Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a 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: What's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: We are here live in Las Vegas.
Speaker: I guess it probably won't be live by the time you hear it, but we have Mr. Josh Peters on the show here on the podcast.
Speaker: Josh, thanks for coming on with us today.
Speaker: Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker: I'm super excited to be here with you.
Speaker: Yeah, it's going to be awesome.
Speaker: And Josh, he is the director of experience here at Your Energy Co.
Speaker: If you're watching the video, he's all decked out in the gear.
Speaker: Yeah, you can see.
Speaker: Representing.
Speaker: Yeah, and we're lucky because he's about to roll out on the doors himself.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: So he's fortunate enough that he would give us some time before he gets on the doors here on Saturday.
Speaker: So, Josh, excited to have you on.
Speaker: And you've obviously been super involved in recruiting over the years.
Speaker: I know you're just putting together a whole experience now for these recruits coming in.
Speaker: And it's super valuable for our listeners to just hear how to recruit the right way.
Speaker: And obviously, you're doing a lot over social media, digital recruiting, which is super valuable, super important in today's just kind of landscape with things, especially during COVID, I bet, right?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I mean...
Speaker: You know, especially nowadays, back in the day, you could just post an ad on Craigslist.
Speaker: But today you have social media and that's the biggest push for where people are.
Speaker: And so wherever the people are is where you go to recruit.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: Huge.
Speaker: And so many people I see do it the wrong way, as I'm sure we'll touch on.
Speaker: So before we get into all that, do you want to kind of tell us about your like door to door background, how you got in the solar and I guess how you kind of transitioned into all these recruiting roles you've done over the years?
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: So yeah, I started about five years ago in the door-to-door industry.
Speaker: I got started in Kirby.
Speaker: So all you guys out there, if you don't know Kirby's, the vacuums, they've been around 107 years.
Speaker: So they're like the biggest sales org when it comes to door-to-door sales.
Speaker: And the funny thing is, I didn't even know it was a sales job.
Speaker: I just applied to a position.
Speaker: I was like, cool.
Speaker: It says 2,000 a month.
Speaker: I'm going to go work there.
Speaker: um and so when i got there and they're like this is a sales position uh it was kind of a shocker for me because i've never done sales yeah so i was just like well i'll give it a try um and so when i got into kirby you know obviously i dealt with the difficulties of not doing well my like my first few weeks
Speaker: But then when I caught on, I actually made my way to being the top salesman in the office.
Speaker: I got promoted to being team leader.
Speaker: And then the next promotion I had after that was into a recruiting position.
Speaker: So I did sales for quite a bit in Kirby and then I moved into a recruiting position where there's still sales involved.
Speaker: But it kind of taught me a lot about...
Speaker: what a good process should look like for a sales company on how to create a pipeline, how to interview these people, how to hire them, train them, and then get them to their first sale.
Speaker: Because as director of experience, one of the things that's the biggest part of my job is retention.
Speaker: And that's something that I've started to learn from my first recruiting job all the way up until here is that experience of making sure what keeps people into a business, what keeps people at the company.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: um but yeah so i i did kirby for about three years and the last two was was basically just me hiring people training them um and and recruiting um then after kirby i got into selling water systems i did water systems on the doors for a while uh the water like the full water filtration water softeners all that kind of stuff okay um i i helped that guy build out his recruiting platform as well um
Speaker: And then the timeline didn't work on me for that one because he wanted to start recruiting like a year later.
Speaker: And I was like, well, I want to do it now.
Speaker: It just didn't work out.
Speaker: But then after that, well, while I was at that job, I actually, we were on a sales call with the door to experts, which is kind of funny.
Speaker: That's where I first got introduced to the door to experts.
Speaker: And while we were on the sales call, I actually applied to go work for them.
Speaker: And so that's how I got my job at Door to Experts, working in their recruiting department.
Speaker: So I went to work with them.
Speaker: I started out just as kind of like a
Speaker: like setting the position or setting the interviews for like the senior recruiters.
Speaker: And then after about a month, I got promoted into a senior recruiting position.
Speaker: And it's then when I started to work with all the different industries, right?
Speaker: Because I had only done Caribbean water systems before that.
Speaker: But then I started to work with pest control companies, solar companies, roofing companies, garbage companies, you name it, right?
Speaker: We would recruit guys for all these different industries.
Speaker: And while I was there, I started to work more closely
Speaker: more personally with solar companies.
Speaker: And that's where I started to see kind of where the real opportunity is.
Speaker: You know, because I've been in sales, like you were in pest control sales before, right?
Speaker: And obviously, you know, there's money to be made in different industries, but the money I saw that was to be made in solar and the opportunity in solar is where my interest really started to peak.
Speaker: And so that's when I started researching into, you know, different solar companies.
Speaker: I started looking into that opportunity.
Speaker: And that's when about eight months ago, I got connected with Jerry.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And he talked to me about, you know, starting this company, URNG Co., and building something that would be very easy to aggressively grow and expand as a company.
Speaker: And kind of all the ideas that he had for the company.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I started working with him about eight months ago, and then I came to work for him.
Speaker: I quit the job there at DD Experts, and I came here about two, three months ago.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, you've been through a lot, man.
Speaker: A lot of experience, a lot of different things.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: So that's interesting, and it's cool.
Speaker: I mean, I've heard a few people on the podcast that have transitioned over into kind of more recruiting roles like yourself.
Speaker: And so for you, was it like did someone recognize, hey, this guy is super good at recruiting.
