man here.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:17
Speaker
Okay, you can be an Iron Man.
00:06:18
Speaker
I like Captain America.
00:06:19
Speaker
You're like, whatever.
00:06:20
Speaker
Unless it's the new Captain America.
00:06:22
Speaker
Did you watch the new Falcon Winter Soldier show yet?
00:06:26
Speaker
There's a show?
00:06:27
Speaker
No.
00:06:27
Speaker
Okay, you need
Effective Offline Strategies
00:06:29
Speaker
to watch that.
00:06:29
Speaker
But the new Iron Man sucks.
00:06:32
Speaker
Or sorry, the new Captain America sucks.
00:06:34
Speaker
Basically, they replaced Captain America.
00:06:36
Speaker
Spoiler alert.
00:06:37
Speaker
Yikes.
00:06:38
Speaker
They're never going to do that with Iron Man.
00:06:41
Speaker
No, you can't replace.
00:06:43
Speaker
Dude, if anybody came in and replaced RJ, dude.
00:06:48
Speaker
Toast.
00:06:49
Speaker
Well, they put a sign.
00:06:50
Speaker
I was reading they're making a campaign.
00:06:53
Speaker
They have a billboard in LA saying bring Tony Stark back.
00:06:57
Speaker
So, could happen.
00:06:59
Speaker
Who knows?
00:06:59
Speaker
We'll see.
00:07:02
Speaker
But, yeah, anyways, so I'm Captain America.
00:07:05
Speaker
You're Iron Man.
00:07:06
Speaker
Cool.
00:07:07
Speaker
All right, so Taylor, bottom line, why door knocking, bro?
00:07:11
Speaker
What's your background?
00:07:13
Speaker
Well, yeah, so my background is just...
00:07:16
Speaker
I think online leads are just such a distraction for people.
00:07:19
Speaker
And this is what I've been telling you guys spend all this money.
00:07:23
Speaker
From what I've seen, just leading teams time after time, reps just want to go to do these online leads basically because they're lazy.
00:07:30
Speaker
They don't want, they want to work less.
00:07:32
Speaker
And what do you mean by online leads?
00:07:34
Speaker
So that's a, that's a broad topic.
00:07:36
Speaker
What do you mean?
00:07:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:37
Speaker
Well, I mean, just like mostly like paying someone to generate your leads.
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:45
Speaker
Because yeah, these people don't put in the time a lot of times.
00:07:47
Speaker
They just want to get off the doors.
00:07:49
Speaker
And then it's tough for like leading a team.
00:07:52
Speaker
Cause I'll give you an example.
00:07:53
Speaker
We had a dude that worked with us.
00:07:56
Speaker
And then he, he closed like, I don't know, six deals in a week.
00:08:01
Speaker
And a lot of them were just from kind of like networking online leads.
00:08:05
Speaker
So he stepped into a manager role, but then he didn't want to like actually go out and knock.
00:08:11
Speaker
So then our whole team that was, we were trying to train to knock.
00:08:14
Speaker
They just wanted to be like this dude.
00:08:16
Speaker
And after that, he saw like intermittent success.
00:08:19
Speaker
He closed a ton in a week and then he would have to go network a ton and try and sift through all these online leads.
00:08:26
Speaker
And then it was just like up and down like crazy where we're just like, dude, get out and like lead, go out and just knock some doors and get some consistent leads, go out there.
00:08:35
Speaker
So that's always been kind of my take on it is just like, if you're trying to lead door to door teams, there's so many people that are just, I don't know, want to do it to take the easy way out.
00:08:46
Speaker
Don't want to knock doors in.
00:08:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:48
Speaker
They're just lazy, man.
00:08:50
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:08:50
Speaker
I guess I kind of have a bad taste in my mouth just after seeing all these lazy reps on the door.
00:08:56
Speaker
So interesting perspective.
00:08:58
Speaker
So you've never done online leads before successfully.
00:09:03
Speaker
Well, I have.
00:09:04
Speaker
In fact, I have a guy.
00:09:06
Speaker
Really?
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah, I have.
00:09:09
Speaker
So I think it's like, if you're not lazy, if you're going to knock doors, do both.
00:09:14
Speaker
But like my argument is, I don't know.
00:09:18
Speaker
I don't think people should go out and try to do online leads unless until they have success in door knocking.
00:09:23
Speaker
Then you can go do online leads and do them combination.
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:27
Speaker
So that's my take on it.
00:09:29
Speaker
But I don't know.
00:09:29
Speaker
What did you see when you were in your company?
00:09:31
Speaker
Did you have like lazy dudes?
00:09:33
Speaker
Was your company even pushing door knocking or what was your experience?
00:09:37
Speaker
Here's what I think.
00:09:38
Speaker
No, we did not push door knocking.
00:09:40
Speaker
So the original company I worked with, they were called Evalar Solar.
00:09:43
Speaker
They've actually been out of business for a few years now, but you can still look them up and check them out.
00:09:47
Speaker
This is back in Utah.
00:09:48
Speaker
But they...
00:09:51
Speaker
we're actually strongly against door knocking.
00:09:53
Speaker
We actually almost had a policy against door knocking in this company.
00:09:57
Speaker
And you can see why I'm not like super pro for it.
00:10:00
Speaker
It's because we'd like to keep our brand a certain way.
00:10:03
Speaker
We were going for a very kind of pristine, uh,
00:10:06
Speaker
apple-y type of customer-centric brand where we cared about the experience we didn't want to look like pesky sales guys like the rest of the people out there um which is why we hit so hard on kiosk and movie theaters um if you guys have never tried those you haven't tried those right taylor like movie theater kiosk how about like a trade show um
00:10:30
Speaker
I've tried that
Traits of Successful Door-to-Door Reps
00:10:31
Speaker
maybe once or twice and it didn't go that great.
00:10:34
Speaker
So didn't go super good.
00:10:37
Speaker
Those three right there were like 90% of our leads at this company.
00:10:41
Speaker
And this is a multi eight figure company too.
00:10:43
Speaker
Like this is a big solar company.
00:10:45
Speaker
Um,
00:10:47
Speaker
So like those of you who do have companies out there, look into those strategies and give them a shot because at first glance, I will tell you that it's not like a plug and play.
00:10:59
Speaker
Like, let's just go book a kiosk at the local mall here and see if it works.
00:11:04
Speaker
There's a lot more to it.
00:11:06
Speaker
I would say it took...
00:11:07
Speaker
probably a solid year for this company to get the momentum going in these offline strategies.
00:11:13
Speaker
But I will agree with Taylor on this point.
00:11:16
Speaker
I think that you're going to find lazy reps on both sides of the coin.
00:11:21
Speaker
In other words, if you're too lazy to generate leads knocking doors or you're too lazy to generate leads generating on social media or online strategies, right?
00:11:33
Speaker
I think they're one in the same.
00:11:35
Speaker
I think the guys who are really good at door knocking, they could also be good at lead gen.
00:11:39
Speaker
I think the guys who are not good at door knocking or not good at online leads, they're going to suck around the board.
00:11:45
Speaker
So I don't think it's an and or or necessarily.
00:11:48
Speaker
I think if you're lazy, you're lazy, right?
00:11:50
Speaker
Could be, could be.
00:11:52
Speaker
Well, my question is this, like in Utah, I don't think there were, I mean, a ton of solar companies at the time.
00:12:00
Speaker
You tell me, but I don't think it was super saturated.
00:12:02
Speaker
It's not like San Diego.
00:12:04
Speaker
No, no.
00:12:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:06
Speaker
So like the trade shows we've tried to do, my feeling was that they didn't work just because like everyone's heard about solar.
