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 fail.
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 solopreneur, you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Speaker: Okay, what's up, everybody?
Speaker: We are rolling with another podcast here.
Speaker: We're live at SolorCon, and this is someone that I've been following for a little while now.
Speaker: You've probably been living under a rock if you haven't seen this guy.
Speaker: We got the one and only, Jonathan Brunazzo, coming on the show.
Speaker: Thanks for joining us today, Jonathan.
Speaker: Absolutely, Terry.
Speaker: Thanks for having me.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker: And, you know, we've been trying to schedule this for a little bit, but we got to do a little panel yesterday here at SolarCon recruiting panel.
Speaker: I'm like, hey, let's just run one up here.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Let's make it happen.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm excited because, like, I think a lot of people know you as kind of like the face of power.
Speaker: At least that's how I've seen you.
Speaker: Everyone, every time I think of power, like your face is always like everybody.
Speaker: One of them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So like, I know you guys, you know, I told you before we started, I'm, I've got the whole door to door background and think a lot of guys maybe are like, you know, on door to door sales teams.
Speaker: So it's cool to know like perspective.
Speaker: I know you guys set up like referral partnerships, do things a little bit different.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm excited to hear about it.
Speaker: But yeah, do you want to hear, tell us like your background getting into solar?
Speaker: I know you came from like a real estate background.
Speaker: How, what was your journey like getting into solar?
Speaker: Yeah, you know, I had a little sales management background, Southern California.
Speaker: I worked at Best Buy and Verizon Wireless.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So some good foundation and sales and management training at those companies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And when I left Verizon Wireless, a friend of mine was basically like, hey, man, I'm working at this solar company, Elon Musk's cousins called SolarCity.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: You should check it out.
Speaker: And so I did as I was getting my real estate license at the same time.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I started at SolarCity in 2015.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So nine years now.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And it was great.
Speaker: You know, they had a training program in place.
Speaker: They were doing some appointments from like the Home Depot, some online leads and some different things.
Speaker: And that's where I really got my start.
Speaker: And I dabbled in a little bit of real estate and did really well at SolarCity.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: I probably had 70 to 80 installs in one year and we were hustling around.
Speaker: Man, I think my highest year was like $75,000.
Speaker: And I was like one of the top performers.
Speaker: And then when Tesla acquired them, they kind of went downhill.
Speaker: They were going to let me go because one month I wasn't hitting my quota.
Speaker: You know, it's funny how you can go from top performer the year before and then they're wanting to let you go.
Speaker: So I tried my hand at some real estate, did a little bit of solar, dried up.
Speaker: I went to Sunrun Corporate, where I spent a little bit of time there.
Speaker: I met Lynn George, the CEO.
Speaker: And that's really where I started to learn how to build a referral based business.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I started to be virtual and I turned off company leads and I went 100% sugar or referral based.
Speaker: And five years ago, Power reached out to me on LinkedIn and said, there's a better way.
Speaker: You know, we're building the EXP reality of the solar industry, a platform, cloud-based, virtual, lots of income streams.
Speaker: I was like, all right, I'll take a look.
Speaker: I said no at first.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: two weeks later, I actually, they came back and I said, Okay, I'll take a look.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And that was kind of the start of my journey with power the last five years and how I got into the solar industry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So did you have like a door to door background?
Speaker: Were you knocking doors like back in that solar city and stuff like that?
Speaker: Or you always been virtual and stuff?
Speaker: I've always mostly been in home and then during COVID, gosh, what was that, 2020?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At the end of 2019, early 2020, before COVID hit, I started doing virtual.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because I realized I was getting a lot of referrals and I didn't want to drive 45 minutes in traffic to Menifee or Fontana or where these referrals were at, Woodland Hills or something like this.
Speaker: And I was just like, man, I could just call them or share my screen and talk to them on the phone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Why am I doing this with my referral?
Speaker: So that's when I started to go virtual.
Speaker: But to answer your question, Taylor, like I never really knocked doors, but I'm a hustler through and through.
Speaker: Like when I was at SolarCity, they used to teach us like at your site survey, go visit, talk to the customer, knock a few doors, pass out a few flyers.
Speaker: At install, knock on the doors.
Speaker: Cloverleaf, right?
Speaker: Eight homes down, eight across, eight down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pass out flyers.
Speaker: To be honest, I was a little nervous of knocking.
Speaker: I just passed out flyers.
Speaker: But I would do that.
Speaker: I would do events.
Speaker: Like, I would set up a booth.
Speaker: I would post on social media.
Speaker: Like, even SolarCity and Sunrun had incentives for recruiting others.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Every company does that.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Just to say, like, I would pass out flyers, knock a little bit, but I went more the route of digital door knocking and other avenues that we could get into.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because that's something me being like a door to door guy and a lot of people that listen to this podcast is,
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I think one of our hesitations is like, okay, we know we can go knock a door, get a lead, usually within an hour, go knock a door.
Speaker: And then like me personally, I've tried some of these other strategies.
Speaker: And part of it's because I don't really know what I'm doing with the other ones.
Speaker: So an hour goes by, I haven't gotten any traction.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, forget about it.
Speaker: I'm going back to the doors because I'm not seeing fruits with this.
Speaker: So, yeah, would you say those things, did it take a while to, like, gain traction?
Speaker: Is this more kind of like a slower thing?
Speaker: Or do you think it's just more like maybe a door-to-door guy, he hasn't developed the skills to maybe get a lead as quick?
Speaker: Or what do you think about that?
Speaker: Yeah, you know, I think it's like a combination of things.
Speaker: And maybe it's not for everybody.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: I've got a lot of free training on building a seven-figure business, a referral-based business.
Speaker: It's on YouTube, free training.
Speaker: And basically, I think that there's a formula to it.
Speaker: I do think it's a gradual progression.
Speaker: Some of our team has gone off the doors because we've provided different avenues of income.
Speaker: So a few just to shout out real quickly.
Speaker: I'm a big advocate of BNI, Business Network International, Team Networking, and Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's a few meetings a week, one or two meetings a week, and you're building a referral-based networking business.
Speaker: For those of you who don't know BNI, it's one professional per industry allowed.
