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 Solarpreneur you might ask?
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.
Speaker: What's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: My name's Taylor Armstrong, your host.
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.
Speaker: Hope you're doing well.
Speaker: We are live and free and available on Spotify, iTunes, and wherever you can find podcasts.
Speaker: So this podcast is going to be a little recap, little review of SolarCon.
Speaker: If you weren't at SolarCon, you missed out.
Speaker: It was an awesome event.
Speaker: And definitely I'm going to be there next year.
Speaker: But there were some good, there were some bad things.
Speaker: There were some ugly things.
Speaker: No, not really ugly.
Speaker: I would say generally it was a fantastic event.
Speaker: But there were a couple of things for improvement.
Speaker: So today we're going to be giving you all the happenings, everything that went down at SolarCon 2022.
Speaker: And you can hear and judge for yourself if you want to come next time.
Speaker: But first of all, appreciated everyone that came up and gave me a shout out, said what's up.
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.
Speaker: So for those that did that, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker: It means so much to me.
Speaker: And it's what keeps this show coming to you every week.
Speaker: So appreciate it again.
Speaker: And so let's jump into how the event was.
Speaker: If you didn't, you know, check it out.
Speaker: What I liked a lot about this event is obviously it was purely focused on solar.
Speaker: And it wasn't just focused on the cells, but also there were the manufacturers.
Speaker: You talked about all different things.
Speaker: really aspects of solar, pretty much every piece of the solar business in the industry.
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.
Speaker: It wasn't just focused on a couple, you know, aspects of it.
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.
Speaker: And maybe I'll shoot it out to, um, you know, solar Joe, Jake Hess, those guys were the masterminds behind this.
Speaker: Obviously they had a team.
Speaker: I know Jonah, Jonah Cafferty, a couple other people that's, um, probably don't get mentioned as much.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, we're going to hear all about the good and the bad here.
Speaker: So let's jump into it.
Speaker: We're going to start with the pros.
Speaker: So the pros were this.
Speaker: Number one, I think it was the best networking I've ever been a part of in the solar industry.
Speaker: A lot of us have been to other sales related events, but when do we have always 100% solar guys?
Speaker: It's unique that it was all solar guys there.
Speaker: And what was cool about it is they had networking events that were part of it.
Speaker: And as far as I know, everyone could go to these events.
Speaker: It wasn't just like VIP.
Speaker: There were separate, you know, different times for VIP ticket holders and a little bit different, I guess, time slots for it.
Speaker: But from what I saw, generally, everyone could go to the networking events after.
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.
Speaker: And after the event got over, I'm like, do I stay and go to the networking party after?
Speaker: In this case, it was like a concert.
Speaker: Or do I go to the jazz game and the jazz won out?
Speaker: I'm a huge Utah jazz fan.
Speaker: I named my kids after Utah jazz.
Speaker: One's named after a player.
Speaker: One's named after one of the owners.
Speaker: Got Stockton and Miller.
Speaker: So I couldn't let my kids down.
Speaker: I had to go to the jazz game and they lost.
Speaker: So I probably looking back, I should have gone to the concert and the networking that night.
Speaker: But hey, I don't have a crystal ball.
Speaker: You don't know if you're going to team your if your team is going to win or not.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that was my complaint with the first evening is they put it, they made me decide between the jazz or solar con.
Speaker: You can't make me, you know, make a decision that tough too hard.
Speaker: The jazz will probably win out every time.
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.
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.
Speaker: And then the other networking event was Friday, which I thought was off the hook.
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.
Speaker: And this was also sweet.
Speaker: They got food there.
Speaker: They had a DJ, you know, great environment.
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.
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
Speaker: Hey, what industry are you in or what, what market are you selling in?
Speaker: Just like shouting top of our lungs, um, to be heard.
Speaker: And my voice, I don't have the most booming voice.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so I'm having to put forth a ton of effort to be heard and get right next to people's ears.
Speaker: So, you know, I don't know.
Speaker: Um, that's probably the club we're at.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But maybe we should ask the DJ to turn down the music.
Speaker: But it was just tough.
Speaker: And what happened to me is I was doing podcasts during the event.
Speaker: And so the next day I went to do my first podcast.
Speaker: And I think I started off by saying, hey, my name is Taylor.
Speaker: My voice was pretty hoarse the next day for a little bit.
Speaker: So you're going to hear in these podcasts as they start leaking out.
Speaker: My voice was a little whack the night after Friday night, after shouting and screaming.
Speaker: But hey, it was a great networking party.
Speaker: So that's the networking with it.
Speaker: You had the two events.
Speaker: Oh, and they had 303 was doing the concert on Thursday night.
Speaker: So these guys were huge when I was in high school.
Speaker: So I like that.
Speaker: I like the thought that they had live entertainment, live band musician coming in.
Speaker: Just a bummer that I had to choose again between the jazz game.
Speaker: So that's the first pro.
Speaker: A lot of great networking.
Speaker: Got to meet a ton of awesome people.
Speaker: So again, thanks for coming and introducing yourself.
Speaker: And if I didn't meet you, come say what's up next time.
Speaker: Always love to meet as many people as possible.