00:12:12
Speaker
It's super saturated.
00:12:14
Speaker
They've had their door knocked 20 times.
00:12:16
Speaker
the last
Challenges in Online Lead Generation
00:12:17
Speaker
thing they wanted to do is go talk to someone, you know, at a trade show when they're already in like the Home Depot, the Lowe's stuff like that.
00:12:24
Speaker
So did you see that that works or with people you work with, did you hear that that stuff works even in like saturated markets?
00:12:31
Speaker
Like California?
00:12:33
Speaker
There's a work smarter, work harder strategy when it comes to trade shows and this type of in-person stuff.
00:12:39
Speaker
What worked for us was not stand behind the booth.
00:12:43
Speaker
Let me just paint a picture, okay?
00:12:44
Speaker
You've seen it before.
00:12:45
Speaker
So you're at a mall, you're at a kiosk or something.
00:12:48
Speaker
What do you see usually?
00:12:49
Speaker
You're going to see two types of salespeople.
00:12:51
Speaker
You're going to see one that is behind the booth on their phone doing nothing.
00:12:56
Speaker
Right.
00:12:57
Speaker
Cause they get paid by the hour that did not work.
00:12:59
Speaker
It did not work for us.
00:13:01
Speaker
And our company's still hired hourly appointment setter reps.
00:13:04
Speaker
I told them so many times, and this is one of the reason I left out on my own is cause I'm like, dude, these reps literally never set a single appointment.
00:13:13
Speaker
They're just sitting there burning cash.
00:13:15
Speaker
Right.
00:13:16
Speaker
It was the commission sales reps that thought a little bit smarter, got a little bit more out of the box with their thinking.
00:13:22
Speaker
They were more effective.
00:13:22
Speaker
So when you're doing like this offline stuff, what really worked well was
00:13:28
Speaker
going to in our trade show example was actually going to the other trade show booth founders and company owners and representatives and networking with those people.
00:13:39
Speaker
That's where the real money was.
00:13:41
Speaker
Because when you go and you talk to them, hey, we're at our booth.
00:13:44
Speaker
It's not going super great.
00:13:45
Speaker
What do you do?
00:13:46
Speaker
Boom.
00:13:47
Speaker
You got instant rapport going to those people.
00:13:49
Speaker
So it was like that combined with actually getting out there and working the floor, not just sitting behind the desk.
00:13:56
Speaker
So, I mean, there's a right and a wrong way to do everything, but I'll a hundred percent agree with you.
00:14:01
Speaker
I would say 90% of reps at our company did not generate with these strategies at all, but the 10% made up for it.
00:14:11
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:14:11
Speaker
So basically you're, you wanted these people to be like the sales guys in Mexico.
00:14:16
Speaker
This is fresh on my mind.
00:14:17
Speaker
I just got back from Mexico and,
00:14:19
Speaker
I know you've never been there, I don't think, but if you're in the streets, people hound you for everything.
00:14:24
Speaker
People hound you, buy their jewelry.
00:14:26
Speaker
You can't walk to one place to another without you hound it for something.
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah, dude.
00:14:32
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:33
Speaker
Makes more sense.
00:14:34
Speaker
I think it's the same spread, man.
00:14:36
Speaker
90% of people are not going to produce the results, but that 10%, isn't it the same in door knocking, right?
00:14:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:14:43
Speaker
That's fair to say.
00:14:44
Speaker
Like those top 10%, they make up for all of it.
00:14:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:48
Speaker
80, 20 rule.
00:14:49
Speaker
20%.
00:14:49
Speaker
Let me ask you, what are those top 10% guys have that the other guys don't the 90%.
00:14:57
Speaker
Um, well, I think just the combination of the work they're
Skills Needed for Online Lead Generation
00:15:02
Speaker
working more, number one, and then the knowledge, I mean, they know all this stuff, they know how to overcome the objections.
00:15:09
Speaker
Um, so really it comes down to that.
00:15:11
Speaker
I think guys know how to work hard and they know how to like resolve all the objections.
00:15:16
Speaker
then they're going to have success.
00:15:17
Speaker
Because what I see in door knocking, guys will work hard for like a week.
00:15:21
Speaker
But since they don't have the knowledge yet, since they suck at knocking doors, suck at overcoming objections, they're not getting the results.
00:15:29
Speaker
So then they stop working hard and then they get less results.
00:15:33
Speaker
Even though their knowledge is increasing by a little bit, they're not working hard.
00:15:36
Speaker
They don't have the work ethic anymore.
00:15:38
Speaker
So it just like kills them.
00:15:39
Speaker
And that's why so many people quit because they don't put in that consistent work.
00:15:44
Speaker
If they did it for like a couple months, I think they would get past that learning curve.
00:15:48
Speaker
But it's like few people are willing to put in the hard work and then have the knowledge, like get to the point where, you know, you don't have to work as hard.
00:15:57
Speaker
That's what I think.
00:15:58
Speaker
Let me ask you this.
00:15:59
Speaker
What is the...
00:16:02
Speaker
When's the last time you talked to like a guy on your team or something that was considering online lead strategies, buying leads, something like that?
00:16:10
Speaker
Like once, tell me about the experience last time you were talking to a guy like this and what did you find?
00:16:15
Speaker
Is it just they're trying to not put in the hard work and they think that this is a better alternative or like, what do you think about that?
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:24
Speaker
I mean, that's, that's my opinion.
00:16:26
Speaker
Like I was saying in the beginning, there's a few guys that,
00:16:31
Speaker
you know, that I work with currently, they think sometimes have that mindset.
00:16:34
Speaker
They want to work less hours.
00:16:36
Speaker
So they go out and, you know, do leads.
00:16:38
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, I, I do online leads currently right now too.
00:16:42
Speaker
So I pay someone, get some online leads.
00:16:44
Speaker
So like I was saying, I don't think it's a bad thing, but,
00:16:48
Speaker
especially for newer guys, they're trying to jump into it too early.
00:16:52
Speaker
Then I don't think that's a good combination.
00:16:54
Speaker
We had a guy that was out here, came from Texas, sold with us for like a couple of weeks and he was already trying to jump into online leads.
00:17:02
Speaker
He'd maybe generated like, I don't know, maybe.
00:17:06
Speaker
What did he do though?
00:17:08
Speaker
Well, he was knocking doors, but he'd only generated like three or four appointments from knocking doors.
00:17:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:14
Speaker
I don't want to be like a jerk to him, but I'm like, bro, you can't.
00:17:18
Speaker
you've only gotten like four appointments from knocking in like two, three weeks now.
00:17:23
Speaker
Like, why don't you focus on that rather than already trying to dump money into online leads?
00:17:27
Speaker
Cause I think you would agree that if people are good at knocking, well, yeah, I think you already said it.
00:17:31
Speaker
If they're good at knocking, then they're going to be able to set better appointments with online needs.
00:17:36
Speaker
Cause this is, you got to overcome the objections.
00:17:38
Speaker
You're still calling these leads.
00:17:40
Speaker
You still got to have to set that appointment.
00:17:43
Speaker
So if you can do it on the doors, then it's way easier to do it on the phone.
00:17:46
Speaker
Would you agree?
00:17:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:48
Speaker
So what, if you were to summarize your case on door knocking, you think that if you're new to the industry, door knocking is for you.
00:17:57
Speaker
Are you saying just door knocking or what do you think about other offline strategies like networking events, stuff like that?
00:18:04
Speaker
No, I think just door knocking, man.
00:18:06
Speaker
All door knocking.
00:18:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:09
Speaker
I think if you can do that, like do it hard for two to three, I would say minimum three months, even if you hate it.
