Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you 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: What's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: We are back with another episode, and I'm super excited today because we have got the marketing expert in the house, the lover of bacon, Mr. Josiah Atkins.
Speaker: Thanks for coming on the show with us, finally, Josiah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thanks for having me, Taylor.
Speaker: It's nice to talk to you, not in a really loud piano bar.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We hung out here at SolarCon a little bit back and yeah, we first got, I think it's probably the first time we ever talked was in the piano bar, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think we met before that.
Speaker: We started our relationship screaming at each other.
Speaker: So that was...
Speaker: always a good start off to a screaming start it was good and it was tough i feel like both of us have maybe quieter voices so for us we were just trying to blow our voices out in the piano bar and i told you that i had to do a podcast the next day so i came on so anyone that listens to those podcasts my voice is a little hoarse that's probably why it's because me and josiah we needed to have a good conversation but we had to scream to do it yeah so uh
Speaker: Some people were born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
Speaker: I was born with whatever spoon makes you sound like you're mumbling.
Speaker: So, um, no, I'm with you on that, but look at us.
Speaker: We're both doing podcasts.
Speaker: So that just shows that you don't have to have, you know, a golden voice to do this stuff.
Speaker: Just going to hop on a mic and look pretty.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Most important.
Speaker: No, we're excited today because you should know Josiah at this point.
Speaker: If you do not, let him know.
Speaker: And then we need to bump up at his marketing campaigns or something because hopefully the entire solar industry has heard of Josiah.
Speaker: But he's been running his Solar Legion agency for three years now, right?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Is that right?
Speaker: Three years.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Three years this month.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And yeah, and we're just talking, I did a podcast for his show as well.
Speaker: So we're going to, you can go check that out.
Speaker: We'll link to it.
Speaker: I guess that is if his show drops first, but we'll see.
Speaker: Anyways.
Speaker: Yeah, figure out which one comes out first.
Speaker: But we're just talking on that and three years, that's a long time for a solar legion company, right?
Speaker: I mean, not many people, you see guys popping up over and over and they're two months into it and then they're dropping like flies.
Speaker: So I guess, I don't know, we'll get into that.
Speaker: But before that, do you want to give us a little intro?
Speaker: And I know you started on the doors, Josiah.
Speaker: So do you want to tell our solopreneurs how you transitioned over into your solar legion and just kind of how you got started?
Speaker: Started solar and all that good stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, quick little story.
Speaker: You know, my, my career in sales started, I was a young Bible college student.
Speaker: My, uh, stepdad ended up losing his job.
Speaker: And because of our tax bracket, I couldn't qualify for any sort of financial aid.
Speaker: Uh, Dave Ramsey always told me that was bad.
Speaker: didn't want to go into debt to go to college to do something.
Speaker: I wasn't even sure what I wanted to do.
Speaker: Um, so I started applying around at jobs, um, applied at Cracker Barrel.
Speaker: They turned me down and said they found a more qualified dishwasher.
Speaker: Um, so I answered the sketchiest ad in the world on Craigslist and ended up selling water softeners in home for a water softener company.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Did that for a while.
Speaker: Um, those were kind of like preset warm, semi sketchy appointments.
Speaker: Uh, like most people were like, Oh, you're from the state, right?
Speaker: No, I'm not from the state.
Speaker: Like I'm here.
Speaker: So I did that for, um,
Speaker: You know, about a year, that was a pretty cool job.
Speaker: I would, I would take appointments in the evenings and then I was doing a construction job in the daytime and I was hustling because I met this pretty girl and wanted to marry her.
Speaker: So later that year I ended up marrying her.
Speaker: The construction job I had went out of business for tax fraud.
Speaker: And I think some rules changed around the FTC and the call room of the water softening company became illegal very fast.
Speaker: So our lead flow kind of dried up.
Speaker: So I got a job knocking doors for our local cable company, Time Warner.
Speaker: And I thought like, wow, this is amazing.
Speaker: I can just work.
Speaker: I can just go set my own appointments.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: Like that was such an amazing thing too.
Speaker: It's funny, like people are like, I don't wanna knock doors.
Speaker: And I was like, wow, I can just go get appointments whenever I want to, this is great.
Speaker: And ended up knowing a guy from church that did satellite TV.
Speaker: So got into that for some years.
Speaker: Got a little tired of door knocking, talked my way into an account managing job for train, the air conditioning company doing like account, basically account management work for their like parts and equipment stores.
Speaker: So I would sell equipment to contractors.
Speaker: And then the owner of my old satellite TV company got in touch with me.
Speaker: I was like, Hey man, like,
Speaker: we started doing solar.
Speaker: There's kind of some crazy money.
Speaker: And I was like, I was like, yeah, he's just trying to sell me.
