Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: All right, what's up, everybody?
Speaker: We're here for not the first, but the second time with the one, the only Ricardo Ritchie, one of the greatest in the industry.
Speaker: Thanks for coming on the podcast with us again, Ricardo.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: Good to be here, man.
Speaker: Appreciate it.
Speaker: I'm excited.
Speaker: And we're going to be jamming on some cool stuff.
Speaker: Ricardo actually just got done doing a little net metering.
Speaker: 3.0 challenge.
Speaker: You did how many, what, like 100, over 100 deals in 60 days, right?
Speaker: 112 in 60.
Speaker: Technically 60 days.
Speaker: We took like 10 days off more than that.
Speaker: So yeah, 112 in 60 days.
Speaker: So absolutely incredible.
Speaker: The guy continues to shatter records to just do things that no one else has ever done in the industry.
Speaker: So you know it's going to be a good time on the podcast.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: Hanging out with
Speaker: with a recorder um but yeah so if you have not listened to our first episode we recorded it i think about a year and a half ago um beginning of 2022 so we'll link to that you can go listen to a little bit more of ricardo's background and um
Speaker: you know what he what he had going on at that time so link to that but uh today we're gonna yeah talk about just like how he he did over 100 deals in 50 60 days um we're gonna catch up on what he's up to now but uh yeah do you want to fill us in it's been what a year and a half now a couple years i think yeah a year and a half two years
Speaker: So last time we talked, Ricardo, I guess the first question I got for you, last time we talked, I think your record at that point you'd done like 1.9 million in a month, I think it was.
Speaker: And I think the most deals you'd done in a month was like 42 or something.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: I can't remember, to be honest.
Speaker: I just listened to it on the way up, so I'm pretty sure that's what it was.
Speaker: But have you beat those records?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Was it really?
Speaker: 42 at that time?
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: We've beaten it since.
Speaker: So my new record that was NEM3 and NEM2 last month of NEM2 in March was 96 deals.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That was my best month ever, but that was craziness.
Speaker: That was the last month of NEM2, so everyone was signing up.
Speaker: So 96, I beat that, and then my best week, 32, that I did the last week of March in the NEM2 push.
Speaker: Those are the new records, I guess.
Speaker: insane and yeah these are like video game numbers like no one that i know of that does these type of numbers and um it shows because if you've seen ricardo he's he's a he's skinny right now the guy barely eats it's all closing deals but uh i told him he does look like he has a little more meat on the bones since last time last time i thought we looked like a skeleton so i haven't closed anything in like a month so so that's why we're just not out there he's uh yeah filling up the coverage again
Speaker: But yeah, so do you want to fill us in?
Speaker: It's been a year and a half.
Speaker: Do you want to fill us in maybe like what you've been up to since then?
Speaker: I know like you obviously have your company momentous here.
Speaker: So yeah, catch us up a little bit.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: Yeah, a lot of stuff.
Speaker: A lot of stuff happens.
Speaker: So yeah, a little fill in.
Speaker: Obviously, last time we talked, we were both at our old company.
Speaker: We were there together.
Speaker: Obviously, things happened there.
Speaker: So about six months ago, started Momentus with Travis, and then all of our original team that we had from Future Home came over, a lot of guys, and we started Momentus since then.
Speaker: So that was officially started in January.
Speaker: Ever since then, it's been crazy.
Speaker: Had a ton of growth going on.
Speaker: We started maybe with...
Speaker: 15 people at a time, 20 people.
Speaker: When we really first started Momentus, we're up to about 100 now, just on the door-to-door side.
Speaker: We launched the virtual division that's really just starting to pick up.
Speaker: We started that a couple months ago.
Speaker: We have about 30 people are still on the virtual side, so cranking the online game and call centers and Zoom and all of that fun stuff.
Speaker: So it's just been exponential growth since.
Speaker: So really just relearning a bunch of other stuff and scaling the company, doing all new things.
Speaker: So it's been fun.
Speaker: It's been good.
Speaker: Yeah, a lot of stuff.
Speaker: Like you said, we went through a lot at our previous company when we were working together, and I'm sure there's been a lot of lessons learned since then.
Speaker: Tons.
Speaker: For you starting your own company now, what's been the biggest shift you've had to make?
Speaker: I know it's more work for you, but what's been the shift for you having to go from selling to now teaching everyone else to sell, to running the entire company?
Speaker: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker: It's a lot more work, to answer your question.
Speaker: A lot more work, and it's a little less fun, but it's more fulfilling, in my opinion.
Speaker: I mean, the biggest shift is really going from it.
Speaker: I mean, I had teams before, and I had pretty big teams before, so it's something that I learned, but it's one thing to have a team or manage a team in a company, and it's one thing where you actually have the company because then everything falls on you, right?
Speaker: There's nobody to blame.
Speaker: There's no one to point a finger at.
Speaker: It's all on you, so it's really that...
Speaker: extreme level of ownership to where like anything that goes on in here.
Speaker: It's my fault at the end of the day.
Speaker: So it's really having that ownership, but also like just shifting the mindset, right?
Speaker: To I'm pretty self-accountable person, meaning I know that if I have to get something done, I will, but then it's learning to really instill a culture and build a culture where everyone else
Speaker: kind of does the same thing and gets the same results as I did.
Speaker: So it's really shifting the mindset.
Speaker: Obviously, I've always been really focused on personal production and I know I can go out and produce big numbers.
Speaker: So we got to a point where like that's really no longer a challenge, quote unquote, for me to do.
Speaker: And so the biggest challenge is how many people can we teach how to do the same thing and how can we have a cool culture and create a lot of success.
Speaker: So it's really just shifting a mindset from my personal results and personal production to collective results and collective production, right?
Speaker: So it's
Speaker: If I were to make a decision before, maybe a year or two years ago, without a company, I would have made a decision that would benefit my personal production.
Speaker: Whereas now, I'd make a decision that benefits the collective.
Speaker: So it's just a different vision, different way of looking at things.
Speaker: Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker: And what's cool is you've been able to replicate.
Speaker: I mean, no one's doing the numbers you're doing, but you have several guys, like we just said.
Speaker: Cade Hiltz said on the podcast is doing 25 to 30 a month.
Speaker: I know you have a lot of other guys, setters that are cranking deals, a lot of guys producing.
Speaker: What's cool is you've really taken it leading from the front to the extreme, and guys do insane numbers.
Speaker: I don't know anyone that does the type of volume.
Speaker: I guess you could say per capita, based on team size.
Speaker: You probably have the heaviest-hitting solar team that I've seen in the industry.
Speaker: So do you think, um, like for you guys, is it more training?
Speaker: Do you think it's leading from the front?
Speaker: What are some things you're doing to get your guys to produce at such a high level and have such high quality reps in your office?
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: I mean, I think it's a little bit of everything kind of like all of the above, like you said.
Speaker: And by the way, some of my guys are right now, some of our guys are actually getting close to my numbers because, um,
Speaker: Chandler and Kate are pretty much closing the same amount I was closing when I was full time, maybe not PP, but yeah, pretty much the same.
Speaker: So yeah, no, guys are absolutely throwing down.
Speaker: I think it's a couple things.
Speaker: I mean, it's a little bit of both.
Speaker: One, I think leading from the front is huge.
Speaker: The one big thing that pushed me to really go crazy, I mean, just the NEM challenge, the only reason why I did that is that was kind of my last 60-day run on really kind of closing before I wanted to fully transition into worrying about everything else in the company and scaling it.
Speaker: So I just wanted to leave something behind where it pushes the lid from everybody else.
Speaker: So I think that's important.
Speaker: At the end of the day, no one is going to do the numbers that are unthinkable or that you don't think anyone's going to hit unless somebody does it first.
Speaker: And so I just wanted to be the first person to do it so where everybody else can kind of fall in those numbers.
Speaker: footprints and footsteps and see how to do it right because obviously it's a lot easier if you see somebody in the office that's next to you all day every day doing this type of numbers it's a lot easier to actually go do it because it gives you belief it's a thing in the culture and obviously training is huge right so
Speaker: We do a lot of training.