Future of Lead Generation Methods
00:18:16
Speaker
Just because like, yeah, say I know you're talking about if it's not your favorite thing to do, there's other ways to generate leads.
00:18:23
Speaker
By the end of the day, there's going to be a lot of things that people hate that we're not going to get around.
00:18:28
Speaker
So like, why not go knock doors hard for three months?
00:18:31
Speaker
Even if you hate it, just grind through it.
00:18:33
Speaker
Get good at it.
00:18:34
Speaker
And then you can start to work on these other strategies.
00:18:37
Speaker
Then you can start to do the more long-term things because it's going to get you past that learning curve.
00:18:42
Speaker
And then it's only going to help you and all the other lead gen strategies you need.
00:18:45
Speaker
It's going to help you with the communication and networking.
00:18:48
Speaker
It's going to help you with the overcoming objections.
00:18:50
Speaker
It's going to help you with the persistence, not taking no for an answer.
00:18:54
Speaker
So I think, but you, but yeah, let me ask you this, James, you coming from not knocking doors much.
00:19:00
Speaker
How do you feel like, um,
00:19:03
Speaker
I don't know.
00:19:03
Speaker
How do you feel like you developed those things to actually be successful in your kiosk and everything?
00:19:08
Speaker
Do you think it was like a slower learning curve with you not knocking as many doors?
00:19:12
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:19:14
Speaker
So this is where I got my experience.
00:19:15
Speaker
This is where I had a bit of an advantage that I used to not talk about enough on the previous podcast.
00:19:21
Speaker
Because, I mean, frankly, like when I would tell people,
00:19:24
Speaker
LinkedIn was one of my most profitable lead sources.
00:19:27
Speaker
Like LinkedIn, right?
00:19:28
Speaker
Nobody talks about LinkedIn in this industry.
00:19:30
Speaker
But I can tell you the skill set to do that is ridiculous.
00:19:35
Speaker
It makes it looking like knocking doors like a piece of cake.
00:19:38
Speaker
You've got to learn how to knock doors.
00:19:40
Speaker
You have to learn how to write things.
00:19:42
Speaker
hook uh copy that hooks right in one two sentences you got to be able to hop on the phone add value to the person in exchange right you have to be able to network with them get along with them then you have to set an appointment with them and overcome objections just like door knocking right
00:19:58
Speaker
And then you've got to do that over and over and over again.
00:20:01
Speaker
So the skill set to do online lead gen is a lot more significant.
00:20:05
Speaker
And where I think I really set my foundation, my roots correct was actually on a church service mission, similar to what Taylor did as well.
00:20:14
Speaker
We both went on one of these, not same place, not the same time, but yeah,
00:20:19
Speaker
on these missions, right?
00:20:20
Speaker
And I'm sure a lot of you guys heard like Mormon church, church missions, right?
00:20:23
Speaker
We all know who these guys are, right?
00:20:26
Speaker
You're going around door knocking for two years, right?
00:20:29
Speaker
Pitching people on why they need to like change their lifestyle, quit addictions, quit drinking coffee, quit drinking alcohol, quit all this stuff, right?
00:20:37
Speaker
pitching them Jesus, right?
00:20:39
Speaker
Closing a deal with Jesus.
00:20:41
Speaker
That's way harder to sell than solar.
Importance of Scalable Lead Generation Strategies
00:20:44
Speaker
I can tell you it's a million times harder, right?
00:20:47
Speaker
And this is where I kind of got my first taste of door knocking.
00:20:50
Speaker
Absolutely my first taste of door knocking.
00:20:52
Speaker
So like the first...
00:20:54
Speaker
I would say year of this mission, it was all door knocking, all grinding, 10, 12 hours a day, right?
00:21:00
Speaker
You could relate with this, Taylor.
00:21:02
Speaker
And that's just where I developed the skills.
00:21:06
Speaker
One, to handle rejection.
00:21:08
Speaker
Two, to communicate and develop rapport with a complete stranger.
00:21:11
Speaker
Communication skills, discipline.
00:21:14
Speaker
All of this stuff was developed at this point.
00:21:16
Speaker
That's why I really had a leg up because honestly, my first day at the solar company that I joined when I did join a couple of years after that mission, I came in and was instantly the top lead setter in the entire company.
00:21:30
Speaker
Like I set 10 appointments my first day, like in a couple hours, people are like, what the freak?
00:21:35
Speaker
It's the stuff at the mission.
00:21:37
Speaker
So I vibe a tailor on that.
00:21:39
Speaker
The skillset, I had an advantage for sure.
00:21:43
Speaker
So good point.
00:21:45
Speaker
Well, yeah.
00:21:45
Speaker
What about like, because another one of my arguments is all these networking strategies, the kiosks, like you were saying, they take quite a bit of time to have success with and like set up and be consistent.
00:21:58
Speaker
A lot of money.
00:21:59
Speaker
That's the thing with kiosks and boosts.
00:22:01
Speaker
It's a lot of money.
00:22:02
Speaker
We spent, I'm trying to remember, I think we spent 20 grand a month to be at one of our kiosks.
00:22:09
Speaker
Wow.
00:22:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:10
Speaker
So expensive.
00:22:12
Speaker
Plus we had to have people at the kiosk.
00:22:14
Speaker
I didn't even say this when you're doing a mall kiosk, you have to have a man at the kiosk at all times.
00:22:20
Speaker
So you've got to pay for an hourly appointment center to be there if your closers aren't there too.
00:22:24
Speaker
So it's, it's closer to realistically with payroll, like 40 grand a month for something like that.
00:22:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:32
Speaker
So was it always profitable?
00:22:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:35
Speaker
But not for a long time.
00:22:37
Speaker
Not for a long time.
00:22:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:38
Speaker
And it's for some of the stuff I'm talking about too.
00:22:41
Speaker
Like if you're ever doing a kiosk thing too, maybe I should even talk about it in Soul Society trainings as well.
00:22:47
Speaker
Like there's a lot to learn there.
00:22:50
Speaker
When we started blowing up, we actually hired a guy, a VP of sales from Solar City at the time.
00:22:56
Speaker
He was an ex-guy from Solar City.
00:22:59
Speaker
And he helped SolarCity develop all their kiosks around the country.
00:23:02
Speaker
And at the time, these guys were cranking probably 60 to 75 deals a month average per kiosk.
00:23:08
Speaker
And they had multiple dozens of kiosk locations across the country just from kiosks.
00:23:13
Speaker
So don't knock on them.
00:23:16
Speaker
I mean, and they are really offline strategies to begin with.
00:23:19
Speaker
It's kind of like door knocking, but they come to you versus the other way around.
00:23:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:24
Speaker
Well, yeah, you got to hand it to these guys, like the sun runs and all that, that have booths in Costco and the Home Depot's.
00:23:30
Speaker
They work.
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:31
Speaker
Those things are working for sure.
00:23:33
Speaker
I don't know how they set that up.
00:23:34
Speaker
I wish I had that set up because what makes me mad is people think sun run and all that people think they're Costco.
00:23:41
Speaker
They're like, Oh, I got my solar panels from Costco.
00:23:43
Speaker
I'm like, Costco, they don't even sell solar panels.
00:23:48
Speaker
Not yet.
00:23:49
Speaker
Not yet.
00:23:49
Speaker
They don't Amazon's who's going to be eating everybody's lunch.
00:23:55
Speaker
I'm putting my money on eventually Amazon's getting into solar game and it's game.
00:24:00
Speaker
Oh, it's lights out.
00:24:01
Speaker
Lights out, baby.