Speaker: Like I've got a pretty good thing going.
Speaker: And then he sent me a picture, I think of one of his checks he was giving to a rep and I was like, okay, let's talk.
Speaker: So I worked for him kind of like part-time and at this, and this was probably four plus years ago at this point.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And where were you at?
Speaker: North Carolina.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So North Carolina market.
Speaker: So North Carolina, I always thought was a pretty decent market because it wasn't saturated.
Speaker: Good, solid electricity rates.
Speaker: People are not skeptical of solar, but not so burnt out because it's been overdone.
Speaker: I do think it is.
Speaker: There's more going on.
Speaker: There was a little bit of South Carolina has a crazy state tax budget.
Speaker: credit rebate a lot of people go there and sell it the wrong way north carolina had a little five thousand dollar check from the utility company which was nice okay um when when you have it but the uh yeah it was fun so basically you know i'd done satellites and cable for you know almost five years collectively and then going back and seeing solar um
Speaker: you know, kind of just opened my eyes.
Speaker: You could make so much money for like just a little more time than it took you to do like a, like a satellite sale, right?
Speaker: Like kind of nuts, but then you had to wait 60 days to get paid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I had a two-year-old, one-year-old, two-year-old.
Speaker: I can't remember how, how old Jeremiah was at the time.
Speaker: And I had twins on the way.
Speaker: And I remember it was really cold and we had an ice storm or something like that.
Speaker: And I was just, I did not want to door knock.
Speaker: I was like, I'm too old for this.
Speaker: I'm tired.
Speaker: Like, you know, I was just having one of those bad days on the doors.
Speaker: I think I didn't afford my cancel for me.
Speaker: And I remember getting on my phone and just going in one of the Facebook groups.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, you know, basically, you know, can anybody help me with Legion?
Speaker: And I got introduced to this guy.
Speaker: He set me up with a three month contract.
Speaker: Um, and over the next three months, I spent about $5,000 to acquire three whole leads.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Not, not three leads a month, not three leads every two months, but three, one lead per month.
Speaker: One lead a month.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Hopefully you had a hundred percent close ratio.
Speaker: I had a zero percent.
Speaker: Uh, one lady spoke Spanish.
Speaker: I could not, uh, I actually got to a point where I could sell cable TV in Espanol, but, uh, it's very broken English, but we could communicate with each other.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: But I never got to that point with solar.
Speaker: One was an old lady who didn't qualify for the tax credit that didn't want to get off the phone with me.
Speaker: And the other was just a dead number.
Speaker: I'd kind of done it without talking to my wife before.
Speaker: So I was kind of...
Speaker: I knew it was going to work.
Speaker: So like, I just kind of was like, well, she'll be really happy.
Speaker: Like once it's working and I'm not door knocking anymore, did not work at all.
Speaker: Maxed out a credit card, kind of got in trouble over that one.
Speaker: You know, I just said to myself,
Speaker: I'm going to have to figure out how to do this myself.
Speaker: I started taking, watching a lot of YouTube videos, bought multiple, multiple, multiple courses.
Speaker: Um, I went back to,
Speaker: In 2019, I spent $30,000 on like courses and education stuff like from, so I was just consuming knowledge at like this rapid rate, but I found something I really liked and I really enjoyed.
Speaker: Um, and I was learning and I basically got to a point where
Speaker: I was only going to appointments I'd booked from my online leads.
Speaker: And I remember kind of being told like, hey, our culture is you doorknock.
Speaker: And somehow the tone from that conversation changed from that to me being paid some compensation to run marketing.
Speaker: for the entire company, like the tone of that conversation.
Speaker: Like I thought I was going to be fired because I wasn't door knocking anymore.
Speaker: And so like time went on and, you know, I started realizing, you know, this is stuff I really enjoyed, stuff I really wanted to do.
Speaker: I wanted to create, you know, something that I owned, my business.
Speaker: I was really afraid of a non-compete, so I didn't want to go and start my own thing.
Speaker: to compete with the company I was at.
Speaker: But I realized what I could do is marketing because I enjoyed it.
Speaker: I was always more creative.
Speaker: You see the guitars on the wall.
Speaker: There's three more right here on the walls.
Speaker: And so I found a place where kind of like my years of direct sales experience and my creative side could like meet up and do something cool.
Speaker: And it was like kind of like this weird moment of like,
Speaker: a lot of my favorite things are combining and I can make a living doing it.
Speaker: So if I can do it for one company, why not 10?
Speaker: And so I started kind of went off, did our own thing, started building the name of Prospect Bacon, realized everybody hated Legion people for the same reason, you know, I had a bad experience.
Speaker: with Legion people.
Speaker: And the story there is a lot of people go buy a course and start a business just like I did.
