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How To Grow From 0 To 100 Reps In Less Than A Year - Christian Deluca
101 Plays2 years ago
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Introduction to Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
Speaker
I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
00:00:41
Speaker
Okay, what's up, everybody?
00:00:42
Speaker
We are live here at SolorCon.
Interview with Christian DeLuca at SolarCon
00:00:45
Speaker
We actually just got done with a little recruiting panel, and I'm excited.
00:00:49
Speaker
We got someone that was on the panel with me here, Christian DeLuca.
00:00:54
Speaker
He's coming on the podcast with us.
00:00:55
Speaker
Thanks for coming on the show today, Christian.
00:00:58
Speaker
100%.
00:00:58
Speaker
Thanks for being the best moderator in the game.
00:01:00
Speaker
I guess some of the podcast stuff transfers over, right?
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:03
Speaker
Yeah, let's go.
00:01:03
Speaker
Yeah, so we just got done with this panel.
00:01:05
Speaker
I'm like, man, Christian dropped some bombs up there.
00:01:08
Speaker
Like, let's just run up a podcast right after.
00:01:10
Speaker
Yeah, perfect timing.
00:01:11
Speaker
The juices are flowing.
00:01:12
Speaker
I know.
00:01:13
Speaker
It's good.
00:01:14
Speaker
Keeping the momentum rolling.
00:01:15
Speaker
Yep.
00:01:16
Speaker
So I'm excited because Christian, he's we talked about some really cool systems he has in place for his company to recruit a massive team.
00:01:26
Speaker
I mean, he's grown his company from a few reps to now he's got what about 100 reps?
00:01:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:33
Speaker
And how long did it take you to get to 100 reps?
00:01:36
Speaker
I mean, it's taken about, I would say a year or so.
00:01:39
Speaker
It's fluctuated as well.
00:01:40
Speaker
But yeah, I'd say just about a year.
00:01:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:42
Speaker
Well, still, that's insane.
What does it take to win a Golden Door Award?
00:01:44
Speaker
Like you see so many companies and especially he's in California too, where we've seen so many companies just like disappear with NEM3 and all these challenges and Christian's still being able to build his company and keep it rolling.
00:01:56
Speaker
So I'm excited to talk about that.
00:01:58
Speaker
And then also he's a golden door.
00:01:59
Speaker
What year did you get your golden door?
00:02:02
Speaker
2022.
00:02:03
Speaker
So then got that award in 2023.
00:02:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:06
Speaker
Yep.
00:02:06
Speaker
So we're going to be talking about like what it takes to be a Golden Door Award winner, how to build a massive team.
00:02:12
Speaker
I'm excited to get into it.
00:02:14
Speaker
So you ready to roll?
00:02:15
Speaker
Let's do it, man.
Christian's Background and Inspiration
00:02:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:16
Speaker
Let's jump into it.
00:02:18
Speaker
So yeah, I know you started with, you know, another company dealers before, but yeah, do you want to give our listeners kind of like a background story?
00:02:26
Speaker
I mean, my dad was in the industry and I think like if you actually look at it, it seems like all roads lead to Vivint or Solar City.
00:02:34
Speaker
So my dad was in the industry, he was selling and they actually used to own athletic clubs.
00:02:39
Speaker
And so...
00:02:41
Speaker
You know, as I was younger, I would grow up in athletic clubs and I'd be passing out towels to people that would walk in.
00:02:46
Speaker
And when the 2008 economy crash happened, my parents lost everything.
00:02:51
Speaker
And so I went from like, I was honestly a spoiled kid.
00:02:53
Speaker
Like I'd go up to the front and I'd ask for like fruit roll ups or something or like a Gatorade.
00:02:58
Speaker
And I'd be like, put it on the tap.
00:02:59
Speaker
Like, like I thought I was the coolest kid ever.
00:03:02
Speaker
And I went from that and not that like we like became poor overnight or anything, but like definitely a more humble lifestyle after the 2008 economy crash and we lost all the businesses.
00:03:12
Speaker
And so after that, I think that's like kind of humbling as a kid.
00:03:16
Speaker
And it's cool because you can see like the perspective of like what it's like to have abundance and then what it's like to not have abundance.
00:03:22
Speaker
Because then what you can do is then you can make a choice.
Turning Failures into Motivation
00:03:25
Speaker
Like, what do you want in your life?
00:03:27
Speaker
And so after that, my dad started knocking doors and I'm like 13, 14 years old.
00:03:32
Speaker
And I'm like, what are you doing?
00:03:34
Speaker
Like, I thought you're this businessman showing up in a suit every day.
00:03:37
Speaker
Like you're out knocking doors.
00:03:39
Speaker
And then like he started making a ton of money doing it.
00:03:42
Speaker
And like I got to see the lifestyle that we got from the doors.
00:03:45
Speaker
And I was like, wow, like, okay, the doors actually can provide.
00:03:48
Speaker
And so I'm like,
00:03:50
Speaker
As I got older, I really wanted to get into the door-to-door industry.
00:03:53
Speaker
And it's funny because like most people, you know, when you're in kindergarten, you're not thinking like, oh yeah, I want to be in door-to-door.
00:03:59
Speaker
Most people are like, I want to go to the moon.
00:04:01
Speaker
I want to be a doctor.
00:04:03
Speaker
Or if you're Taylor, you're like, how can I find free stuff on the internet?
00:04:07
Speaker
Exactly.
00:04:08
Speaker
Essentially, I really wanted to get into door to door.
00:04:11
Speaker
And my dad told me, he's like, you need to go out and get three jobs before you get into door to door.
00:04:15
Speaker
And so I think what it did is it made me respect the opportunity so much more because most people get into it almost unwillingly.
00:04:24
Speaker
Their backs against the wall and then they get into door to door to try to fix some sort of situation.
00:04:29
Speaker
It seems like that's the typical rep that gets in the industry.
00:04:32
Speaker
And so I went and I worked at Safeway.
00:04:35
Speaker
traditional, like scanning the groceries.
00:04:38
Speaker
And the hard part about jobs like that is you can show up in whatever state you'd like to be in.
00:04:43
Speaker
Right.
00:04:44
Speaker
I could be hung over.
00:04:45
Speaker
I could show up like drunk, whatever it is.
00:04:47
Speaker
Right.
00:04:47
Speaker
It didn't matter.
00:04:48
Speaker
The groceries are going to scan the same.
00:04:50
Speaker
But and after that, I went to Costco like these jobs just like give you an idea of what you don't want to do.
00:04:57
Speaker
And this is when I'm like 17, 18 years old.
00:05:00
Speaker
And then I started selling cars for a place called Courtesy Automotive.
00:05:03
Speaker
It was like BMWs and Mercedes.
00:05:05
Speaker
And I worked with a sales representative there.
00:05:07
Speaker
And he was like, Christian, he's like, why are we selling these?
00:05:09
Speaker
We should be driving these.
00:05:10
Speaker
And I was like, whoa, that's kind of eye opening.
00:05:14
Speaker
But I started selling cars there.
00:05:16
Speaker
And after that, hopped into the solar industry.
00:05:20
Speaker
I didn't have the traditional like go out and, you know, sell a hundred, hundred deals in like your first year.
00:05:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:28
Speaker
Um, I started and in the first two months I didn't sell a deal at all.
00:05:33
Speaker
And I only had $2,500 in the bank.
00:05:35
Speaker
And so I blew through that $2,500 in the first month, second month, my living expenses were about $2,500 every single month.
00:05:41
Speaker
Second month I was $2,500 in credit card debt.
00:05:46
Speaker
And then the third month in, like on the first or second day of the month, I sold my first deal.
00:05:51
Speaker
Nice.
00:05:51
Speaker
And then after that, I did eight the next month and just up from there.
00:05:56
Speaker
Wow.
00:05:57
Speaker
But I think like...
00:06:00
Speaker
A couple of things that really helped were just like, number one, I had to earn the opportunity to get into the industry.
00:06:05
Speaker
But then number two is like, I'm really grateful for those times when I was like in credit card debt because it just really tests like how far are you willing to go to make this thing
Growth with Phoenix Solar and Ohm
00:06:14
Speaker
happen?
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's so good.
00:06:16
Speaker
And I love hearing, I think you're the first person I've ever heard that their dad was door to door.
00:06:21
Speaker
So he was in solar, your dad was?
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah, he was in solar.
00:06:24
Speaker
And yeah, it was funny.
00:06:26
Speaker
And so I mean-
00:06:28
Speaker
After that, I started working for a company called Phoenix Solar Energy, which actually my dad brought me over to as well.