Speaker: And they pass referrals, and you work on public speaking.
Speaker: You get up early probably every Wednesday or Thursday, and you go network with this group of professionals.
Speaker: And my first year of BNI, Taylor, I closed six deals.
Speaker: In my second year with BNI, I closed 13 deals.
Speaker: These are 100% referral-based sales, and those connections continue to give me fruit because of those.
Speaker: So it is a longer-term thing.
Speaker: So networking, social media.
Speaker: Social media is big.
Speaker: It's free.
Speaker: You can post on social media, LinkedIn, do some videos, do some content like you're doing.
Speaker: Events, setting up booths, farmers markets, your local gym.
Speaker: Chamber of Commerce probably has events you can set up booths at.
Speaker: And then when you go to these networking events, you want to connect with referral partners, right?
Speaker: You want to get, I'm here to connect with realtors, painters, roofers.
Speaker: So you want to be mindful of it.
Speaker: But these strategies though, they do take time.
Speaker: And it may not get you off the doors right away, but if you start to implement these, you will get more referrals naturally.
Speaker: And one of the models that we have at Power is what's called like a tier three mentor.
Speaker: and like a mentee or maybe a setter closer.
Speaker: So as we take guys off the doors, if they're building the team or they're building value, people will assign them as the closer and they will split the deal 50-50.
Speaker: So I'm just a big fan of my success is like, what do you do?
Speaker: You do everything.
Speaker: When do you do it?
Speaker: You do it all the time.
Speaker: I will post, I will go to networking, I will do an event, like I'll do it all.
Speaker: And that's just led to a lot of my success.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: And I think that's every person's dream is like, like, I know for me personally, most guys knocking doors.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, I don't like hate it, but I don't think I think anyone would be happy about like getting 10 referrals and having to like knock doors for those leads.
Speaker: I don't think anyone's going to complain about that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think it's something that, you know, we should start doing.
Speaker: Guys need to build it slowly.
Speaker: So, yeah, what's like part of it was I know you came from like EXP Realty.
Speaker: Were these things that you were just like used to doing or were they things you learned at SolarCity?
Speaker: Like what made you decide to do these strategies instead of just like, you know, going out and hitting the door or maybe some things that other guys were doing?
Speaker: You know, I will say I was a little lucky to have some SolarCity leads thrown at me back in the day.
Speaker: And then that propelled me 100, 150 clients that now are my ambassadors.
Speaker: And I knew which ones were my whales.
Speaker: So I call them whales.
Speaker: So the ones that refer you a lot.
Speaker: And an ambassador is simply a client that is referring you, right?
Speaker: Maybe you give them $500 or $1,000 or maybe your company like Power has a $1,000 portal.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: So that's key.
Speaker: And then when I started Solar, my mom, go figure, was in Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker: She was a self-made entrepreneur, and I kind of saw some of what she was doing.
Speaker: So the moment I joined Solar in 2015, I was in the Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker: I was networking.
Speaker: I took a little bit of a leadership position, helping the young professionals.
Speaker: And then a few years later, I was asked to be on the board of directors for the Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker: So my mom was definitely a big influence on me as an entrepreneur.
Speaker: and doing the networking piece and from the chamber I actually discovered BNI and then using my ambassadors to get referrals.
Speaker: There's a few tactics I always did, Taylor, like dropping a closing gift off at install, asking for referrals, planting a referral based garden was taught to me at SolarCity in the early days where we got paid more money to do referrals.
Speaker: So
Speaker: Because you got paid more to do referrals back then, like obviously I was like, well, I need to do more referrals.
Speaker: And even those companies provided lists of like aged opties or lists of people that didn't sign up.
Speaker: And if you work those lists, you get paid more to help them go solar.
Speaker: So it was a multi-prong approach.
Speaker: But
Speaker: I mean, who doesn't want referrals given to them, like you said, right?
Speaker: So I think that's huge and having a strong ambassador referral program and cultivating it, visiting them, doing bill reviews, giving a yard sign.
Speaker: They don't care what company you're at.
Speaker: They like you, like they wanna refer you.
Speaker: And it's just being consistent with those activities and then they see you on social media.
Speaker: And it's just, it's not all the time, but that will lead to a sustainable business.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: And yeah, I think one of the first times I actually like started hearing about you and more about power is I remember seeing, I can't remember if it was a couple of years back, but everyone was supposed to know this guy closed like 30 deals in a month, a hundred percent referrals and all this stuff.
Speaker: And I'm like, man, I could knock doors, you know, seven, eight hour days.
Speaker: And I've never closed like 30 deals a month.
Speaker: And so I'm like, man, this guy did this all like referral based and all that.
Speaker: So I remember seeing you back then.
Speaker: And so just so people can understand what's like, I don't know, maybe some numbers you have it.
Speaker: What's like some big months you've had just by kind of building that and cultivating referrals.
Speaker: So when I was at Sunrun 2018, 2019, you know, I think my record there was like 16 deals in one month.
Speaker: And I think most of those were referrals.
Speaker: I wasn't taking company leads at that time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I thought that was great, right?
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: Then when I went to power,
Speaker: One of the ways to earn income, you don't have to team build.
Speaker: We've got guys on the team making seven figures from power in two to three years, just personal sales.
Speaker: We've got guys building a team with primarily revenue share, team building income that have made seven figures.
Speaker: And then we have mentors, tier three mentors that, again, seven figures earn in a few years and they're mentoring others.
Speaker: So there's a few ways
Speaker: to do it.
Speaker: But the team building piece in particular, because I had that background from Best Buy, Verizon, SolarCity Center, and I was used to building a team.
Speaker: So I chose to do all three, Taylor.
Speaker: I want to earn income on all three pillars and really crush it.
Speaker: So when I joined Power,
Speaker: I was doing Sunrun and Power at the same time.
Speaker: And in May of 2020, I went full time with Power.
Speaker: I started building a team and one of my teammates brought in a ton of people.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And they needed to assign a closer.
Speaker: And that closer was me.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So in May of 2020, I did 26 deals, all virtual with Power.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: In June of 2020, I did 20 deals all virtually with power.
Speaker: And at that time, I also hired a part-time colleague assistant that helped with my recruiting business as well.