Speaker: But what they don't do is they don't keep learning.
Speaker: They don't evolve beyond that point.
Speaker: You know, it's like, it's like the sales guy that comes in for the interview, Taylor, and he's watched the Wolf of Wall Street one time.
Speaker: And like, he just tries to do sell me this pen over and over again.
Speaker: And the interview it's like, okay, cool.
Speaker: Well, you know, this one thing, but
Speaker: And you actually sell a lot of marketers, you know, write one good ad or have one good campaign or one good funnel.
Speaker: And what do you do when that wears out?
Speaker: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker: And so, you know, three years later, Prospect Bacon, you know, we have over 34 brands.
Speaker: Full-time team members at Prospect Bacon, over 150 clients.
Speaker: So we're running over 200 marketing campaigns right now, probably managing $1.5, $1.6 million of advertising a month, all in solar.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: It's a journey, man.
Speaker: It's, it's not, um, if anybody's ever been on a sales call with me and sorry, you've probably have heard this before, but you know, literally the bar and solar marketing solo, all I had to do is keep getting up out of bed every day.
Speaker: And here we are.
Speaker: Three years later.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Well, that's awesome.
Speaker: And no, I mean, big kudos to you for all the success you've had.
Speaker: We were just talking on your podcast, actually, just, you know, about the consistency aspect.
Speaker: I think that's a big part of your success is all these fly by the night lead gen companies.
Speaker: Just come up, try to do it, have success with one company.
Speaker: And then that's kind of it.
Speaker: And I actually I'm kind of in the same boat as you're as who you're talking about, because I don't know if I told you this, Josiah, but I sort of thought about starting a lead gen company.
Speaker: because I took one of those courses and I got some pretty good results for myself and for like one other person in my company.
Speaker: So I'm like, oh, I'm an expert at this.
Speaker: I'm going to start my own company.
Speaker: I'm going to be a millionaire, never knock a door again.
Speaker: But then my company was still sending me out to knock.
Speaker: I still was running a team.
Speaker: And then these ads started tanking.
Speaker: I wasn't getting results.
Speaker: I didn't know how to adjust the copy and the image and all that.
Speaker: And so I'm like, well, huh, this is a lot harder than I thought.
Speaker: Maybe I should like, I don't know, take another course or something besides this before I start to charge people for this when I don't even know if it works.
Speaker: So and I saw all the all the dirt that people were digging up on these crappy lead gen people.
Speaker: So I'm like, I don't know if I want my name to be thrown out there in that mix of people that screwed someone over and didn't get them results.
Speaker: So maybe I should take a step back.
Speaker: And then that was kind of the end of me trying to start my own lead gen company.
Speaker: But but I know what you're saying.
Speaker: And so when you started it, you were never really thinking that you would start a company out of it.
Speaker: You were just kind of thinking for your own leads and your own sales.
Speaker: And then it was your company that came to you after that.
Speaker: Is that right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I was just, it was kind of this thing where, you know, for a while I would knock while my ads were knocking, right?
Speaker: Like I just remember being so obsessed with the fact that
Speaker: Cause I put this little calendar at the end of my ad where people could book their own appointment after they filled out the form.
Speaker: I thought I was so smart.
Speaker: Turns out, you know, everybody in the world did something similar to that.
Speaker: But I just remember, like, I think the first ad I ever created, I spent $40 and I
Speaker: booked an appointment with like a 17 KW system.
Speaker: And it was just like, I'm going to be rich.
Speaker: Like I've changed the world forever.
Speaker: And then I went like another 800 bucks without like ever seeing another lead.
Speaker: It was like, okay, I guess I have more, more learning to do.
Speaker: But my ad connected with that, like one person super well.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And so like a lot of it's just adjusting, learning, keeping going, but like, yeah, I mean, my trajectory, I thought I was kind of grow with the company where I was at.
Speaker: I didn't look that far down the road, but I was just kind of imagining all the overrides I was going to get from all the sales from my amazing marketing campaign.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: you know, maybe I could work eight to five.
Speaker: I wouldn't have to work late in the evenings anymore and be home for dinner and all that, all that good stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: Well, it's crazy how you spent all this money, got three leads, didn't close any of them after three months.
Speaker: Like most people just throw in the towel after that and, uh, you know, give up, never do it again.
Speaker: So what do you think it was that made you keep going?
Speaker: Did you see other people having results?
Speaker: You're like, all right, if people wouldn't do this, there must be a way or like what, what made you keep going when it was such terrible results in the beginning?
Speaker: I got really, it's really, it's really funny.
Speaker: Like, I think there were two things.
Speaker: I mean, a little after that I'd kind of started investing.
Speaker: I invested in, um, like Ryan Steumann's coaching program.