00:06:35
Speaker
I started working over there and he was like a huge mentor for me.
00:06:39
Speaker
And the company started growing at like a really rapid rate because we had had the Paradise Fire, the Camp Fire, 12,000 homes overnight, burnt down.
00:06:49
Speaker
And so obviously after that, a lot of people want storage, right?
00:06:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:53
Speaker
And also when they're rebuilding all these homes, it's mandated that they have solar on them too.
00:06:57
Speaker
Right.
00:06:58
Speaker
So I started selling a lot of accounts and a company didn't end up doing too well.
00:07:02
Speaker
Like the classic solar story, I know you've been through it too.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:05
Speaker
I was building a team there and then lost tens of thousands of dollars in commission.
00:07:10
Speaker
Hmm.
00:07:11
Speaker
So that was pretty rough.
00:07:13
Speaker
Then after that, went down the dealer route because I'm like, if one installer did bad, then that means I need three.
00:07:19
Speaker
Right.
00:07:19
Speaker
And I think like, that's kind of like the natural progression.
00:07:22
Speaker
And so I started working with like multiple dealers and like, it's hard, you know, you hear the phrase, you chase two rabbits, you get none.
00:07:30
Speaker
Also, if you chase three rabbits, you get none.
00:07:31
Speaker
And so like,
00:07:32
Speaker
We were doing around 25, 30 deals a month.
00:07:35
Speaker
And then finally, one of the guys I had worked with at Phoenix, his name was Cody, and he was more on the operations side.
00:07:44
Speaker
He's my business partner, Cody Pitts, and he had his license and everything.
00:07:48
Speaker
Because I'm just the sales guy.
00:07:51
Speaker
I'm not going to be out there installing solar.
00:07:55
Speaker
And so we partnered, and then we've started to build Ohm ever since then.
00:07:58
Speaker
Wow.
00:07:59
Speaker
Yeah, that was kind of the beginnings of it all.
00:08:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool.
00:08:02
Speaker
So does your dad still do solar?
00:08:03
Speaker
Is he working for you now?
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah, so he had some health issues.
00:08:07
Speaker
And so he
Accountability and Systems for Growth
00:08:08
Speaker
like, essentially, like just helps consult and then does some recruiting as well.
00:08:12
Speaker
So still have him like work with us in the business.
00:08:14
Speaker
Nice.
00:08:15
Speaker
Father, son.
00:08:16
Speaker
I love it.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's so cool, man.
00:08:19
Speaker
That's awesome to have your dad.
00:08:20
Speaker
And what was he like?
00:08:23
Speaker
Was he kind of pushing you to build your own thing?
00:08:25
Speaker
Did he have a say in any of it?
00:08:26
Speaker
Or?
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah, so he was going through some medical issues.
00:08:30
Speaker
There was a lot of stress from when that company went out of business.
00:08:33
Speaker
As much money as I lost, for him, it was triple, quadruple.
00:08:36
Speaker
Oh, right.
00:08:37
Speaker
So I had some health issues due to that.
00:08:39
Speaker
And so really, at that time, I was like, well, I need to...
00:08:43
Speaker
be able to build an opportunity where not only I can help provide for myself, but like for my family as well.
00:08:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:49
Speaker
Um, and so after that I was, I was really just like, I think that's the biggest motivation you can have is like when a family has a health issue to like be able to like help take care of them as well.
00:08:58
Speaker
And like,
00:08:59
Speaker
he's killing it now, but, um, to help provide us like probably one of the bigger wise.
00:09:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:05
Speaker
That's cool.
00:09:06
Speaker
Were you, I don't know if this, were you ever like competitive with your dad?
00:09:10
Speaker
Like, Oh yeah.
00:09:11
Speaker
Like start out.
00:09:11
Speaker
So on him, he's like, Oh my, my kid's not going to be me.
00:09:13
Speaker
You're like, I'm going to be my old man.
00:09:16
Speaker
I wanted to beat him every single month and he wanted to beat me too.
00:09:19
Speaker
And like, it was funny because he'd hold me accountable.
00:09:22
Speaker
And you know, when you have conversations with reps, when you're trying to get them out on doors and they reps do this all the time.
00:09:27
Speaker
And I did this is they choose an activity that's productive, but not as productive as it should be.
00:09:33
Speaker
Like pipeline, managing the pipeline when you should be knocking.
00:09:36
Speaker
I'm putting together Aurora designs.
00:09:38
Speaker
I can't go out and knock doors.
00:09:39
Speaker
It's like, dude, come on.
00:09:40
Speaker
Following up with all the stuff.
00:09:42
Speaker
Like I needed to have non-negotiable time.
00:09:45
Speaker
And it's funny because I'd go and I'd work out at like 2 p.m.
00:09:47
Speaker
and my dad would be like, you need to set non-negotiable time for the doors.
00:09:50
Speaker
You need to set non-negotiable time.
00:09:51
Speaker
I'm like, that's stupid.
00:09:52
Speaker
I'm not doing that.
00:09:53
Speaker
I just wouldn't listen to him.
00:09:54
Speaker
And it's funny because now I have those same conversations with reps.
00:09:58
Speaker
Like, well, you need that non-negotiable time.
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:02
Speaker
That's so cool.
00:10:02
Speaker
I've been there.
00:10:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:04
Speaker
That's cool.
00:10:05
Speaker
um well no and so yeah you um so what what like motivated was it just seeing that other company like you know have some struggles start is that what motivated you to go start your own organization because that's a big step and a lot of people it's a lot of work as I'm sure you know and you're you'll talk about but yeah what was the motivation to go start your own thing
00:10:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was that.
00:10:26
Speaker
And then when everything goes bad, like, you know, everything not to do.
00:10:30
Speaker
So then it gives you like a clear vision as to what to do.
00:10:33
Speaker
Right.
00:10:34
Speaker
And so I think that that helped a lot.
00:10:37
Speaker
And it was just natural.
00:10:38
Speaker
Like I was the sales side of things and Cody was the operational side of things.
00:10:42
Speaker
And so we meshed really well.
00:10:45
Speaker
Um, and so from there, like it, obviously I think even I started a business, um, a full EPC, even when I still needed to develop, there was areas where I still needed to grow.
00:10:56
Speaker
Like I didn't become a golden door award winner until like we had to own for like three years.
00:11:00
Speaker
It wasn't just like some overnight success.
00:11:03
Speaker
And so like what it took a lot of was just like investing into myself and like the personal development aspect of the job.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:09
Speaker
Like when we first started, like we're making good money, but like I was spending a lot of my time like going on vacations, like not really reinvesting into the business and just trying to live the life, but not like do the things necessary to really grow the business.
00:11:23
Speaker
And so like a huge foundational piece for me was like Cody and I think everybody has somebody in their life.
00:11:29
Speaker
And if you don't, you need somebody who can help hold you accountability.
00:11:33
Speaker
Accountability is like one of the biggest aspects of this job.
00:11:36
Speaker
And I'm really grateful because Cody helped hold me accountable.
00:11:39
Speaker
And he's like, Christian, dude, you're capable of more.
00:11:41
Speaker
Like I need you to get out on the doors.
00:11:43
Speaker
I need you to start building teams.
00:11:44
Speaker
Like we can't just be running this EPC off like your own personal accounts.
00:11:48
Speaker
Right.
00:11:48
Speaker
Right.
00:11:49
Speaker
Like we're doing...
00:11:50
Speaker
you know, not a ton of numbers to begin with.
00:11:52
Speaker
And so like he held me accountable to go and do it.
00:11:55
Speaker
And then naturally I started looking for like, where can I find good information?
00:11:58
Speaker
Like one of those places, which is so funny is Solopreneur, right?
00:12:01
Speaker
Other places like door to door you.
00:12:04
Speaker
And just like the resources are out there for anybody to go and be a golden door award winner, build a team of over like,
00:12:10
Speaker
100 reps.
00:12:11
Speaker
But and I think that's the hard part is we all know what to do.
00:12:13
Speaker
It's just like having somebody in your life that can hold you accountable to go and then do it.
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:19
Speaker
Which like, and you know, especially in California, not as many people are like EPC shopping anymore or red line shopping.
00:12:26
Speaker
But like, what you really should be shopping for is accountability.
00:12:30
Speaker
Who's going to push you to like go and do more and take you to that next level?
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's so good because like you're saying, I mean, there's already so many resources.