Speaker: And because of that summer, we had a summer sales contest.
Speaker: I actually won a Model 3 Tesla.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And so since then, I've done 470 personal contracts at Power in four to five years.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And the team under me at Power has done about 7000 installations at Power.
Speaker: It's not all perfect.
Speaker: We've got a lot of challenges creating this decentralized model and being Inc.
Speaker: 5000 in four years and doing 400 million from zero in 2019, practically.
Speaker: So it's been a coaster.
Speaker: But yeah, I think those are a few of the accolades.
Speaker: I also helped my brother won a Model Y Tesla.
Speaker: And then I won a Fisker Ocean in the third summer sales contest.
Speaker: And in the fourth summer sales contest, one of my
Speaker: teammates won that.
Speaker: When I won the Fisker Ocean, I did 28 referrals, all referrals, not even mentoring, just 100% referrals on Zoom.
Speaker: I believe that was August of 2022.
Speaker: 28 referral deals.
Speaker: Yeah, all virtually.
Speaker: And I was literally getting three to five referrals a day.
Speaker: I could not keep up.
Speaker: Those are a few of the accolades.
Speaker: One thing I wanna mention, one of my secrets to success is the Facebook community groups.
Speaker: So if you've noticed a pattern, like some of the things I do are connected.
Speaker: You go to the Chamber of Commerce, you go to BNI, you do social media, people see you at events, you're posting that you're at events, and it's like an ecosystem, right?
Speaker: They're kinda connected.
Speaker: So I joined the Claremont,
Speaker: Connects Facebook community group and the original Diamond Bar Buzzers Facebook community group.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And are you familiar with community groups on Facebook at all?
Speaker: Yeah, just like neighborhood groups.
Speaker: Neighborhood groups, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, stuff like that.
Speaker: Sometimes there's thousands of people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so people in the community started getting to know me.
Speaker: I would sign up people and they would then put my name out there on these groups.
Speaker: I kid you not to like...
Speaker: I have a script.
Speaker: Anytime anyone asks for solar in these community groups, I post, my name's Jonathan, here's my business page, here's my reviews, reach out to me, I just need a utility bill and we'll get you some numbers back.
Speaker: And because I was doing that activity for years and social media networking, like literally the summer of 2022, people would just send me their bills.
Speaker: Because that script was out there, right?
Speaker: When you search solar on a community group, and by the way, you can hit the magnifying glass and type solar, you can see hundreds of posts of people asking about solar.
Speaker: And you could even message them and see if they got solar and offer to help them.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Those two groups, my hometown and the city I was living in, literally would give me multiple referrals a week.
Speaker: And some of those were just bills being sent to me because of the work.
Speaker: So I guess one nugget there is the referral is a longer game, but it will set you up for success and sustainability.
Speaker: And I do think it's one of the ways that someone should build their business.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: I'm just thinking too, like, I'm sure you probably like systematize it and stuff as time went on.
Speaker: Cause like, even if someone were to like, maybe get like a virtual assistant or someone, I mean, I'm thinking maybe you could go and just like have them respond to these posts where you didn't do it yourself.
Speaker: But yeah, were you personally doing all this or have you gotten people that kind of like, I don't know, assistants or set up systems?
Speaker: What are some things you've done with that?
Speaker: For a while, I was doing it myself.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I think in hindsight, I wish I would have gotten an assistant or like an operations manager, both of which I have now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And a social media team.
Speaker: I wish I would have done that a little bit earlier.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Reinvested in my business a little bit earlier.
Speaker: Instead of waiting till I was making buku bucks.
Speaker: So that's a tip for you all out there.
Speaker: But yeah, you know, and I had the time to do a lot of those activities.
Speaker: So now I do have an assistant.
Speaker: So she checks my messages on Facebook and Instagram every day.
Speaker: She will respond, like, and respond to comments.
Speaker: She will message new followers.
Speaker: She will say happy birthday to every person.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: The community groups, things like that.
Speaker: I take a look at every now and then.
Speaker: And if she needs me to help her, she'll send me what I need to respond to.
Speaker: We have another person that looks at my LinkedIn every day.
Speaker: We use automated LinkedIn services to message and connect with 20, 25 people a day and send them a few messages.
Speaker: We use Lead Hero.
Speaker: It's a company out there for LinkedIn.
Speaker: And then my brother helps with a lot of these systems now.
Speaker: And he uses and offers go high level programs that are built out and customized.
Speaker: So, you know, I always say there's there's levels to this.
Speaker: You can start with the Google Sheet.
Speaker: Start doing yourself.
Speaker: You can hire a VA out of the country if you want to save some bucks.
Speaker: Eventually you can move to another assistant.
Speaker: But yeah, that's been very helpful.
Speaker: And having a social media team that helps me create content, constantly posting, putting up stories and some videos, I think is huge.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then I want to get into some like recruiting stuff, building teams, because, you know, we were on this recruiting panel yesterday and that gets pretty exciting.
Speaker: Like for people that maybe haven't closed virtually, I don't know.
Speaker: One concern I always had and I hear from door to door guys, oh, it's so hard to close virtually.
Speaker: And like, you know, some of these organic strategies, people are going to go hit up 10 different people to get quotes and all that.
Speaker: So I don't know, were you as you're closing these deals from Facebook groups and getting organic leads, were you finding there was a lot of people that wanted to just like research a ton and drag their feet?
Speaker: Or maybe what are some things that helped you to get people to like take action with you and, you know, not like shop around virtual closing strategies?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Can you speak to that a little bit?
Speaker: Yeah, I do think each market is unique.
Speaker: So like California markets, very mature.
Speaker: People shop around more.
Speaker: Nevada is starting to mature quite a bit.
Speaker: It's worked pretty hard, that market.
Speaker: So I think each market is unique where you're at, how saturated it is and what the shopping is like.
Speaker: If you've noticed a lot of my methods are referral partners, ambassadors, BNI, events, networking, social media.
Speaker: So one of the keys there is there's some level of trust there and presence.
Speaker: And so that helps lend credibility to me or to my team or my closers automatically.
Speaker: Now, with that said, what I have noticed in the last four or five years is definitely a trend of shopping.
