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 the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you 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 up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Taylor Armstrong back with another episode.
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: Hope you're doing well.
Speaker: As usual, we are here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time and a much better situation.
Speaker: So today's episode, we're going to be talking about something that a lot of people neglect in their sales careers.
Speaker: Before I get into that, do want to apologize.
Speaker: I am running on like two or three hours of sleep tonight.
Speaker: We just got into Utah.
Speaker: We're heading to Lake Powell.
Speaker: um tomorrow which for those of you have that haven't been awesome lake it's practically dried up now because there's a drought drought here but we're gonna go have a good time i'm gonna go hit up lake powell so you won't hear from me for probably the next week pretty limited services down there but that's why you grind hard so you can go take lake trips again i know some people are gonna be like taylor
Speaker: There's people that are working 365 days a year, not taking a break, but I am not one of those people.
Speaker: I am going to take some breaks here and there.
Speaker: I'm going to recharge my batteries.
Speaker: I'm going to try and be present so when I get back, I can crush, I can grind, and hopefully push even harder.
Speaker: So anyways, that is why I am.
Speaker: My voice probably sounds a little bit tired right now.
Speaker: We got in at like 4 a.m.
Speaker: last night.
Speaker: And then, of course, right when we got in, we had kids puking.
Speaker: We had kids blowing out of their diapers.
Speaker: Just the usual stuff.
Speaker: So anyways, typical day here.
Speaker: But I am still here.
Speaker: Need to show up for the podcast.
Speaker: And that's what I'm going to do.
Speaker: Rain or shine.
Speaker: So today we are talking about something that a lot of people neglect in their sales career and that is the big R word, that is relationships.
Speaker: Okay, and maybe some of you are rolling your eyes at this, but let me tell you, I have been in solar now for six years, been in sales for around 10 years now, and I've just seen so many people neglect relationships,
Speaker: I've seen multiple people go through divorces.
Speaker: I've seen other people go through separations, in-home separations, have trouble with addictions, have trouble with infidelity, all types of things.
Speaker: And for some reason, it seems to be way more present in sales than other careers.
Speaker: So why is that?
Speaker: Why is it such an issue?
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: I have a couple of theories, but the reason we're talking about this is because next episode we have Brandon Holmes coming on the podcast.
Speaker: My man, B. Holmes, and he is someone that has dealt a lot with this.
Speaker: But what's really cool is he has one of the best relationships I've seen with his wife.
Speaker: They're just doing awesome things.
Speaker: They're kind of the ultimate power couple, it seems like to me.
Speaker: I guess I don't know him super, super well, but from what I saw, they have a great relationship.
Speaker: And so him and his wife, the first ever couple duo we had come on the show, they came on and shared what works in their relationship.
Speaker: So we're going to hear from them next week.
Speaker: They are the masters.
Speaker: But I just wanted to share some of my thoughts and some of my ideas.
Speaker: And for those that aren't married or maybe you're not in a relationship,
Speaker: I think there's still stuff you can take away from this, even if you're not in relationships.
Speaker: Maybe it's just relationships with your team, relationships with your family, because I think we tend to neglect all those things.
Speaker: And then hopefully these give you some tools that you can use in your future relationships and some useful tips for you.
Speaker: So back to the story, but when I got into solar six years ago,
Speaker: I originally stayed out here because I had some of you know the story.
Speaker: I had just gotten married after my first summer of solar cells, was going to go back to Utah, going to go back to school.
Speaker: But then my wife, she's like, you know what?
Speaker: Why don't we go back out to California?
Speaker: Seems like you're doing pretty good.
Speaker: Why don't we just hang out there?
Speaker: And I want to get out of Utah.
Speaker: I want to hit some beaches.
Speaker: So why don't we try it out for a little bit?
Speaker: And so that summer that I was originally just going to do summer sales, it turned into going on six years now, just past six years of solar.
Speaker: This is back in 2016.
Speaker: And I'm still the college dropout.
Speaker: I'm still the failure.
Speaker: No, just kidding.
Speaker: But I still have not finished my degree.
Speaker: I'm still out grinding because, come on, you can't quit solar now.
Speaker: This is insane.
Speaker: It's like the modern-day gold rush.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But back to the point of this, when I started, I actually started with a couple other young couples that came on and did solar.