Speaker: We role play in the office.
Speaker: We have a very specific way in which we train.
Speaker: We have our own roadmap.
Speaker: I have my closing roadmap.
Speaker: We have a setting roadmap.
Speaker: We have very specific things and a very specific way in which we teach guys how to close and how to set to where the process flows.
Speaker: So obviously I think training is huge.
Speaker: I think a lot of proximity is probably the most important thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's really just being around guys that produce high numbers when you're around that every day and you see guys doing it every day and you see what they do every day.
Speaker: It's inevitable, right?
Speaker: It's inevitable that everyone else is going to do it eventually, as long as you're putting in the work.
Speaker: So I think atmosphere and proximity is the biggest.
Speaker: Obviously, training is huge.
Speaker: Culture.
Speaker: I mean, obviously, we have a big, hardworking culture.
Speaker: Everyone that's in here is required to work the hours due to things that we train.
Speaker: And so everybody's self-accountable in that way.
Speaker: So it's really just the whole culture has been set up that way.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, and I've seen, I was talking with Travis about this too, but some companies, they have their leaders who aren't even selling anymore.
Speaker: They're just telling guys what to do.
Speaker: So it's really cool that you took it upon yourself to do that challenge because you're like, guys, any M3 is not a big deal.
Speaker: I literally just went on and did over 100.
Speaker: So now it's like anytime your reps come to you and say, this is too hard, too many changes.
Speaker: Like, no, I did it myself.
Speaker: I know what it takes to succeed in this.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I'm a big believer in that.
Speaker: I mean, I'm a big believer that you don't ask anybody else to do anything you're not willing to do or you haven't done.
Speaker: So, I mean, that's how I've always led, I guess, in my life is I'm not going to ask anyone to do something unless I've done it before or unless I'm willing to go do it.
Speaker: I mean, I ask our setters and our guys to work harder than most people.
Speaker: But the only reason why I ask that is because I've worked harder than most people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And sometimes we'll go through a competition and I will ask them to go absolutely insane and not 10, 12 hour days.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I would never ask that if I didn't spend years knocking 12 hour days.
Speaker: And so it's just you can do certain things and it's part of the culture if everyone knows that you're willing to do it first.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But, but I see a lot of leaders sitting back right at the office on the chair, whatever, telling everybody what to do.
Speaker: And that's cool.
Speaker: Cause there's a time and place for that.
Speaker: But, but yeah, I mean, you're just not going to get the same type of results when, when everyone else knows that you've been there, done that before.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think we talked about that on our first podcast too, but really half, well, I think a big part of your success is you're just literally willing to work harder than anyone else's.
Speaker: I watched a video of Will Smith the other day.
Speaker: They were asking him, like, why he's such a good actor?
Speaker: And
Speaker: or like what it takes to succeed.
Speaker: And he's like, if you put me on a treadmill with the other guy competing for the acting job against, I would die on that treadmill.
Speaker: That's why I'm successful.
Speaker: Cause I'm willing to die on it.
Speaker: You seen that video?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think you guys are doing the same thing.
Speaker: And I know that cause we had just had a cage, one of your top guys on the podcast and you guys were just talking about outside kids.
Speaker: Like, Oh, I was, I've been working seven days or maybe it was last month or something.
Speaker: seven days for a month.
Speaker: I was sick for like two weeks after that.
Speaker: It's like all your guys are doing stuff that you're doing.
Speaker: And I see that it's a big lead by the front team.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: It's part of the culture.
Speaker: I mean, and obviously everybody gets rewarded for that because I mean, you get
Speaker: big numbers and there's a lot of things that come with that which is great but obviously it's like it's just showing an example of what it actually takes i think the biggest thing that my guys get to see that nobody else gets to see is what it actually takes to do those things and that's why the last the name challenge that we did i i filmed a lot of things i was filming before and after videos morning night i was filming my clothes but i really just wanted it to be something to wear
Speaker: everyone actually gets to see what it's like to do something like that.
Speaker: Because my guys see it, right?
Speaker: They see me in the office and I'm destroyed.
Speaker: I'm tired.
Speaker: I'm not sleeping.
Speaker: I'm just going, right?
Speaker: But nobody else does.
Speaker: And then maybe they just see the number and they see, oh, he closed this many.
Speaker: Must be easy or whatever.
Speaker: Must be lucky or he might, you know.
Speaker: So my guys get to see that part.
Speaker: And that's why they emulate it because they're like, oh, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I guess he does that.
Speaker: I do the same thing.
Speaker: They get the same results.
Speaker: I mean, Katie is averaging probably the same amount that I was closing a peak.
Speaker: He's closing 50 deals a month.
Speaker: Right now, you know, so yeah, it's just a good, it's a good role model.
Speaker: I think it's just a good way to show.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: You have so many guys that are producing at that high level.
Speaker: But yeah, I want to transition a little bit.
Speaker: And I'm sure people are curious to know, like how you actually, you know, did the 100 deals in two months or whatever.
Speaker: We'll talk a little bit about that, get into your clothes a little bit.
Speaker: It's cool with you.
Speaker: But yeah, I think just going off that, just to finish that thought you had, if you're listening to this podcast and you haven't put in those long days like that, I think that should be one of the first questions people ask themselves if they're not having the success you want to have.
Speaker: It's like, are you really putting in that effort?
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Are you working like 10, 12 hour days before you throw in the towel?
Speaker: Because a lot of guys, they complain about not getting success.
Speaker: That's I'm sure for your guys, they're not having success.
Speaker: That's probably like the first thing you look at, right?
Speaker: How many hours are you actually working?
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: What's the time you're putting in?
Speaker: I mean, I'll give you a little glimpse of that.
Speaker: I just actually finished.
Speaker: I spent the last two weeks basically having a one-on-one with every single person in the company.
Speaker: I have a few left, but I've done most of them.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And so kind of really diving in each person per person to figure out what it takes for them to be successful.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: And obviously that happens a lot.
Speaker: You're like, oh, I'm not getting the results I want.
Speaker: And we track everything by inputs.
Speaker: I'm a big believer in inputs over outputs.
Speaker: Even when I'm going on a big push, if I want to sell a ton of deals, I never count the actual deals.
Speaker: I don't count how much I'm actually selling.
Speaker: I only count my inputs.
Speaker: Am I working the hours?
Speaker: Am I hitting X many doors?
Speaker: Am I hitting X many appointments?
Speaker: How many hours a day am I working?
Speaker: Because as long as you do that, everything else falls into place.
Speaker: So that's the first thing.
Speaker: I get a lot of people, like tons of people that will ask me, Ricky, what's your closing line?
Speaker: Or...
Speaker: What's your secret?
Speaker: You know, you've heard it all.
Speaker: What's your secret?
Speaker: What's your closing line?
Speaker: What do you do to close that many deals?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There isn't really a secret, but obviously there's things you can do, right?
Speaker: There's a good process and a bad process and all of those things.
Speaker: But I always say the first prerequisite is are you working 10 or 12-hour days?
Speaker: Because if you're not, there's literally nothing I can teach you that's going to increase your production.
Speaker: Maybe a little bit.
Speaker: So that's the way I approach everything with our guys.
Speaker: When they come to me and they say, I don't have – I'm not closing as much as I want to or I'm not producing as much as I want to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, let's look at your hours.
Speaker: Let's pull up the knocking app.
Speaker: How many doors did you knock?
Speaker: What's your conversion?
Speaker: How many hours?
Speaker: What was your first door?
Speaker: What was your last door?
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Let's track actually how many hours you've worked.
Speaker: If you haven't worked the hours, like we're not going to train.
Speaker: Go work the hours.
Speaker: You work the hours, come back to me.
Speaker: Oh, look, I knocked 10 hours a day for two weeks and I sold nothing.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Now let's figure out what's wrong.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: But you can have a perfect pitch.
Speaker: But if you do it for three hours a day, it doesn't work.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so number one is actually the hours.
Speaker: And then that's the first step.