00:24:03
Speaker
Could be.
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:04
Speaker
Or Tesla with these rock bottom prices.
00:24:06
Speaker
These guys are killing us, man.
00:24:08
Speaker
Oh, and Bezos is the king of rock bottom prices.
00:24:13
Speaker
He will slash Tesla's, if he does solar, which I think he will, he will slash
Adapting Skill Sets for Future Sales
00:24:19
Speaker
what Tesla's lower prices.
00:24:20
Speaker
He will take a loss on his panels.
00:24:23
Speaker
Like he does this with everything.
00:24:25
Speaker
The Kindle, by the way, every time you buy a Kindle on Amazon, Amazon loses money up front.
00:24:30
Speaker
This is Bezos strategy.
00:24:32
Speaker
He will go underwater.
00:24:33
Speaker
And because he has such big reserve tanks, he can just suffocate everybody.
00:24:38
Speaker
So anyway, not to get to business strategy, but Bezos all the way.
00:24:43
Speaker
McDonald's selling McDouble for a dollar.
00:24:46
Speaker
Don't they lose money on that?
00:24:47
Speaker
And they have to make it back on the drinks and the.
00:24:50
Speaker
Yep.
00:24:50
Speaker
The upsells.
00:24:52
Speaker
Yep.
00:24:52
Speaker
That's why it's not a big, to tie it back to lead gen, a little strategy for companies doing online leads.
00:24:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:59
Speaker
The more you can afford to pay for a customer, the better you're going to do long-term.
00:25:04
Speaker
So some of our clients that did really well, they, instead of asking what's the cheapest cost I can afford to pay to buy a customer, right?
00:25:14
Speaker
Because for those of you guys who'd like leads, right?
00:25:17
Speaker
If I want to go and generate some Facebook ads, I've got what's called a cost per acquisition, a CPA, right?
00:25:23
Speaker
What's it cost?
00:25:24
Speaker
What do I have to spend to go and get a new solar customer, right?
00:25:27
Speaker
Right.
00:25:28
Speaker
And the average right now CPA is somewhere around $1,000 to $1,500 for most solar companies.
00:25:33
Speaker
It costs them about $1,000, whether it's in ads, whether it's in hiring an appointment setter, an hourly appointment guy, right, to get a new customer.
00:25:43
Speaker
The long-term strategy, companies who really think long game, three, five years, this is why Sunrun and Vivint, these guys destroy, is because they don't focus on being profitable today.
00:25:53
Speaker
They don't focus on making $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, $10,000 a deal.
00:25:58
Speaker
They say, can I go get a customer at break even?
00:26:02
Speaker
And if you could break even and get customers for the same price you're spending, you might be saying, dude, you didn't make any money on the customer.
00:26:09
Speaker
But the lifetime value of that customer, the referrals, the reputation, getting more installs, more reviews, that's when you could crush the competition.
00:26:18
Speaker
And this is also another key point why I think online lead strategy is so much more powerful is because
00:26:25
Speaker
I can literally wave a wand, right, with some skill.
00:26:28
Speaker
It's not like total magic.
00:26:31
Speaker
We'll get into that.
00:26:32
Speaker
But let's say figuratively I can wave a magic wand and get customers for free.
00:26:38
Speaker
Worst case scenario, right?
00:26:40
Speaker
Worst case scenario, I get new customers.
00:26:42
Speaker
I didn't make any money on them.
00:26:44
Speaker
I am now getting more customers with this strategy because I'm not involving human power and I can leverage referrals and things like that, call them up later on and you can grow exponentially.
00:26:53
Speaker
This is why those big guys, your big companies invest so much money in online leads is you just cannot compete with it from a long-term perspective.
00:27:03
Speaker
Interesting.
00:27:03
Speaker
It's like Dan Kennedy says, whoever can spend the most to acquire the customer wins, right?
00:27:09
Speaker
People don't think like that.
00:27:10
Speaker
Solar is such a weird industry because guys, I do stuff in
Changes in the Solar Industry
00:27:14
Speaker
like every industry now, right?
00:27:16
Speaker
And this is like one of the only industries I see where everybody's like, dude, I got to make freaking $10,000 on a deal or 6,000 bucks on it.
00:27:23
Speaker
I'm like,
00:27:26
Speaker
you're missing the point.
00:27:27
Speaker
And then they won't get those deals because they're afraid to spend $2,000 to acquire a customer and make four grand.
00:27:35
Speaker
Oh, Oh God forbid I make four grand instead of six.
00:27:38
Speaker
That's terrible.
00:27:39
Speaker
We're just going to do door knocking because it's, it's traditional.
00:27:43
Speaker
Like it, it works.
00:27:44
Speaker
It's cheap.
00:27:45
Speaker
Right.
00:27:46
Speaker
Um, I just think, I just think companies that focus all their, that put all their eggs in door knocking alone, they're just not thinking longterm.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:55
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree with that.
00:27:57
Speaker
I think you got to diversify at the end of the day.
00:28:00
Speaker
But here's my other question.
00:28:02
Speaker
Like my argument is at the point I'm at, I can go out and knock for four hours and usually get two to three leads.
00:28:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:10
Speaker
So like for people, for sales reps that are listening to this, that's like haven't done any of these things.
00:28:16
Speaker
What's your argument?
00:28:17
Speaker
Like, why would we go out and try these offline strategies?
00:28:20
Speaker
Like it's probably going to take us more.
00:28:22
Speaker
You mean online?
00:28:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, online.
00:28:26
Speaker
like why would we spend the time to set this up or why would we go set up like a kiosk for example or I don't know set up ads or something it's probably going to take us more than you know four hours so I'm not going to knock on your argument here absolutely if we pin new guy day one
00:28:45
Speaker
never sold solar in his life, and we take new guy day one, never sold solar, and we say, you knock doors, you go, and we're not going to do the kiosk because I actually am going to put my money on the kiosk guy if there's an established kiosk at the company.
00:28:59
Speaker
That's the if.
00:29:00
Speaker
We're going to say, you go generate leads on Facebook, okay?
00:29:04
Speaker
New guy, knock doors, new guy on Facebook.
00:29:06
Speaker
Every time I'm going to say the guy knocking doors is going to beat the guy doing Facebook instantly.
00:29:11
Speaker
Right now he is.
00:29:13
Speaker
But over time, the guy on Facebook, I'm betting my money on that guy if he's willing to develop the skill set, he's willing to really commit himself to this.
00:29:22
Speaker
There's a lot of other variables, but the other big one is what's your priority and goal with solar?
00:29:28
Speaker
If you're just coming in for a summer, and I don't even know, is the summer thing still a big thing with solar, Taylor?
00:29:34
Speaker
Is that kind of old?
00:29:37
Speaker
Guys coming in for like four months.
00:29:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's still big, especially with the bigger, like the Vivint Solars, the Sunrun.
00:29:43
Speaker
I think there's a lot of guys that still do the summer program.
00:29:46
Speaker
I feel like that culture of that is dying a little bit.
00:29:49
Speaker
Well, especially with COVID, but...
00:29:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:51
Speaker
With solar, definitely not as big.
00:29:53
Speaker
If that's your jam and solar is not like your career, like you're in it to win this thing over the next three, five, 10 years plus, right?
00:30:02
Speaker
Then yeah, I'd say probably stick with door knocking unless you've got the skillset and the chops like I'm talking about.
00:30:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:09
Speaker
Well, I remember you even called me at one point a while back because you were considering starting up your door knocking team.
00:30:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:16
Speaker
So even a guy like you.
00:30:18
Speaker
You know, recognized it and everything.