Speaker: I saw one of them get divorced, and as time has gone on, like I said before, I've seen more and more of them have some issues, and it's not to everyone, but
Speaker: But the reason I think this is is because salespeople, we have addictive personalities.
Speaker: Most of us have ADHD, ADD of some form that I've seen.
Speaker: And we tend to go all in on things.
Speaker: A lot of us go all in on sales.
Speaker: A lot of us go all in on sales.
Speaker: The gym, whatever we're doing, it seems like salespeople have this innate desire to just go all out.
Speaker: And whatever we're going to do, we're going to do it to the max.
Speaker: And so that includes, you know, our hobbies.
Speaker: That includes sales.
Speaker: And unfortunately, sometimes we focus so much on these things because we get that dopamine rush.
Speaker: We are addicted to that dopamine rush of that next cell, of that next rep at the gym, of that next competition.
Speaker: And I'm speaking in general.
Speaker: This is what I see.
Speaker: Maybe not everyone's like this.
Speaker: And so that is why a lot of us tend to neglect these things that are super important, which are the relationships.
Speaker: And it definitely has cost me over time.
Speaker: I've had to learn some hard lessons.
Speaker: And if you are in a relationship or trying to be have a better relationship, I'm going to share with you some mistakes that I've made that hopefully you can learn from.
Speaker: I'm no master.
Speaker: I still make a ton of mistakes, but I want to share some things that I've some mistakes I've made.
Speaker: And hopefully it's a value to you.
Speaker: Okay, so basically I'm going to share three things that you should stop doing, okay?
Speaker: Or three things that you, that I've basically mistakes I've made, okay?
Speaker: And so number one, if you want to have a bad relationship, make sure you don't plan anything together, okay?
Speaker: Just do whatever you want, fly by the seat of your pants, don't schedule things,
Speaker: And this is something that has gotten me into a lot of trouble.
Speaker: I have done this for a long time.
Speaker: I'm starting to improve.
Speaker: But for the first, I don't know, probably three, four years being married, I would just plan whatever I want.
Speaker: I wanted to go on a backpacking trip with my buddies.
Speaker: I plan it.
Speaker: I'd let my wife know the week before.
Speaker: Hey, by the way, I plan this.
Speaker: I wanted to go to a conference, like a marketing conference or a sales conference, door to door con, whatever.
Speaker: I would buy the ticket, let my wife know like the week before, hey, I'm going to this.
Speaker: And then she would be a little upset, but like whatever.
Speaker: And now as we have, we had our second kid.
Speaker: This has been way more tough on her because I can't necessarily just get up and go.
Speaker: Because then I'm leaving my wife with two kids.
Speaker: We got no family in California.
Speaker: And so now it's kind of a bigger deal.
Speaker: So I can't get away with this as much.
Speaker: And so something
Speaker: If you are in a relationship, I would say start planning together.
Speaker: We try to do our weekly planning every Sunday.
Speaker: Some weeks are better than others with this, but as we do our weekly planning, we try to do part of it together and say, hey, what do you have going on this week?
Speaker: What's the schedule?
Speaker: When do you need me to watch the kids?
Speaker: Hey, give her a break.
Speaker: And so if you're in some type of relationship, I think this is something that would be super great for you to start right now.
Speaker: Start planning.
Speaker: First of all, do your weekly planning on a personal level.
Speaker: Every high producer I see is doing their weekly planning.
Speaker: typically on Sunday.
Speaker: And I have an episode on this.
Speaker: I can link to it in the show notes.
Speaker: But along with your weekly planning, include the people in your lives.
Speaker: Make sure you don't neglect them.
Speaker: The second mistake is this.
Speaker: Make sure you never talk about money.
Speaker: Spend whatever you want.
Speaker: Don't talk about money.
Speaker: and you'll have a great relationship.
Speaker: Just kidding.
Speaker: This is another mistake I made is, this is actually recent.
Speaker: Last year, we had an issue with an installer, and we went through, it was probably like a three, maybe four month stretch of not getting paid a dime.
Speaker: I was having installs going, but this installer was not paying us, made nothing for like three or four months.
Speaker: And we had some money saved up, whatever.
Speaker: It's solar, right?
Speaker: But it's like not getting paid for three or four months when you're seeing installs going.
Speaker: Like, freak, what's going on here?
Speaker: Is solar still good?
Speaker: Let me switch.
Speaker: And I did, you know, switch installers and wasn't having the issue.