Speaker: If you don't have that, nothing else that I'm going to teach you matters.
Speaker: I could teach the best pitch, best clothes, best whatever.
Speaker: If you don't do it for 10 hours a day, you're just not going to see results.
Speaker: So like that's the bottom line, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: And I'm sure a lot of your guys, like if they're not having the success, that's probably what it comes down to.
Speaker: Always.
Speaker: I have never seen, and I will say it, I have never seen ever, actually my door-to-door career.
Speaker: I mean, I'm not going to say ever, maybe a few, but
Speaker: Almost never, 99% of the time.
Speaker: I have never seen somebody consistently work 10-hour days for a month and not get good results.
Speaker: I have never seen that happen other than a few rare occasions.
Speaker: But other than that, it's 99% of the time, it's literally just the hours.
Speaker: Can you be more efficient?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Can you close at a better rate?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But if you put in a base level of effort consistently, I've never seen somebody not succeed.
Speaker: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker: Well, I've told stories on the podcast that I've worked with guys that have
Speaker: Like, you know, mental disorders.
Speaker: I've seen guys have like forms of autism, stuff like that.
Speaker: Come out and just work like crazy and have success at this job.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: So it's like, okay, if people have mental things going on can do this and have success, then like, I think I can all do it.
Speaker: It's really just how bad do you want and how willing are you to put in the work and how willing are you to learn, right?
Speaker: And go through adversity.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, I know some guys struggle with because, yeah, it's like some people are probably thinking, oh, yeah, easy for you to say, Ricardo, but I just don't have what it takes to go out there and do 10, 12-hour days.
Speaker: So I know for you, if someone doesn't want to do it, you're probably just like, all right, go work for a different company.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: basically because yeah i've worked with you but um like what would you say to a guy that's maybe just struggling with motivation like they really are skilled but they're just like dude i honestly like maybe they don't i haven't figured out why they're doing it or um they can't tap into that motivation they just like can't think like you're thinking do you have any wait i like how do you empathize with that and like
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: I mean, obviously, no one is.
Speaker: I'm maybe on the far end of extreme, right?
Speaker: And then there's people in the middle.
Speaker: So not everybody in our company is that way.
Speaker: Obviously, people do need motivation.
Speaker: But, I mean, to me, it really comes down to clarity of what you want and what you want to achieve and map down your goal.
Speaker: Because not everybody needs to work like crazy.
Speaker: We're not saying that.
Speaker: And we don't have every single person in here work like crazy.
Speaker: But you've got to know what you want.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So if somebody comes to me and says, hey, Ricky, I want to make whatever.
Speaker: I want to make 200 grand a year.
Speaker: I want to sell 60 accounts or whatever.
Speaker: And that's what I want.
Speaker: Because this is X, Y, and Z. And this is the life I want.
Speaker: That's totally fine.
Speaker: Then do the actions that map to that.
Speaker: And you're happy.
Speaker: And that's great.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: And nobody's going to tell you, go work 12-hour days.
Speaker: This is what you want.
Speaker: The issue a lot of people have is they have a goal that's way outside of what they're willing to do.
Speaker: So somebody will come and will say, hey, Ricky, I want to make a million dollars.
Speaker: But I'm not willing to do this.
Speaker: How do I get the motivation to go make a million?
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: And then you're out of line.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: And so you just, the biggest thing for me is making sure that your actual goal and what you think you want or what you say you want, you're actually aligning your actions to that.
Speaker: If you tell me I want to make $100,000, that's fine.
Speaker: You don't need to work like crazy at all.
Speaker: Just work three hours a day.
Speaker: work four hours a day, do that and you're fine.
Speaker: But then nobody that does that was going to come to me and say, oh, Ricky, how do I go do this?
Speaker: And so it's really just being aligned with what you want.
Speaker: So the first thing is clarity, right?
Speaker: Don't have a big goal or saying you have a big goal and not be willing to match it with actions because that's where people get stuck.
Speaker: They might see me producing tons of numbers, or they might see my guys producing tons of numbers, and they might say, oh, wow, I want to do that.
Speaker: I want to sell that much.
Speaker: I want to make that much money.
Speaker: But then they're not willing to go back it up with work.
Speaker: And maybe that's not what they want, and that's fine.
Speaker: They don't have to do that, but you have to match it to what you want.
Speaker: So I think that's the biggest thing is really –
Speaker: have clarity first, like spend some time actually figuring out why you're doing this.
Speaker: What is it that you want?
Speaker: What is your end goal?
Speaker: Like short term and long term, right?
Speaker: And we do that with all of our guys.
Speaker: I do one on ones with them.
Speaker: I write them down.
Speaker: We want to know what their short term goal is, like three to six months.
Speaker: What's the two year goal, five year goal.
Speaker: And if somebody tells me I want to make 200 grand a year, I'm never going to tell them go work 12 hours a day every day.
Speaker: It's just not what they want.
Speaker: But map it.
Speaker: Somebody tells me I want to make 10 million in the next three years.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: We can map that too.
Speaker: But it's a completely different roadmap.
Speaker: And as long as you're willing to do what it takes, then you'll do it.
Speaker: But you have to know going into it before.
Speaker: So it's really just reverse engineering the goal and knowing that it's worth it to you to do it.
Speaker: Because there are some people that are like, Ricky, to me, it isn't worth it to do this.
Speaker: Cool, just don't.
Speaker: But then where people really get stuck is again, they think they have a big goal, but they can't back it up because they don't know why they're doing it and they get really stuck in the middle.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: And I like what you said too about focusing so much on the input because you know how it is.
Speaker: Some guys, maybe they're working two, three hour days and they have like, they closed three, like six, seven deals that week.
Speaker: Maybe they got a bunch of referrals or whatever, have a huge week.
Speaker: They're like, oh, sweet.
Speaker: Like, I barely have to work and I just made all this money.
Speaker: But what you're saying is like, you don't care whether you close 20 deals in a week or five deals in a week, if you put in the input, that's what you're going to do.
Speaker: And I remember we talked about in the first podcast too, I think you said you had a few weeks where you worked just as hard as not harder and you only close maybe three, four deals, a couple of weeks, but you put in the input and you stepped away from that week satisfied, but like you did with what you said you were going to do.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's massive for me.
Speaker: And that's actually me and Kate, we're just talking about that outside.
Speaker: And I tell you that's what I preach.
Speaker: And but I think, I mean, and the more you level up and the more numbers you sell, and then, you know, now you have company stuff going on.
Speaker: So the more you step up, the more things are just outside of your control.
Speaker: There are just so many things.
Speaker: I was in sales, number one, right?
Speaker: I can go out and work 24 hours a day.
Speaker: There are certain things that are just outside of my control.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, probably if I sell for, if I go out and work for 24 hours, I'll probably sell a couple of deals.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: but there's a chance I don't.
Speaker: And if I don't, that's fine.
Speaker: But yeah, all I care about is inputs.
Speaker: Because the thing is, consistent inputs over a long period of time are guaranteed success.
Speaker: Now, you don't know exactly how long it's going to take.
Speaker: It could take a month, could take three, six, 12, 24 months.
Speaker: But I know that if I do this for the next 24 months, every single day and I never miss, there is zero chance I'm not successful in 24 months.
Speaker: I might not be successful in a month or two months or three months or six.
Speaker: Whatever it takes, right?
Speaker: But if I do it consistently over a long period of time, it's impossible.
Speaker: So that's all I care about.
Speaker: As we said, like some of the weeks where I've been the most upset on myself were some of my best weeks.
Speaker: Yeah, because I would have big weeks and I would look back and I realized I coasted a little bit.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, wow, I could have had five or six or seven more deals.
Speaker: I just didn't work.
Speaker: Maybe I already had four deals that day and it was seven o'clock and I go home and maybe I could have gone one or two more.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Things like that.
Speaker: That will upset me.
Speaker: I had weeks where I had very few deals, like three, four or five, whatever it is.
Speaker: But if I went out there and I worked all day, every day, like crazy, I get to Sunday, I look back and like nothing else I could have done.
