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Solarcon Recap and Review!
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
Speaker
I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
What is a Solarpreneur?
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
Speaker
A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
00:00:42
Speaker
What's going on, solopreneurs?
00:00:44
Speaker
My name's Taylor Armstrong, your host.
00:00:47
Speaker
And as usual, we are here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:00:56
Speaker
Hope you're doing well.
00:00:58
Speaker
We are live and free and available on Spotify, iTunes, and wherever you can find podcasts.
SolarCon 2022 Experience
00:01:06
Speaker
So this podcast is going to be a little recap, little review of SolarCon.
00:01:11
Speaker
If you weren't at SolarCon, you missed out.
00:01:14
Speaker
It was an awesome event.
00:01:16
Speaker
And definitely I'm going to be there next year.
00:01:19
Speaker
But there were some good, there were some bad things.
00:01:23
Speaker
There were some ugly things.
00:01:24
Speaker
No, not really ugly.
00:01:25
Speaker
I would say generally it was a fantastic event.
00:01:29
Speaker
But there were a couple of things for improvement.
00:01:31
Speaker
So today we're going to be giving you all the happenings, everything that went down at SolarCon 2022.
00:01:38
Speaker
And you can hear and judge for yourself if you want to come next time.
00:01:43
Speaker
But first of all, appreciated everyone that came up and gave me a shout out, said what's up.
00:01:50
Speaker
Let me tell you, these events, it really energizes me because I do get a lot of people coming and saying how much they appreciate the podcast and the content.
00:01:58
Speaker
So for those that did that, thank you, thank you, thank you.
00:02:01
Speaker
It means so much to me.
00:02:02
Speaker
And it's what keeps this show coming to you every week.
00:02:06
Speaker
So appreciate it again.
00:02:09
Speaker
And so let's jump into how the event was.
00:02:12
Speaker
If you didn't, you know, check it out.
00:02:14
Speaker
What I liked a lot about this event is obviously it was purely focused on solar.
00:02:20
Speaker
And it wasn't just focused on the cells, but also there were the manufacturers.
00:02:25
Speaker
You talked about all different things.
00:02:27
Speaker
really aspects of solar, pretty much every piece of the solar business in the industry.
00:02:35
Speaker
So I thought it was really unique, really different for that than like a door-to-door con than like a Noxstar because you were focused on purely solar and just really all sides of it.
00:02:46
Speaker
It wasn't just focused on a couple, you know, aspects of it.
00:02:51
Speaker
So, um, first I'm going to go over just the pros, the things I did like, and then I'm going to go over a couple of things that I didn't like that I think can improve for next year.
Networking at SolarCon
00:03:02
Speaker
And maybe I'll shoot it out to, um, you know, solar Joe, Jake Hess, those guys were the masterminds behind this.
00:03:08
Speaker
Obviously they had a team.
00:03:10
Speaker
I know Jonah, Jonah Cafferty, a couple other people that's, um, probably don't get mentioned as much.
00:03:17
Speaker
Um, but yeah, we're going to hear all about the good and the bad here.
00:03:21
Speaker
So let's jump into it.
00:03:22
Speaker
We're going to start with the pros.
00:03:24
Speaker
So the pros were this.
00:03:26
Speaker
Number one, I think it was the best networking I've ever been a part of in the solar industry.
00:03:33
Speaker
A lot of us have been to other sales related events, but when do we have always 100% solar guys?
00:03:41
Speaker
It's unique that it was all solar guys there.
00:03:45
Speaker
And what was cool about it is they had networking events that were part of it.
00:03:50
Speaker
And as far as I know, everyone could go to these events.
00:03:53
Speaker
It wasn't just like VIP.
00:03:56
Speaker
There were separate, you know, different times for VIP ticket holders and a little bit different, I guess, time slots for it.
00:04:05
Speaker
But from what I saw, generally, everyone could go to the networking events after.
00:04:11
Speaker
And the one, I guess the complaint I had with the first night, Thursday you got there, event went great throughout the day, but what was going on also on Thursday was the Utah Jazz game.
00:04:27
Speaker
And after the event got over, I'm like, do I stay and go to the networking party after?
00:04:34
Speaker
In this case, it was like a concert.
00:04:36
Speaker
Or do I go to the jazz game and the jazz won out?
00:04:40
Speaker
I'm a huge Utah jazz fan.
00:04:42
Speaker
I named my kids after Utah jazz.
00:04:47
Speaker
One's named after a player.
00:04:48
Speaker
One's named after one of the owners.