00:30:20
Speaker
I'm like, wow, James has called me for door knocking tips.
00:30:23
Speaker
Never thought I'd hear it a day.
00:30:24
Speaker
Look, and here's why.
00:30:27
Speaker
Different reps have different strengths.
00:30:30
Speaker
Think of them like a, like a, a Pokemon card or something, right?
00:30:33
Speaker
It's got, you've got your, your strengths and your weaknesses.
00:30:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:37
Speaker
So different reps, you in particular, I'm going to place if I'm like, uh,
00:30:43
Speaker
Like I'm placing my Pokemon here, right?
00:30:45
Speaker
And I'm playing a game.
00:30:46
Speaker
I'm not a big Pokemon guy, by the way.
00:30:48
Speaker
I'm just trying to, I was as a kid, but it's my business.
00:30:51
Speaker
I was definitely a Pokemon Yu-Gi-Oh guy.
00:30:54
Speaker
Oh yeah, Yu-Gi-Oh is.
00:30:56
Speaker
I just got some Pokemon cards in my box of Lucky Charms the other day.
00:31:00
Speaker
I'm waiting for those Pokemon cards.
00:31:01
Speaker
I'm waiting for those Pokemon NFTs to drop.
00:31:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:31:05
Speaker
Original Pikachu.
00:31:07
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:31:08
Speaker
I'm swiping those up.
00:31:12
Speaker
So, anyway, if I'm there and I'm placing all my people, or like chess, for example, I'm placing my pieces, I'm going to place a guy like Taylor as a door-knocking guy and not like a LinkedIn networking JV type of thing.
00:31:26
Speaker
Because...
00:31:27
Speaker
Knowing Taylor, I know that he's better at consistent efforts.
00:31:31
Speaker
He doesn't mind grinding on the doors necessarily.
00:31:34
Speaker
Like, yeah, nobody loves it, but he'll do it right at the end of the day.
00:31:39
Speaker
And then he's motivated too.
00:31:40
Speaker
He's clear on his goals and he just wants a simple solution to do his thing.
00:31:45
Speaker
He just wants to straight line.
00:31:46
Speaker
Boom.
00:31:47
Speaker
Here's what I'm looking for.
00:31:48
Speaker
Here's what I'm going to do.
00:31:50
Speaker
So I would place him there.
00:31:52
Speaker
On the other hand, if you got a guy like me, right, who's very entrepreneurial, even at the first company I was working with, I was what you call an intrapreneur, right, at this company.
00:32:03
Speaker
I was constantly having, I was showing up to the marketing meetings and the sales meetings, every meeting I could, trying to find out ways how we could grow the company.
00:32:12
Speaker
I was the guy who was leading out the kiosks.
00:32:15
Speaker
I remember we booked an event at a Dave Ramsey event.
00:32:18
Speaker
Dave Ramsey showed up for a speaking event and we were one of the partners there.
00:32:23
Speaker
I organized these things, right?
00:32:25
Speaker
And that type of person, they will absolutely go nuts if they're forced to be in a situation that is just, hey, knock doors or get out.
00:32:36
Speaker
I can guarantee that guy is not going to stay.
00:32:39
Speaker
He's going to go and start his own company.
00:32:41
Speaker
He's probably going to end up beating you at some point as well.
00:32:45
Speaker
You got to know your people.
00:32:48
Speaker
Advice to company owners and VP of sales, marketing is like, you got to know your reps where they're at.
00:32:54
Speaker
Yeah, well, how would you, my question is, how do you even recognize that though?
00:32:58
Speaker
Because there's not that many guys like you that are, you know, super entrepreneur or want to go start all this stuff that I see.
00:33:06
Speaker
So like, you started your own companies and stuff, like, do you this for your reps or how you see him?
00:33:12
Speaker
Are you just saying, hey, this guy is lazy for knocking doors.
00:33:15
Speaker
Let's go put him on the different track, see if he does good.
00:33:17
Speaker
So let me,
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah, because there's value in being consistent when you're running a
Nurturing Sales Reps' Strengths
00:33:22
Speaker
company, right?
00:33:22
Speaker
You can't just have, there is a, we should talk about this too, kind of the free for all self lead gen versus more organized models as well.
00:33:31
Speaker
But I do think there's a, what's your question?
00:33:34
Speaker
Repeat your question one more time.
00:33:36
Speaker
I'm just saying like, how would you recognize that?
00:33:38
Speaker
Cause when you were starting your teams, how are you going to see, oh, this guy, he's, he doesn't want to knock doors.
00:33:43
Speaker
He's not going to do good with that.
00:33:44
Speaker
Let's go set them on some kiosks, have them do some online lead gen, whatever.
00:33:48
Speaker
How do you recognize that?
00:33:50
Speaker
So as a company owner, I had to recognize that I needed to do all of the heavy lifting as I possibly could.
00:33:57
Speaker
So if you're a sales rep, I do not recommend an individual rep go and learn how to do Facebook ads for themselves.
00:34:03
Speaker
If you're talented enough and have the skill set enough to, and really just the ambition to drive through and learn how to do something like that, which it is difficult, then you've already got it figured out to begin with.
00:34:14
Speaker
I'm not worried about that guy.
00:34:15
Speaker
That guy's probably not even listening to this podcast, honestly.
00:34:19
Speaker
But yeah.
00:34:22
Speaker
As a business owner, you have to set up a structure and lead systems in place so it's not confusing and you have somewhere that the reps could come in and actually play.
00:34:32
Speaker
So rather than, oh, okay, go do one of five strategies.
00:34:35
Speaker
No, no, no, no.
00:34:36
Speaker
I choose the strategies from my reps.
00:34:38
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:34:39
Speaker
And we were starting a door knocking team as well because
00:34:42
Speaker
Door knocking works like, okay, I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent against it.
00:34:47
Speaker
I just don't think it's the best, all your eggs into that basket strategy.
00:34:52
Speaker
Um, for online leads, the company should be doing all the funnels and the ads and all of that stuff.
00:34:57
Speaker
The rep should never be doing that crap.
00:34:59
Speaker
I've never seen that work out well.
00:35:01
Speaker
It's so time consuming.
00:35:03
Speaker
It's like around the clock, we would have guys doing, especially as an agency owner too, we would do
00:35:11
Speaker
Like we literally have to monitor Facebook ads 24 hours a day, right?
00:35:15
Speaker
Literally hiring people overseas to look at it two in the morning in case some negative comments come up like they do about solar and nipping them in the bud immediately.
00:35:24
Speaker
Like a rep can't do that.
00:35:26
Speaker
Like if you're on four or five presentations in a row and you're out for an afternoon and you're managing your ads, your ads are going to tank.
00:35:33
Speaker
Like not a shot, not a shot.
00:35:37
Speaker
So recognizing that is...
00:35:40
Speaker
Very obvious to answer your question.
00:35:42
Speaker
You know when somebody's got it and when they don't.
00:35:45
Speaker
For example, and the biggest sign is if your rep in your organization or your manager is acting like the position, acting as if they have the position they want tomorrow, today, that's the person.
00:36:01
Speaker
For example, I became the VP of sales at that company.
00:36:04
Speaker
I acted like the VP of sales on day one.
00:36:07
Speaker
instantly I'm like mentoring guys on the first day.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:12
Speaker
So you know when you have that person.
00:36:14
Speaker
That's my point there.
00:36:15
Speaker
Yeah, gotcha.
00:36:17
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's, yeah, I mean, all these, and that's, I think, a big thing that all these companies, you'll see, especially down here in Southern California, a lot of these dealers, companies that start up, they're guys that just came from alarms, have only had the door knocking background.