Speaker: I'm happy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's what I had to do.
Speaker: And that's fine.
Speaker: Like some of the weeks, like my best week, 32.
Speaker: The 32 week, I didn't work Monday and half a Tuesday.
Speaker: And I'm still upset about it to this day.
Speaker: And it's not that I was coasting.
Speaker: I was dealing with payroll.
Speaker: I was doing payroll.
Speaker: So on Monday, I was running our payroll and I just didn't work at all.
Speaker: And then Tuesday, we're finishing up stuff and I was doing company things.
Speaker: So I didn't start selling that week until Tuesday.
Speaker: And to this day, I look back and I'm like, that upsets me.
Speaker: Because it's my best week.
Speaker: So everyone's going to ask, what's your best week?
Speaker: And it's that 32.
Speaker: And I know that I'm missing a day and a half.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: And that will upset me more than having a four-week working 24 hours a day.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So, I mean, I just map everything to inputs.
Speaker: You got to make Travis do payroll, man.
Speaker: Now he does.
Speaker: That's what you told me.
Speaker: That's where he's going.
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: No, that's awesome.
Speaker: Well, yeah, so to shift gears a little bit, Ricardo, yeah, I want to talk about like we're in net metering 3.0 here in California.
Speaker: You just did over 100 deals.
Speaker: And a lot of people, as you know, were pretty fearful with any M3 or rolling around.
Speaker: Companies went out of business, tons of reps got out of the industry.
Speaker: People were losing their minds over it.
Speaker: So that's what's really cool is you just showed everyone that there's no reason to lose our minds.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We can still sell.
Speaker: But yeah, what were your thoughts as NEM3 was rolling out?
Speaker: Were you guys nervous at all?
Speaker: Or what were you guys feeling as NEM3?
Speaker: Frankly, no, not at all.
Speaker: I didn't really know what was going to happen.
Speaker: Nobody did.
Speaker: Everyone knew we had to adapt, but there was never a second in my mind where I was nervous.
Speaker: I knew we figured out.
Speaker: The second they announced it, I was very pumped for the January to April spring.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The second they announced that, you know, I still remember.
Speaker: Because we finished our selling season last year about mid-November.
Speaker: Everyone went home.
Speaker: We were on holiday and everything.
Speaker: And the NEM2 announcement came some point in December, I think.
Speaker: And I was with family.
Speaker: I was on vacation.
Speaker: And I wasn't planning on having guys back to sell until February, March.
Speaker: You know, everybody was coasting.
Speaker: I remember NEM2 happening and I just dropped a text in the group chat.
Speaker: My guys are back January 1st.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: So I was excited for that for the three, four months.
Speaker: No, I was never really nervous.
Speaker: I knew we'd figure it out.
Speaker: I didn't really know how we would go about it.
Speaker: But I mean, in my eyes, you know, I mean, if you know how to sell once, you know how to sell everything.
Speaker: I mean, obviously, I've sold solar, solar alarms, I've sold pests.
Speaker: I've had the same results in all of them.
Speaker: I've seen guys get the same results in all different markets.
Speaker: So I never really thought about it that much.
Speaker: I mean, people outside of California.
Speaker: have been doing that.
Speaker: And so I didn't see it as a big deal at all, which then it showed.
Speaker: I mean, everybody left, the people that stayed are still getting about the same numbers as before, you know, so nothing, nothing huge.
Speaker: So that's kind of what I thought about it at first.
Speaker: No, that's good.
Speaker: Well, yeah, you obviously figured it out really quick, went straight into it.
Speaker: But yeah, what transition or what adjustments did you guys have to make, if any, or what changes did you guys make rolling in?
Speaker: I don't know if you train your guys different now because of it.
Speaker: Do you feel like there's a lot of things you've had to do different or pretty much all similar?
Speaker: Not at all.
Speaker: I think the funny thing about it is, obviously, we're in solar.
Speaker: This is our day-to-day, and so we all know about it.
Speaker: Customers don't, right?
Speaker: I mean, some customers do, but really 90% of customers don't know that there was an M2 or an M3.
Speaker: And so when people go and they overthink an M3,
Speaker: They over-explain to the customer, like, they don't know.
Speaker: They don't know anything.
Speaker: To them, this is solar.
Speaker: So what's the difference of me just selling you solar or now selling you, oh, it's solar and a battery?
Speaker: It's the same thing.
Speaker: This is how it is.
Speaker: And so it's really just selling it in that way.
Speaker: That was the biggest adjustment we had to do is just started selling batteries.
Speaker: We'd never sold batteries before.
Speaker: So just had to learn about how the batteries actually work.
Speaker: And we used to talk people out of batteries in that too if they wanted it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so now we're like, we sell a battery with every job, but he's really just learning that, which is a pretty quick learning curve.
Speaker: Obviously the cost, the monthly cost is higher.
Speaker: The savings are less, but it's a different value proposition.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I never liked to sell on savings anyways.
Speaker: You know, the last podcast, I think we talked about that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I never really based my clothes on savings at all.
Speaker: It's always been, you know, equity or it's been inflation control or ownership, independence.
Speaker: So that's what I sell on.
Speaker: And that's what I teach our guys to sell on.
Speaker: So we didn't really care about, you know, losing savings as much.
Speaker: Obviously we used to sell, say 30% or 40% of people in M2.
Speaker: And now you save 10 or 15%.
Speaker: Savings are still there.
Speaker: It's really just a different value proposition.
Speaker: So just adjusting a few different things, but the overall concept of how you sell it's the same, you know, nothing's different.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Once you have the skill to sell, like, like you said, you can really sell anything in transition and figure it out.
Speaker: But yeah, like another big change.
Speaker: I think you guys are doing a lot more like PPAs and all that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that's something that changed here in California is I'm sure you'd agree.
Speaker: It's nice.
Speaker: Now you can do these leases or PPAs batteries are covered for 25 years and
Speaker: You don't have to add it on to a loan and all that.
Speaker: And then obviously right now we're dealing with higher dealer fees, higher interest rates.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But yeah, so for you selling like the leases, PPAs, do you approach it a different way?
Speaker: Is it very similar to how you're selling the loans or what's been there?
Speaker: Yeah, very similar.
Speaker: I mean, obviously, I've sold probably 99% PPAs.
Speaker: Now, all of our team is selling PPAs and we used to only sell loans, but it's really just the economics different.
Speaker: I mean, dealer fees are higher, interest rates are higher.
Speaker: So the PPA is just a better value proposition now than a loan.
Speaker: Loans used to be better.
Speaker: It's cheaper.
Speaker: Now it's better to do a PPA.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, obviously, we used to sell on equity a lot, can sell on equity on a PPA.
Speaker: So I guess that's the only switch.
Speaker: Other than that, everything is the same.
Speaker: I mean, PPA is easier.
Speaker: I mean, there's less meaning there's less to explain.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just the price for kilowatt hour.
Speaker: So the same value proposition, you have an escalator, right?
Speaker: So instead of being fixed, you h ave a small escalator, but it still goes up way less than that isn't.
Speaker: So it's really just emphasizing that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's pretty much it.
Speaker: Not a big switch.
Speaker: It's really just obviously we're not going to harp on equity as much.
Speaker: If it's a PPA, we're not going to talk about that.
Speaker: Everything else still stands, right?
Speaker: But now you have a battery to build a lot of value on.
Speaker: So we build a lot of value on the battery, and that's pretty much it.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Well, yeah, so I want to get into a little bit of like the tactical and yeah, maybe talk about what you're doing in the clothes and things like that.
Speaker: But before we do that, just so guys understand when you did your 100 deals in two months, can you tell us a little bit like what was your schedule?
Speaker: What was the I know we touched on that a little bit like aligning having clarity in your goals and everything.
Speaker: But if someone's like, okay, Ricky, I want to go out and hit 100 deals in 60 days, just like you did.
Speaker: Can you tell them what was the sacrifice you made and what's like the clarity you had to have?
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: How did you get in the mindset?