Speaker: It doesn't matter if five people tag my name, he's the guy to go with on Facebook.
Speaker: This customer is likely going to get two or three quotes.
Speaker: And so it's more important than ever to be the educated person
Speaker: consultative style where you're differentiating yourself, you know, the batteries, the technology, the panels, you're asking the right discovery questions to see like, would they benefit from a lease PPA product?
Speaker: Do they have the cash?
Speaker: So they want to finance it and pay it off in the next few years.
Speaker: Like you really need to be able to articulate to these options more than ever.
Speaker: And I'm a big component of also having a fair price.
Speaker: Like if you're going shooting for the stars, you might lose your credibility or trust.
Speaker: So I'm always like in the middle.
Speaker: I'm not gonna be the cheapest, I'm not gonna be the most expensive, but you wanna make sure you're at the right company and right dealer where you have a good price and you can pass that along to the consumer.
Speaker: So that's been a big part of me too.
Speaker: So those things, I guess, Taylor,
Speaker: It gives me the credibility and the reality is people will shop and that trend is not going to be ending.
Speaker: As people become more educated, as people have solar, this is becoming more of a common thing and we just have to know that that's the path that this is on.
Speaker: Yeah, and I've seen too, especially if you're trying to build referral-based business.
Speaker: I heard a story from actually a friend here.
Speaker: I'm from Utah originally.
Speaker: I think it was a buddy's mom or something hit me up, and she had gotten referred to this company, and then they gave her a price.
Speaker: Then she went and talked with her friend and found out it was 15 grand higher than the price.
Speaker: They cut the other person.
Speaker: And then she's like, oh, I'm not, you know, obviously like lost trust and everything.
Speaker: Like I'm not going with that person.
Speaker: And knowing the competition, like I helped a family friend in Nevada and she's like, oh, I have a quote with this company and I was going to talk to this company.
Speaker: And I know these companies are coming in at 2.9 a watt cash purchase price.
Speaker: And so it's like,
Speaker: How do I differentiate myself, be in that ballpark and still win the deal?
Speaker: So even being knowledgeable about your competition and what price points they are and how to separate yourself is important too.
Speaker: Yeah, no, so true.
Speaker: Because yeah, I'm like, I never liked being the slow, the lowest, but yeah, like that's why it's important to know about the products too.
Speaker: And no, Hey, this company is probably going to offer this sell at this price.
Speaker: And then, yeah, you know, okay, I'm not going to sell lower, like, because I think too many reps on the flip side, they just want to, like, be the lowest price and beat it that way.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And they don't know how to build value even.
Speaker: If they do have higher things to offer, they're so nervous about, like, oh, they're not going to go with me because I have a little bit higher price.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But it's like being in the ballpark, yeah, you're not going to sell for 20 grand higher because that's, you know, probably a lot of values make up sometimes.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Like being higher, a little bit higher, and then knowing how to build that value, build the trust, credibility, and, you know, just making it seem like you know what you're doing.
Speaker: I think, too, I'm sure you agree with this, knowing, like, some electrical knowledge, too.
Speaker: As far as, like, hey, you're going to need a panel upgrade.
Speaker: Because that's something I've seen that's been able to separate myself is...
Speaker: Like I come in and I not only like tell them about solar, but I'll look at their main panel, say, hey, you're probably gonna need a panel upgrade.
Speaker: And then like who are they?
Speaker: The other companies didn't say anything about that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like who's having more credibility when you not only know about solar, but also, you know, these other things too.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: Roofing, electrical, main panel upgrades, like being able to speak to some of those things and ask, did the other reps ask these questions?
Speaker: Are they sizing it right?
Speaker: You know, that for sure sets you apart.
Speaker: And I think that's part of my success when I was selling more, asking those questions and giving my experience.
Speaker: And it would just set me apart completely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I'm curious with like virtual deals.
Speaker: I know you're saying like a lot of people were getting multiple quotes and all that.
Speaker: So what was your approach if you're maybe the first guy and they're like, all right, you met on Zoom and like, OK, Jonathan, that's great.
Speaker: We're going to go get two more quotes.
Speaker: Like, what would you say?
Speaker: What's your.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: How do you overcome that when you're doing a virtual cell?
Speaker: Yeah, I prefer to be the second or third quote, but let's pretend I'm the first quote.
Speaker: You know, I have never strayed away from me or the team or the closers using a homeowner presentation deck.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's educational.
Speaker: We hit a few things, you know, why solar?
Speaker: Why now?
Speaker: Why me?
Speaker: Why power?
Speaker: Why whatever company?
Speaker: What are the steps?
Speaker: Let's get to the numbers.
Speaker: Let's ask the questions.
Speaker: So that's really important to use the homeowner slide deck in your presentation to differentiate yourself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But when that comes up and they say, hey, I need to go shop around, I would definitely ask, okay, no worries.
Speaker: Do you mind me asking what company you're going to be talking to?
Speaker: I probably know.
Speaker: I've been in the industry nine years.
Speaker: Oh, you know, I'm not sure.
Speaker: I'm like, it probably rhymes with son something.
Speaker: Make a little cheesy joke and just say, OK, but before you go, you mind if I ask you a few questions, you know?
Speaker: I just want to put this in the email as well in the text, but we're using REC panels.
Speaker: Most companies use Qcells or Longis or something else.
Speaker: Or we're using this inverter, this battery brand.
Speaker: Other companies are going to use this.
Speaker: If they show you a lower interest rate, just look out for that price point.
Speaker: Some companies are really being paid more commission to slam PPAs or leases, but I wanna make sure you have purchase options as well.
Speaker: And this is really the size I recommend.
Speaker: So let me know what they show you.
Speaker: I am an expert on doing side-by-side comparisons.
Speaker: I'm no pressure, just like I help your friends, you found me online, it's for a reason.
Speaker: As you can tell my approach right now, I'm not trying to hard close you, but I just want a shot.
Speaker: Like, if you don't mind, let me see that.
Speaker: Let me do a free analysis for you.
Speaker: And hey, if I'm not the right fit and they're better, you think they're better, if they're nationwide, they're gonna be in business, they're gonna be around, they're not chucking Larry in a truck that's gonna go out of business, I'll let you know.