Speaker: And so I saw all these other people and I was like, well, I know online works.
Speaker: Like I see all these other industries doing it.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But I kind of saw it as a way to multiply my time was really what made me really honed in on it.
Speaker: Like the fact that I can go door knock and my ads can still produce leads because I was, I was really trying.
Speaker: I had a certain revenue goal.
Speaker: I was really trying to hit.
Speaker: I knew I needed a certain amount of leads and appointments and
Speaker: And marketing was how I was going to hit the revenue numbers.
Speaker: I was trying to be the top rep, but I wanted to get there with a little bit of ad magic.
Speaker: That was really my thing.
Speaker: And as far as giving up the towel, I think I had... There's some... I'm going to butcher this quote terribly, and you may have heard it, Taylor, but there's a quote about...
Speaker: you know, once people get, you know, older than like, I think it's six or seven years old, it takes either an insane amount of motivation or like a life altering event to put real change into their lives.
Speaker: Like our, our brain just responds to things differently.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And so, I mean, that's why you have a lot of grownups that have, you know, when they get angry, they're no different than, you know, the, the third, the three-year-old twins I'm raising in the other room.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like a lot of, we don't like grow beyond that.
Speaker: And so for me, like that life altering moment was, you know, I, I had to, I
Speaker: uh, I had two twins, I had a set of twins on the way, my, my boys.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And one of them was actually born with a pretty kind of severe medical condition, which would prevent him from walking.
Speaker: And so in my head, I knew I wanted him to have the best care he could have.
Speaker: And that was the financial motivator that got me, you know, that, that,
Speaker: that no conference, that no self-help book, that no course, that no sales manager could ever bring out of me.
Speaker: Like it was almost just like,
Speaker: I picked the worst time in my life to start a business and to go, I mean, my twins were probably, you know, by that summer, like I had started prospect bacon when it was in that full time.
Speaker: And it was kind of, I, it was this kind of urge or drive that was like, I had, this has to happen.
Speaker: I have to make this happen.
Speaker: I like family needs this to happen.
Speaker: And then it was kind of this weird moment of almost, you know, my back was never,
Speaker: white against the wall.
Speaker: Like we had some months where it was like, Oh, are we going to pay?
Speaker: How are we going to pay bills?
Speaker: But you kind of just go out and, and you make it happen.
Speaker: And I remember I actually started my business before I got to get on a client before I even officially started my business.
Speaker: Like I was, it was like, all right, I'm ready to work with you.
Speaker: And I was like, all right, let me figure out how to set up a PayPal account to take your money.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just probably really reassuring for him to hear.
Speaker: Well, that's the best way to start is you don't even know how to set it up and people are coming to you.
Speaker: You're like, all right, sweet.
Speaker: Figure this out on the way.
Speaker: Yeah, that's how it goes.
Speaker: So how did you get?
Speaker: Well, speaking of your first client, how did you get your first client?
Speaker: And yeah, was it just like social media or did someone come to you or how did that first client happen?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I had a really good friend who was in Ryan Steeman's program with me.
Speaker: He's now his VP of sales, Drew B. Wilson.
Speaker: But he and I kind of joined Ryan's program at the same time.
Speaker: And I'd kind of been talking to him about what I was wanting to do.
Speaker: And he was like, Hey, there's a solar guy.
Speaker: He's joined a apex Ryan's program.
Speaker: He's interested in doing some marketing.
Speaker: I told him you'd probably be interested in doing it for him.
Speaker: Like for, you know, not much money since you're like not really taking on clients.
Speaker: And it just kind of,
Speaker: It kind of happened.
Speaker: It was a little bit of networking, a little bit of opportunity, being in the right place at the right time with the right skills.
Speaker: I'm trying to remember that client was, I think, right outside of Bay Area, California.
Speaker: It's funny, I'd only run ads in North Carolina.
Speaker: I never ran in California.
Speaker: Two very different markets.
Speaker: He was a client for...
Speaker: like years and years until he went somewhere.
Speaker: I think he got company provided leads or something like that, but, um, that's awesome.
Speaker: And then was it kind of like a trickle down effect?
Speaker: Did it start pouring in after that or did it take a while to build up to get multiple clients?
Speaker: It grew a while.
Speaker: We grew to about 30 clients by the end of 2019.
Speaker: There was a brief time where I actually lost my Facebook profile because I switched internet companies and they shut it down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So much of what Prospect Bacon and I've done has been, you know, based off of Facebook and like word of mouth and groups, people tagging me and just talking to people.
Speaker: And so we actually had a rough couple of months and then we started building a lot of momentum, like right up to COVID.