Speaker: Let's put him over more recruiting role, or was it you kind of just liked more the recruiting type stuff, so you did it yourself, or how did that work?
Speaker: How did you first transition into more recruiting stuff?
Speaker: So it was actually really cool because at Kirby, the way they structured it is they would tell you all the different positions that you could attain through the company all the way up until earning your own office, right?
Speaker: Because at Kirby, it's a franchise.
Speaker: You can have your own office, right?
Speaker: And when they talked to us about it in the training class,
Speaker: one of the positions was the recruiting position, right?
Speaker: They call it DPS, which I don't even remember what it stands for.
Speaker: I think it's something about like personnel or something.
Speaker: But when they talked about that, it was what piqued my interest from the very start, actually, because I really love working with people.
Speaker: I love to have the opportunity to teach people stuff, but at the time, obviously, I didn't have anything to teach them.
Speaker: I wasn't good at sales yet.
Speaker: After I'd gone through the sales process, after I knew what I was talking about, I had the product knowledge, the sales knowledge, and the door knocking knowledge.
Speaker: I got to the point where I was like, I didn't feel fulfilled, just selling.
Speaker: And so for me, the fulfilling part of things was when I got into recruiting, helping other people to be successful.
Speaker: And just like with any sales company, you hire a lot of people and a lot of people fall off.
Speaker: And so that was one of the things that kind of got me started on a journey of figuring out the best way to not only bring people into a company and to train them, but to keep them.
Speaker: Because I think everyone in this industry will agree the biggest issue we have when it comes to recruiting is drop-off, you know, and the constant cycle of trying to get people into the company and the churning.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: um but yeah so that's that's where i kind of started to find the passion for recruiting um for working with reps uh and and the training side of things because i mean i love the sales i was good at it like once i figured it out you know i could go out and make some good money um but for me i always thought it's a lot cooler to see the fruits of your of your labor in other people yeah because like the fruits of my labor when i was selling was the money
Speaker: right and that was cool yeah um but then it's a whole different level when you can take you know 10 people at a time in a training class and put them through like a product training a sales training and then a door knocking training and see them have success in their first week and see them get excited and see them make money uh i really got addicted to that process yeah that's awesome yeah and i see so many people they just want to bring in more recruits it's like putting band-aids on you know a
Speaker: open, bleeding wound.
Speaker: They just want to bring in 100 recruits, but yet they have no system set up to nurture these recruits, and then they're surprised when all these guys just drop off after two weeks.
Speaker: I've seen companies go out and hire these recruiting agencies, just get tons of leads coming in, have...
Speaker: 50 people show up to a recruiting meeting and then but yeah if they don't have a structure a process in place a way to nurture all these things the way systems like you guys have set up here at your energy co then i'm sure you've seen it too there's a huge drop off and people just quitting after a week and i got i got very fortunate because the office i worked for in kirby um the entire idea was retention
Speaker: There's a lot of offices in Kirby where it is just churn and burn.
Speaker: You get a person in there, you can make a sale or two off of them, and then they'll leave.
Speaker: That's common, right?
Speaker: But the office I work for, the biggest thing that we try to focus on was the retention, was the career growth, was their path into a successful salesman.
Speaker: Even though, yeah, you're right, there are so many companies out there that they're just like,
Speaker: it's they think it'll take more work to to retain like six good people than just to keep hiring over and over again like 10 15 people that are going to drop off yeah right and and it might be a different type of work but it's it's way better to to have a good solid team of six people because those people are what's going to attract and retain even more yeah yeah yeah for sure yeah so just getting that core of people and building it out and i know some people don't have like you know
Speaker: recruiting people over recruiting but for me as i've seen the companies i work with like hire people to more nurture these recruits and build out systems build kind of like a map a pathway of things they need to do um you know just starting the job i think that helps a ton versus just you know saying okay let's start go uh dump guys off in an area and you know tough to have them have success like that
Speaker: But yeah, so for you, Josh, like what are some big mistakes?
Speaker: I know you worked with like DDD experts and you were seeing just companies all over the place, you know, helping them with their recruiting.
Speaker: So when you were going into these companies and helping them build out their processes and helping them recruit, what were some like big mistakes that you were seeing and things that they were doing wrong?
Speaker: You actually hit the nail right on the head of what I wanted to talk about.
Speaker: And it's basically, in one word, it's attention.
Speaker: Whereas, like you said, a lot of these companies will go out without the systems and processes built out yet.
Speaker: Because when guys start a company, or they split off, or whatever they're doing, what's the first thing on their mind?
Speaker: I need to make money.
Speaker: And I want to do it fast.
Speaker: And so sometimes what they'll do is they'll step over the simple things that could keep or that could start a good process and just try to get right into the money making.
Speaker: And so the biggest issue I've seen, especially in the door-to-door space, is they think that
Speaker: they think that they're behind the curve.
Speaker: It's just like people with like crypto, for example, like if you see something spike people, oh my gosh, I have to buy it now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, so the biggest issue that people have when it comes to recruiting is, you know, if they start a company, they think that they need to have just like 50 people in a training class right then and there.
Speaker: But they don't have a hiring manager.
Speaker: They don't have a training person.
Speaker: They don't have,
Speaker: onboarding process.
Speaker: They don't have a training program put together for these reps once they get there.
Speaker: Even if they do get those 50 people in a room, believe it or not, reps aren't dumb.