00:12:37
Speaker
Even if you never bought like DDU, any coaching program, whatever, like you can go on YouTube.
00:12:43
Speaker
You can, you know, come to events like this.
00:12:46
Speaker
SolarCon, we're at right now.
00:12:49
Speaker
But yeah, if you don't implement any of the information you're getting, then it's not going to help you that much.
00:12:53
Speaker
100%.
00:12:54
Speaker
So yeah, that's so cool.
00:12:55
Speaker
And what I'd imagine, like you're running the company, did it take you a while to figure out?
00:13:00
Speaker
Because there's a lot of stuff you have to do when you're the one running the company.
00:13:04
Speaker
How did you like manage all that and still give any advice on like when you're having to run a company while also still being able to sell a lot?
00:13:11
Speaker
What did you do to kind of like...
00:13:13
Speaker
still produce while you're running the company and everything?
00:13:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good question.
00:13:16
Speaker
I think it's just non-negotiable time.
00:13:19
Speaker
So like you, I think if you live by your calendar, it makes it a lot easier.
00:13:22
Speaker
So like when you have like, you know, people make the excuses, like maybe there's operational things that are going on in the business.
00:13:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:29
Speaker
It was like use for us, like you have to set two different times.
00:13:33
Speaker
There's time for maintenance and there's time for growth.
00:13:35
Speaker
So maintenance is like fixing the things in the business that need to be fixed.
00:13:39
Speaker
Growth is in like the afternoon when people are home and you can go out and sell deals.
00:13:43
Speaker
And so I just like separated those two things.
00:13:45
Speaker
Like maintaining is fixing all the little like operational issues.
00:13:48
Speaker
Like how do we get the pipeline moving faster?
00:13:50
Speaker
Growth is like, how can I find time to go out and like actually the inputs that are going to like
00:13:55
Speaker
bring revenue into this business.
00:13:56
Speaker
Cause like without sales, it doesn't matter how good your systems are.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:00
Speaker
Right.
00:14:00
Speaker
Like you need systems are deals to like work the system or put deals through the system.
00:14:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:08
Speaker
And it's
Leadership and Personal Connection
00:14:09
Speaker
so true.
00:14:09
Speaker
Like, you know, there's like, you're saying before, there's so many reps that waste time on pipeline management and all this stuff.
00:14:15
Speaker
But I think I know for sure that's something that's helped me get a golden door and, you know, tweak a few things, just like doing those non-negotiables like you're talking about.
00:14:24
Speaker
Like,
00:14:25
Speaker
So, okay, if I made a commitment to knock between two to seven or whatever, then I should be out there.
00:14:30
Speaker
I shouldn't be out like following up with customers or like, you know, getting that too.
00:14:35
Speaker
It's like the easiest hack and Michael Donald talks about this.
00:14:38
Speaker
The easiest hack to get out there and be accountable is naturally like as humans, we're really tribal, right?
00:14:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:45
Speaker
Like,
00:14:46
Speaker
If I tell Taylor, Taylor, I'm going to come out and we're going to go knock at 1 p.m., I will be there 100%.
00:14:51
Speaker
If I tell myself, you know, Christian, we're going to get out there at 1 p.m., 105 rolls around and like, dude, I'm not out there.
00:15:00
Speaker
I'm finding an excuse to go to the gym, do Aurora designs, eating Pop-Tarts at home, not doing the right things.
00:15:06
Speaker
I know.
00:15:07
Speaker
Yeah, for me, it's finding free stuff.
00:15:09
Speaker
Got a deal.
00:15:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:10
Speaker
Taylor's searching the internet for any 20% discount.
00:15:13
Speaker
Yeah, he's giving me a hard time because I love free deals and stuff.
00:15:17
Speaker
All the birthday deals and get free stuff.
00:15:20
Speaker
But no, that's good.
00:15:21
Speaker
And yeah, it's so important.
00:15:22
Speaker
And I think we'll talk about this a little bit more.
00:15:25
Speaker
But I think that's one of the big traits that will separate like the Golden Door winners from just like, you know, the struggling rep is they're super efficient with their time.
00:15:34
Speaker
They've got the non-negotiables.
00:15:36
Speaker
Like they're putting in the time to generate leads every day and not like, you know, making excuses on other things.
00:15:43
Speaker
Break down being a Golden Door Award winner to just a couple of things.
00:15:47
Speaker
And I I've gone through this framework like with our team, but it really is this simple.
00:15:51
Speaker
It's like, number one, create a non-negotiable five to six hours to go out and do income producing activities, not make Aurora designs.
00:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's the first thing.
00:16:00
Speaker
The other thing is like have the faith and the family and the fitness, like have all that stuff, like the whole person paradigm going.
00:16:08
Speaker
So you're in the right state when you show up to the doors.
00:16:11
Speaker
Then the only other aspect of the job is like, there's really only six objections that make up for 90% of what homeowners say.
00:16:18
Speaker
So it's like not interested, not a good time.
00:16:21
Speaker
You're the third solar guy.
00:16:22
Speaker
Those are the three smoke screens.
00:16:24
Speaker
And then the three actual objections are like too old.
00:16:27
Speaker
I need a new roof and my bills are too low.
00:16:30
Speaker
And all you have to do is have all of the whole person paradigm and your state in the right area, go out and put in the non-negotiable time and then memorize the six responses to the six most common objections and have a pitch memorized and do it over and over and over again.
00:16:49
Speaker
If you could break down being a Golden Door Award winner to its simplest terms,
00:16:52
Speaker
It's probably that.
00:16:54
Speaker
But the hard part is, is like, we know all the right things to do.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:57
Speaker
It's going back like the accountability to do it.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:01
Speaker
Seriously.
00:17:02
Speaker
And who's doing, who is holding you accountable to do those things.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's true.
00:17:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:06
Speaker
And so I think that's huge.
00:17:07
Speaker
Find accountability partner.
00:17:08
Speaker
But yeah, it's funny.
00:17:09
Speaker
Like, I don't know if you've done that in like your sales correlations.
00:17:12
Speaker
You get the reps like, oh, there's just endless objections.
00:17:15
Speaker
I can't overcome them.
00:17:16
Speaker
Then you ask them, okay, what are the objections you're getting?
00:17:19
Speaker
And like,
00:17:19
Speaker
like you hardly ever get people thinking of more than like 10 things.
00:17:23
Speaker
And yeah, like you said, they come down to pretty much like five or six anyways.
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:28
Speaker
That's a good point.
00:17:29
Speaker
So
Recruiting and Onboarding Systems
00:17:30
Speaker
yeah.
00:17:30
Speaker
But yeah, if you can do that, find accountability partner.
00:17:33
Speaker
So your company, do you guys have a structure where you're like holding people accountable or like, yeah, what does that look like for newer guys?
00:17:41
Speaker
You tell them, Hey, you're going to have this, you know, a mentor or like, how do you guys do that?
00:17:45
Speaker
So there's a lot of accountability.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:47
Speaker
For reps and managers, the most important thing is to have systems that promote accountability.
00:17:53
Speaker
So like if we leave it up to our guys to get out to the doors and let's say there's no manager call or there's no car groups or there's no van program, do reps get out on the doors?
00:18:03
Speaker
It's like,
00:18:04
Speaker
Most of the time I would say no, or they find every reason to just go put in like two or three hours.
00:18:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:10
Speaker
So a lot of the times, like the reason when I worked back at Safeway, I would go and I would work eight hours and I wouldn't do six is because that was the shift that I was like mandated to do.
00:18:20
Speaker
Right.
00:18:20
Speaker
And so like, how do we create that same type of thing and not the exact same type of thing, right?
00:18:25
Speaker
Like we want people to have freedom in their job, but like, how do you create that same type of thing within door to door and it's within your systems.
00:18:31
Speaker
And so like,
00:18:33
Speaker
for the reps.
00:18:34
Speaker
And it's funny because our reps love car groups now.
00:18:36
Speaker
Our reps love the van program now.
00:18:38
Speaker
They love getting dropped off because we've tied their why to it.
00:18:42
Speaker
So if it's like, hey, you know, A, B and C rep wants to be able to give back to their family at some point.
00:18:48
Speaker
And it's like, well, dude, you're going to need accountability to do that, right?
00:18:51
Speaker
You're going to need a van program.
00:18:52
Speaker
You're going to need somebody to go and drop you off an area to make sure that you're doing it because if it's up to you every day, it's not going to happen.
00:18:58
Speaker
And that's not because you're a bad rep.
00:19:00
Speaker
It's because that's how we're wired, right?