Speaker: This may not be a good fit.
Speaker: And then on the flip side, follow up is really important.
Speaker: Like I literally have just used Apple reminders, like just use a reminder app, like literally on Monday reminder.
Speaker: Hey, Sally and Larry, hope you guys had a great weekend.
Speaker: Look forward to chatting in a week.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And always try to get the follow up date.
Speaker: When are you meeting with them?
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: When are you going to review?
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: When can I reach out?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Friday.
Speaker: Okay, perfect.
Speaker: I'll still say that Monday, though.
Speaker: Hope you had an amazing weekend.
Speaker: Like, it was beautiful on Friday.
Speaker: Like, personal touch points.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then on Friday, I'll call as promised.
Speaker: And if they don't pick up, I'll push the reminder out again, maybe Saturday morning, give them a ring, send them a text, make sure they have that email in the top of their inbox.
Speaker: My follow-up does not end.
Speaker: I will continue to follow up.
Speaker: And I have a strategy on follow-up as well.
Speaker: So those are the two things I would do to approach someone that is shopping and is not signing with me.
Speaker: And what I also find, Taylor, is that most of my business is second, third call close.
Speaker: I hardly am first call close.
Speaker: And I find that first call close has a higher cancel rate.
Speaker: I'm very nonchalant educational approach.
Speaker: That's what's worked for me.
Speaker: And so I do have a stronger second, third touch close.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, it's a different approach for sure.
Speaker: And I think, you know, all of us door-to-door guys were like, same day close or die and all this stuff.
Speaker: But I mean, as I'm sure if you compared your actually pull-through rate, you know, the door-to-door pull-through rate is like 50% a long time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's tough.
Speaker: That's why.
Speaker: But no, I like that.
Speaker: And especially with the education-based things, I think that's what I see is like, especially on the door-to-door side, if we can't close them the first time, most people are just like, I'm going to completely forget about it.
Speaker: But yeah, it was like how many times.
Speaker: It's happened to me a lot where I go back to a neighborhood I was at and then all the people I sat with, half of them have solar.
Speaker: And I'm like, yeah, I should have followed up with these people.
Speaker: You know, get a lot of them.
Speaker: The fortunes and the follow-up.
Speaker: Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker: Yeah, and makes a lot easier.
Speaker: I'm sure it's evolved to I'm sure you're maybe instead of Apple reminders, if you have like the system, the CRMs and all that.
Speaker: Yeah, we use go high level CRMs that touch our unsold leads and we have different workflows set up to approach those for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, cool.
Speaker: So yeah, one more thing I want to touch on, I know we're going to get into some recruiting stuff, but one more thing I want to touch on before that is just, I know you guys are really good at setting up these referral partnerships.
Speaker: You know, I did a podcast with Jonathan Wilson, who is working with you guys now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, he's really good at just like the referral partnerships, working with, you know, roofers, people that are in somewhere.
Speaker: And she talked about like the B&I stuff, which I know is a good way to start.
Speaker: But yeah, what are some other, I don't know, maybe like effective things you've done to like get in front of these other industries and set up these referral partnerships and get referrals from other people in different industries?
Speaker: Yeah, that's honestly huge and led to a lot of explosive growth for me and for Power and for my team and all my seven-figure earners now.
Speaker: So referral partners, when you first start out, is literally just someone that's referring you and maybe they're getting compensated, maybe they're not.
Speaker: We call it an ambassador at Power.
Speaker: And they even have their own portal they can log into.
Speaker: They can even add a referral.
Speaker: They get to see the stages and they get direct paid to their bank a thousand bucks.
Speaker: easy easy referral ambassador program so a referral partner could be your clients could be your your family friends you know when you're reaching out to your warm market it's like hey i'm in the solar industry anyone you know that we can help i have a thousand dollar for like who do you know that can help you're not hard closing them but you're just asking for help so so some of you already know that i run my own door-to-door sales team here in san diego
Speaker: As we were gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
Speaker: But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Speaker: Then we discovered an app called SolarScout.
Speaker: But it's not a door knocking app.
Speaker: It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
Speaker: It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
Speaker: I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
Speaker: But I told them, hey, if I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need to give my listeners a great deal.
Speaker: And they did.
Speaker: So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them, and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up.
Speaker: That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show.
Speaker: Also, referral partners would be anyone in particular that touches the homeowner.
Speaker: So we learned this in BNI and team networking.
Speaker: Like, who are your closest referral partners?
Speaker: For solar, it might be, you know, door-to-door partners.
Speaker: Alarm sales, it might be a painter, it might be HVAC people, electrician, a roofer was one of my best referral partners, a tax CPA, a realtor.
Speaker: So you really want to hone in on who are your best referral partners.
Speaker: And I think one of the things that we do really well is we kind of have two different levels for referral partners.
Speaker: You can join as an ambassador and get a free thousand dollars, Taylor.
Speaker: Or you can get a little more skin in the game at power, have a commitment, take a four hour training, and then you get half the commission for the referral.
Speaker: Just get the electric bill.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which one of those sounds better to you?
Speaker: You let me know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'll send you more information or a link.
Speaker: And so if you have a good referral program or you even have a stronger offering, that's really key.
Speaker: And so what I found is a lot of people were like,
Speaker: wait, I can literally bolt on a solar division.
Speaker: I'm a roofer.
Speaker: I'm a realtor.
Speaker: I'm so-and-so.
Speaker: I can bolt on a referral division and get paid and just refer the leads to you and get half the commission or a thousand bucks.
Speaker: And so I'll give you one or two stories.
Speaker: A realtor gave me a few referrals.
Speaker: I'm like, Bobby, dude, you give me a few referrals.
Speaker: Do you want a little bit more skin in the game?
Speaker: You want to build a little solar division?
Speaker: You're already doing loans, real estate renovations.
Speaker: When you work with Bobby Rye team, you can also make money in solar.
Speaker: So we're adding value to him because his team, his real estate office now makes money four ways.
Speaker: He's like, heck yeah.
Speaker: So he's signed up for half the commission and he just took off.