Speaker: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker: To me, it's a completely different mindset to me.
Speaker: And I train on this to my guys.
Speaker: I guess I think you go deep enough times in your life.
Speaker: And I feel like looking back on my life, I've done this over and over where I just put myself back against the wall, big goal, tons of work to do.
Speaker: And there's really no way out.
Speaker: You just got to do it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then you do that enough times, you know, it's kind of a separate mental space where you get into where you're just completely laser focused.
Speaker: And that's only one thing you care about.
Speaker: And you just do it.
Speaker: So I train on that.
Speaker: And obviously, having done that before, it gives you more confidence to do it again.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, the schedule
Speaker: schedule was crazy.
Speaker: I second guess myself a bunch of times because because technically after an M2, I told myself I was gonna stop closing as much because we had we have a lot of company stuff going on.
Speaker: And so Travis been amazing.
Speaker: We've outsourced a lot of it.
Speaker: We have management team that deals with a lot of things.
Speaker: So that helps a ton.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But there's a lot of stuff that needed to be handled.
Speaker: And so I said after an M2 is over, I'm gonna worry about all of that.
Speaker: And so I wasn't really planning on doing a challenge.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The way the challenge came about is really just we came back.
Speaker: We did an M2.
Speaker: We took two to three weeks off.
Speaker: We took the team to Hawaii.
Speaker: We went on a company trip.
Speaker: We came back.
Speaker: And nobody was selling.
Speaker: Everyone was freaking out.
Speaker: Let me go sell the deal and see what happens.
Speaker: So I just went and sold the deal.
Speaker: I'm like, this is the same thing.
Speaker: So we just thought about it.
Speaker: Why don't we just launch an actual challenge to show everybody?
Speaker: I didn't really want to do it.
Speaker: I was actually gassed.
Speaker: But I said, let's just do it.
Speaker: Going into that, I had to really rework my mindset and get back into that mode.
Speaker: Because I had just finished the first.
Speaker: four months, a four month and then two push and maybe two to three weeks off.
Speaker: And then right after that, I'm like, Oh crap, I got to do this again for 60 days.
Speaker: And so I really had to work on my mindset and get back to that place.
Speaker: And then obviously my guys, honestly, they, I couldn't have done any of that without our guys have been amazing.
Speaker: Putting up leads, sets, they've worked just as hard as I have, you know, it's not harder.
Speaker: So that's the biggest thing, but yeah,
Speaker: But that was really kind of reworking on the mindset and getting laser focused.
Speaker: So to me, and obviously making it public, I've always done things when I put pretty big goals and I know I don't want to do it or I know I'm tired or I don't really feel like it.
Speaker: My number one thing I will always do is I will just go tell everybody what I'm going to do because then I'm accountable.
Speaker: So I started blasting it on the internet.
Speaker: Not because I originally, I just said, I want to do this and let's just put it on Instagram.
Speaker: So everyone knows so that I'm accountable to actually do it.
Speaker: And that's kind of how we went about it.
Speaker: You know, I just put it out there just because I didn't want to and I didn't feel like doing it.
Speaker: And I just started telling everybody I was going to do it.
Speaker: So I'm like, I guess we have to.
Speaker: And so that really put me in that place where I just looked at it and I was like, I guess I got to hit it.
Speaker: You know, we told everybody we were, we were going to do it.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: Were you like nervous at all?
Speaker: Like putting it out?
Speaker: Like I knew I was going to hit it.
Speaker: I never really doubted that I was going to hit it.
Speaker: But to be frank with you, that was probably, and I've sold a lot more than that before.
Speaker: You know, that was one 12 and 60 days.
Speaker: I had done one 96 and 30 before and had biggest two months pushes of that.
Speaker: But, but that's probably the most tired and the most burnt out I had ever been starting a push.
Speaker: So looking at it, I knew I was going to hit it, but I was scared about the amount of work that I had to go do to actually do it.
Speaker: And so I just had to really put myself in that place.
Speaker: I blocked everything out.
Speaker: And that's what I do when I get laser focused is I block everything out.
Speaker: I outsourced everything that had to happen in the company beforehand.
Speaker: I was like, hey, try to handle this, this, and this, handle this, this, and this.
Speaker: Make sure that everything else around me was kind of handled.
Speaker: And then I just had to block everything off.
Speaker: And I was like, I don't want to hear anything.
Speaker: I just wake up and I hit my workout and I go out.
Speaker: And that's what I did all day, every day, you know, and I didn't do anything else.
Speaker: No, actually, I did that for the first month.
Speaker: So the first month of NEM3 Challenge, I did 78 deals.
Speaker: And then I only did NEM20 or whatever it is.
Speaker: No, I did.
Speaker: I did 78 the first month and then 112 total.
Speaker: So what's the difference?
Speaker: Like 30, 34 the second month.
Speaker: So I really let off the gas the second month because there were a lot of things starting to compile that I had to worry about.
Speaker: And I knew that would happen.
Speaker: So I just pushed hard the first month.
Speaker: I was like, let's go 78 deals first month.
Speaker: So I'm almost there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then second month, I had to go to Miami for a week because Zane had the event, solar CEOs.
Speaker: I went to speak there.
Speaker: I spent the week out of town to do some other personal things.
Speaker: So I really kind of let off the gas the last month or so.
Speaker: And then we won 12.
Speaker: So I kind of recouped a little bit.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But yeah, I just really had to put myself in that mental state, you know, and really knowing like, okay, this is what I got to do and really dumb it down to easy, actionable steps.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which was like, I wake up, I hit the workout.
Speaker: After the workout, I come to the office, have the meeting, I go out and that's it.
Speaker: Hit deals all day, every day.
Speaker: And that's, that's really all I did.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, yeah, that's something I remember we talked about in the first podcast a little bit, too, is when you have these high producing months when you're laser focused.
Speaker: Yeah, you just do it.
Speaker: You don't worry about the food.
Speaker: You don't worry about it.
Speaker: It's just work out and sell because, yeah, I think you probably agree.
Speaker: Like when we have this mental bandwidth that we have to put on other things.
Speaker: Even if we're not like spending a ton of time, even if we have to think about it, that's taking away that focus, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And that's taking away like, I think I read this stat, even just us looking at like social media notifications, like when you're trying to focus, just looking at these, maybe text, social media, whatever.
Speaker: I think it takes like a full couple minutes to get back into like that focus state.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We will kill your mental focus.
Speaker: So for me, that's really what I do is I just eliminate every possible thing that doesn't directly correlate to my goal and the gym and health because if I don't work out in the morning, I just can't do anything.
Speaker: I won't move until I worked out because that's just how I operate.
Speaker: I'm just used to doing that.
Speaker: And if I don't work out, my whole day is ruined basically.
Speaker: But other than that, I just literally eliminate everything.
Speaker: All I care about, if I'm going to push, sometimes to extremes, but that's all I'm thinking about.
Speaker: This is what I have to do.
Speaker: And I dumb down my steps of this is what I need to do to hit that goal.
Speaker: And it's like, what is it that I have to do?
Speaker: I just got to go to as many appointments as possible or knock as many doors as possible or hit as many deals as I possibly can.
Speaker: That is it.
Speaker: That's the only thing I care about.
Speaker: I didn't count deals, really.
Speaker: I mean, I had to post them on Instagram, so I guess that kind of helped me count.
Speaker: But
Speaker: I wasn't counting my deals.
Speaker: I wasn't checking anything.
Speaker: I was literally just going and selling them.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: So I didn't even really know like what the numbers were, what was going on in the pipeline.
Speaker: And I outsourced everything to my assistants.
Speaker: I'm like, you deal with these.
Speaker: I sell them.
Speaker: I don't want to hear anything else.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Deal with this stuff.
Speaker: And so that's kind of how that went.
Speaker: Just get laser focused.
Speaker: Did you have a number in mind?
Speaker: If I do this X amount of hours, I will hit the goal?
Speaker: Or did you just know, okay, I'm going to wake up and go sell all day?