00:19:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:02
Speaker
It's like we're wired to be more accountable to other people than ourselves.
00:19:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:06
Speaker
And so just creating systems for that, whether it's the car groups or whether it's like manager calls and like accountability calls to help get those guys out or a van program.
00:19:16
Speaker
We have one of our teams that we just bought a 15 person van for.
00:19:20
Speaker
And they go out to area every single day and they have the best time ever in it because when they're out going to area, they're listening to the solopreneur podcast, right?
00:19:29
Speaker
Like they're developing on their way and they've turned like the van into a university.
00:19:33
Speaker
Nice.
00:19:33
Speaker
So good.
00:19:34
Speaker
And when they get dropped off an area, like it's not, you're not going to just go sit on the curb.
00:19:38
Speaker
Like you're going to go make it happen.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:40
Speaker
Right.
00:19:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:41
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:19:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:42
Speaker
We did that.
00:19:43
Speaker
I haven't done that in a little bit.
00:19:44
Speaker
It's a good idea.
00:19:45
Speaker
But yeah, one of my companies, we had like three or four of those vans and
00:19:49
Speaker
Yeah, just same thing, load everybody up.
00:19:52
Speaker
It's the funniest thing.
00:19:53
Speaker
It works.
00:19:53
Speaker
They have the best time ever.
00:19:54
Speaker
Like, I want to be in the van with them.
00:19:56
Speaker
Take me out.
00:19:57
Speaker
I know.
00:19:57
Speaker
It works for sure.
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah, but I want to hear.
00:20:00
Speaker
So when you got your Golden Dorn 2022, right?
00:20:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:03
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:04
Speaker
So yeah, for those wanting to like hit those type of numbers and installs, what it's what like your daily schedule look like?
00:20:10
Speaker
I don't know if you have like routines.
00:20:12
Speaker
How many hours were you putting in knocking?
00:20:15
Speaker
Like set or closer?
00:20:16
Speaker
What does that look like for you that year?
00:20:17
Speaker
So how it started is I just recruited a lot of different people through like warm networks and it wasn't even through the systems that we'll talk about later.
00:20:26
Speaker
It was really just through like I was born and raised in Chico.
00:20:29
Speaker
So I knew a ton of people in the area.
00:20:30
Speaker
Like I had that advantage to me.
00:20:32
Speaker
And so a lot of people would see what I was doing and like the commission checks and all of that.
00:20:36
Speaker
And they were kind of attracted to the opportunity and then those people's friends and so on and so forth, kind of like the spiderweb effect.
00:20:44
Speaker
And so I'd bring those people in, teach them how to set.
00:20:47
Speaker
And so we had a sales system.
00:20:49
Speaker
So we had the word tracks for like how to overcome the top six objections.
00:20:53
Speaker
And we just kept it super simple.
00:20:55
Speaker
This is how you overcome the top six objections.
00:20:58
Speaker
This is your pitch.
00:20:58
Speaker
This is what you go out and say.
00:21:00
Speaker
And then we do correlations every morning around like 10 to 11 a.m.
00:21:07
Speaker
And then we'd get out to area, go and knock.
00:21:10
Speaker
Um, and essentially like it got to the point and I had a co-manager with me.
00:21:14
Speaker
His name was.
00:21:14
Speaker
All right.
00:21:18
Speaker
Um, and so I had a co-manager, his name was Max.
00:21:21
Speaker
Max works with us today.
00:21:22
Speaker
Absolute stud.
00:21:24
Speaker
Um,
00:21:24
Speaker
And so Max and I had our different roles, right?
00:21:27
Speaker
And so like we came to an agreement and we set expectations from day one.
00:21:31
Speaker
And I think that's a mistake that people don't do is when they recruit somebody in to like co-manage or like run a division or a region or a team with, they don't set expectations of like where people's genius are.
00:21:42
Speaker
So like Max was way better than me at going out and training the reps on the doors, how to do the job, right?
00:21:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:50
Speaker
And like when the reps had issues that they were experiencing in their personal life, they would always call Max first.
00:21:55
Speaker
Nice.
00:21:56
Speaker
And then when they needed to be held accountable, Max would let me know.
00:21:59
Speaker
And like I would go and have that conversation.
00:22:01
Speaker
Nice.
00:22:01
Speaker
And so like I would, Max and I would split the appointments up.
00:22:05
Speaker
And so like we, that was a system that worked really well for us because we set expectations and we both knew what we were good at.
00:22:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:11
Speaker
So I was running appointments like all day.
00:22:13
Speaker
Right.
00:22:13
Speaker
And I think a lot of the best Golden Door Award winners, they figure out a way and it's important to get out of the doors and lead from the front.
00:22:19
Speaker
Right.
00:22:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:20
Speaker
But also like the best leadership is delegation, but also empowerment.
00:22:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:25
Speaker
So like, how can I empower a group of setters, 10 to 12 to 20 setters to go out and set more appointments than they ever have in their life?
00:22:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:33
Speaker
And make a ton of money.
00:22:35
Speaker
Right.
00:22:35
Speaker
Like I don't need to be out self-genning every single one of my accounts.
00:22:38
Speaker
If I need to do that to lead from the front, to set an example, like I'll do it.
00:22:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:43
Speaker
But for the most part, we have the system down.
00:22:45
Speaker
So like these guys are making a ton of money.
00:22:47
Speaker
We're out closing the deals.
00:22:49
Speaker
And like, it's just like a focus on the training.
00:22:52
Speaker
And I think one thing that people miss too, and it's a
00:22:55
Speaker
A lot of the value I think you'll notice is like in the simple things.
00:22:58
Speaker
I'm sure you've noticed this, right?
00:23:00
Speaker
And just like doing the one-on-ones.
00:23:02
Speaker
And so like we do one-on-ones with these reps, me and Max together.
00:23:05
Speaker
And the one-on-ones would be more about their personal life than it would be about Solr.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's good.
00:23:11
Speaker
And so like when they start opening up, there's a lot of the times, and Doug Cartwright talks about this in the alchemy sales training, is like people don't have a sales problem.
00:23:19
Speaker
They have a personal problem that's affecting their sales.
00:23:22
Speaker
So when we'd get down to that and to the root of it, like we could help solve that issue.
00:23:26
Speaker
Like I've had stress, anxiety, and depression and all those things in my life.
00:23:30
Speaker
And I've used like cognitive behavioral therapy and stuff to like help work through those things.
00:23:34
Speaker
So I felt like that was an area where like I could really excel and like,
00:23:38
Speaker
I think that's how you create loyalty too, because when you can like change somebody's paradigm or like help them through an issue that they're going through in life, number one, as a leader, it feels freaking amazing.
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:48
Speaker
And number two, like I think those people are eternally grateful.
00:23:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's fire.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:53
Speaker
And I think a lot of probably managers listening to this, they don't really think about those things.
00:23:57
Speaker
It's like, hey, just stop making excuses.
00:23:59
Speaker
Get out there.
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:01
Speaker
And but they don't.
00:24:01
Speaker
Like, how does that work?
00:24:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:03
Speaker
But they're wondering why their reps don't go perform.
00:24:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:06
Speaker
But that's a really good point.
00:24:07
Speaker
And I think that could be applied to a lot of ways that people behave is, you know, I hear like people have addictions or whatever, like alcoholics and all that.
00:24:15
Speaker
A lot of times it's just because they're using that as like, you know, medicating other underlying issues and stuff like that.
00:24:21
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, that's how do you so how did you like maybe help these reps kind of uncover what those problems were dig deeper, like figure out, okay, what's what's the real reason you're not like?
00:24:32
Speaker
So reps are just like homeowners.
00:24:33
Speaker
So like our job actually teaches us a lot of like how to handle that.
00:24:36
Speaker
So when you're overcoming objections and somebody says not interested, is that a legitimate reason for them to not go solar?
00:24:41
Speaker
It's like, no, it's a smokescreen, right?
00:24:44
Speaker
And like sometimes people would be like, I just can't get out there and like knock.
00:24:48
Speaker
I just can't do it.
00:24:49
Speaker
And like that's the smokescreen, right?
00:24:52
Speaker
And like if I help them actually uncover the real reason why they're not able to get out there and knock, it's like you just need to spend.
00:24:58
Speaker
And I think time cures all, right?
00:25:01
Speaker
If you spend enough time with these people and with these reps, eventually they uncover things.