00:36:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:31
Speaker
And their thing is like, if a guy isn't doing good at door knocking, then,
00:36:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:36
Speaker
Just like fire them, go hire the new one.
00:36:37
Speaker
Um, so I think that is an issue guys can't recognize value and maybe it's someone that could help out in another role.
00:36:46
Speaker
Um, let me ask you this, Taylor.
00:36:47
Speaker
Why do you think people struggle with online lead gen?
Long-Term Career in Solar Sales
00:36:51
Speaker
Like doing it themselves or like hiring people in general?
00:36:57
Speaker
So you could do rep since you're most familiar with that, not necessarily company.
00:37:01
Speaker
Why would a rep have a hard time with doing online lead gen, do you think?
00:37:04
Speaker
Why do people fail at it?
00:37:07
Speaker
Like if they did it themselves, set up the Facebook ads and funnels and stuff.
00:37:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:14
Speaker
Well, I don't know.
00:37:14
Speaker
I can tell you my personal experience and that's just- You're perfect for it.
00:37:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:19
Speaker
That's just, I didn't have the patience for it.
00:37:21
Speaker
It goes back to the same thing I was telling you before.
00:37:23
Speaker
Like, why am I going to set this up if I can go generate a lead?
00:37:27
Speaker
If I can go out and knock four hours, usually book two or three appointments,
00:37:31
Speaker
Then at the end of the day, I'm like, why should I spend all this time setting this up?
00:37:36
Speaker
So when I first learned that, cause I've set up my own Facebook ads, I've set up my, you know, funnels and stuff like that.
00:37:42
Speaker
So I think I have more knowledge.
00:37:44
Speaker
What's happened.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:45
Speaker
Tell us about what's happened in that process.
00:37:48
Speaker
Yeah, so what happened is I set it up.
00:37:50
Speaker
I took my course, you know, and figured out how to do my online lead gen.
00:37:54
Speaker
And I thought I was going to be set for life.
00:37:56
Speaker
Leads were just going to be pouring in.
00:37:59
Speaker
But, and that's how it was for probably like two weeks.
00:38:01
Speaker
I was getting pretty consistent leads.
00:38:03
Speaker
But then they just tanked after that.
00:38:05
Speaker
And I'm like, what the heck is going on?
00:38:06
Speaker
I'm not getting leads.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:08
Speaker
Nothing's happening.
00:38:10
Speaker
And then I go back through this course.
00:38:11
Speaker
I talk with the guy who helped me set all this up.
00:38:14
Speaker
I'm like, man, what's happening?
00:38:16
Speaker
He's like, no, you need to adjust it.
00:38:17
Speaker
You need to switch out the copy.
00:38:18
Speaker
You need to switch out the image.
00:38:22
Speaker
You go look at what other people are doing.
00:38:23
Speaker
You need to do some testing, do split tests, run the AB split tests, see which one is getting the best results.
00:38:30
Speaker
I'm like, holy cow, I thought this was just set to go.
00:38:33
Speaker
You're telling me I have to run split tests.
00:38:34
Speaker
I have to adjust the copy and I have to brainstorm what's going to work best and everything.
00:38:40
Speaker
So that's when I started realizing, I'm like, man, this is more work than I thought.
00:38:46
Speaker
It's going to take me probably six hours at least to adjust all this stuff and then maybe get it back up and running.
00:38:52
Speaker
And at that point, who knows if it's getting good results again.
00:38:55
Speaker
I might have to adjust it the next day.
00:38:57
Speaker
So that's when I kind of realized I'm like, man, I could adjust all this.
00:39:02
Speaker
Um, but I'm just going to go out and knock some more doors.
00:39:05
Speaker
Then I'll get consistent leads.
00:39:07
Speaker
Um, so ever since then, I, I mean, I still like know the basic stuff of it, but my preferences is just have someone that knows either help me with most of the process or just like I've hired you.
00:39:19
Speaker
I've hired, um, Joseph, Joseph who, um, yeah, Taylor used to work with our, uh, my, my old company.
00:39:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:28
Speaker
So yeah, for me, it was just like a time thing and it's going back to like being an entrepreneur.
00:39:32
Speaker
Like you said, like you're not going to master all the skills.
00:39:36
Speaker
So you go do what you're best at and then have other hire out other people get help to do the things you're not good at.
00:39:42
Speaker
That's kind of the approach I took.
00:39:45
Speaker
What do you think about long-term?
00:39:47
Speaker
What's a better move long-term?
00:39:50
Speaker
Online leads or let's talk about the future of solar.
00:39:53
Speaker
I mean, that's company perspective.
00:39:56
Speaker
Cause like, look, the company perspective matters to the rep, right?
00:40:00
Speaker
We might not be saying, hey, reps need to go learn how to do Facebook ads.
00:40:04
Speaker
Some of them should, some of them shouldn't, right?
00:40:06
Speaker
But the reality is our world's radically different than it was even five years when I first got in the industry.
00:40:11
Speaker
So the future of lead gen, where is the best time investment, resource investment to be?
00:40:20
Speaker
My thing is, it's still just, I think, invest most of your time in the door knocking still.
00:40:27
Speaker
And I know we were talking about this off the camera before we started.
00:40:31
Speaker
Things can change in the future.
00:40:32
Speaker
Maybe it gets to the point where everyone has gates up.
00:40:35
Speaker
You can't even knock on their door.
00:40:38
Speaker
Like I live down in Columbia for my church mission thing.
00:40:41
Speaker
And a lot of these doors we couldn't even knock on because they have gates up and they're afraid of people breaking into the house.
00:40:46
Speaker
So who knows?
00:40:47
Speaker
Maybe it's going to get to that point.
00:40:50
Speaker
where,
00:40:52
Speaker
You can't even get to people's doors.
00:40:54
Speaker
So my thought is just like milk it while you can go out and knock the doors, generate the leads, get good at that and then transition when you need to.
00:41:04
Speaker
So that's why I think it's good.
00:41:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:05
Speaker
Get a basic knowledge, like go out and learn some of these concepts.
00:41:12
Speaker
But then if it gets the point where maybe people are having more success with the online things, then you can transition at that point.
00:41:21
Speaker
That's what I think.
00:41:21
Speaker
And that's what I'm going to be.
00:41:22
Speaker
Cause if it ain't broke, broke, don't fix it.
00:41:25
Speaker
I'm having success on the doors.
00:41:27
Speaker
I know all the, most of the top guys in the industry are knocking the doors, right?
00:41:31
Speaker
You look at the Mike O'Donnell's, you look at Buzzwell's you look at, I mean, I had a guy that was in a coaching group with close 25 deals in a week.
00:41:40
Speaker
All of them came from knocking doors, at least to be honest.
00:41:44
Speaker
So I think all the top guys are knocking doors.
00:41:47
Speaker
They're hitting it hard.
00:41:49
Speaker
But yeah, I know to your point, and you'll probably talk about this, I think in the future it might head more towards the online thing, but.
00:41:56
Speaker
But I think I have a belief that if I can master the doors, then I can master the online deal.
00:42:02
Speaker
You can.
00:42:03
Speaker
You can.
00:42:04
Speaker
But you have to start.
00:42:06
Speaker
You have to start at some point.
00:42:07
Speaker
So yeah, the skill set, bottom line, you will never be good at online leads if you are not capable of sending an appointment in person.
00:42:15
Speaker
Facts.
00:42:16
Speaker
Truth. 100%.
00:42:18
Speaker
I see guys try to do lead gen all the time.
00:42:20
Speaker
I've consulted lots of lead companies in solar.