00:04:51
Speaker
Got Stockton and Miller.
00:04:53
Speaker
So I couldn't let my kids down.
00:04:55
Speaker
I had to go to the jazz game and they lost.
00:04:57
Speaker
So I probably looking back, I should have gone to the concert and the networking that night.
00:05:03
Speaker
But hey, I don't have a crystal ball.
00:05:04
Speaker
You don't know if you're going to team your if your team is going to win or not.
00:05:08
Speaker
Right.
00:05:09
Speaker
So that was my complaint with the first evening is they put it, they made me decide between the jazz or solar con.
00:05:16
Speaker
You can't make me, you know, make a decision that tough too hard.
00:05:21
Speaker
The jazz will probably win out every time.
00:05:24
Speaker
So, and obviously, you know, they probably didn't, I don't think these guys are big jazz fans and probably the playoff schedule wasn't announced yet.
00:05:32
Speaker
So probably not a lot you can do about that, but I guess something that I wish I didn't have to decide between.
00:05:41
Speaker
And then the other networking event was Friday, which I thought was off the hook.
00:05:46
Speaker
Titan put together this networking event and it was at a little club just across the street from the Salt Palace where the event was held.
00:05:57
Speaker
And this was also sweet.
00:05:58
Speaker
They got food there.
00:05:59
Speaker
They had a DJ, you know, great environment.
00:06:05
Speaker
I guess my only complaint with this little networking club they had is there were a ton of people out of, which is awesome.
00:06:12
Speaker
Got to meet a lot of people in solar, but it was so loud in there and the space was so tight that we are literally shouting top of our lungs and
00:06:21
Speaker
Hey, what industry are you in or what, what market are you selling in?
00:06:26
Speaker
Just like shouting top of our lungs, um, to be heard.
00:06:30
Speaker
And my voice, I don't have the most booming voice.
00:06:33
Speaker
Right.
00:06:34
Speaker
And so I'm having to put forth a ton of effort to be heard and get right next to people's ears.
00:06:40
Speaker
So, you know, I don't know.
00:06:42
Speaker
Um, that's probably the club we're at.
00:06:43
Speaker
Right.
00:06:44
Speaker
But maybe we should ask the DJ to turn down the music.
00:06:47
Speaker
But it was just tough.
00:06:48
Speaker
And what happened to me is I was doing podcasts during the event.
00:06:53
Speaker
And so the next day I went to do my first podcast.
00:06:55
Speaker
And I think I started off by saying, hey, my name is Taylor.
00:06:59
Speaker
My voice was pretty hoarse the next day for a little bit.
00:07:03
Speaker
So you're going to hear in these podcasts as they start leaking out.
00:07:07
Speaker
My voice was a little whack the night after Friday night, after shouting and screaming.
00:07:15
Speaker
But hey, it was a great networking party.
00:07:18
Speaker
So that's the networking with it.
00:07:20
Speaker
You had the two events.
00:07:21
Speaker
Oh, and they had 303 was doing the concert on Thursday night.
00:07:26
Speaker
So these guys were huge when I was in high school.
00:07:29
Speaker
So I like that.
00:07:30
Speaker
I like the thought that they had live entertainment, live band musician coming in.
00:07:36
Speaker
Just a bummer that I had to choose again between the jazz game.
00:07:40
Speaker
So that's the first pro.
00:07:42
Speaker
A lot of great networking.
00:07:43
Speaker
Got to meet a ton of awesome people.
00:07:45
Speaker
So again, thanks for coming and introducing yourself.
00:07:49
Speaker
And if I didn't meet you, come say what's up next time.
00:07:52
Speaker
Always love to meet as many people as possible.
00:07:55
Speaker
And the other pro was this.
00:07:57
Speaker
They had tons of free food and lots of great vendors.
00:08:03
Speaker
So that was just in general, I thought the vendors were awesome, but they stepped it up a notch.
00:08:08
Speaker
There was tons of food.
00:08:10
Speaker
And for those that don't know me, I love it when there's free food.
00:08:14
Speaker
So maybe that's...
00:08:16
Speaker
Um, just me, but I love it when guys are passing me on popcorn.
00:08:20
Speaker
You know, I was hanging out at the pie syndicate booth where they were doing these dirty dough cookies, just all you can eat cookies the whole day.
00:08:28
Speaker
And yeah, I probably gained five pounds over the weekend, just eating cookies the whole time, but I loved it.
00:08:35
Speaker
So, uh, if you are a vendor and you're giving out free food, I will probably come listen to you because I love hearing about that.