00:25:06
Speaker
like the real issues yeah but the time has to be also invested and outside of work okay because if it's just always in the office like it's hard for them to open up right but when you go out to dinner it's just like and maybe a good like lens or frame to view it through is like if i was trying to make a friend like what would this conversation be like right and like really truly try to understand like what's going on in their life and ask the deeper questions like
00:25:31
Speaker
and get to understand their family situation.
00:25:34
Speaker
Then all of those things, there's no, I don't think there's a perfect word track or anything.
00:25:38
Speaker
It's just you have to genuinely go out there and build a relationship.
00:25:42
Speaker
And then your closest friends, if they're having issues, Taylor, they're going to tell you what they're experiencing.
00:25:47
Speaker
It's not like you have some perfect word track to uncover.
00:25:50
Speaker
That's true.
00:25:50
Speaker
Why my friends aren't doing well.
00:25:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:52
Speaker
They're just going to tell you because they trust you.
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:54
Speaker
So like you have to go and build that trust, which means like making time outside of the job.
00:25:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:59
Speaker
And like caring what the guys care about.
00:26:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:02
Speaker
Because if it's just all about you and like what you care about.
00:26:06
Speaker
Nobody's going to buy it.
00:26:07
Speaker
Nobody's going to care.
00:26:09
Speaker
We have another manager that works with us.
00:26:10
Speaker
His name's Jack, and he's really good at this.
00:26:13
Speaker
And Jack's really good at caring about what the guys care about.
00:26:17
Speaker
And then you have influence.
00:26:18
Speaker
Then you have trust.
00:26:19
Speaker
Then you can actually make an impact.
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's really good.
00:26:22
Speaker
And yeah, I think too, just for, you know, building that trust, like having them want to be confident in giving you appointments and all that.
00:26:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:30
Speaker
Like not them, not just feeling like a number and everything.
00:26:32
Speaker
I think that's huge with setters.
00:26:34
Speaker
So that's good.
00:26:35
Speaker
So yeah, it sounds like it's just really, you guys developed like a really good system with your setters and we're just in appointments pretty much all day.
00:26:41
Speaker
And that's, that's what.
00:26:43
Speaker
If you're in appointments all day, you're going to win a golden door.
00:26:45
Speaker
Like it's that simple.
00:26:46
Speaker
That's all I wanted to do.
00:26:47
Speaker
So the question should be like, how do you get in appointments all day?
00:26:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:50
Speaker
You develop people.
00:26:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:52
Speaker
Well, no, that's good.
00:26:53
Speaker
And I think that's like, obviously, we just got off the recruiting panel here.
00:26:57
Speaker
And I think that's a good segue into that is like you can't.
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah, you need guys to build the system.
00:27:03
Speaker
And I know we can talk about like how you need to structure it because obviously it gets tougher as you or you got to, you know, have a really good system when you bring more and more people in.
00:27:13
Speaker
So yeah, but let's get into that.
00:27:14
Speaker
So what's like your recruiting system or what were you doing?
00:27:20
Speaker
I guess early, early stages when you got your golden door, how is that kind of evolved?
00:27:24
Speaker
Now you've grown your company a lot.
00:27:26
Speaker
So early, it wasn't really systematized because I was, I was blessed with like the ability of like, okay, I was born and raised in Chico, knew a million people there.
00:27:34
Speaker
We're just, we're a year round program.
00:27:36
Speaker
So like, we're just knocking this area.
00:27:38
Speaker
over and over and over again.
00:27:40
Speaker
And like, just ran into a ton of people I knew.
00:27:43
Speaker
I just also, when you knock doors, you don't, you're not afraid to go out and have the conversation.
00:27:48
Speaker
Like when you walk into a restaurant.
00:27:50
Speaker
And so like through that as well, but what helped like, I guess really grow the team is,
00:27:58
Speaker
Also, when you provide an experience and like you're able, like I was talking about earlier, able to uncover those personal issues and help solve them for those guys.
00:28:06
Speaker
That's like something that like it's bigger than just the job.
00:28:09
Speaker
And they're going to go out and they're going to tell their friends, their family, like they're going to tell everybody about this job and then all their friends are going to want to like work here as well.
00:28:17
Speaker
And so like a lot of people will focus on recruiting.
00:28:19
Speaker
But I think the first step is to focus on the experience first.
00:28:22
Speaker
Then once you build the experience on the platform, then like the recruiting becomes easy.
00:28:28
Speaker
And so after that, we started to become more systematized because we really started, you know, especially after NEM3 is like NEM3, I think for a lot of us, like it either completely killed you or it helped you like grow in a million different ways.
00:28:42
Speaker
If you don't have good operating systems now, like it's definitely tougher, but that's not a reason not to do it.
00:28:48
Speaker
Right.
00:28:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:48
Speaker
Like if you don't have good operating systems now, it's going to be really hard.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:51
Speaker
And so it became more systematized.
00:28:53
Speaker
And so we actually met through Sam and we're a member of the circle, like the inner circle with Sam Taggart's group.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:59
Speaker
We met Luke Maseko, who is, he owns a company called ABR Recruiting, or Always Be Recruiting.
00:29:06
Speaker
It's called ABR.
00:29:08
Speaker
And so he helped teach us the system.
00:29:10
Speaker
And essentially like what you do within the system is it's called a stump speech.
00:29:15
Speaker
So,
00:29:16
Speaker
What you do is typically, Luke uses this phrase, birds of a feather flock together.
00:29:23
Speaker
So an A recruit is going to be friends with a bunch of other A-level recruits.
00:29:29
Speaker
A D-level recruit, the guy who just won't get out on the doors, has a bad attitude, is probably friends with a bunch of guys who have bad attitudes.
00:29:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:37
Speaker
And so like we want the contact lists from the people who are the A-level recruits and are already killing it.
00:29:43
Speaker
So what we do is we do a stump speech is essentially like we get them all in a room, we hype it up, get the energy all crazy, just like you normally would for a correlation, get the music going.
00:29:53
Speaker
And essentially from there,
00:29:56
Speaker
What we do is we throw out these incentives.
00:29:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:59
Speaker
So, you know, Taylor, if we were to get 250 contacts from you, it's so dumb, but we get an energy drink.
00:30:07
Speaker
Right?
00:30:08
Speaker
Taylor, if you have 500 contacts that you can share with us, we're going to get you an OM hat.
00:30:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:14
Speaker
And it's going to look way better than that Legacy hat.
00:30:16
Speaker
Legacy is a great company.
00:30:17
Speaker
Love them.
00:30:19
Speaker
And if you give us 750 contacts, Taylor, we're going to take you out to Fifth Street Steakhouse tonight.
00:30:24
Speaker
Nice.
00:30:25
Speaker
Right?
00:30:25
Speaker
And so they're directly incentivized to share the contacts.
00:30:28
Speaker
It's also like we pitch it like, you know, it's easier to do this job with friends than without
Developing Sales and Training Systems
00:30:33
Speaker
friends.
00:30:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:33
Speaker
And so it also provides a benefit to us as a business is like if a bunch of their friends are here, they're more likely to stay.
00:30:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:40
Speaker
So it's a retention program too.
00:30:42
Speaker
And essentially we download this app called Essay Contacts.
00:30:45
Speaker
You can download all your contacts.
00:30:47
Speaker
So we tell them, delete all your family members, delete Pizza Hut, delete freaking whatever you have in there, right?
00:30:54
Speaker
All the people that you know for certain would not be a good fit for this job.
00:31:00
Speaker
And so essentially they go through and they delete all those contacts and then they share whatever is left over.
00:31:05
Speaker
But the key part is, is like if you just have them come in and write down a list of 25,
00:31:10
Speaker
They're not going to get to 25 because they have to make the physical choice to take them from the contact list and add them to a piece of paper.
00:31:17
Speaker
It's easier to delete contacts than it is to take contacts and write them somewhere else.
00:31:22
Speaker
And so they delete all the contacts and then they share it with us.
00:31:24
Speaker
And then we also take the incentive to another level is we want retention as well.
00:31:29
Speaker
So what we consider a recruit is somebody who sold two deals or had two installations.
00:31:35
Speaker
We care about installs, not just sales.
00:31:38
Speaker
And so...
00:31:39
Speaker
We throw out an incentive.
00:31:40
Speaker
If you have one recruit that you bring in from this list, which they don't even have to passively manage it anymore.
00:31:47
Speaker
If you have one recruit that you bring in who has two deals, then we're going to get you some Nike ducks.
00:31:53
Speaker
If you have five recruits that have two deals, we're going to send you and your significant other to Cabo.