Speaker: You get 50 people in a room, they're smart enough to know if the processes are off, if these people know what they're doing.
Speaker: It's just like
Speaker: having product knowledge and sales knowledge isn't good enough when it comes to just to training reps to be successful, right?
Speaker: Because as most people have learned in this industry, sometimes what you do isn't a generalized good thing for every single person to do.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, especially if it's reps that I've never sold before.
Speaker: Like, your pitch and what you do, your nuance is on the door.
Speaker: Like, you can't just teach that.
Speaker: You can't just transfer it to them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So putting together these processes and making sure that you have a simple, like, from...
Speaker: uh apply so like from applicant to onboarded and on the team having those steps down right um and just a quick outline of what that would look like right is so you've got your ads so whatever platform you use to run your ads whether it be zip recruiter indeed facebook um
Speaker: craigslist whatever you're using okay um honing that process uh because one of the things that i saw when i was working with these companies because everyone's already doing their own recruiting right and a lot of people use indeed um a hard part about indeed is if you don't know the tricks behind it indeed's telling you to spend like 200 300 bucks a day yeah it's a lot of money yeah
Speaker: Hopefully you figure out what you're doing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Deed's going to tell you that, right?
Speaker: Obviously because they make money off of you.
Speaker: You don't have to spend that much money.
Speaker: You can optimize your ads way easier than that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so that was one of the first things I would teach these companies.
Speaker: because after they were done with us they were going to continue recruiting yeah right like after we had sent them people and and they'd been in um in our little program they were going to continue recruiting so i taught them you know how to optimize their ads what you know keywords to use how to make it look best because when people are scrolling through indeed um they're looking at titles right um they're looking at titles i think that was the 29 minutes okay restart that pause yeah let's do it we can edit it yeah
Speaker: Right back into what I was saying.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Did you have, I think we were talking about,
Speaker: Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker: Where are your... Yeah, I was just talking about how people apply on Indeed.
Speaker: The first thing that they'll do is they'll scroll through and they'll notice titles, right?
Speaker: So you want to have a good title.
Speaker: And then the next thing that they notice is the pay.
Speaker: So whatever it is, the industry standard, it depends on the type of person you're trying to recruit.
Speaker: So you have to understand, I know lots of these companies are like, I want experienced people.
Speaker: Experienced solar guys aren't on Indeed.
Speaker: Most of the time they're not.
Speaker: You want to know why?
Speaker: Because they have connections.
Speaker: If they're an experienced solar rep, they know about all the other companies.
Speaker: That's more of a headhunting type of thing.
Speaker: That's more of I'm going on social media, I'm trying to find these people, I'm talking to people in the industry.
Speaker: So if you're using Indeed, it's mostly people that might have some sales experience in the past or who would be a good candidate, right?
Speaker: So you have to make it a more realistic looking pay.
Speaker: Some of the biggest issues I saw with that is
Speaker: Solar companies will get on Indeed and they'll put $200,000 to $400,000 a year.
Speaker: It's too good to be true for these people.
Speaker: Not even that, but they do not feel like they qualify for that.
Speaker: They wouldn't even apply to the job because they're like, there's no way I could get a job that pays that high.
Speaker: Because if they're going from $40,000 a year, in their head, they're not worth $400,000 a year.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So that was another thing.
Speaker: So that's one of the first things that they'll see is they want to see the title and then some type of pay that makes sense in their head.
Speaker: Normally, I would like to do just like $60,000 to $80,000 just because if they were making $40,000 a year,
Speaker: for them, 60 would be an awesome jump, but it's not impossible.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And if they're in that 50 to 60, 70 range, then 60 to 80 is, it's doable.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they will apply.
Speaker: So that's just, it's just one of those psychology things you can use when you're using like indeed, um, to help people apply.
Speaker: Yeah, it probably depends on like the market to you, like which area they're in.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Yeah, it depends on the market.
Speaker: But that's just in a general sense that that usually helps best when you're talking about.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, then just the next thing would be, you know, you've got the ads down.
Speaker: That's the first step.
Speaker: Then once they apply, what are you doing?
Speaker: There's different ways to do it.
Speaker: And I'm going to say this from the start.
Speaker: I am not a fan of group interviews.
Speaker: A lot of people do them.
Speaker: And I've heard people tell me they're like, oh, they're the best thing.
Speaker: They work.
Speaker: I think they say that because they think it's a better use of their time.
Speaker: I disagree.
Speaker: I've never seen group interviews be as successful because here's the problem with group interviews.
Speaker: The type of people you're looking for, if they're in the same room as someone that looks like they're not even competent, right, looks like they shouldn't even be able to get this type of job, and they see that that person got the job, they won't come back.
Speaker: Yeah, their trust level goes down.
Speaker: Does that make sense?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then, like, normal people are used to going to interviews one-on-one, or the higher-level reps are used to one-on-one interviews.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the funny thing is, when you're doing group interviews, you're weeding out the type of people you want to just get the lower-hanging fruit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And that's my opinion.
Speaker: That's what I've seen in the industry.
Speaker: That's what I've dealt with the last, you know, four years of recruiting that I've been doing.
Speaker: People still do it, and that's fine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If it gets you the numbers that you want, that's cool.
Speaker: But I recommend having a better process.
Speaker: And the best process, I think, when it comes to the way that you, like, handle these applicants –
Speaker: is a two-touch system.
Speaker: Once someone's applied, you can either do it through text or a phone call, but you text them to set up a time to interview.
Speaker: Then you do the interview.