Speaker: And then it was really strange, probably for the first three months after COVID, everybody was kind of just like,
Speaker: shocked like nobody knew really what to do and then people were like well we've got to do legion we've got to do legion and so we just kind of our revenue from the beginning of 2020 to the end was like a 700 increase like in almost like
Speaker: Like everybody's like, yeah, I really loved how you like build a good reputation.
Speaker: You've done the right thing.
Speaker: You've grown real slow.
Speaker: And I was like, I don't know what slow is.
Speaker: I don't want to do any more than 700%.
Speaker: Like I will never do that again.
Speaker: I'll stop running ads.
Speaker: I'll stop taking clients.
Speaker: That's never going to happen again.
Speaker: Was that stressful for you?
Speaker: Were you like kind of freaking out with all these new clients or did you already have a team built up to handle this volume and everything?
Speaker: It was building a team.
Speaker: I think something really interesting for me was how fast I went from being kind of like a freelancer guy working on everything to learning how to manage people, learning how to run a business, learning how to be a CEO, learning how not to be stupid with your taxes or how not to be stupid by paying too much taxes.
Speaker: And it was literally just everything was learning and
Speaker: on the fly, but I, I finding mentors was pretty important to me and it, it helped me, you know, I missed a lot of mistakes by having mentors that I definitely would have made if I had, you know, tried to go it alone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: No, I think that's so important and something that we talk about on the podcast all the time.
Speaker: Just finding someone that's been there, done that.
Speaker: And it's really, it's just going to shortcut your results, right?
Speaker: I mean, people want quick results and that's the best way to do it.
Speaker: And you got to spend money to get good coach, good, good mentors.
Speaker: So I think that's a really important point for anyone that whether it's selling solar or trying to learn marketing legion,
Speaker: Got to find those good mentors.
Speaker: And something I wanted to ask you about, Josiah, we've, I've been reading Michael O'Donnell's new book.
Speaker: I don't know how, I don't know how well you know him, but he kind of has this controversial thought on just like online legion that he pretty much hates it and says it's like the lazy man's way out of a
Speaker: like the lazy man's way of doing solar and that it doesn't work because you go there and people just want more and more quotes.
Speaker: They're just clicking on, you know, different buttons to get more quotes.
Speaker: And so what would you say to that?
Speaker: Have you seen in your experience?
Speaker: And I don't 100% agree with them, by the way.
Speaker: I think, you know, I think there's guys that can.
Speaker: Maybe do both, but I don't know.
Speaker: What would you say?
Speaker: Would you say that there's a lot of times it's just like lazy sales reps reaching out and trying to get through on a bone or do you see guys that are working hard doing this, but what's your, what's your response to Mr. Michael O'Donnell?
Speaker: My first response is a bit of mild offense.
Speaker: I think I have a signed copy.
Speaker: on my bookshelf and helped him carry a few of those boxes into his book signing.
Speaker: So, um, I should go read that chapter.
Speaker: You know, uh, I, I do think a lot of people view Legion as a shortcut and, and it's not, it's really not a shortcut.
Speaker: It is a absolute, you have to build out a whole, you know, if you're a solo sales rep, you better have time devoted.
Speaker: You better have a process for working.
Speaker: leads because, you know, I don't care who your lead gen provider leads, like leads are not this magical end all be all solution where you can just go and barely call them, barely text them, show up and close more deals than you've ever had in your life.
Speaker: Like, you know, I think, you know, getting a good internet lead is a lot like knocking on a door of a homeowner.
Speaker: That makes over a hundred thousand dollars a year has a seven 50 plus credit score and has a South facing roof.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like how do you handle that conversation?
Speaker: Um, cause Taylor, I'm sure you have gone to an appointment, um, set by a bad setter before.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And a good setter.
Speaker: So there is a difference in the way leads are set and talked to and handled.
Speaker: Our biggest client spends over $250,000 a month.
Speaker: on their ad budget.
Speaker: Um, I think they would probably have something to say about Mr. O'Donnell's quote.
Speaker: I do think a lot of people view it as like a shortcut or being lazy, but like, it really takes, if you're going to build it out for your business, you need a call team.
Speaker: You need a process for working old leads.
Speaker: Like it's a lot of work.
Speaker: Um, and,
Speaker: I don't know if I agree a hundred percent with it being the lazy way, but I think if a sales rep thinks he can go spend, you know, $3,000 a month and never knock a door again, he's probably not, uh, has a little bit of wrong expectations there.
Speaker: Um, like we said, we wouldn't talk about numbers.
Speaker: So I'll stay away from numbers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, we can talk some numbers, but no, I'm, I agree with you.
Speaker: I think, you know, I'm sure there are, there's definitely lazy reps out there just trying to find shortcuts, just like in anything.
Speaker: But, um, I mean, obviously you'd be, if this stuff wasn't working and you guys weren't having killer results, then, um, then you'd be out of business too.