00:31:59
Speaker
Because like 10 deals, like what is that worth to your business?
00:32:02
Speaker
A lot more than a trip to Cabo.
00:32:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:05
Speaker
And so you just kind of like start to scale this out.
00:32:06
Speaker
But that's like the brief overview of like how the system works.
00:32:10
Speaker
It's exponential too.
00:32:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:12
Speaker
Because what happens when you like get their network, you get one guy, 10 recruits from his network.
00:32:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:17
Speaker
And from those 10 recruits, you get, you know, maybe 30 more guys.
00:32:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:22
Speaker
It just has this like compounding effect.
00:32:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's so good.
00:32:26
Speaker
And yeah, we were talking about a little bit about that in the recruiting panel, just barely too, but it's like, you know, similar principle.
00:32:32
Speaker
If you think of referrals you can get from homeowners, it's like how the people that you're looking for, they're already in the context of, you know, people you're surrounded by.
00:32:43
Speaker
So that's why I think it's so cool.
00:32:44
Speaker
And, um, yeah, you know, when you were talking about that, I'm like, dude, I gotta get on this system.
00:32:48
Speaker
I mean, there is a lot more to it.
00:32:51
Speaker
Like that's like the brief overview, but, um,
00:32:53
Speaker
Yeah, I'd love to go into more detail with you.
00:32:55
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:32:56
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, a couple other things that I'm sure people are wondering.
00:32:59
Speaker
So I know in the panel you talked about you have someone that will just call through all these people.
00:33:04
Speaker
So was that just someone you hired?
00:33:06
Speaker
Or how did you get someone to just start calling all these guys for you?
00:33:09
Speaker
It's funny.
00:33:09
Speaker
We had a... Jay Cass was a consultant with us for a good period of time.
00:33:14
Speaker
And he still helps us out.
00:33:16
Speaker
If I call him, that dude's super abundant.
00:33:18
Speaker
He'll always answer the phone.
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:20
Speaker
And so he helped bring in a guy named Jody, who is our VP of sales at home.
00:33:26
Speaker
And he kept opening my eyes to like systems, systems, systems.
00:33:29
Speaker
And I've always been the guy like, I'll just do it myself.
00:33:31
Speaker
Like I'll get it done, whatever.
00:33:33
Speaker
Or like, I don't need a system to be able to train this guy.
00:33:35
Speaker
I'll just tell him what I do and he'll figure it out.
00:33:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:38
Speaker
And, but that's not replicatable.
00:33:39
Speaker
And so like with this recruiter, I realized like it can't just be the managers calling these guys.
00:33:44
Speaker
It can't just be me calling these guys like to really grow and scale this thing.
00:33:48
Speaker
We need to bring somebody internally and provide this as a service to like our sales teams.
00:33:52
Speaker
Right.
00:33:52
Speaker
Because we have two different customers.
00:33:54
Speaker
Number one, our sales teams and like number one, the homeowner.
00:33:57
Speaker
And so, um, we brought this guy in, his name is Steven.
00:34:00
Speaker
He's an absolute killer.
00:34:02
Speaker
I've trained him just through like, um,
00:34:04
Speaker
Essentially, we built out a system with like, hey, these are the top 15 qualifying questions that you want to ask.
00:34:12
Speaker
Because when you get on the phone, you need to qualify them.
00:34:14
Speaker
You need to pull back a lot.
00:34:15
Speaker
The biggest mistake that people make is when they get on the phone,
00:34:19
Speaker
is they just sell, sell, sell, sell.
00:34:21
Speaker
And what the end potential rep thinks is like, this is an MLM, this is too good to be true.
00:34:29
Speaker
So if you start to pull back and qualify, they realize that there's scarcity in the opportunity.
00:34:35
Speaker
So we brought Steven in and we started to teach him how to do all these things.
00:34:38
Speaker
And like, it's funny because like all the managers know how to recruit.
00:34:41
Speaker
A lot of the closers at our company know how to recruit.
00:34:43
Speaker
Our VP of sales knows how to recruit.
00:34:46
Speaker
I know how to recruit.
00:34:47
Speaker
And so like naturally, just by proximity, Steven has become like this amazing recruiter.
00:34:52
Speaker
And like everybody's like going and training him.
00:34:54
Speaker
And then we created like this whole recruiting handbook for him.
00:34:57
Speaker
So that like what he's doing right now is he's hiring the next level of people.
00:35:01
Speaker
And we're essentially building out a call center just for the recruiting aspect of things.
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's good.
00:35:06
Speaker
Because like recruiting is a really high leverage activity.
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:10
Speaker
And so like if you go and knock on one door and make one sale, typically that's a one for one transaction.
00:35:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:17
Speaker
Maybe if you get a couple of referrals for it, it's like a one for three or one for four transaction.
00:35:22
Speaker
Right.
00:35:22
Speaker
But if I bring in a new rep, he's an absolute killer and he goes out and does 100 installs in a year.
00:35:27
Speaker
That was a one for 100 transaction.
00:35:29
Speaker
What's the leverage like on that?
00:35:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:32
Speaker
So naturally, that's where you put your focus, right?
00:35:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
It's so good.
00:35:36
Speaker
And like, yeah, that's, that was a focus of our recruiting panel too.
00:35:39
Speaker
It's like those that are just focusing on sales, sales, sales.
00:35:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:43
Speaker
It's great.
00:35:44
Speaker
Like, yeah, you can go out and win a golden door award yourself and you want it.
00:35:47
Speaker
But I think now you've been able to like multiply yourself and like, you know, that's where you see more and more growth is when you need to recruit an army and go out instead of you just personally get a golden door.
00:35:58
Speaker
Like how cool would it be to recruit?
00:36:00
Speaker
like six other people that got golden doors instead of you just getting it to me.
00:36:04
Speaker
That's way more exciting.
00:36:05
Speaker
100%.
00:36:05
Speaker
That's impact right there.
00:36:06
Speaker
And that's what we all want at the end of the day.
00:36:08
Speaker
People want community and to be the person to build the community is like, it's freaking cool too.
00:36:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:13
Speaker
It's so good.
00:36:14
Speaker
So yeah, for this, for people listening, yeah, I mean, hopefully that opens for the listeners, people tuning in the podcast today.
00:36:21
Speaker
It's like,
00:36:22
Speaker
You should be at the very minimum, like what Christian's talking about is just using the warm contacts, the people you bring in, get them to, you know, like make a list of the very minimum of people in contact.
00:36:35
Speaker
But if people want to get like a guy like
00:36:37
Speaker
to call?
00:36:38
Speaker
Did you just, was this someone you were working with?
00:36:41
Speaker
Jake has introduced you?
00:36:42
Speaker
So, you know, I told earlier about the story about the guy when I was selling cars and he was like, oh yeah, why are we driving?
00:36:48
Speaker
Or like, why are we selling these cars?
00:36:51
Speaker
We should be driving these cars.
00:36:53
Speaker
That was the guy.
00:36:54
Speaker
So like I had a relationship with him already and he was doing sales at a car dealership.
00:37:00
Speaker
And sales is pretty transferable.
00:37:02
Speaker
I just needed to like help teach them the systems.
00:37:04
Speaker
And like, if you have a recruiting handbook of like, these are the questions you ask on the call.
00:37:08
Speaker
These are how you overcome, like, again, goes back to the systems.
00:37:12
Speaker
These are how you overcome the top six objections of what like, um, recruits are going to say on the phone.
00:37:17
Speaker
It's as simple as that.
00:37:18
Speaker
All we need to do now is just teach you how to disposition it to like all the different managers and go from there.
00:37:22
Speaker
It's like all transferable.
00:37:24
Speaker
It really is like very similar, I think.
00:37:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:27
Speaker
Wow, that's so good.
00:37:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:29
Speaker
Well, I know that's definitely something that I'm lacking in.
00:37:32
Speaker
Yeah, like I told you in the panel just barely, there's so many people that just like, you know, get a contact to recruit and then they just forget about them.
00:37:41
Speaker
So a lot of this is follow up.
00:37:42
Speaker
So do you guys have all this in like a CRM too?
00:37:45
Speaker
How do you like manage your recruits and everything?
00:37:46
Speaker
Working on that portion.
00:37:48
Speaker
It's just like we have so many contacts right now that's like working through them and like building out the systems for that.
00:37:53
Speaker
I wouldn't necessarily say that that's my expertise right now, but we do follow up and you can disposition them on things like RepCart, but hopefully create a better, not hopefully, got to be intentional with the language, right?