Speaker: I don't know if you have a set amount of hours that you knew you had to hit or set amount of doors, set amount of appointments.
Speaker: Yeah, I was going to sets.
Speaker: So for me, it's a little different.
Speaker: If I was just knocking doors, I would absolutely just do hours.
Speaker: So I guess that we train all of our setters is like, these are the hours and then track interactions.
Speaker: On the closing side is a little different because I'm going to appointments.
Speaker: And so it's literally just like, when's the first appointment and when's the last appointment?
Speaker: And I'm going to go to all of them.
Speaker: right or you know and so it's literally just the hours i don't really send my hours like if if somebody puts up an appointment at 8 a.m i'm there if someone has an appointment at 10 p.m i'm there right that's it so that's that's why it wasn't after me so it's really just maximizing that that's that's what it is but if i was to just go out and knock when i was just purely just knocking on the doors then i would absolutely have non-negotiable hours i would have
Speaker: X amount of time I would have to be on the doors.
Speaker: Like back when I was knocking my crazy hours, it was like my no negotiable was absolute latest on the doors, 10 a.m.
Speaker: That was the latest I could be there.
Speaker: So most of the time I'll get there at 945, whatever, but I would have to knock my first door by 10 and last door by nine.
Speaker: And I did that for a year.
Speaker: basically right and that was my non-negotiable so i never missed it and never skipped so that's what i would do if i wanted to just knock and get a ton of accounts yeah that's exactly what i would do just set the hours and just go yeah makes sense how many do you know how many appointments you're typically like sitting in every day to do the 78 your first month well i didn't count them but probably i was running an average of
Speaker: three, four appointments that we're going to and then you know, one or two will cancel or flake or whatever.
Speaker: So three good appointments a day probably that I would close I mean, our closing I mean, our status is that they said really good leads because we teach them a whole frame to actually set the right way.
Speaker: So that by the time we close I mean, our closing percentage is very high when our deals set
Speaker: like we're probably closing over 95% of them.
Speaker: So basically every close, every close that you see is a set and maybe there's one or two that didn't close out of that.
Speaker: So if you average it out, it's probably about three a day or so, three to four a day, something like that.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Huge.
Speaker: Well, cool.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: So now, you know, if you're listening, I think people are new, you should be able to go to like your managers, maybe company owners and break down what, what does it take to hit the goals you want?
Speaker: Because I know when I first started, I had no idea what it took to actually make 100 grand in a year.
Speaker: I had no idea.
Speaker: So if you're new listening to this, I think it's a good idea to do it.
Speaker: Ricardo's saying, figure out what it actually takes to hit the goals behind what you're saying.
Speaker: Maybe once you figure out that you're going to have to work 12-hour days, if you're not willing to do that, then, yeah, obviously adjust your goal to something you're willing to do.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: Figure out your why.
Speaker: And one cool thing I'm going to say on that, now on the company side, being an owner and developing systems to make sure everybody kind of succeeds, I mean, that's how I've always managed.
Speaker: Now I'm implementing systems to actually systematize that, and that's how important I think that is.
Speaker: I was just on a call a couple hours ago before I showed up here with our development team.
Speaker: And we're developing a lot of tech infrastructure for the company right now is getting built.
Speaker: And the first thing I asked them to build is literally a full KPI tracker, which is almost ready, actually, is we already had it.
Speaker: We've been working on it for a while.
Speaker: But basically pull all the data from our knocking apps, pull all the data from our CRMs, pull all the data from appointments.
Speaker: And I want to know how many doors does it take somebody?
Speaker: And then every single conversion from door knock to conversation, from conversation to appointment, from appointment is sit.
Speaker: from sit to close, from close to install, all the way across.
Speaker: And we're going to track all of those and then be able to average it out company-wide and be able to have an algorithm.
Speaker: And so implement that in the tech to where when somebody, like you said, comes over and says, hey, how do I make $150,000?
Speaker: You don't even have to ask me.
Speaker: Just ask the algorithm.
Speaker: That's what it is, right?
Speaker: Plug it in.
Speaker: And it will tell you exactly how many doors it takes, how many hours, company averages, everything.
Speaker: So that's how important I think it is.
Speaker: I literally have a development team working on this to get that built to where everybody can have total clarity.
Speaker: Because that's the difference between a high production and mediocre production is knowing what you have to do.
Speaker: A lot of people think they know what they have to do, but they don't really know what they have to do.
Speaker: have to do so if you were actually executing on it's a big difference yeah nugget yeah and it's what's cool it just takes the emotion out of it too like it's so easy to get emotional on the doors or like oh this gotta cancel here um yeah this appointment didn't show up but it's like okay well do you know your numbers are you following your numbers then you just know okay i need to hit these numbers and
Speaker: Makes it easy.
Speaker: Yeah, it makes it easy.
Speaker: It's like, hey, if you know every 30 doors you get a deal, then just knock 30 doors.
Speaker: You can't get upset at door 20 that you don't have a deal yet because, you know, if you knock 30, you get a deal.
Speaker: So it just makes it very easy.
Speaker: Yeah, love that.
Speaker: That's huge.
Speaker: So, guys, definitely figure out your numbers.
Speaker: And then just as we start wrapping up a little bit here, Ricky, I want to give guys some, you know, just like tactical stuff you're using in the clothes.
Speaker: I know people love to hear like the one-liners and all that stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know you got a ton of them.
Speaker: That'd be a whole episode on its own.
Speaker: But yeah, just speaking for like some PPAs, leases now, I might ask you a little bit before, but are you explaining things different?
Speaker: Because I know I think last podcast we talked a little bit about how you explain like, you know, the equity value, stuff like that.
Speaker: So what have you changed in your presentation?
Speaker: Is there anything you've like changed and so on?
Speaker: Loans versus PPAs or?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's a little bit of an easy, different, easier explanation.
Speaker: I mean, a PPA to its core, it's very simple.
Speaker: I mean, it's literally a very simple concept.
Speaker: So the more you overcomplicate it, like the worse it is.
Speaker: To me, the most effective way to sell is literally dumb it down as if you were to explain it to a three-year-old, right?
Speaker: Because the more you overcomplicate something, the more the customer can say no.
Speaker: Oh, I've got to think about it.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But if I can dumb it down to such a stupid level, which is black and white, like this thing is good, this thing isn't good.
Speaker: Which one are you going to choose, right?
Speaker: It's just that stupid and that simple.
Speaker: Then it's always a yes because you're just lowering the friction.
Speaker: So in the way I explain a PPA is literally very simple.
Speaker: I do everything off of kilowatt hours.
Speaker: So I don't really even sell the monthly payment, whatever that is.
Speaker: I really sell it on kilowatt hours.
Speaker: So I pull up their Edison bill.
Speaker: Like literally the simpler you can make this happen.
Speaker: I usually draw it on an iPad, right?
Speaker: But you can do it on paper, whatever you want to do.
Speaker: But I literally pull up their ads and bill and I show them and I walk through it with them.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, so here's how much you're paying per kilowatt.
Speaker: This is tier one, tier two, tier three delivery fees.
Speaker: I show them everything.
Speaker: We average out what their kilowatt hour is.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: So you guys are paying $0.41 a kilowatt hour.
Speaker: It is very simple, right?
Speaker: If I get you approved, you don't have to pay anything for the equipment.
Speaker: There's no money in the pocket, no money down.
Speaker: We'll put it all up.
Speaker: All that happens is we reduce the $0.41 kilowatt hour rate.
Speaker: We try to get it down somewhere in the $0.24 to $0.26, whatever, with the battery, it's $0.25 to $0.27 PPA, something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, like we'll take the 41 cents away.
Speaker: If we can do that, all we do is we'll just reduce it down to 25 to 27 cents.
Speaker: No money out of pocket, no money down.
Speaker: Obviously, the only kick is we don't know if you guys will get approved, right?
Speaker: Then I'll get into explaining the escalator a little later.
Speaker: But I mean, that's literally as simple as I would explain a BPA.
Speaker: Like I wouldn't say anything else other than like that's what it is.