Speaker: It's a two-touch process.
Speaker: With that, after that interview that you do with them, another big problem that people have in the industry is just jumping the gun.
Speaker: Offering them the job right off the bat?
Speaker: Offering the job right off the bat.
Speaker: They're like, oh, this conversation's been great.
Speaker: You have the job.
Speaker: And the funny thing is, and this is a little tip I learned from Brandon Hall.
Speaker: It's a really, it's a funny way to think about it.
Speaker: But you know, like, something that people do in the door to our industry is they try to sell the job to you.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: With recruiting, it's different.
Speaker: You're not trying to sell the job.
Speaker: People normally are trying to sell themselves to the job.
Speaker: And so the funny way he describes it, he's like, if I was in an interview to be a firefighter, and the guy was telling me, and I was telling the guy, I was like, look, man, I'm going to be the worst firefighter.
Speaker: I'm not going to be able to put out the fires.
Speaker: I suck.
Speaker: People are going to die.
Speaker: And the chief was telling me, dude, it's perfectly fine.
Speaker: He'll get paid.
Speaker: It'll be cool.
Speaker: You're going to do an awesome job.
Speaker: Does that make sense?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It makes zero sense that someone would say that, right?
Speaker: That's how a lot of people are doing it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's 100% how they're doing it.
Speaker: They get people that come in, they're like, oh, I've never worked commission before.
Speaker: I'm not going to get it knocking on doors.
Speaker: I'm not going to get it.
Speaker: I'm going to suck.
Speaker: And these interviewers are like, dude, it'll be perfectly fine.
Speaker: You're going to make money.
Speaker: You become a millionaire, all those type of things.
Speaker: And it's just like, you would not do that.
Speaker: You would not do that in a regular interview.
Speaker: And so the thing is that we're trying to get away from in the recruiting industry, right, is we want people to understand that this is a job.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I know you guys are all 1099, right, but this is an opportunity for them that they still have to earn.
Speaker: And if people earn something, they treat it way better.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If people just get something, it's not something that they value.
Speaker: And so that's the mentality that you have to go into.
Speaker: It's just like sales.
Speaker: You have to have a mentality.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So when you're doing interviews, when you are a recruiter, the mentality that you need to have going in is that this person needs to earn this job.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This person needs to earn the position because if they don't, they will be the person that in a week, they're not going to knock doors and they're going to leave.
Speaker: No doubt.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so the value comes from switching up your mentality, switching up the way that you do your interviews to do that.
Speaker: And the reason most guys don't do that is because they're scared that it's going to like run people off.
Speaker: They're scared that if they make the process more difficult, that they won't get as much as many numbers or as many people in there where it's not true.
Speaker: Like, yeah, you will weed out people.
Speaker: But you don't want those type of people in your company anyways.
Speaker: Because like I said from the start, if you have a solid team of people, a solid five, six people that are your core people, that are bought in, that believe in the company, and that they earn the position, those guys will attract way, way more people and retain more people than if you have a constant stream of new people coming in that feel like they didn't earn the position and feel like they can just leave whenever.
Speaker: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker: And I think it takes so much energy to drag these people in that didn't even want to be there in the first place.
Speaker: you're constantly trying to babysit them, make sure they're out on the doors, and you're like, no, I promise it's going to work if you just put in the time when they didn't even want to be there in the first place.
Speaker: So it's like, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: I think it's very similar to, like, selling, you know?
Speaker: If we're, like, begging people to, hey, please do this, please buy it for me, like, no one's going to do that, right?
Speaker: It's almost the same concept.
Speaker: It's the exact same concept, right?
Speaker: And the funny thing is, it's just like,
Speaker: People have called me harsh before when dealing with reps, and they're like, I thought you're like a director of experience.
Speaker: Because I think our last training class, a guy asked me, he's like, you know, what if I'm messing up or whatever?
Speaker: I was like, I am a believer in 100% accountability, and I believe that if you want to be here, you will be here.
Speaker: If not, I'll tell you to leave.
Speaker: Like, I'm not...
Speaker: Obviously, you have to babysit new reps, but babysit them when it comes to product knowledge and sales training.
Speaker: You don't babysit them when it comes to these stupid complaints and things that they talk about.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: For example, when people are on the phone with me doing an interview, and if they say something along the lines of, well, what if I make zero sales?
Speaker: Most guys, what are they going to say?
Speaker: They're like, oh, no, it'll be fine.
Speaker: We'll make sure you make money, you get sales.
Speaker: You know what I say?
Speaker: I go, so you're telling me you're going to be the worst performer in the company?
Speaker: you're telling me you're not going to be good at your job.
Speaker: Is that what you're saying?
Speaker: Or are you just asking a question?
Speaker: And, and they're, and instantly they're just like, no, no, no.
Speaker: I was just wondering like what happens.
Speaker: I was like, okay, cool.
Speaker: I just want to make sure.
Speaker: Cause if, if you're telling me you're not going to do well and that you aren't going to be a good performer for the company, I don't want you.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like that's, that's not who we're looking for and their mentality instantly changed because what guys are scared to talk about in interviews is commission.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They're scared to talk about sales.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: because they don't know how to control that conversation and that's the best way to flip the mentality when it comes to controlling a conversation is you treat it like a dumb question because it is right you wouldn't go up to a guy and talk about like what if i don't make the tacos good enough you wouldn't do that yeah no and so um realistically i think
Speaker: as an industry, we just need to start treating it more like a job rather than just like you are trying to bring people in and you're begging them to stay and you're begging them to come because you make money off of them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, and I know it's a hard thing to kind of switch your mentality around because, um, just like with sales, every single opportunity you're in, it's your time, it's your attention, right?