Speaker: And the other pro was this.
Speaker: They had tons of free food and lots of great vendors.
Speaker: So that was just in general, I thought the vendors were awesome, but they stepped it up a notch.
Speaker: There was tons of food.
Speaker: And for those that don't know me, I love it when there's free food.
Speaker: So maybe that's...
Speaker: Um, just me, but I love it when guys are passing me on popcorn.
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.
Speaker: And yeah, I probably gained five pounds over the weekend, just eating cookies the whole time, but I loved it.
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.
Speaker: But I thought just in general, the overall ambience, overall, you know, just organization of the vendors was awesome.
Speaker: And hey, free food was great on top of that.
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: You had guys talking about batteries and energy storage.
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,
Speaker: So between all that, that's pretty much everything you could wish and hope for as a solar pro, as a solopreneur, right?
Speaker: I think that, you know, probably covers about every topic we would want in solar.
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.
Speaker: And we're not going into specific takeaways from it.
Speaker: So I'm not going to go into specific takeaways from the speakers and all that just because there's so much content.
Speaker: You would be here for hours and hours if we went over the highlights of all of them.
Speaker: And I guess the other reason I did do a lot of podcasts, got a lot of great content coming at y'all.
Speaker: And so I'll be honest, I did not see a ton of the speakers myself.
Speaker: I probably only got to five or six of the actual speakers and presentations during the event.
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.
Speaker: So you're not going to want to miss out on them.
Speaker: But anyways, that was, I would say the pros, the great things that I took away from the event.
Speaker: Okay, some really good stuff happening with it.
Speaker: And just a couple things that I felt...
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
Speaker: And the smaller stages were great.
Speaker: You had some panels there.
Speaker: You had, you know, a lot of the speakers did kind of breakout sessions.
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.
Speaker: And so at times it was a little distracting because I was trying to focus on the one,
Speaker: but I could hear just the echo of the other one since they weren't that far apart.
Speaker: So that was a little thing that I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know what the solution is.
Speaker: Guess you get it in a different room.
Speaker: Obviously would have been a good idea, but working with the space you have.
Speaker: And then the other thing is the speaker bios.
Speaker: There were quite a few people that I didn't really know who they were.
Speaker: Okay, and even myself, I feel like I'm pretty well connected in the solar industry, know quite a few people.
Speaker: Obviously, the podcast helps.
Speaker: But some of these speakers in the agenda, I'm like, who is this?
Speaker: What do they do?
Speaker: What are they about?
Speaker: So that would be my suggestion is, I don't know, maybe put the bios or put what they're doing.
Speaker: Put some sort of intriguing reason why I want to go listen to these guys.
Speaker: And some of them did have good titles, right?
Speaker: Like some of them, for example, you had a Rich Fiora, Solar Exclusive.
Speaker: It says how to double your appointments, your show rate, and your close rate without spending too much to acquire deals.
Speaker: Boom, like...
Speaker: That, yeah, sounds interesting.
Speaker: I'm going to go see it.
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.
Speaker: But for these other ones, like for example, you had one of the days it just says Andrew Evans.
Speaker: And I don't know Andrew, not sure who Andrew is.
Speaker: And so why am I going to go see him?
Speaker: It doesn't have a title.
Speaker: It doesn't have a bio.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you know what I mean?
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.
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.
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.
Speaker: And this is something, I don't know, to a degree you can't control.
Speaker: Obviously, you got to have all your, you got to get to a lot of people.
Speaker: There's a lot of different panels.
Speaker: And sometimes I know running an event, you can't control who's talking at the same time.
Speaker: You got to get to all of them.
Speaker: So sometimes you probably have to put two great speakers, two great panels at the same time.
Speaker: But I don't know if there's a way around it.
Speaker: On the last day, though, I did have two of my friends and two people I wanted to see speaking.
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.
Speaker: And Brent was talking about the fortunes of follow up.
Speaker: which I wanted to support both of them, loved both of their topics, but unfortunately I had to choose one between another.
Speaker: And if you're hearing, I'm not great at making choices on who to pick.
Speaker: So I went and saw Brent.
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.
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.
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.
Speaker: So I always love checking out some great vendors.
Speaker: because especially when they have, you know, updates or improvements to their products, it's super cool to hear what's going on.
Speaker: And you're going to hear that more and more.
Speaker: We've got several that have been on the show.
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.
Speaker: So always love to hear about the new products from the vendors.
Speaker: So awesome vendors, great speakers, great food, great networking.
Speaker: Obviously always stuff that can be improved.
Speaker: And I've never run a live event myself.
Speaker: So I'm sure I would have a ton of improvements to make.
Speaker: I'm thinking about live doing a live event.
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.
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.
Speaker: I think it'd be fun.
Speaker: So let me know.
Speaker: So hope that convinced you to come to SolarCon next year and to start coming to some of these events.
Speaker: You got to pick and choose.
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.
Speaker: So hope to see you at the next one and we will see you on the next show.
Speaker: Thanks for being an awesome listener and keep crushing it out there, closing your deals.
Speaker: Peace.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
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.
Speaker: One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: So you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, 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.