00:38:05
Speaker
Exactly.
00:38:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:06
Speaker
We are doing a lot of better system.
00:38:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:08
Speaker
Well, that'll be part two, podcast part two.
00:38:11
Speaker
Once you get that dialed in.
00:38:12
Speaker
That's mine.
00:38:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:14
Speaker
That's good.
00:38:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:15
Speaker
And then another thing, this is something we didn't really touch on in our recruiting panel, just barely Christian, but like something that I see a lot of companies fall short on is they bring these reps in.
00:38:25
Speaker
Maybe they're getting quite a few recruits, but then they just like throw them out and say, all right, hit the doors.
00:38:31
Speaker
And you talked about like car groups, vans going out.
00:38:34
Speaker
But yeah, what sort of system do you have in place for new recruits to come in to where they're like hopefully going to get their first deal in the first couple of weeks?
00:38:41
Speaker
What do you guys do to kind of like organize that and onboard them successfully and everything?
00:38:46
Speaker
That's a really good question.
00:38:47
Speaker
And I was actually thinking about that as we were talking.
00:38:49
Speaker
I'm like, I don't want to miss out on that portion of this because I think it's actually the most crucial part.
00:38:52
Speaker
Because if you recruit them to nothing, nothing happens.
00:38:57
Speaker
And so what we do is we build out systems for that as well.
00:38:59
Speaker
Like
00:39:00
Speaker
To get your onboarding pack at most companies, you show up to the meeting and you got a polo, dude.
00:39:06
Speaker
You have a hat.
00:39:07
Speaker
But like, why not put that on the other end of them doing the trainings?
00:39:10
Speaker
And so training platforms like Lightspeed and stuff is they'll print out a certificate once you're done.
00:39:15
Speaker
And that shows that you've completed all the trainings and it shows that they're actually bought into the opportunity as well.
00:39:19
Speaker
So we get to weed out the people that aren't actually going to go and invest in themselves and their free time.
00:39:24
Speaker
And then at that point, that's how you earn your gear.
00:39:27
Speaker
So like, that's one way to like almost kind of gamify or systematize it.
00:39:31
Speaker
Other things is just like the accountability.
00:39:34
Speaker
Like a lot of the things that you're going to learn is like light speed and these one-on-one trainings and the meetings are going to help you.
00:39:40
Speaker
But how are you making sure that you're getting out on the doors every single day?
00:39:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:45
Speaker
Because the more problems that you go and then run into, the more solutions that you're then going to seek.
00:39:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:50
Speaker
And then the better rep you're going to become.
00:39:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:52
Speaker
It's like, I think the worst reps are the ones that don't ask enough questions.
00:39:57
Speaker
Right.
00:39:57
Speaker
But like to ask questions, you first need to run into those issues.
00:40:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:00
Speaker
And so just like going back to the system of the car groups and like, um, like, uh,
00:40:07
Speaker
getting the own van going as well.
00:40:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:09
Speaker
So yeah, between the training and there's a lot of other things, but I think those are like maybe some of the core fundamentals.
00:40:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:16
Speaker
Cause, um, all of this other stuff we talked about, like it doesn't mean anything.
00:40:20
Speaker
Like you said, if you recruit people to bad culture, bad system, there's no onboarding process, then you're just losing recruits, right?
00:40:28
Speaker
The second you bring them on.
00:40:30
Speaker
So, yeah, it's really important.
00:40:31
Speaker
Whoever's listening, just figure out some way to train them, have them onboarded.
00:40:36
Speaker
I've got some light back here.
00:40:37
Speaker
And focus on the self-development, too.
00:40:40
Speaker
Like at home, like our claim to fame, I'm sure people have used this before, but it's like we're a self-development company that just so happens to sell solar.
00:40:50
Speaker
Right?
00:40:50
Speaker
I'm sure you've heard it before, right?
00:40:52
Speaker
A lot of people say it.
00:40:53
Speaker
Every solar company.
00:40:53
Speaker
All of them.
00:40:54
Speaker
We're also a development company, but who's actually executing on it is a more important thing.
00:41:00
Speaker
And so that's something that we really, really focus on is the self-development.
00:41:05
Speaker
And it's in our core values too.
00:41:07
Speaker
And have you ever read the book, Traction?
00:41:09
Speaker
I don't think I have.
00:41:10
Speaker
So it talks about EOS, which is like the entrepreneurial operating system.
00:41:17
Speaker
And if there's one book that you can read on systems, it's traction.
00:41:21
Speaker
Traction, okay.
00:41:21
Speaker
And so it talks about like hiring and firing people based on your core values and like,
00:41:26
Speaker
how to build out systems and such as well.
00:41:28
Speaker
And I think that stuff has helped us as well.
00:41:31
Speaker
Nice.
00:41:32
Speaker
Because then you actually get alignment in your business and like you're working with the right people.
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:38
Speaker
And also like when you have so many recruits as well is you get the opportunity to be picky.
Challenges and Leadership in Expansion
00:41:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:44
Speaker
So like that serves your business at a really high level too.
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:47
Speaker
It's like if out of a thousand, I get to pick like 10 or 20 of the best,
00:41:53
Speaker
I think you're in a lot better position and you get to pick people that align with your core values.
00:41:57
Speaker
And you don't have to be like every other solar company who's hiring anyone and everyone that has a heartbeat.
00:42:03
Speaker
Right.
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:05
Speaker
Do you have arms to knock the doors?
00:42:06
Speaker
Like, cool, we'll get you, dude.
00:42:07
Speaker
Exactly.
00:42:08
Speaker
You're just throwing mud against the wall.
00:42:10
Speaker
See what sticks and everything.
00:42:11
Speaker
Exactly.
00:42:12
Speaker
Yeah, so true.
00:42:13
Speaker
Well, that's a good point, too, is once you do get these systems in place, what are some like, I don't know, maybe challenges you guys went through?
00:42:20
Speaker
Because I'm sure probably in the beginning when you just had 10, you built it to 15, 20.
00:42:25
Speaker
I'm sure maybe that wasn't.
00:42:28
Speaker
as tough, but now like I know you got 100 reps, sure you have multiple managers, all this stuff.
00:42:34
Speaker
So what are some challenges that maybe you ran into as you like grew it to where you're like, okay, actually I got to expand and then multiple offices, multiple managers.
00:42:41
Speaker
What was that like for you guys?
00:42:42
Speaker
all comes back and Jaudy, God bless you for opening my eyes to this, but like the systems, because like if it's just me running a team, I don't really like, for the most part, I probably don't need many systems besides the accountability to get them out on the doors.
00:42:57
Speaker
I can just like white knuckle it and make it happen, right?
00:43:00
Speaker
By just inspiring everybody, holding them accountable, teaching them like all the right principles, getting them to believe in the right things, like abundance versus scarcity and all these different things.
00:43:10
Speaker
I can white knuckle it through that.
00:43:11
Speaker
But then to go and teach multiple different people is you need frameworks to teach them through.
00:43:16
Speaker
And so we've developed things like we have a thing called LDP at home.
00:43:19
Speaker
It's a leadership development program.
00:43:21
Speaker
It's like a six week course that we put our leaders through and then the next level of leaders through.
00:43:27
Speaker
So like the closers who we think are going to be potential managers.
00:43:31
Speaker
So like we're systematizing it to be able to get the results that we want.
00:43:35
Speaker
And so then you have to take like, um, the things that you understand and know and pass those onto the reps and be able to put it into an easily digestible framework.
00:43:46
Speaker
So like for us, one of them is actors, which is like a leadership
00:43:49
Speaker
framework.
00:43:50
Speaker
So accountability is one of the tenets.
00:43:53
Speaker
And these are all the tenets, like the major tenets of leadership, accountability, culture, training, operations, recruiting, and then state.
00:44:01
Speaker
And so like, if you add up all of those things, like all of those are the ingredients to run a perfect team.
00:44:07
Speaker
And then we just get like, that's the macro.
00:44:09
Speaker
We get really into the micro of like, or the details or like, of like each of those things.
00:44:17
Speaker
So yeah.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's so good.
00:44:19
Speaker
Well, dude, this is blowing my mind.
00:44:20
Speaker
And Christian, you're what, 25?
00:44:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:22
Speaker
Yeah, like, man, if I would have known half this stuff when I was 25, this is a game changer.
00:44:29
Speaker
So no, I'm just super impressed to see how much you've been able to build, run in your own company.
00:44:34
Speaker
And hopefully people listening to this can go out and implement in your own offices, in your own teams, just build these systems, have accountability, and work off of warm recruits.