Speaker: And the more you say, the more is got to think about it or the more is whatever.
Speaker: But like if somebody came to you and showed you a piece of paper and like you're paying 41 cents, it can go to 26 cents.
Speaker: This one goes up 20% a year.
Speaker: This one only goes up 3% a year.
Speaker: Which one do you want?
Speaker: No brainer.
Speaker: No brainer.
Speaker: But like that's literally how you sell solar, right?
Speaker: It's so simple.
Speaker: And people will overcomplicate and overexplain and get lost for 45 minutes in the battery system and whatever.
Speaker: Like literally just show no paper.
Speaker: 41 cents, 26 cents.
Speaker: 20% increase, 3% increase.
Speaker: Which one do you want?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's it, right?
Speaker: Now, not to say that that's what I say, but that's the concept.
Speaker: And if you can dumb it down to that elementary level where a three-year-old will clearly say that one, that's how you sell big numbers because then there's no guessing out of it and there's no decision.
Speaker: It's so simple.
Speaker: yeah that's yeah so many people over complicated and i think especially as i remember when i was new once i started figuring learning some things about solar i actually started doing worse just because in the beginning i do so little that i had to explain it so simple then once i understood some stuff i would try to like sprinkle in like oh i know all this stuff about solar yeah and then my closing ratio went down yeah i'm sure you've seen it 100 that happens all the time you know
Speaker: Like if all we had to teach you was like, this is the rate and this is the rate and just know about the warranties and know enough to sell somebody the right offset and the right battery.
Speaker: Like that is it, you know, that's all you need to know.
Speaker: You don't need to explain every single inverter.
Speaker: You don't need to explain every single panel.
Speaker: You don't need to explain every single brand of panels and you don't need to explain how the battery exactly goes back and forth.
Speaker: Like all they care about is that it works and then they get enough power and that it saves them money and then it's a better situation for them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And as long as you know how to do it, you don't need to relay all of it.
Speaker: You just need to relay the right things to where they understand the benefits, but you don't need to say everything else.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's really just the right way to present it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And something you guys talk about a lot, I think at moment is well that I've heard from all your guys I've talked to is you guys focus a lot on doing a really solid pre-frame, like telling them exactly what's going to go on.
Speaker: And then you have really good hypothetical questions you ask.
Speaker: I know that just kind of like tie down the customer and all that.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: um so what are now as you've been selling these ppas what are like are you still pre-framing the same can you give us some examples like kind of how you'd like pre-frame it what are some hypothetical questions you're asking the customer yeah how you tying them down to it totally totally i'll tell you like three important concepts like the three most important concepts i'll have
Speaker: in my sales presentation is the pre frame hypothetical tie down, right?
Speaker: If you if you get these three things down, pre frame hypothetical tie down, like your closing ratio will double, I promise if you really understand how this works, right.
Speaker: So most important things pre frame, and the pre frame starts with the set.
Speaker: So we teach the setter how to pre frame it, I show up with the appointment, most important thing is have the right expectation going into the appointment.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: And so that's the first thing I do, I pre frame it, I build a little bit of urgency, obviously, when there was an M2, we'd build urgency on M2.
Speaker: Now we have batteries that are at interest rates, whatever urgency there is going on at that time.
Speaker: I show up and I pre-frame the appointment and be like, look, this is what's going on.
Speaker: Whatever it is, is what did so-and-so tell you?
Speaker: They'll tell me what the setter said.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: So the main reason why we're here, he has this program going on.
Speaker: There's a lot of funding, right?
Speaker: Some of it's getting lifted.
Speaker: Some of it's changing.
Speaker: So we're just making sure we get every home that we can approved on time, right?
Speaker: Bottom line is not every home is qualified, right?
Speaker: I'm busy, you guys are busy, so I don't want to waste your time.
Speaker: I just want to make sure if it does work, we'll make sure we get you guys moving.
Speaker: If it doesn't work, we just won't do anything.
Speaker: Cool?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Like very simple, right?
Speaker: Nothing special.
Speaker: But like they need to know, A, I'm busy, which I am very busy.
Speaker: They're busy.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So they don't want to waste time.
Speaker: I don't want to waste time.
Speaker: I'm not going to sit here for an hour and present to you if it's not going to do it.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: I'm here for you to make a decision.
Speaker: It's yes or no.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: Can be no.
Speaker: But it's not a maybe.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So we're there.
Speaker: If it makes sense, we'll move forward, get it going.
Speaker: If it doesn't make sense, we just want to do it.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: So we get that.
Speaker: And that's a pre-agreement to where at least I know after that we move on and we're going to make a decision at the end.
Speaker: So yes, no.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Very simple.
Speaker: And then I do some discovery.
Speaker: and you start asking some amazing questions like hey when's the last time you guys looked at solar why didn't you do it last time whatever when the concerns come up very easy way to handle a concern is hypothetical tie down right that's the easiest way you get you get around a concern to a fundamental level so you can give me any concern on earth right oh last time i did it
Speaker: And last time I looked at it, I didn't do it because it didn't save me enough money.
Speaker: Or I had a big loan amount and I didn't want to do it.
Speaker: Easy way to handle it.
Speaker: Yeah, totally understand.
Speaker: Those were some of the older programs.
Speaker: So a lot of it is different now, right?
Speaker: But no, I get why you didn't do it before.
Speaker: Just a quick question, just curious.
Speaker: Hypothetically, let's just say that XYZ problem wasn't a thing.
Speaker: So let's just say it did save you money.
Speaker: Or let's just say it wasn't a big loan amount.
Speaker: Was there any other problem that you guys had with it or was that kind of the main thing?
Speaker: you'd be surprised how many times they're like, no, that was it, right?
Speaker: It's easy.
Speaker: It's like literally the craziest thing.
Speaker: And so you get that, right?
Speaker: You get a hypothetical.
Speaker: Now I have an hypothetical.
Speaker: No, that was the main problem.
Speaker: Okay, so, and I can't promise anything, right?
Speaker: But hypothetically, as I said, like assuming that we actually did save you 20, 30%, and I'd probably ask one or two more questions in between, right?
Speaker: To really figure out what's going on, but then I tie it back down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So hypothetically sounds like that was the main problem.
Speaker: No other problems.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: This one, we show on the same page.
Speaker: If it did actually save you the money you wanted it to save you and there was nothing out of pocket, no money done and you got approved.
Speaker: Is there any other reason why you wouldn't do it or would that kind of make sense?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, it would.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Tight down, right?
Speaker: Move on, right?
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's the formula.
Speaker: You can handle any concern with that.
Speaker: It's the easiest thing ever.
Speaker: Whatever concern it is, right?
Speaker: It's like, oh, I'm afraid of roof leaks.
Speaker: Yeah, totally.
Speaker: I mean, I would be too, right?
Speaker: Was the last time, is that kind of what held you back?
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: Okay, awesome.
Speaker: So just hypothetically, wild question.
Speaker: But let's just assume that you knew for sure that there wasn't going to be any roof leaks.
Speaker: You have warranties, everything's covered, and you know for sure that's not going to happen.
Speaker: Is there any other concern you have or is that the only issue?
Speaker: No, that's kind of the only thing.
Speaker: Okay, awesome.
Speaker: So hypothetically, if we knew for sure that this was going to happen and there's something in place, then it probably makes sense, sounds like.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Well, so here's what's going on.
Speaker: Look at the warranties.
Speaker: Boom, boom, boom.
Speaker: Move on, right?
Speaker: And handle it.
Speaker: So very simple, right?
Speaker: But those are the three things.
Speaker: Preframe it so you know that there's a decision.
Speaker: We're going to make a decision at the end of our conversation.
Speaker: Whether it's yes, no, I don't care.
Speaker: But it has to be a decision.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then hypothetical, right?
Speaker: If we know hypothetically the concern you have was not a concern, then is there any other concern?
Speaker: And sometimes there is.
Speaker: So you have to double hypothetical or triple hypothetical, whatever.
Speaker: But assuming that this is not a concern, then is there anything else?