00:42:23
Speaker
And the reason these lead agencies suck and why like 80% of them suck too, for those of you guys who have hired them before, it's because they've never sold solar before.
00:42:34
Speaker
Think about that.
00:42:35
Speaker
Your advertising is a higher form of sales.
00:42:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:42:39
Speaker
So say we got multiple levels here.
00:42:41
Speaker
Sales is at the bottom level, being able to talk to somebody one-on-one in real time, handle objections, pivot, adjust your approach.
00:42:49
Speaker
Right.
00:42:50
Speaker
And that's valuable because I can read Taylor.
00:42:52
Speaker
Like if I'm talking, I'm trying to sell them solar.
00:42:54
Speaker
I can see what's going on and change it.
00:42:56
Speaker
Advertising on the other hand, not so simple because it's not interactive.
00:43:01
Speaker
Right.
00:43:01
Speaker
right?
00:43:01
Speaker
It's not interactive.
00:43:02
Speaker
I can't see what the person's reaction is on the other side of the ad.
00:43:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:43:07
Speaker
So,
00:43:09
Speaker
With that being said, you have to know your customer better.
00:43:12
Speaker
You have to have better approaches, better creativity, right?
00:43:15
Speaker
To be able to do that because you're selling to many people at once, right?
00:43:20
Speaker
It takes a certain level of skill.
00:43:21
Speaker
It's just, it's common sense to sell one person takes certain level of skill to sell thousands of people at the same time takes
Automation and Technology's Impact on Solar Sales
00:43:29
Speaker
more skill.
00:43:29
Speaker
It's more people, right?
00:43:31
Speaker
So if you can't generate a lead in person, like good freaking luck with lead gen.
00:43:37
Speaker
That's my two cents on that.
00:43:39
Speaker
So I am 100% with Taylor there.
00:43:42
Speaker
I think the future of lead gen does not involve knocking doors.
00:43:46
Speaker
I think knocking doors will be completely gone.
00:43:48
Speaker
I think it's almost dead right now besides California.
00:43:51
Speaker
I'll even go that far.
00:43:53
Speaker
I think California is basically the only place it's really happening.
00:43:58
Speaker
This guy closed 25 deals in Texas.
00:44:00
Speaker
Texas is the other place, right?
00:44:03
Speaker
But like Nevada, no.
00:44:08
Speaker
Nevada's out.
00:44:09
Speaker
That metering's out.
00:44:10
Speaker
Florida, it's mostly online leads.
00:44:12
Speaker
Like the majority of our clients are in Florida.
00:44:15
Speaker
It's mostly online leads.
00:44:17
Speaker
But as time progresses, another five, 10 years, man, like I don't think we're even going to have
00:44:53
Speaker
You there?
00:44:54
Speaker
Yeah, can you hear me?
00:44:58
Speaker
You there?
00:44:59
Speaker
We back?
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah, I'm here.
00:45:01
Speaker
Can you hear me?
00:45:05
Speaker
Hello, hello?
00:45:09
Speaker
I can see you.
00:45:10
Speaker
Can you hear me?
00:45:11
Speaker
Test, test, test.
00:45:12
Speaker
This thing on?
00:45:14
Speaker
Yeah, can you hear me?
00:45:18
Speaker
Hello?
00:45:23
Speaker
Hello, hello?
00:45:29
Speaker
Can you hear me?
00:45:29
Speaker
Yo, you back?
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:45:33
Speaker
We back.
00:45:33
Speaker
Somebody died.
00:45:35
Speaker
Yeah, see, that's why online leads is not going to work, man.
00:45:39
Speaker
Where did we cut off?
00:45:41
Speaker
Where did we cut off?
00:45:43
Speaker
Last I heard, I think you were just saying like...
00:45:46
Speaker
In Florida, they're not working.
00:45:48
Speaker
Oh, geez.
00:45:50
Speaker
You're just saying why the doors are dead or why you think door knocking.
00:45:54
Speaker
Did you hear me?
00:45:55
Speaker
My comment about sales reps being dead?
00:45:58
Speaker
No, I didn't even hear that.
00:45:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:45:59
Speaker
So that cut out.
00:46:02
Speaker
That was the best part, man.
00:46:03
Speaker
Must be a sign that it's false.
00:46:06
Speaker
Look, there's two guys in this industry.
00:46:08
Speaker
They're the guys who just want to ride it out and they think it's going to be gone.
00:46:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:13
Speaker
You hear the companies, and you know when you're in one of those companies, they think that this industry is going to be taken over.
00:46:18
Speaker
Tax credits are going to go away.
00:46:20
Speaker
It's the end of the world, right?
00:46:22
Speaker
Nobody's going to be able to sell solar.
00:46:24
Speaker
Done.
00:46:24
Speaker
They're writing it out to the tax credits here.
00:46:26
Speaker
That's type one.
00:46:27
Speaker
I'm not on that boat at all when it comes to solar.
00:46:31
Speaker
Type two, those guys, and they're out there, by the way, they're the companies that, like the company I originally worked with was that type of company where they're like, yo, we're in here for the next 20, 30 years.
00:46:40
Speaker
This is how we're going to take out Vivint,
00:46:42
Speaker
Sunrun, Tesla, they have strategies to take out the big guys, right?
00:46:47
Speaker
Those are the guys who understand that sales reps are not a permanent position.
00:46:53
Speaker
I do not think the commission sales rep in solar is going to be around 10 years from now.
00:46:59
Speaker
I do not think it's going to be there.
00:47:01
Speaker
And I think a lot of sales positions in traditional jobs like that, manual person jobs, I don't think they're going to be around in 10 years from now.
00:47:08
Speaker
I don't think it's going to be here in five years, right?
00:47:12
Speaker
All I'm saying is if you're that person, you owe it to yourself.
00:47:17
Speaker
If you're viewing this as a long-term career, like I think you should, to start getting educated on different strategies.
00:47:24
Speaker
Because once you develop the skill set, which can take years, I'll be frank, it could take years to develop the skill set, to set an online lead, to set with somebody on LinkedIn, to go to a networking event, to do a dinner seminar we haven't even talked about, kiosks, all that stuff could take years and years of time.
00:47:41
Speaker
Right.
00:47:42
Speaker
But you owe it to yourself to become a multifaceted sales rep so that you're protected in the future.
00:47:49
Speaker
For example, my solar company, I, and we'll talk about this on another episode, but I was starting a solar company called the solar shopping network about, I'd say about a year ago.
00:47:59
Speaker
Right.
00:47:59
Speaker
And our strategy was actually to completely eliminate the sales rep.
00:48:04
Speaker
We actually didn't hire traditional commission sales reps.
00:48:07
Speaker
Right.
00:48:08
Speaker
Our guys who closed the deals were just hourly employees for like 15 bucks an hour and they would close deals.
00:48:14
Speaker
We would use strategies like Insta quotes.
00:48:16
Speaker
So where we actually send a virtual quote to somebody, the customer, and we don't talk to the customer.
00:48:22
Speaker
It's just an interactive quote.
00:48:23
Speaker
We send it out there.
00:48:24
Speaker
They could view it on their own time.
00:48:26
Speaker
It takes 10 minutes.
00:48:27
Speaker
Boom.
00:48:28
Speaker
We're onto the next one.
00:48:29
Speaker
And we were able to generate enough leads to where we could just dish these babies out and the volume would work.
00:48:33
Speaker
Right.
00:48:34
Speaker
Um,
00:48:35
Speaker
That's where I think the future of this is look to guys like SunPower.
00:48:39
Speaker
SunPower is doing that.
00:48:40
Speaker
SunRun is doing that.