Speaker: Your thoughts, Josiah, is when I first started doing a little bit of lead gen, you could go on Facebook, just launch these Facebook ad campaigns and get tons and tons of leads quick.
Speaker: But what I started realizing that a lot of these leads were just crap.
Speaker: I call them and they're renters or they're in apartment complexes.
Speaker: And that's kind of been my experience is there's a lot of people just running up these Facebook ad campaigns.
Speaker: And they post these Facebook leads for 50 cents per lead, like these insane, insane numbers.
Speaker: But it's like, okay, well, what are they actually converting?
Speaker: Are they good leads?
Speaker: And so what's your thought on that?
Speaker: I guess, first of all, do you guys use Facebook?
Speaker: And then, I don't know, in your opinion, what's better, like volume leads or quality leads?
Speaker: What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker: On that, Taylor, I think a lot of people want volume when they have quantity and then they want quantity when they have, or quality when they have volume.
Speaker: And what I mean by that is like,
Speaker: It's not quite grass is always greener, but something like we do in like our survey that, you know, homeowners go through and they're filling out our form.
Speaker: Like we're finding out, are they a homeowner?
Speaker: Are they a renter?
Speaker: We're finding out, you know, are they in a,
Speaker: like a mobile home or like a home on a solid foundation.
Speaker: We're finding out what their average estimated credit score is.
Speaker: We're finding out what their average electrical bill is.
Speaker: We're pretty much asking every question to DQ them other than do they qualify for the tax credits?
Speaker: other than income.
Speaker: And so, you know, I've had clients come to me and be like, Hey, so-and-so is posting this in a group or my buddy said he's getting like $5 solar leads.
Speaker: And like, you know, I can walk them back through the questions and it's like, well, Hey, if we counted, you know, all these renters as leads, like your cost per lead would have been like $12, but like,
Speaker: we're disqualifying renters.
Speaker: We're not using ads that say free solar or get paid $5,000 to go solar.
Speaker: Like kind of some of those scammy or tactics.
Speaker: Cause what you find is like, there's, there's two mentalities and it's hard for me.
Speaker: Cause I kind of agree with them both.
Speaker: So the first mentality that I think is good with Legion is that every lead sucks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like every lead is terrible.
Speaker: I was talking to Jason Gallagher from Fusion Power with this before our Legion panel at SolarCon.
Speaker: One of the things he talked about is, you know, they spend over $100,000 a month on marketing in Phoenix, Arizona, which is one of the roughest, toughest markets in the U.S. for Legion.
Speaker: And he basically said, Hey, we stopped, we stopped telling people who the lead source was.
Speaker: Like we stopped telling them if it was Facebook or YouTube, we stopped telling them if it was prospect bacon or somebody else.
Speaker: Like a company lead is a company lead because people like develop mindsets around leads, right?
Speaker: Like, you know, some people think leads are bad.
Speaker: Some people think leads are good.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: You might have people on your, like if you're running a setter closer model, you might have in your head like, hey, sets from this one setter are so good.
Speaker: Always closes sets, but so-and-so sucks.
Speaker: And you get into this weird mindset thing.
Speaker: And it's something really in sales.
Speaker: You have to be careful about all these little traps that
Speaker: Because you might go like, oh, I never close double whites or I never close homes with Cadillacs or I never close, I don't know, the silliest things.
Speaker: I never sell Tampa Bay Buccaneers fins.
Speaker: This guy's not going to close.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You do these really silly things and we tell these stories in our heads and for the same reason, affirmations and gratitude, all that stuff works.
Speaker: It's because the negative stories work as well.
Speaker: I think a lot of people...
Speaker: that really get into quality of leads.
Speaker: Like a lot of it is how are these leads set?
Speaker: How are they approached?
Speaker: Was there a good process for them where they followed up with in a timely manner?
Speaker: Was there a good script or setting process for turning them into an appointment?
Speaker: Cause we've had people come to us and say, Hey, these appointments are no good.
Speaker: And it's like, well, we gave you a lead.
Speaker: Like you set the appointment.
Speaker: Like, why are you mad at us about that?
Speaker: that like yeah it's like oh no like these these leads will never turn into a good appointment so like yeah with that attitude they won't yeah
Speaker: And so quality, I think, is always what you strive for.
Speaker: I think especially today, like Facebook has done a really good job.
Speaker: The scammy stuff doesn't really work well on YouTube.
Speaker: It'll be interesting to see what TikTok looks like as it starts evolving as an ad platform.
Speaker: TikTok passed Google.com as the number one internet destination last year.
Speaker: Out of everybody who ever gets on the internet everywhere, TikTok was the number one destination.
Speaker: The demographic of people that actually qualify for solar is growing really rapidly on TikTok because the platform is just blowing up.