Speaker: He's at the bank talking to the teller.
Speaker: He's mentioning real estate.
Speaker: Everyone knows a realtor.
Speaker: He mentioned solar.
Speaker: Boom, he closes that person, earns half the commission.
Speaker: He then went on and told a few other people that guy was closing one or two deals every single month and he didn't want to learn it.
Speaker: He just said, Chris, you're the closer.
Speaker: Jonathan, you're the closer.
Speaker: and they would split the commission 50-50.
Speaker: That's one realtor making a closer one or two sales a month.
Speaker: Now there's, you have to find the aces in the deck, right?
Speaker: You may have to talk to 20, 30 realtors, 40 realtors to find the Bobby Wright.
Speaker: And then we even have a more advanced way where we talk to the owner of an office broker.
Speaker: We say, hey, you can be in power.
Speaker: All your agents can make a thousand bucks and the closer will do all the work.
Speaker: So we had one realtor, her name's Sierra, top producing realtor in eXp Realty.
Speaker: She did the same thing like Bobby did.
Speaker: I'll take half of the compensation and I'll tag Cynthia to do all the closes.
Speaker: And Sierra was closing two or three deals a month, just referring the leads to Cynthia.
Speaker: That girl, Cynthia, I'm sorry, Sierra made 93K in one year, just referring her clients to our closer.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And she stood up in the office of 20 agents and said, guys, this is amazing.
Speaker: I'll give you a few last things.
Speaker: She found that when she called her clients every Monday night, hey, Sally, how's the house?
Speaker: How's your loan?
Speaker: You ever looked at solar?
Speaker: My clients are going solar.
Speaker: I just got solar, dude.
Speaker: You got to check it out.
Speaker: Get a free savings report.
Speaker: See the tax incentives and the savings.
Speaker: Just talk to my girl, Cynthia.
Speaker: Shoot me your bill.
Speaker: I'll set it up.
Speaker: Hey, you just closed on your house.
Speaker: The process is in two weeks, you're gonna get your free energy report with Cynthia.
Speaker: She's a beast.
Speaker: And the way she set it up, 35% of her clients were already going solar or looking into it or got quotes.
Speaker: 35%.
Speaker: Your clients are going solar with or without you.
Speaker: And are you gonna let them get screwed over in a bad deal?
Speaker: Or are you gonna bring the option to your client's doorstep as the real estate professional?
Speaker: So a little bit of a tangent there for you, but I want you to understand the power of referral partners.
Speaker: Like this is just realtors.
Speaker: You could do this with roofers and other people.
Speaker: And this is the long game, especially in real estate and lending.
Speaker: Interest rates are high right now.
Speaker: And there's no decrease really in sight this year in 2024 guaranteed.
Speaker: They need more commission.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: National Association of Realtors is changing the compensation structure for buyers agents right now.
Speaker: It's big news, like July 2024.
Speaker: So all these agents are stressing and they're looking for additional income.
Speaker: Most people right now to even live in the United States have a side hustle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so in a sense, this can be a side hustle.
Speaker: And so when you join power, maybe a similar company, this is another income stream.
Speaker: And this is a way to get leads.
Speaker: I think it's one of the best lead gens in our industry.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: And for someone that's listening that maybe hasn't done anything like this before.
Speaker: So did you just start by, was it like being, were you like just calling up real estate offices and being like, Hey, can I come do a presentation or what are like some initial things you did to like maybe get in front of real estate guys or potential referral partners?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, great question.
Speaker: It definitely had to start somewhere, right?
Speaker: The Chamber of Commerce, the BNI, the networks, the connections.
Speaker: I was even doing free solar trainings, lunch and learns for the Association of Realtors in Southern California.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So if you're a solar pro out there, anywhere in the nation, you can do a free...
Speaker: lunch and learn solar training in your local association of realtor in your area.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's just a way to get in touch with them.
Speaker: And at the end of the presentation, it's like, I want to be your nationwide solar referral partner.
Speaker: So when you reach out to real estate agents on Instagram, Facebook, you could go to EXP's database of realtors, Keller Williams database of realtors online.
Speaker: You can reach out to them, send them a DM.
Speaker: First question, do you work with a nationwide solar partner to help your deals that already have solar or to help your clients?
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: And just ask the question.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Get the interest and say, I got two options.
Speaker: You can get the $1,000 free or you could join us and have more skin in the game.
Speaker: I'd love to do a training, a presentation at your office and bring you guys breakfast together.
Speaker: Can I just stand up there with the other vendors and just say I'm the solar guy?
Speaker: Like I would just love to do that.
Speaker: Some of my guys, Taylor, are being asked to stand in front of real estate offices with 300 agents.
Speaker: Solar's everywhere.
Speaker: When you talk to a realtor, we could talk about this all day.
Speaker: There's more on YouTube.
Speaker: When you talk to a realtor, it's like,
Speaker: I know solar has been a pain in the butt.
Speaker: I know there's nasty hero pace lease programs.
Speaker: I know it prevents some deals from closing and transferring.
Speaker: I want to help you.
Speaker: I will read those contracts.
Speaker: I will talk to your buyers.
Speaker: I will help this for you.
Speaker: That's my value add.
Speaker: That's smart.
Speaker: Start with value add and start by acknowledging it's been a pain in the butt for them.
Speaker: It's literally stopped some food on getting on their family's table.
Speaker: It's been a pain and there's been some bad apples in our industry.
Speaker: So start with value add, get to know them, and then you offer your two referral options and you better visit that real estate office six, seven, eight times.
Speaker: Because you know realtors, they're not gonna do something or register for your ambassador program the first time.
Speaker: You gotta visit, get to know them.
Speaker: But I promise you, one real estate office can make you six figures if you work it right.
Speaker: One BNI, 13 deals in a year, could make you six.
Speaker: Six figures.
Speaker: It's just who's going to put in the work and the time and transition to that.
Speaker: So that's how I found some of my realtors and lenders from my connections, from social media, because I'm a real estate agent, because I was training realtors.
Speaker: And I was just offering two referral options and then try to get in front of the office.