00:08:42
Speaker
But I thought just in general, the overall ambience, overall, you know, just organization of the vendors was awesome.
00:08:50
Speaker
And hey, free food was great on top of that.
00:08:54
Speaker
And then as I already mentioned a little bit, I thought they just had a great speaker lineup and really combination of topics.
Speaker Topics and Venue Challenges
00:09:02
Speaker
You had guys talking about batteries and energy storage.
00:09:05
Speaker
You had guys talking about door knocking and lead generation at social media, brand strategies, virtual and phone selling, solar design and sales software, recruiting and team management, solar financing, selling solar as a roofer, sales mindsets, sales for commercial accounting for solar, building your business,
00:09:25
Speaker
So between all that, that's pretty much everything you could wish and hope for as a solar pro, as a solopreneur, right?
00:09:33
Speaker
I think that, you know, probably covers about every topic we would want in solar.
00:09:39
Speaker
So I thought there was a great combination of it, great speakers, and you learned a ton just not being exposed as much to some of these other things with the product knowledge, with the batteries, great combination of it.
00:09:52
Speaker
And we're not going into specific takeaways from it.
00:09:57
Speaker
So I'm not going to go into specific takeaways from the speakers and all that just because there's so much content.
00:10:04
Speaker
You would be here for hours and hours if we went over the highlights of all of them.
00:10:09
Speaker
And I guess the other reason I did do a lot of podcasts, got a lot of great content coming at y'all.
00:10:16
Speaker
And so I'll be honest, I did not see a ton of the speakers myself.
00:10:21
Speaker
I probably only got to five or six of the actual speakers and presentations during the event.
00:10:27
Speaker
So maybe we should get someone else on that did see a lot more goals, but I think it's nice to just have a little recap and we're going to get, you know, specific stuff and go deeper because we got the podcast and a lot of these guys that spoke on stage at the event, they're coming on the show.
00:10:46
Speaker
So you're not going to want to miss out on them.
00:10:49
Speaker
But anyways, that was, I would say the pros, the great things that I took away from the event.
00:10:58
Speaker
Okay, some really good stuff happening with it.
00:11:01
Speaker
And just a couple things that I felt...
00:11:04
Speaker
could be improved well first of all the events it was in one giant room it was at the convention center obviously and you had all the vendors in one section and then just as you went further you saw the main stage and then off to the left and right there were two smaller stages
00:11:25
Speaker
And the smaller stages were great.
00:11:28
Speaker
You had some panels there.
00:11:30
Speaker
You had, you know, a lot of the speakers did kind of breakout sessions.
00:11:35
Speaker
But what happened a few times as I went to a couple of these is you could hear, since it was all in the same general area, you could hear the other speaker at the same time as you're trying to listen to the one that's on your stage.
00:11:50
Speaker
And so at times it was a little distracting because I was trying to focus on the one,
00:11:53
Speaker
but I could hear just the echo of the other one since they weren't that far apart.
00:11:59
Speaker
So that was a little thing that I don't know.
00:12:02
Speaker
I don't know what the solution is.
00:12:03
Speaker
Guess you get it in a different room.
00:12:05
Speaker
Obviously would have been a good idea, but working with the space you have.
00:12:10
Speaker
And then the other thing is the speaker bios.
00:12:14
Speaker
There were quite a few people that I didn't really know who they were.
00:12:20
Speaker
Okay, and even myself, I feel like I'm pretty well connected in the solar industry, know quite a few people.
00:12:27
Speaker
Obviously, the podcast helps.
00:12:29
Speaker
But some of these speakers in the agenda, I'm like, who is this?
00:12:33
Speaker
What do they do?
00:12:35
Speaker
What are they about?
00:12:37
Speaker
So that would be my suggestion is, I don't know, maybe put the bios or put what they're doing.
00:12:44
Speaker
Put some sort of intriguing reason why I want to go listen to these guys.
00:12:48
Speaker
And some of them did have good titles, right?
00:12:53
Speaker
Like some of them, for example, you had a Rich Fiora, Solar Exclusive.
00:12:57
Speaker
It says how to double your appointments, your show rate, and your close rate without spending too much to acquire deals.
00:13:03
Speaker
Boom, like...
00:13:04
Speaker
That, yeah, sounds interesting.
00:13:06
Speaker
I'm going to go see it.
00:13:06
Speaker
Even if I don't know who Richard is, I'm probably, I might go check it out because it's a cool title.