Speaker: No, that's the only concern.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: So let's handle this concern and let's move on.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: I need time down.
Speaker: That's absolute fire.
Speaker: So if you're not doing that, like that's what's made this guy millions of dollars right here.
Speaker: Well, a lot of things, but in the close, that's a big part of it.
Speaker: This is the biggest thing for me.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, guys, I would definitely go rewind that, listen to it on repeat because very powerful.
Speaker: If you can isolate the concerns like that, like people are literally telling you how to be sold when you do this, right?
Speaker: It's like they're showing you're at the poker table.
Speaker: They just showed you all their cards.
Speaker: They show you everything.
Speaker: And the crazy thing about it is people want to be sold.
Speaker: I mean, this person, if somebody handled their concern, they would have bought it, right?
Speaker: They would have had solar.
Speaker: They probably won solar, right?
Speaker: But they had all these concerns, and nobody ever handled the concern.
Speaker: And why does no one ever handle the concern?
Speaker: Because they never ask the right questions.
Speaker: Everyone sell, sell, sell, talk, talk, talk, speak, speak, speak.
Speaker: If you just sit down and listen, like literally just ask questions, right?
Speaker: They will literally just tell you what they want and you give them what they want.
Speaker: And if you have what they want, then great.
Speaker: That's a sale.
Speaker: You know, that's, it's communication, right?
Speaker: It's like, this is what the person wants and this is what their concern is.
Speaker: If I have something that gives them what they want and solves their concern, that's how you make a sale.
Speaker: At the end of the day, it's service and it's communication, right?
Speaker: So that's all it is.
Speaker: Yeah, and really, we should be thanking all the bad salespeople out there that are just trying to sell and not figuring any of this things out because that's why in California, so many people aren't sold yet.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: You'd literally be surprised how many deals I have had where it was literally like the first closer that stopped by, they just said the deal, right?
Speaker: They just give a presentation for two hours on how amazing solar is and spend two hours talking about the grid problems and how awful inflation is.
Speaker: Everything, the customer's down, they're sold.
Speaker: They're like, yeah, I mean, this is a problem.
Speaker: We want solar.
Speaker: But they have this concern in their head and they're like, oh, but we got to think about it.
Speaker: We'll get back to you.
Speaker: And then I'll show up a week later and I'm like, what did the last guy tell you?
Speaker: Oh, they told us blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And I know we understand like solar is great.
Speaker: We need to do solar, you know, but we had this concern.
Speaker: What was the concern?
Speaker: Oh, we just didn't want a roof to leak.
Speaker: Okay, so assuming you knew that that wasn't going to happen, would have you done it with that guy?
Speaker: Like, well, yeah.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: So if I guaranteed you that the roof's not going to leak, are we good?
Speaker: So yeah, boom, move on, sold, right?
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: And you'd be surprised the amount of deals I've had, like literally endless amounts.
Speaker: People just don't isolate concerns because you're afraid to ask the question.
Speaker: And once you bring that out, then everything moves on.
Speaker: yeah that's awesome so powerful so if you're not doing that go listen to this on repeat because it's a huge figure and that's something that i feel like is one of the biggest secrets i've learned from you ricardo so i owe you a lot of money that's a little nugget i owe you a lot of money um so um we're short on time here i know we get this could be yeah two two more episodes if we kept diving deeper into this but if you guys want to connect with you more and
Speaker: maybe see more i don't know if you're doing more videos on any m3 challenge um or have some content around that still but what's the best way to connect with you and best ways for sure instagram is uh at ricardo ritchie seven it's my name last name seven probably put it on on the podcast so i'm uh i have a bunch of a bunch of content that we pre-filmed that i haven't released yet we're still auditing it and cutting it so i'm not the best at instagram but i'm working on it so
Speaker: I'm going to dump a bunch of content on there eventually.
Speaker: We have all these videos that are getting cut.
Speaker: So that's the best way that I respond to my DMs.
Speaker: I'm always on it.
Speaker: So that's the easiest way.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So yeah, go give Ricardo a follow.
Speaker: He's going to be dropping some sweet content coming up.
Speaker: You're going to be able to hear more about his closing process and everything.
Speaker: But yeah, we appreciate you coming on.
Speaker: There's always so much to learn and no one's doing these things.
Speaker: So it's cool to learn from someone that's putting up these video game numbers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thanks for having me on, man.
Speaker: It was a good time.
Speaker: It's been fun.
Speaker: But yeah, last question.
Speaker: If maybe like a struggling rep, someone that's, I don't know, thinking about getting out of solar and not hitting their numbers, what would you say?
Speaker: Like a last piece of advice you'd give to someone that's struggling right now?
Speaker: Understand why you're struggling and figure out really what the problem is.
Speaker: I mean, if I could give you any piece of advice, I mean, solar is the biggest opportunity there is in sales right now, hands down.
Speaker: You know, I have friends selling solar.
Speaker: Anything you can think of, you know, friends and pests and alarms and solar insurance, real estate, mortgages, anything, right?
Speaker: The opportunity in solar is crazy, right?
Speaker: You're not going to find another place where you can just go as a salesperson, work hard, put in numbers and make as much money as you can.
Speaker: And it's not going to be around forever.
Speaker: So really understand the opportunity you have.
Speaker: and then understand why you're not getting results, right?
Speaker: And then maybe it's the leadership you have, right?
Speaker: Who you're surrounded by.
Speaker: They're not doing what they're supposed to be doing or they're not guiding you the right way.
Speaker: Maybe it's you.
Speaker: Like maybe you're the problem.
Speaker: You're just not working hard.
Speaker: But it's really before you actually give up.
Speaker: understand why you would give up right what the problem is because i had this conversation with our guys you know we have guys all the time obviously door-to-door is hard we have 100 guys not all of them are throwing down crazy numbers so they obviously have mistakes they have issues and their problems and they struggle and everyone does right i struggle everyone struggles and so sometimes i get to a point where i just gotta quit you know this doesn't work for me and then it's a very easy conversation i'm like that's cool you can that's totally fine if that's what you want but i understand why it hasn't worked you know let's look back
Speaker: right how many hours did you work did you do this did you do that did you do that no okay awesome do you still want these things why did you start doing this in the first place oh i want to make x amount of money i want to be financially free i want to learn sales i want to be better be a better version of my whatever right whatever it is and if those things the reason why you started this are still true and you actually haven't executed the actual tasks that you need to do for a long enough period of time
Speaker: then you shouldn't quit, right?
Speaker: Because then you should just go do the actual things you need to do for six months and then see if you actually get to where you started, the reason why you want to do it.
Speaker: And then maybe in six months or 12 months, if you consistently do it and you don't achieve these things, then maybe it's another conversation.
Speaker: Well, hey, I gave it my all.
Speaker: It just doesn't work.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: That's a different conversation.
Speaker: Then maybe let it go.
Speaker: Go do something else.
Speaker: And that's fine, right?
Speaker: But don't let go of a massive opportunity.
Speaker: It might or might not come back in your life just because you're actually not doing the things.
Speaker: Or maybe you look at it and you're like, okay, these actual reasons why I started are not worth all of these things I have to do.
Speaker: Then quit immediately.
Speaker: Be gone.
Speaker: But you actually have to think about it.
Speaker: And be like, okay, if I want these things and I'm willing to do this, then actually do it.
Speaker: And then if it still doesn't work, then quit.
Speaker: But really analyze why you're making that decision instead of making an emotional decision.
Speaker: Yeah, that's so good.
Speaker: Yeah, because I hope everyone that's questioning solar, listen to that.
Speaker: Go back, analyze your whys, figure out are you putting the input that it requires?
Speaker: And yeah, I think that's key to success for anyone in solar.
Speaker: So thanks again, Ricardo.
Speaker: It's been awesome having you on, and I'm sure we'll run it back again in the future.
Speaker: It's too much gold to not have you back on again.
Speaker: We'll have another one.
Speaker: Yeah, appreciate it, man.
Speaker: Of course, man.
Speaker: Anytime.
Speaker: Talk soon.
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