Speaker: But it's just all the previous installs I had done through this specific installer.
Speaker: They were the ones going in right then.
Speaker: And then, obviously, the new ones I sold were different ones.
Speaker: We didn't have issues with them.
Speaker: But had I known I wasn't going to get paid, then of course I wouldn't have gone through this installer at the time.
Speaker: And so it caused us some stress.
Speaker: We were expecting and we had just closed on our first actual Airbnb property.
Speaker: here in southern utah and we did the down payment for that and everything and so definitely drained quite a bit of money out of the account doing that and then all of a sudden you're expecting to get refilled and then it's like whoa okay we don't have any money coming in now for a minute so it's bad timing for everything
Speaker: And so we made it through, but something that we did not do very much during this time is just plan, talk about money.
Speaker: And then another mistake I made with it, once we did have these commission checks coming in,
Speaker: I knew that my wife, she tends to, you know, when we have money, obviously she thinks about what she's going to buy less.
Speaker: She's more open to just spending without thinking as much when there are checks coming in.
Speaker: So what I decided to do, I'm like, okay, I'm going to make her think that we're not having checks coming in, that I'm still not getting paid my commissions.
Speaker: Okay, I have my business account.
Speaker: Of course, all your money should be going to your business account.
Speaker: So she doesn't necessarily see that account very often.
Speaker: I'm the one that accesses that one.
Speaker: So she didn't know how much was coming in.
Speaker: And so my bright idea was like, oh, I'm going to just not tell her how much money we're getting paid now.
Speaker: I'm going to make her think we're still broke.
Speaker: And then she's not going to go on these target trips and spend all this money.
Speaker: It worked for a minute.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But then finally I told her, hey, so we did, I did get paid a little bit because she was starting to stress way more than I wanted her to.
Speaker: She didn't think we're getting paid.
Speaker: And then I'm like, well, we actually have gotten paid.
Speaker: And she's like, how much?
Speaker: Well, it was like, we had like 30 grand come in.
Speaker: And she's like, are you serious?
Speaker: You didn't tell me.
Speaker: And, you know, that's where the trouble started.
Speaker: So I would not recommend that.
Speaker: Don't withhold, you know, in your relationships.
Speaker: It's important for your significant other.
Speaker: I don't know, depending on what level of relationship you're at.
Speaker: Probably not a good idea to withhold what you're making.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's got me in trouble and you should be a team in everything you do.
Speaker: So since then, I've been trying to be much better about this.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And we work as a team.
Speaker: We still budget stuff.
Speaker: And I tell her my concerns.
Speaker: I'm like, look, even though we have money coming and flowing in now, we still need to be conscious about what we're spending.
Speaker: And so a good tip that I got from my friend Brent Attaway, he says him and his wife set like a limit on how much they can spend without talking to each other.
Speaker: So for them, it's they can spend up to 500 bucks without needing to talk to each other.
Speaker: Anything more than that, they need to need to discuss it.
Speaker: So I thought that was a great idea.
Speaker: And obviously you should have guidelines.
Speaker: You should talk about your budgeting.
Speaker: And you should do something like that where you talk about how much you can spend without needing to talk to each other.
Speaker: So anyways, that's the second mistake that I made in my relationship is not talking about money.
Speaker: Okay, and then number three is just not having limits around my work home life.
Speaker: As I was, as I've been going in solar, you know, busier and busier you get, I realized that I was just bringing my customers home with me.
Speaker: I was having calls come in, customers having issues.
Speaker: I would be at home trying to eat dinner with my family, you know, at eight, nine o'clock when I get home.
Speaker: So when we usually have dinner and customer would text, customer would call.
Speaker: I would pause everything and
Speaker: I would get up from dinner, take the call, answer the text.
Speaker: And something that my man Danny Pesci taught me, this guy's not even married, but Danny Pesci, one of my mentors over at Noxstar, he did a call with us one time and he says that he sets boundaries with his customers.
Speaker: If his customers call between, you know, and hours where he has scheduled for his personal time, for his recharging, for his gym, for his meditation, whatever, he's not interrupting anything for that.
Speaker: Because what it is,
Speaker: And what I was doing, I was subconsciously thinking with a scarcity mindset.
Speaker: So I was like, oh, customers are calling.
Speaker: If I don't answer this, they could cancel.