Speaker: Yeah, that's so good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And like, I don't know why a lot of guys, I didn't think of this either, but like in our solar office, I mean, we bring in people at least a few times a year from like roofing companies, from like credit repair companies, and they're doing the same thing, like a lunch and learn for us.
Speaker: So I'm like, why am I not doing the same thing at their offices?
Speaker: Like they can come in.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So most guys don't think of these things.
Speaker: And that's, you know, there's lots of good solar companies out there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But one of the reasons why I love power is the platform, the model, the join links, the ambassador links, the transparency, the pay, it's all transparent.
Speaker: The training, the mentors, closers in 23 states, sells virtually most of the time.
Speaker: That's what they crush.
Speaker: They crush at that.
Speaker: And so it helps when your company is nationwide and when you have some of those tools
Speaker: to grow it this way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, even if you're not at power, maybe it's not because that is a very, you know, convenient way how you guys can just have them like kind of register or get paid directly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But even then, you know, like you still, I think, you know, not super complicated to set up.
Speaker: Like I know for me, my company, I just send them to fill out the W9s or whatever and pay them out.
Speaker: And yeah, it's an extra step.
Speaker: But yeah, I think super worth it and that's something I'm trying to do.
Speaker: But yeah, I know my thing is like I just haven't put enough time.
Speaker: I talked to one real estate agent.
Speaker: It's like you got to treat it like almost like I would say almost like a side hustle, especially if I'm knocking doors.
Speaker: That has to be kind of like the side hustle for me setting that up and, you know, building.
Speaker: I do find that some people don't treat it like a solar sail.
Speaker: Yeah, they get they can get distracted on the time.
Speaker: And then we only have so much time in the day.
Speaker: But it's like, but what if you spend an hour every morning reaching out to 30 realtors?
Speaker: Like, what if?
Speaker: You know, there's a list of realtors online called green certified realtors, realtors that have gotten their green certification.
Speaker: So my my brother has a rep under him that called a few green certified realtors in Newport.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: One realtor said, yeah, I'll sign up for your ambassador program.
Speaker: I'm green certified.
Speaker: I don't have a nationwide referral partner.
Speaker: Literally within that week, he gave them a referral in Newport Beach to my brother's rep.
Speaker: My brother's rep assigned my brother as the closer, and they closed that deal just from calling a few realtors.
Speaker: Now, it doesn't happen all the time, but literally that realtor made $1,000.
Speaker: My brother's rep made his three grand and my brother made three grand for a nice Newport Beach deal.
Speaker: So, yeah, I would just say.
Speaker: Put time on the calendar or eventually get a VA to send 20, 30 messages on Instagram to realtors.
Speaker: So I have my assistant doing that for me.
Speaker: 20 to 30 realtors every day on Instagram.
Speaker: Super smart.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's for people that are in door to door.
Speaker: I'm thinking for myself as I'm hearing you say this, like, you know, the winter time and things like when it gets dark.
Speaker: I'm in San Diego.
Speaker: It's getting dark, you know, like 530, six o'clock.
Speaker: Most people probably aren't knocking super late into nighttime hours.
Speaker: So six, six o'clock, you still got an hour or two you could work.
Speaker: Why not use that time to go out and set up some of these partnerships, reach out to other people?
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: So yeah, lots of different ways you can do it.
Speaker: But yeah, last thing I want to do as we start wrapping up here, Jonathan, we haven't even talked about recruiting.
Speaker: We just did this recruiting panel and jammed on a ton of solid strategies.
Speaker: And that could be like a whole nother podcast alone.
Speaker: But yeah, just like, you know, a couple things to segue into that.
Speaker: You have like so many people.
Speaker: And I know that's another cool thing with power is you guys can set up so many people.
Speaker: under you and everything.
Speaker: But yeah, what's been like some of the fruits of your recruiting?
Speaker: How is that a supplement along with referral partnerships?
Speaker: What's been like the big advantage in recruiting for you?
Speaker: Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker: You know, even me, I was a traditional rep and to think of team building, being assigned as a mentor,
Speaker: or recruiting a realtor and referral partners.
Speaker: It takes time to learn these things, right?
Speaker: Often it's not a normal solar pro that's already doing these things.
Speaker: So from a team building perspective though, when I joined Power five years ago, I started telling a few people and recruiting a few people and they were tagging me as the closer and I was just like, wow, they're bringing their Rolodex of business and clients.
Speaker: They're bringing their warmest friends and family and they're assigning me as the closer.
Speaker: we're closing this thing a lot of the time and making good income and selling better than a lot of the competition.
Speaker: So from a team building perspective, I just, it was always in my DNA, you know, when I worked at Best Buy, hey, you should work here too.
Speaker: When I worked at Verizon Wireless, oh, you should work here too.
Speaker: And so I just always had that in my DNA, eXp Realty, like you should join eXp as a real estate agent.
Speaker: So it was no different when I joined Power.
Speaker: Every stepping stone I did before, power kind of just gave it to me together.
Speaker: And so, again, having multiple income streams, personal selling, being able to help mentor someone else's deal 50-50, and then team building.
Speaker: There's something called revenue share.
Speaker: So most companies have a SPF.
Speaker: override revenue share when you do recruit.
Speaker: And if you are the closer, the mentor, you also get the lead there.
Speaker: So the team did grow to about 1,200 consultants, 1099.
Speaker: It was higher before.
Speaker: And some of these are setters, some of these are closers.
Speaker: The barrier to entry is little, so a lot of people join.
Speaker: And the revenue share in team building that you can get if you choose the team build
Speaker: Literally there's been people in power making a couple thousand dollars a week passively five ten thousand dollars a week passively and the highest people you know we're making twenty thirty thousand a week passively and It's not like You know some people might use the word network marketing or MLM like every company I've ever been at and
Speaker: When I was at Sunrun, my manager got bonused off of us reps and his manager got bonus off of his performance and we hardly made anything.
Speaker: So like at Power, everyone gets the same baseline cost of goods.
Speaker: Power keeps 30% and gives half to six levels of leadership.
Speaker: So you have leaders that are genuinely interested in your success and helping you.
Speaker: So honestly, having one guy on your team close one or two deals a month, a few deals a month, that could literally give you hundreds or thousands of dollars passively every week or every month.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I just I just really believe that team building should be part of everyone's business plan at solar.