Speaker: Um, the targeting still pretty wonky.
Speaker: Like we can really only do statewide campaigns, but like lead cost is very much like 10, 20 bucks all day long, even in some really hard areas that
Speaker: you know, on YouTube, we're saying, Hey, expect a 60, 70 dollar lead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Well, and how do you do, um, like say with these new platforms, TikTok or whatever new social media comes out with your clients, do you just say, Hey, you know what?
Speaker: This new platform came out.
Speaker: We're going to do some experimenting or do you test it yourself first?
Speaker: Or what's like kind of your framework before you're like, okay, this works or is that always kind of a test?
Speaker: So I never want to be first.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I kind of learned that the hard way.
Speaker: I think in his book, Jim, good to great, Jim Collins actually says like the best companies are never first.
Speaker: Like they go behind and kind of innovate upon, like on top of the pioneers.
Speaker: And so when TikTok ads came out, I've watched it for a while.
Speaker: I found some people that were trying to be pioneers in it and watch them very closely.
Speaker: And so basically what we waited for was for TikTok to add better targeting options.
Speaker: So when it started, there was basically none.
Speaker: Like you could run statewide or nothing.
Speaker: And then they added city targeting and we're like, okay, let's get in, talk to a few clients and, Hey, are you interested in running some ads on TikTok?
Speaker: Like, we'll just take a little ad spend money.
Speaker: We won't charge you anything to run them.
Speaker: And they said, yeah, sure.
Speaker: We trust you.
Speaker: Like, let's do this.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Spent a whole month's budget for all five of them and got pretty much nothing.
Speaker: And it was like, okay, like, and we were learning, we figured stuff out.
Speaker: And then month two, you know, three of them wanted to keep going.
Speaker: The other two were like, I'm not so sure.
Speaker: And then we figured out kind of, you know, what we were missing and like,
Speaker: We're seeing like $5 leads in like quite a few states right now and are starting to launch it.
Speaker: And so TikTok is really, and that's the same way we launched YouTube when we first got into YouTube.
Speaker: It was like, Hey, you know, who's somebody that trusts us that wouldn't mind putting a little marketing budget here.
Speaker: Cause you know, it's funny.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: A thousand dollar marketing budget is a lot of money to some people and to some people it's nothing at all.
Speaker: Like we have clients that spend, you know, over a hundred K a month on social media and we're not even their most expensive ad platforms.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: Most people start advertising on billboards, TV, radio, like all that starts adding up.
Speaker: Um, what I love about social media advertising is it's all ROI positive marketing.
Speaker: Um, one of my dreams I think is to be the guy that Porsche comes to at the end of the year and says, Hey, we have a $4 million budget.
Speaker: Can you do something with it?
Speaker: We need to spend it for taxes and like, yeah.
Speaker: Don't really expect anything.
Speaker: They're like, we trust you.
Speaker: It'll be cool.
Speaker: Just make a cool ad.
Speaker: That'd be sweet.
Speaker: But what we do for the solar industry, it's very much ROI marketing.
Speaker: To most companies, we're as good as we were last quarter or last month.
Speaker: or for some people last week, and it's basically people's appetite for spending money.
Speaker: Somebody comes on to a sales rep, three grand is a whole lot of money.
Speaker: To a sales org, 3K, maybe that's a decent part of their marketing budget for a giant installer or sales org, like 3K is like...
Speaker: You know, they spent that on gas Wednesday filling up, you know, one of their fleets.
Speaker: Like, like there's just different levels.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I think, I think it's important not, if you're just getting a Legion, like don't experiment with somebody like,
Speaker: Like don't try to give prospects making money to, but like, don't go on an experimental ad platform.
Speaker: Don't go for something magical, trying to make it work.
Speaker: You know, try to find a company with a solid reputation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause if you don't have the budget to work with us, like we'll tell you like, yeah, we turn away 30% of people who try to work with this every month.
Speaker: Cause it's like, Hey, save up some money.
Speaker: This doesn't make sense yet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, well, that's huge.
Speaker: And then just my last question or two to kind of wrap up here, Josiah, you talked about how you got to have a solid process, a solid system for these leads.
Speaker: And that's something I hear from lead gen guys all the time.
Speaker: It's like sometimes the sales orgs like to point the fingers out that lead gen companies suck.
Speaker: But then you guys have a valid argument.
Speaker: Well, hey, where's your system?
Speaker: What process do you have set up?
Speaker: Were you guys even following up with this lead?
Speaker: Did you call them quick?
Speaker: all those things that are important in following up with those leads and nurturing them.
Speaker: So what do you do to kind of help people through that?
Speaker: Because I know it's not like if people don't know they need to follow up and everything, then it's just going to be bad for you and for the sales org because they're going to be wasting their money on leads, not getting results.