00:48:41
Speaker
Where you can literally go get a quote, a virtual quote in real time with an artificial intelligence quoting machine, chatbot type of thing, right?
00:48:51
Speaker
Tesla is on their website.
00:48:55
Speaker
Yep.
00:48:55
Speaker
So those guys too.
00:48:57
Speaker
SunPower is pretty sweet.
00:48:59
Speaker
That's where I think it's going.
00:49:00
Speaker
So I'm just a preacher of...
00:49:04
Speaker
Keep in mind the future of things.
00:49:06
Speaker
You know who you are.
00:49:06
Speaker
You know what type of rep you are.
00:49:07
Speaker
But if you're looking at this as a real long-term career, develop your skill set out a little bit.
00:49:12
Speaker
Start with the offline stuff.
00:49:15
Speaker
Develop your sales chops.
00:49:17
Speaker
Then expand.
00:49:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:19
Speaker
Okay.
00:49:19
Speaker
Yeah, I can see that.
00:49:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we're still, I don't think we're going to see 100% on the whole door knocking thing.
00:49:25
Speaker
Obviously, you're more about the offline stuff.
00:49:29
Speaker
So, but I agree with that to an extent.
00:49:32
Speaker
I think guys need to at least have their knowledge in it.
00:49:35
Speaker
At least go get competent and all this stuff.
00:49:37
Speaker
Because probably we'll head that way.
00:49:39
Speaker
I mean, Tesla's already screwing us over.
00:49:41
Speaker
I can't tell you how many times even it's happened recently where I'm going into homes.
00:49:46
Speaker
And I'm going through our pricing, everything.
00:49:48
Speaker
And people have literally gotten on the Tesla website, gotten an instant quote.
00:49:52
Speaker
And they're like, oh, why is this?
00:49:53
Speaker
Why is Tesla six grand cheaper than yours?
00:49:56
Speaker
And I'm like, oh my gosh.
00:49:58
Speaker
Now I have to say.
00:49:59
Speaker
Elon knows what's up, dude.
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:02
Speaker
Especially with these, yeah, I've talked about this in some previous episodes, but all these Indian referrals, I've been working a lot with the Indians.
00:50:10
Speaker
And if anyone's sold with Indians, you know they're all about like bartering, getting the best prices, like shopping you out.
00:50:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:20
Speaker
Tesla has made it extremely difficult with these bartering cultures because they go look this up and it's just...
00:50:27
Speaker
Yeah, you try to build value, but it is an uphill battle after that.
00:50:31
Speaker
So yeah, I think it's important.
00:50:32
Speaker
You got to know, you got to be competent in this stuff and you got to develop.
00:50:37
Speaker
You got to be ready for when this stuff does adjust.
00:50:39
Speaker
Because yeah, I think I agree.
00:50:40
Speaker
There's a lot of people just saying, oh, stay in solar till the tax credit ends.
00:50:44
Speaker
And then after that, I'm just going to bail, which I've thought to myself.
00:50:50
Speaker
What's your opinion on that?
00:50:52
Speaker
If tax credit goes away, what are you doing?
00:50:55
Speaker
Say it goes away next year.
00:50:56
Speaker
Biden's like, ah, forget it.
00:50:58
Speaker
Nevermind.
00:50:59
Speaker
Zero.
00:51:00
Speaker
That was supposed to be the good, the one good thing Biden was helping us with is the tax credits.
00:51:05
Speaker
He's like, ah, yeah, just kidding.
00:51:07
Speaker
So what happens?
00:51:09
Speaker
I think commissions are going to get cut personally.
00:51:12
Speaker
There's too much fluff in the industry, dude.
00:51:15
Speaker
This is the only industry I see that's got like, there's so much extra margin that should not be there.
00:51:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:21
Speaker
You might be saying, James, what the heck, man?
00:51:23
Speaker
You take, take away my massive commissions.
00:51:26
Speaker
Like, cool.
00:51:26
Speaker
I'm down with making a lot of money, right?
00:51:30
Speaker
A hundred percent for it.
00:51:31
Speaker
But more than that, I want to expand an industry like solar forward, right?
00:51:36
Speaker
I want to actually make it more affordable for the end consumer to get sort easier for the end consumer to get solar.
00:51:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:43
Speaker
And that's, that's where I think your very top level guys are thinking they're not, they, I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, Taylor, do you know any guys that are cranking 25 deals a week that are like planning on leaving solar?
00:51:57
Speaker
Do you think those guys are going to leave solar when the, the, the tax credit goes away?
00:52:03
Speaker
I haven't heard that.
00:52:04
Speaker
I mean, first of all, there's not that many guys cooking 25 deals a week.
00:52:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:08
Speaker
It's less than 1%.
00:52:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:09
Speaker
Consistently.
00:52:10
Speaker
I don't actually, I don't know of anyone that's doing that many, but yeah, those guys, I doubt, I doubt they're going to leave it.
00:52:16
Speaker
Cause I mean, I think anybody who performs at that level thinks longer than two, three years out.
00:52:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:22
Speaker
That's all I'm saying.
00:52:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:24
Speaker
Even if you're only making a grand to sell, if you're doing 25 deals a week, that's, that's pretty good money you're making right there.
00:52:30
Speaker
If you want to be in solar the next 10 years, 20 years, I think you can, but you got to start expanding your strategy.
00:52:36
Speaker
You got to start learning.
00:52:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:38
Speaker
A hundred percent.
00:52:39
Speaker
Sweet.
00:52:40
Speaker
Well, James, we've got to wrap up here.
00:52:42
Speaker
Got to run into the meeting here.
00:52:43
Speaker
But guys, if you like this, give it a thumbs up.
00:52:47
Speaker
And then let us know.
00:52:48
Speaker
James and I, we're going to be doing more type of this stuff.
00:52:52
Speaker
You know, try to do a little bit debate style.
00:52:54
Speaker
We don't agree on everything.
00:52:55
Speaker
So let us know who you think, whose ideas, whose opinion you'll lean towards.
00:53:01
Speaker
What are we talking about next time?
00:53:03
Speaker
Let's tease them with what we're talking about next time.
00:53:06
Speaker
Good idea.
00:53:06
Speaker
I think we're doing the work-life balance stuff, right?
00:53:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:11
Speaker
Is balance a myth?
00:53:13
Speaker
20 hours a week, 100 hours a week.
00:53:16
Speaker
Who's right?
00:53:16
Speaker
Who's wrong?
00:53:17
Speaker
What does it take to be successful in solar?
00:53:19
Speaker
That's what we'll jam on.
00:53:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:21
Speaker
So guys, subscribe if you haven't.
00:53:24
Speaker
You don't want to miss out on the next one.
00:53:25
Speaker
Let us know what you thought.
00:53:26
Speaker
Thumbs up.
00:53:27
Speaker
We'll see you on the next show.
00:53:28
Speaker
Thanks for coming on, James.
00:53:30
Speaker
You got it, man.
00:53:32
Speaker
Hey Solar printers, quick question.
00:53:34
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?
00:53:43
Speaker
For the last three years I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite solar professionals
00:53:49
Speaker
and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
00:53:54
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.
00:54:06
Speaker
And it's called Sol Society.
00:54:08
Speaker
This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access
00:54:14
Speaker
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.
00:54:26
Speaker
Currently Soul Society is closed to the public and membership is by invitation only, but solopreneurs can go to soulcity.co to learn more and have the option to join a waitlist when a membership becomes available in your area.
00:54:40
Speaker
Again, this is exclusively for Solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now.
00:54:52
Speaker
Thanks again for listening.
00:54:54
Speaker
We'll catch you again in the next episode.