Speaker: If they want to be a team leader and they want to have extra income sources, especially when it's slow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You need to help have extra income.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And like even those that we're not all power and everything, but like.
Speaker: I know personally, as I bring on people, it helps me up level.
Speaker: Like you're teaching them the ropes and then they're bringing you their leads.
Speaker: Like that could be a huge lead source alone.
Speaker: Like even if you make zero override on, if you're at a company, you're not managing, you're not making like an override on team or whatever.
Speaker: I mean, like you're talking about, if you bring in one person, they got 10 people they know with homes and you do a split on those deals, that's like 10 deals that were probably a lot easier.
Speaker: That's like referral partner right there, basically.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, that alone.
Speaker: But yeah, I know you're now, you're pretty higher level, you're running all teams.
Speaker: So what point did that change you, closing a lot of deals, bringing now you're moreover managing a bunch of different guys?
Speaker: What was that transition like from you to kind of being in higher level sub versus when you're actively closing a lot of deals and everything?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, that's, that's a transition that happened for me, um, slowly over time.
Speaker: And when it's busy, I'm, you know, I'm glad I made that transition.
Speaker: So it ebbs and flows, but when I was doing all those virtual deals, like in 2020, I had an assistant helping me do some recruiting.
Speaker: So that was able to take that weight off of my shoulders.
Speaker: Cause I wouldn't have been able to do 26 deals and 20 deals and follow up without having an assistant helping me recruit still.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And then moving forward, another year or two, I was just finding myself doing more trainings, right?
Speaker: Meeting with my guys, helping them, mentoring some of their deals.
Speaker: But then I started to get closers under me.
Speaker: And so I would recommend people to use them as the closers, the 50-50, the mentors.
Speaker: I no longer want to mentor.
Speaker: So I was just taking a few personal referrals.
Speaker: I was not mentoring deals.
Speaker: I was having my mentors do that, my closers do that.
Speaker: And then
Speaker: Eventually, I just realized, man, I'm helping my team.
Speaker: I'm responding to texts and emails.
Speaker: I'm doing trainings like I'm helping power in a leadership role and all this other stuff.
Speaker: So I started giving my referrals to one or two of my top notch closers, people I really trusted.
Speaker: And I can give them 50 percent or 40 percent of the compensation.
Speaker: I still want it to be strong.
Speaker: And I had expectations that you need to follow up at least six times, you know,
Speaker: keep this updated on a sheet.
Speaker: And so at that point I started giving off my own personal referrals.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Um, so I gave up mentor deals.
Speaker: I eventually gave up personal deals because my team override revenue share was just so strong and so big.
Speaker: You know, when you're earning seven figures in a year,
Speaker: Should you really be following up with one referral a few times and getting them to sign, ask if they talk to their wife yet and spending the bandwidth on that?
Speaker: Or should you be helping your closers and your team excel at higher levels?
Speaker: And so that was a little bit of the transition for me to move on to no longer selling and helping the team.
Speaker: That's a good point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then do you find that like, do you still try to be involved in sales and everything?
Speaker: Cause you know, like you want to be able to train new guys and all that.
Speaker: So how do you keep yourself like, you know, still stuck sharp where you can kind of like relate to the new guy coming in and all that?
Speaker: What are some, you put yourself in the trenches every once in a while.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Funny you say that.
Speaker: Cause I actually do.
Speaker: And I did it recently and I'm even telling my twin brother, like, dude, you need to get in the trenches, like get some deals in because it's,
Speaker: because the California market has changed overnight.
Speaker: The California market has changed.
Speaker: And so it is a little slower right now in 2024.
Speaker: We have some headwinds as far as interest rates, net metering changes, a little bit slow down in the industry, but I'm confident it'll come back.
Speaker: So with the slowdown,
Speaker: some of the constriction going on in the industry.
Speaker: I am finding myself taking a few of my referrals and making sure that I still have the presenting, the battery sizing, the California net metering three, you know, TPO lease PPA was my last three to four sales.
Speaker: So like the fixed, no escalator lease storage option we work with Sanova has been my last three, four sales.
Speaker: So I got in the trenches,
Speaker: presenting it like, whoa, what do I offer lease or cash or loan?
Speaker: How do I do this?
Speaker: And but yeah, I do find that it's it's really important to stay sharp, see what the process is like to keep my head in the game.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Especially right now.
Speaker: Yeah, that's what I've seen from, you know, like good leaders too is like, yeah, you're gonna be higher level stuff, but you always want to like, you know,
Speaker: come back and go to war with the guys.
Speaker: They want to see you can still do it.
Speaker: You still got it.
Speaker: I think that's one of my successes too, Taylor.
Speaker: Not to flex, but 470 deals at power in four to five years as the team did 7,000 installs.
Speaker: I'm lucky and fortunate in that so that they still have someone to look up to and a number to achieve as we're building the team.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: Well, Jonathan, I want to be a respect.
Speaker: I know we got a lot going on here at solar con and we could probably go like five hours on this, but, uh, um, before I forget, if people want to, you know, hear more about power, connect with you more, ask you more questions.
Speaker: What's the best way to reach out and connect with you?
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: On YouTube, just look up John Bernasso, J-O-N-B-R-U-N-A-S-S-O.
Speaker: You can find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.
Speaker: And just reach out.
Speaker: We have some videos you can watch, connect with, jump on a Zoom with us or whoever sent you this video.
Speaker: And yeah, we'd love to chat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, yeah, we appreciate you coming on and we'll have to do a part two sometime in the future and, you know, jam on more recruiting stuff.
Speaker: Sounds good.
Speaker: Because you're a wealth of knowledge.
Speaker: So, guys, go reach out to John here.
Speaker: Let him know you appreciated him coming on the show.
Speaker: And, yeah, if you're looking for...
Speaker: Solid option, whatever company you're with, you know, important thing is you start to implement these strategies and, you know, not just focus on one stream of, you know, income, of leads, but start to do it all.
Speaker: And I think that's what the top guys are doing in the industry.
Speaker: So thanks again for coming on and we'll talk soon.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Game on.
Speaker: Appreciate it.
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