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: but if you're a sucky salesman you don't want to be in more houses you want to be studying more and learning more yeah right it's it's it's not because you're wasting opportunities at that point and it's the same thing with the recruiting you're wasting opportunities if every single person that you bring into the company doesn't earn it um they feel like you know they're just they were begged to come onto the job and they have to be babysit for every single thing
Speaker: And that's where, like I said at the beginning, attention is one of the biggest things that is difficult for a company when it comes to recruiting because they're spending time and attention on these reps that realistically aren't going to perform because it wasn't right from the start.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: They begged them to get into the company.
Speaker: They told them that they were going to do good.
Speaker: And so because of that,
Speaker: the person who brought them in feels an obligation to make them good.
Speaker: And I'm sure you've dealt with it and everyone's dealt with it, but how hard is it to take a rep that just absolutely has the worst mentality, just is not good, and probably won't last a few days,
Speaker: What type of attention do you have to spend and put into this person?
Speaker: A lot.
Speaker: You have to go with them on every single door.
Speaker: You have to, on the third day, go pick them up because they're like, I don't know if I want to come back in.
Speaker: No, I'll come get you.
Speaker: Everyone's dealt with it.
Speaker: If you focus your attention on the right part of the timeline when it comes to recruiting, you'll see a huge change in your effort.
Speaker: Because if your attention is spent disqualifying people from working for your company because they're not the right fit, then you'll see at this point when it's time for them to work and time for them to be taught, your attention can be spent in the training.
Speaker: And then when they go out, they'll be much better prepared mentally and just like when it comes to the product knowledge as well, that you won't have to dedicate as much time per recruit.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: It's almost like another big mistake is just, you know, in general and sales, people spending time with unqualified prospects.
Speaker: Like how many new reps are spending two hours in a grandma Jane's house.
Speaker: She's 90 years old.
Speaker: Cause they're like, Oh my gosh, I could make money here.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's like very similar in recruiting.
Speaker: How many recruiters are spending time with recruits that probably don't want to be there or aren't good recruits?
Speaker: And I love that analogy, comparing it to other jobs, the tacos, the firefighters, because if you think that way, it's like a whole different perspective that I don't really think about.
Speaker: You've got to flip your mentality on it.
Speaker: And like I said before, I understand these companies, the reason they want recruits is because they need to make money.
Speaker: But the cool thing is, with our industries, especially like solar, for example, if you don't have enough recruits or money, there's an easy way to fix that.
Speaker: You go knock doors and sell some.
Speaker: And the big reason why people start these companies is because they want to start getting away from that.
Speaker: But they need to understand, if you don't have enough time or money, recruits won't solve that problem.
Speaker: Like get the money, then the recruits, because then you can focus your attention on what action needs to be done.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So money tips right there.
Speaker: Make sure you are spending the time with qualified prospects.
Speaker: Make sure you're not letting your energy be sucked away by these people that aren't going to be good fits.
Speaker: So speaking of not good fits, I know you guys bring in these groups all the time.
Speaker: How often are you bringing these recruiting groups?
Speaker: Every two weeks.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So two weeks, they're getting big groups or recruits in.
Speaker: And it's really interesting what you guys are doing, just having almost like a boot camp style, getting them in-depth training.
Speaker: And then
Speaker: um last night i know they're doing like a scavenger hunt and uh going out on the doors today so um we'll hear maybe more about that in a second but do you have any stories of uh i don't know like bad recruits or like um interesting people yeah 100 yeah so give us something funny or crazy the funny thing is guys um no matter what you do because there's a vetting process we have a pretty
Speaker: strict vetting process.
Speaker: I mean, our first training class, we had 800 applicants and we brought 15 people on.
Speaker: So we cut it down to quite a lot because, like I said, if you focus your time on the right people, it goes well, right?
Speaker: And you don't have to worry about, like, yeah, we could have had probably...
Speaker: 60 probably had 60 people from the applicant pool come right yeah but we we did the we did the interview process we did it the way that like you know gets rid of the people that you don't want to spend time on um and but then there are still people that will slip through the cracks yeah right and so there there was you know there was someone that you know sounded great on the phone did great for the training class but when he showed up we were just like
Speaker: Oh man, like this, this, this probably won't be a good fit.
Speaker: I mean, he, he showed up with a button up shirt, but it was unbuttoned all the way down to his belly button, didn't have any sleeves on.
Speaker: And he, I don't know if he was just like an actor or something, but he, he like tried to be the most dramatic person ever.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, um, so we were like, okay, we'll, we'll, we'll see if it, if it works out, if we can give him a shot.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But come the second day, we had to fire him because we're just like, you're not the right fit for the company.
Speaker: You're just, this is not the job for you.
Speaker: So, and that's the other thing, guys.
Speaker: Don't be afraid to fire or get rid of people because they will do more damage in your company if you let them stay rather than if you just fire them right there.
Speaker: Because if you let someone that's not a good fit for the company, not a good fit for the culture, what that does for every other rep's mindset is they're like, oh, well, they preach about their culture.
Speaker: They preach about their core values, but this guy doesn't have it.
Speaker: So realistically, what that means is they just want as many people as possible.