00:13:14
Speaker
But for these other ones, like for example, you had one of the days it just says Andrew Evans.
00:13:21
Speaker
And I don't know Andrew, not sure who Andrew is.
00:13:25
Speaker
And so why am I going to go see him?
00:13:27
Speaker
It doesn't have a title.
00:13:28
Speaker
It doesn't have a bio.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:31
Speaker
So you know what I mean?
00:13:32
Speaker
So I think if there could have been maybe better titles and maybe just bios, biographies, telling what this person does, then I think it could have helped for me, a guy that wants to know exactly what I'm going to spend my time listening to.
00:13:49
Speaker
Probably would help me just to know a little bit more about the speakers in the agenda and what's going on with it.
00:13:56
Speaker
And then I guess the last thing, last little room for improvement that I found is there were a couple times where there was great panels and speakers going on at the same time.
00:14:09
Speaker
And this is something, I don't know, to a degree you can't control.
00:14:13
Speaker
Obviously, you got to have all your, you got to get to a lot of people.
00:14:16
Speaker
There's a lot of different panels.
00:14:19
Speaker
And sometimes I know running an event, you can't control who's talking at the same time.
00:14:24
Speaker
You got to get to all of them.
00:14:25
Speaker
So sometimes you probably have to put two great speakers, two great panels at the same time.
00:14:31
Speaker
But I don't know if there's a way around it.
00:14:33
Speaker
On the last day, though, I did have two of my friends and two people I wanted to see speaking.
00:14:38
Speaker
We had Lindsey Erickson and Brent Attaway, who both Lindsey was talking about the science of service and current state of customer service and solar.
00:14:47
Speaker
And Brent was talking about the fortunes of follow up.
00:14:51
Speaker
which I wanted to support both of them, loved both of their topics, but unfortunately I had to choose one between another.
00:14:57
Speaker
And if you're hearing, I'm not great at making choices on who to pick.
00:15:03
Speaker
So I went and saw Brent.
00:15:04
Speaker
So sorry, Lindsay, but Brent, he had already pre-committed me and actually like had me give a little kind of testimonial and talk about what we're doing in his follow-up program.
00:15:17
Speaker
So just a couple of things, but overall it was an awesome event and I forgot they did have some awesome lunches going on too.
00:15:25
Speaker
I think those were just for VIPs, but every day there was lunch and then you got to hear from some of the vendors just about their product and new updates.
00:15:35
Speaker
So I always love checking out some great vendors.
00:15:39
Speaker
because especially when they have, you know, updates or improvements to their products, it's super cool to hear what's going on.
00:15:45
Speaker
And you're going to hear that more and more.
00:15:47
Speaker
We've got several that have been on the show.
00:15:50
Speaker
And for example, Repcard, they came out with these new little, they're like, I guess, handouts you can leave at people's doors that they can scan and new product they were highlighting.
00:16:03
Speaker
So always love to hear about the new products from the vendors.
00:16:06
Speaker
So awesome vendors, great speakers, great food, great networking.
00:16:11
Speaker
Obviously always stuff that can be improved.
00:16:15
Speaker
And I've never run a live event myself.
00:16:17
Speaker
So I'm sure I would have a ton of improvements to make.
00:16:21
Speaker
I'm thinking about live doing a live event.
00:16:24
Speaker
Let me know, shoot me a message if you would like to come to a solopreneur live event, thinking we'd maybe do like a more of a mastermind style, keep it smaller because there's already a solar con.
Future Plans and Offerings
00:16:36
Speaker
But let me know if that's something that interests you because I've thought definitely about doing that and getting together, you know, high minded solopreneurs like yourselves and just jamming for a few days.
00:16:48
Speaker
I think it'd be fun.
00:16:49
Speaker
So let me know.
00:16:50
Speaker
So hope that convinced you to come to SolarCon next year and to start coming to some of these events.
00:16:56
Speaker
You got to pick and choose.
00:16:58
Speaker
Obviously, you're not going to go to every single event, but I would say SolarCon, that's a pretty safe bet, a pretty awesome event if you can make it to the next one.
00:17:07
Speaker
So hope to see you at the next one and we will see you on the next show.
00:17:10
Speaker
Thanks for being an awesome listener and keep crushing it out there, closing your deals.
00:17:15
Speaker
Peace.
00:17:17
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
00:17:18
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:17:19
Speaker
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.
00:17:30
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:17:37
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:17:40
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:17:45
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.
00:17:58
Speaker
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Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
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We will have that in the show notes.
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Speaker
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Speaker
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