00:44:47
Speaker
all those things.
00:44:48
Speaker
And then, like you mentioned, you're in Sam Taggart's circle and all that.
00:44:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:53
Speaker
So how much does that play to factor?
00:44:54
Speaker
Like, obviously, you invest in yourself, you invest in training, you invest in your guys, you talked about light speed and all that.
00:45:01
Speaker
Like, is that been a big, would you say factor in your guys success?
00:45:04
Speaker
Just being huge.
00:45:06
Speaker
So many of the closes, like from the two conditions close to the assumptive close, like all the different closes, like I learned from door to door.
00:45:11
Speaker
Yeah, nice.
00:45:12
Speaker
And so like, I don't feel like necessarily I'm anything special.
00:45:16
Speaker
I feel like I just have the, like the push or the drive or the motivation to like go and seek information.
00:45:24
Speaker
Like if you're constantly an information seeker and not just looking to be spoon fed information, like you're going to develop and you're going to grow really fast.
00:45:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:31
Speaker
And so I noticed there's a correlation.
00:45:33
Speaker
All the reps and how we're able to decide who gets into the leadership development program, because we just look at one thing, who's asking the most questions?
00:45:41
Speaker
And also the input too, like who's knocking the most doors.
00:45:43
Speaker
But it's more about like, like I said earlier, I don't feel like I'm anything special.
00:45:47
Speaker
It's just like the people you surround yourself with.
00:45:49
Speaker
It's like being surrounded with Sam like helps you think at a higher level.
00:45:52
Speaker
Investing in the ABR and like the self-development.
00:45:55
Speaker
I've invested in the Noxstar.
00:45:57
Speaker
Mike O'Donnell University.
00:45:58
Speaker
I bought Chris Lee's course.
00:45:59
Speaker
I saw you had Chris Lee on here recently.
00:46:01
Speaker
I feel like I bought all the freaking courses and I'm just like constantly like taking in this information and it brings me to a higher level.
00:46:08
Speaker
And just surrounding yourself with the like the right people.
00:46:10
Speaker
Like luckily I had a family that was like super supportive and like really entrepreneurial.
00:46:15
Speaker
So I feel like I had that going for me.
00:46:19
Speaker
I also like when we recruit people in, like when Jody came in as a VP of sales position, which was like really hard for me at first because like
00:46:26
Speaker
Like, I have to give up all this like control.
00:46:29
Speaker
And like, I don't get to like have all the man.
00:46:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:31
Speaker
Right.
00:46:33
Speaker
But like, I just like took the mindset of like, you know what, I'm going to be open to learn from him.
00:46:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:39
Speaker
Right.
00:46:39
Speaker
And nobody likes the people who like are the know-it-alls or like, I understand everything.
00:46:44
Speaker
Like, I can't learn.
00:46:46
Speaker
Those are like the worst people to talk to in the world.
00:46:48
Speaker
But the best people to talk to on the contrary are the people who are like open to learn and like take new information and like seeking new information.
00:46:56
Speaker
So like, I feel like I'm constantly learning from even like the people that we bring into the business.
00:47:01
Speaker
Steve Jobs has a quote.
00:47:02
Speaker
It's like, we hire smart people to tell us what not to do.
00:47:07
Speaker
We hire smart people to tell us what to do.
00:47:09
Speaker
We don't hire smart people to tell them
Conclusion: Self-Development and Resources
00:47:11
Speaker
what to do.
00:47:11
Speaker
And I probably absolutely botched that quote just now, but like it's, you understand the concept.
00:47:16
Speaker
yeah that's so good so yeah um so important invest in yourself and um yeah we got it we got some coaching training we do over here at solopreneur you need to buy my program dude i'm in aro let's go yeah but don't be like me and just get everything for free like no i have invested all on myself too i don't get just get everything for free
00:47:38
Speaker
No, I believe.
00:47:38
Speaker
But yeah, so important to invest in yourself and constantly be learning because I think that's what separated you, Christian, is like you've learned all these things, but then you've gone and actually implemented it.
00:47:47
Speaker
And you talk about the accountability going back to that.
00:47:50
Speaker
It's like you can't just buy this stuff and not do anything because a lot of people will buy all these trainings and do nothing to pay attention to what you pay for.
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:57
Speaker
People will pay, pay attention.
00:47:59
Speaker
So it's powerful.
00:48:00
Speaker
So, uh, yeah, Christian, if people want to maybe connect more with you, hear more, uh, asking more questions about like systems and stuff, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
00:48:08
Speaker
So, um, you guys can feel free, shoot me a text, uh, personal numbers, 530-588-1848.
00:48:14
Speaker
I also operate completely off abundance.
00:48:17
Speaker
I don't care if you're coming to work with us or not.
00:48:19
Speaker
Super willing to help.
00:48:20
Speaker
It's just like a good feeling overall.
00:48:22
Speaker
Like if you do enough, like good things, good things will happen to you as well.
00:48:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:26
Speaker
Um, also on Instagram, C underscore DeLuca.
00:48:30
Speaker
And then if you want to see what's going on over at home, you can follow our internal page at O H M center, C E N T E R.
00:48:38
Speaker
And yeah.
00:48:40
Speaker
Nice.
00:48:40
Speaker
Let's go.
00:48:41
Speaker
So guys, go check them out.
00:48:43
Speaker
And these guys are exploding.
00:48:45
Speaker
Can't wait to see where things go next.
00:48:47
Speaker
And last question, Christian, for maybe like a struggling rep or maybe I'm sure you've got those, you know, people in your company that maybe they're really struggling to turn around.
00:48:58
Speaker
What would you tell that rep?
00:48:59
Speaker
Or maybe you have like a personal example of like a rep that's turned around.
00:49:02
Speaker
What do you tell these reps and how could you help a rep like that?
00:49:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think we have an example.
00:49:09
Speaker
There was a rep out in Sacramento recently, and I feel like his mindset was a little cloudy.
00:49:13
Speaker
He had first three deals canceled.
00:49:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:49:16
Speaker
rough.
00:49:18
Speaker
This next month, like 15 days into the month, he set five deals that have closed and they're all going to stick.
00:49:25
Speaker
And so like one of the things and the tenants that like we preach and promote is just taking ownership for everything in your life because then you can go and fix it.
00:49:34
Speaker
So if like he's to go out and a new rep is to go out and blame it on the doors, that's like a certain, they just created a circumstance that they can't fix.
00:49:42
Speaker
Oh, the doors suck.
00:49:43
Speaker
Like nobody's interested.
00:49:45
Speaker
Solar is super saturated.
00:49:46
Speaker
It's like, cool.
00:49:48
Speaker
Does that mentality give you power?
00:49:50
Speaker
Right?
00:49:50
Speaker
And so like checking your belief system to like do the things that I believe give me power.
00:49:55
Speaker
If they do continue to believe in them, if they don't get rid of them.
00:49:59
Speaker
And the best way to like empower yourself is to take ownership for everything because then you can go and fix it.
00:50:06
Speaker
And you'll be, you'll actually start to seek solutions.
00:50:09
Speaker
So we joke at home is like, I'll ask reps, like when they're complaining, I'll be like, Hey, what's the company name?
00:50:15
Speaker
They'll be like, Ohm Solar.
00:50:16
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, it's like, it's Ohm Solar Solutions, not Ohm Solar Complaining.
00:50:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:21
Speaker
solution that's so good but yeah if you take ownership you can fix it if you try to like delegate out that ownership to someone else you're going to be living based on like their problems yeah yeah take ownership is the biggest thing yeah 100 love that so christian thank you so much again for coming on the show uh we'll have to plan a part two for sure in the future and um yeah guys go hit them up let them know you appreciate them coming on the show and uh we'll talk soon thanks christian
00:50:50
Speaker
Thank you, Taylor.
00:50:51
Speaker
All right.
00:50:53
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
00:50:54
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
00:50:55
Speaker
Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
00:51:06
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
00:51:13
Speaker
What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
00:51:15
Speaker
And
00:51:16
Speaker
You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:51:21
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 Solrepreneur.
00:51:34
Speaker
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00:51:36
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.
00:51:43
Speaker
So go download it right now.
00:51:44
Speaker
It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
00:51:48
Speaker
Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
00:51:53
Speaker
Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
00:51:56
Speaker
We will have that in the show notes.
00:51:58
Speaker
Go download it right now.
00:52:00
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to him, go listen to him and you can re-listen to him.
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00:52:06
Speaker
So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.