Speaker: They want us to make money for the company.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So getting rid of those people will benefit you as a company way more than trying to turn them into a good rep and make them a good fit for the company.
Speaker: Was this guy out knocking doors in his button-up shirt?
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: We gave him a polo to use, but he wasn't knocking doors.
Speaker: He was... He would... I had to shadow him, right?
Speaker: Because we were told that, like, you know, the police... They were trying to call the police on that for some reason, or that...
Speaker: No, the worst part was, I think he might have been saying he was from Envy Energy.
Speaker: So like saying he was from the energy company.
Speaker: And we're like, that's not what we teach at all.
Speaker: And so I had to shadow him.
Speaker: And I think all he would do is he'd knock on the door.
Speaker: And I'd be standing behind him.
Speaker: And the person would answer, he's like, hey, my technician's right here.
Speaker: Just leave you.
Speaker: I'm just stuck standing there like, hi, I'm the technician.
Speaker: Like, how are you?
Speaker: Like, what's your name?
Speaker: I guess I'm going to check your meter.
Speaker: Call the appointment right there.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's you see, that's for you guys that buy leads.
Speaker: Those are your appointments, by the way.
Speaker: Those are those are the ones.
Speaker: They're just like, yeah, they're people who walk up to the door and say, hey, there's an appointment coming.
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Well, Josh, I know you're about to hit some doors and everything here, so we don't want to take too much more of your time.
Speaker: But last thing I kind of wanted to ask you about is you guys are obviously doing this boot camp style like we talked about, bringing in hordes or recruits and just getting them trained up.
Speaker: So why did you guys decide to do it like this, bring them all in for a weekend and kind of go out?
Speaker: And what's been that experience like doing it like that versus just like, I don't know, maybe the more traditional thing, just bringing people one by one?
Speaker: Why did you guys decide to do it?
Speaker: The biggest reason why we did that, Taylor, is because one of our mission statement and our biggest goal that we have as a company is, you know, Jerry brought us all together because he wants us to be an opportunity company.
Speaker: Our mission statement is we want to create the most millionaires in any other company in the world through the solar industry, right?
Speaker: And so we decided as a company, we're like, yeah, we could get a traditional office and we could do training classes there.
Speaker: But it does not have the same impact on mentality and mindset for these reps.
Speaker: I can tell you right now, you know, pulling in a Mercedes, you know, a Mercedes Sprinter van that's an executive van, bringing them in, they see this huge mansion and they walk in and they just see just they see success.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It puts them in the mindset to actually understand what we're trying to accomplish with them.
Speaker: I mean, we had.
Speaker: Like for our training class yesterday, I talked with a few people and I was like, I want to get your opinion.
Speaker: I asked them, I was like, being here, does it help you open your mind a little bit more to the possibility of you becoming a millionaire?
Speaker: Because what we have is we tell these reps, we tell these guys that they are future millionaires.
Speaker: We make them say it.
Speaker: We make them think it.
Speaker: We make them write it down.
Speaker: And every single one I talk to, they're like, yeah, this opens my mind so much.
Speaker: And most of them are Vegas locals.
Speaker: They're like, I've never even been to this side of Vegas.
Speaker: I've never even been to this side of the state where it's like...
Speaker: the houses and like the mansions and the cars.
Speaker: And so the biggest reason why we chose to do it this way rather than the traditional get in the office and all that, because we really want these guys to open their mentality, to open their understanding, have an open mind to what we want them to accomplish.
Speaker: um and it's worked amazing so far i mean every single person we have on the team um it's really awesome but like we have them send videos and and they talk to people and they do their own recruiting and that's a that's another thing that i'm really big on is internal recruiting right yeah um but every single one of them are sold on the idea
Speaker: that they are future millionaires, they're surrounded by millionaires, and that they will get to that point.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And it's all because of how we present it, how we explain it, and just what we have available for them within the company.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so that's why we decided to do it this way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's really cool because, yeah, it seems like it's almost more like you're giving them the personal development, the mindset.
Speaker: Solar just happens to be kind of the vehicle to that and taking off.
Speaker: And, yeah, there's some guys that's, I mean, you're bringing in guys that's really cool, like you said, having to experience this type of thing.
Speaker: I think for them to see that versus just going into a traditional office and traditional thing, I think that's really cool what it does to someone's mindset to see this.
Speaker: Even for me, I came in and like Jerry has his bodyguard and I've never been in a van like that.
Speaker: Like, dang, these guys are high rollers.
Speaker: It's a really cool experience you do.
Speaker: And so, Josh, last thing.
Speaker: I know we were talking a little bit before we started recording just about the social media recruiting and lots of guys are trying to get in that.
Speaker: And I know you.
Speaker: That's another big mistake you see is people doing that wrong.
Speaker: So just for like maybe ourselves or people that are trying to get more recruits that maybe aren't necessarily going to go hire like a recruiting agency or do this high level stuff that we've been talking about.
Speaker: What advice can you give to just people in general that want to maybe use more social media for recruiting and just start bringing in more of their personal recruits and building their own team?
Speaker: Yeah, well, the first word of advice is use it.
Speaker: That's the biggest one is social media is the next big push when it comes to success within recruiting because it's where everyone is, right?
Speaker: Like, you know, it's funny, but people scoffed at TikTok, but now everyone's on it, right?
Speaker: It's one of the biggest platforms.
Speaker: And so one of the biggest things I see when it comes to social media recruiting, and there's so much I could go into, but I'll just talk a little bit about your own following, right?