Speaker: If I don't let them dictate my schedule, they could not be happy with the service.
Speaker: They could switch to another company.
Speaker: They could start overthinking it.
Speaker: I need to answer right now.
Speaker: Show them I'm there 100% of the time.
Speaker: This is scarcity thinking.
Speaker: You are doing your customers a service.
Speaker: They should not control your schedule.
Speaker: You should control your time.
Speaker: You should control your schedule.
Speaker: And so great tip that he gave us is set those boundaries, whether you're in a relationship or not, your customer should not be able to control you when you're responding to them.
Speaker: Obviously, you got to get back to them in a timely manner because yes, they will cancel.
Speaker: They will have doubts if you don't respond to them in a timely and quick manner.
Speaker: But if you were doing your meditation, if you're eating dinner with your family, be present, put the phone down, be in your relationships and
Speaker: And this is something that I'm trying to improve on, but we're trying to not, you know, use phones at the dinner table.
Speaker: Trying to be 100% present when we're, you know, taking care of the kids.
Speaker: And yeah, it's a constant battle.
Speaker: These phones, these machines we have in our hands, they are built to addict us, right, to their notifications.
Speaker: But simple as setting up those boundaries, you can set the sleep schedule now in your iPhone.
Speaker: If you have, you know, the true phone you should be using.
Speaker: I assume you can do something like that in Androids.
Speaker: But set up the times where you can't be bothered and can't be controlled by other people.
Speaker: You dictate your own schedule.
Speaker: You dictate what you want to do in your life.
Speaker: So those are just a few things, a few mistakes I've made.
Speaker: Hopefully you can learn from those, whether you're in a relationship or not.
Speaker: So again, number one, plan together.
Speaker: Make sure you're planning yourself and make sure if you are in relationships, you're planning time to cultivate those relationships and you're planning with your significant other, your wife, boyfriend, husband, girlfriend.
Speaker: Number two, talk about money with each other.
Speaker: You don't need to hide money under the table.
Speaker: I mean, I've heard I've had friends that do like the separate credit cards that, you know, husband, wife doesn't know about in separate accounts.
Speaker: It's like, come on.
Speaker: We got to be better.
Speaker: You don't need to be hiding stuff under the table.
Speaker: And then number three, just have those limits around work and regular life.
Speaker: Yeah, we're all out here grinding.
Speaker: We should be hustling super hard.
Speaker: But remember, at the end of the day, we're not going to be doing solar till we're 100.
Speaker: And what's going to be important after that, it's going to be the relationships.
Speaker: It's going to be the people around us.
Speaker: So we can't forget about those things.
Speaker: And I don't want to see any more people go through divorces.
Speaker: Like I've said, I've seen so many people have issues in their relationships.
Speaker: I've had my own issues.
Speaker: I'm far from perfect.
Speaker: But something that was inspiring to me is just seeing couples like Brandon Holmes that's about to come on the podcast and seeing how powerful that is to have a great relationship.
Speaker: So make sure you don't miss out on the next episode.
Speaker: That's going to be coming next time is Brandon Holmes is going to be jamming with us and his wife is going to share some secrets as well.
Speaker: They got some juicy stories.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So not for the faint of heart, he shares about his sex life and you know, all the juicy details.
Speaker: So make sure you don't miss out on that.
Speaker: You're going to, you're going to love it.
Speaker: And that's going to be coming up on the next time.
Speaker: So share this with anyone who could, you know, use a wake up call with their relationships.
Speaker: Make sure you don't neglect them.
Speaker: And with that being said, we'll see you on the next show.
Speaker: I'm going to be in Lake Powell.
Speaker: You may not hear from me.
Speaker: Take time for yourself.
Speaker: Take time for your relationships.
Speaker: And let's continually improve ourselves along with our sales skills.
Speaker: So we'll see you on the next one.
Speaker: what's up solopreneurs hope you enjoyed the episode before you run out and start selling more solar yourself wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind one of the top questions i get asked on instagram on facebook by our listeners is taylor where should i start what episodes should i listen to in the podcast
Speaker: You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
Speaker: So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and I would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solopreneur.
Speaker: We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new and you do not want to not have this sheet.
Speaker: So go download it right now.
Speaker: It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We will have that in the show notes.
Speaker: Go download it right now.
Speaker: And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
Speaker: That's going to show you how.
Speaker: So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.