Speaker: So if you are a rep, if you are an owner, if you are whatever, right, you should be using your social media as a platform to kind of to highlight your success, right?
Speaker: To post like your accomplishments, your achievements.
Speaker: And you can post failures, too.
Speaker: I like to tell people be real, right?
Speaker: Like, I mean, I post when I have a bad day.
Speaker: Sometimes I post when things might not be going the right way.
Speaker: But obviously you always post like how you solve that problem, but use it as a way to kind of highlight your success, highlight like, you know, the life you're living and what you're doing.
Speaker: And that right there is what's going to cause, you know, people to start, you know, looking at it differently and they'll see what you're doing and they'll, you know, go through your stories and it gets the, it gets the seed planted.
Speaker: right um and i think what a lot of guys uh run into and it's the same problem it's patience right yeah um they're like oh my gosh i have 5 000 people on my instagram why is everyone not working for me right now yeah you know and so the biggest tip of advice i have when it comes to you know like for instagram for example it's it's touch points okay right so touch points means like
Speaker: the conversation or the messages that you're sending to these people.
Speaker: So the best market that you have, the warm market for recruiting on your social media are people that will swipe up and like send emojis, right?
Speaker: To your stories, like the hundred or the hand clap, right?
Speaker: Those people, when they see those successes, when they see those stories, they'll swipe up and say something or they'll interact, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And a lot of the times guys will, as soon as they see that, they'll send a message, hey man, you want to be successful?
Speaker: You want to m ake a lot of money?
Speaker: I saw that, you know, your profile looks amazing.
Speaker: You'll be really great at this.
Speaker: Let's talk.
Speaker: Oh my gosh, you can't tell me how you, I can't tell you how many messages I've gotten like that on my Instagram in the last five years.
Speaker: And you're the one trying to recruit people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're recruiting director.
Speaker: I'm like, they turned me off so quick.
Speaker: I'm just like, ah, that looks horrible.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, so my, my recommendation is when you have a warm market, right.
Speaker: When you have these people responding to your, to your messages, um, just small touch points.
Speaker: Like the first thing can be like, Hey, thanks for like, um, thanks for the emoji, like, or just like a thumbs up back or like,
Speaker: you can do is if you follow them send them emojis on their stories yeah like just get them starting to realize that you know who they are you know of them um and that like you see them as well right so like those little touch points and then like eventually you'll see they'll start sending like little messages with the with the messages with the stories too right like if you if you post a a story of you in mexico or in the car they'll be like oh that looks so cool
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so letting them initiate it and then like letting that conversation kind of flow because social media conversation is different than face to face.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It happens over a period of time and you have to let it happen naturally and organically.
Speaker: And so like those touch points are going to start to get bigger.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They'll start like saying, oh, that looks dope.
Speaker: And then you can be like, yeah, it was super fun.
Speaker: You know, we had, we invited all the people who won this or the people who earned this trip out to Mexico and, and it was a great trip.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: They'll be like, oh, okay, cool, that's awesome.
Speaker: And then they might ask a question on the next one there, right?
Speaker: They'll be like,
Speaker: what are you guys doing?
Speaker: So touch points when it comes to social media are probably one of your best ways to not look like a desperate recruiter, right?
Speaker: To not look like, you know, the multi-level marketing guy.
Speaker: Or I love those memes you see of like the, hey boss girl, like, hey boss babe, what you doing, right?
Speaker: Want to come sell makeup with me?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So those touch points I would recommend to everyone
Speaker: To start doing that, paying more attention to the people on your social media.
Speaker: And I honestly, you know, I think it kind of hit home for me the most when when I started like following successful people within the industry, because when I first got into like Kirby, all I knew was Kirby.
Speaker: But then I started branching out.
Speaker: I started following people in pest control, in solar, in roofing.
Speaker: I'd follow these really successful guys with really busy lives.
Speaker: And all these successful people, it would be cool because I did the same exact thing back in the day.
Speaker: I would send the emoji.
Speaker: I would send the little message.
Speaker: And that's where I started to learn how it worked because they would do what I just mentioned is the touch points.
Speaker: They wouldn't try to sell the position instantly.
Speaker: They would just gradually let the conversation go.
Speaker: grow, and then they'd be like, hey, I've got this event I'm doing, or I've got a ticket to this game, you wanna come with me?
Speaker: And then that's, that is the best way to do it when it comes to hiring these people through your social media following that initially might not be looking for a job or might not be looking in that type of industry, but then they see the success.
Speaker: I mean, I got a message yesterday from someone, I was like,
Speaker: that I've known for years and years and years.
Speaker: I haven't talked to him in like six years.
Speaker: But he sent me a message yesterday.
Speaker: He's like, hey, I see all the success that you're having.
Speaker: I see the things that you're building up.
Speaker: I've been following you for like five years now.
Speaker: And I've seen kind of the progression.
Speaker: Like, what tips do you have?
Speaker: Like, what are you doing?
Speaker: Like, how did you build up the success for yourself?
Speaker: And so sometimes it's just like they come out of nowhere.
Speaker: And it's just based off of you being consistent with your social media and showing people what's going on.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm like, that guy's probably been seeing it for years, right, and then finally reached out to you.
Speaker: And that's what's cool is because, like, yeah, I've gotten a couple recruits even just the last few months just from, like, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I wasn't that consistent on social media, but.
Speaker: for the last six months, whatever, I've been trying to post a little bit more.
Speaker: And these people, I mean, obviously at first, it's not like they're coming right into my lap, but just me posting, one of them had like an issue with this other company, their office basically like, you know, ran out of reps and was just closing down.
Speaker: So because I was the one posting and we kind of talked at events, things like that.
Speaker: I was the one that he reached out to because I built that relationship.
Speaker: He saw us posting events and things like that.
Speaker: So it's like you're talking about.
Speaker: That's what's cool is you don't have to beg these guys.
Speaker: They're just organic recruits.
Speaker: They're seeing your posts and they're coming to you.
Speaker: It's almost like a, I don't know, referral in a cell, right?
Speaker: Those are the easiest ones to get are the ones that you're just doing what you're supposed to do, right place, right time.
Speaker: Just you showing up, being consistent, having that relationship.
Speaker: Even if it's just the emoji relationship, clapping when they get a sell, things like that.
Speaker: Guys remember that.
Speaker: And they'll go, oh, Josh is cool.
Speaker: I'm going to hit him up, see what's going on.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's been a huge.
Speaker: And you've got quite a few recruits just coming organically through that too.
Speaker: Yeah, and the coolest thing about that that I was going to say is, obviously, that's what I do, right?
Speaker: That's what all the executives do.
Speaker: Guess what we do as well?
Speaker: We teach and train all of our reps to do it.
Speaker: Smart.
Speaker: Because, you know, we might have a following combined of like, you know, 50,000, 60,000 people as executives.
Speaker: But then you start adding recruits and it just multiplies.
Speaker: Like if you get 10 people in there that have a thousand followers, that's instantly 10,000 more people that can be accessed.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So one of the biggest things we hit on as a company is social media.
Speaker: We have a professional photographer and videographer that when once they join the company and we start creating content for them, we start teaching them how to post on their stories.
Speaker: We tell them as soon as they get in the house, they're like, yeah, man, take a story, let them know, like show the people that follow you where you're at, what you're doing, create a post talking about how you are a future millionaire and how you're going to accomplish that.
Speaker: And so we get them started from day one on how to utilize their social media to start kind of explaining the opportunity that they have.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: Organic recruiting is my absolute favorite way to do it because it costs you zero money and they're always the best recruits because they're friends of people who are bought into your culture, who are bought into your company and your dream, right?
Speaker: And that person convinces them of that.
Speaker: You have to do zero work for that.
Speaker: It is my absolute favorite thing to do.
Speaker: And so one thing we hit on big is just social media.
Speaker: So all of our reps, they all follow our internal social media.
Speaker: They all follow our company's social media.
Speaker: And every time that they're posting, we're giving them this content of them, really cool pictures in Vegas in front of the mansion, really professional looking things to put on their story.
Speaker: We're teaching them to do that.
Speaker: And I think just with this training class, I've had four people tell me they already have someone that wants to come work for me.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: And that's just from them posting the stories from the pictures that they're putting, talking about what they're doing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's huge.
Speaker: And I love that you guys have it.
Speaker: I'm seeing that more and more.
Speaker: These successful companies like Simple Solar.
Speaker: I mean, our company, all these guys, they have like, you know, dedicated video guys, content guys.
Speaker: And they're giving access to the reps and having them share all the content, tag people in it.
Speaker: So I think, yeah, I think that's kind of the future.
Speaker: That's what these successful companies are doing.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And no doubt it's working for you guys.
Speaker: So Josh, you know, it's been awesome hearing and just seeing, I've been here over the weekend with you guys, just seeing the experience and yeah, it's been a good time.
Speaker: And just speaking, hanging out with you guys, seeing the process.
Speaker: So anyone that's listening, I would suggest you guys, you know, consider doing more content with social media and
Speaker: have your reps involved in that process.
Speaker: And then just keep in mind all the things Josh was talking about.
Speaker: Make sure you have a process for these, you know, Indeed recruits, all these, you know, recruits you pay for to make sure you have a process dialed in.
Speaker: Because if you don't, it's just like pouring water through a leaky bucket, right?
Speaker: You're just losing, you know, half the reps that come in when you could be keeping them and retaining them.
Speaker: So I think that's one of the most important things.
Speaker: So Josh, we appreciate you coming on the show.
Speaker: I know you're going to get out and hit some doors here and everything.
Speaker: So before we let you go, where can people connect with you and hear more about what you're doing?
Speaker: And you want to drop your social media and all that?
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My Instagram is just my first and last name, Josh Peters 1996.
Speaker: And my Facebook is just my first and last name.
Speaker: And you can find me on those on those socials.
Speaker: And then just to kind of touch on what you said, if you have questions or need advice, I give free advice.
Speaker: I don't charge people for advice.
Speaker: So if you ever have any questions, reach out to me on there and I absolutely will respond.
Speaker: Because most of the time when I talk to people about recruiting, they just have a thousand questions.
Speaker: So if anyone has questions or want to reach out to me and talk and set up a time to call and figure out what a better process might look like, I absolutely can do that.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: Appreciate that.
Speaker: And yeah, very giving guy here.
Speaker: So definitely hit him up.
Speaker: Let Josh know you appreciated him coming on the podcast today.
Speaker: And then if you have any recruits that like to, you know, knock with their shirts on button or whatever, then shoot him Josh's way too.
Speaker: Cause he loves the recruits like that.
Speaker: Get them trained up, be their technician.
Speaker: So with that being said, thanks again for coming on the show, Josh, and we will talk soon.
Speaker: Yes, sir.
Speaker: Thanks.
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