Speaker: And they're going to be, you know, maybe pissed off at you that you weren't getting the results they expected, all those things.
Speaker: So what do you do?
Speaker: How do you work with your clients?
Speaker: and kind of help them figure out systems or do you just have them figure it out and say, here's some guidelines or what's the best practice on those people that maybe they're doing some leads or maybe even on their own?
Speaker: How do you help them kind of set up a better system for this intake of leads?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, number one is you need some way to track.
Speaker: I've seen people do this successfully in a spreadsheet.
Speaker: I've seen people do it really well in Salesforce.
Speaker: So you can spend as much money as you want tracking your leads.
Speaker: All of our clients get a free go high level account.
Speaker: We've kind of pimped out with some of our like best practices.
Speaker: Um, so all of our clients get weekly check-ins with account managers, um,
Speaker: We have Slack channels with me, our COO, our head tech guy, basically anyone they need in case they need after-hour support.
Speaker: Every two weeks, they do a check-in with their account manager.
Speaker: We have account managers here.
Speaker: They work with about 30 clients at a time.
Speaker: So that person's only job is to work with and help our clients that work with us.
Speaker: So on top of that, we kind of have an appointment setting script that I kind of refined and used to use and have added to, you know, hearing good things here and there that our clients have access to.
Speaker: We have a quick little training, you know, there was a Harvard study, basically leads need to be followed up within the first 10 minutes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, you can see a lot of success just by being quick.
Speaker: Um, and then the rest of it comes from like consistent follow-up over time.
Speaker: Um, so you can probably, you know, 10 calls at different times of the day and text messages over the first two weeks, and then put them on some sort of reminder system just to send them a text message or something once a month is probably, um,
Speaker: a good enough system for most people.
Speaker: I think you have Brent Attaway's shirt on.
Speaker: Michael Copeland's got some cool software.
Speaker: So there's some people kind of working in that space.
Speaker: Like we are not
Speaker: Uh, we're not like an appointment setting or like a CRM software company, but we've had to learn how to do those types of things to, to keep growing that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I would say call your leads as soon as possible, and then just have a system of keeping track of who you've called and who you haven't and who you need to go see.
Speaker: yeah for sure and i think that's the i think that's the number one piece of advice i hear from every lead gen is just call them quick call them quick and uh i don't know i guess guys still haven't figured that out but if you're not calling your leads quick then that's probably the number one thing that you can do because that's what i keep hearing over and over and over yeah so i just say somebody and override the oh yeah i'm quick like it's uh yeah
Speaker: Like if I have a lead come in on my, if somebody from a Facebook group message me and says, Hey, Josiah, I really want to use your lead gen.
Speaker: And I'm sitting down for steak dinner.
Speaker: I'm probably going to sit down and enjoy my steak dinner.
Speaker: I'm not really going to focus on following up that lead and closing it as soon as possible.
Speaker: And so having people whose job it is, who it matters, like kind of helps because whether you're a sales rep or a company, like
Speaker: When does the solar company make money?
Speaker: Like when you're closing and when you're installing, like, yeah, if you could only be closing and installing deals 24 seven, you would make a ridiculous amount of money.
Speaker: When do you not make money when you're knocking doors, when you're setting appointments, when you're calling leads, but you need to do those things to make the money.
Speaker: So it's just what activities do you need to do to keep yourself closing as much as possible or your reps closing as much as possible?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And what's interesting is this applies to like every type of lead, I think.
Speaker: Like, for example, in recruiting, I got guys on social media hitting me up.
Speaker: Oh, hey, Taylor, tell me more about your company.
Speaker: That's everyone's like dream is just get recruits coming.
Speaker: They just come to you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But in the beginning, when I started getting these, like I'm not super good about checking my messages and stuff like that.
Speaker: And so I remember I lost out on a specific group.
Speaker: He's now a manager at a really successful company in Texas.
Speaker: And he had hit me up, but I didn't see his message until later.
Speaker: And by the time I got in touch with him, like, hey, I saw your message.
Speaker: Yeah, it's hopping to go.
Speaker: He's like, oh, no, you know what?
Speaker: Sorry, you took too long, man.
Speaker: I actually decided to go with another company.
Speaker: I'm like, dang it.
Speaker: It's a solid dude that's now working with another company.
Speaker: And then, but I have it on the flip side too, where I've been the first to respond to people that are looking for different opportunities.
Speaker: And I was the one that responded quick and hopped on a call.
Speaker: So I think it applies in basically every type of lead and everything you can do.
Speaker: I mean, I think the money follows the speed.
Speaker: So it's a good just principle in general, I would say right there.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: And so, uh, Jose, I know you got the dog.
Speaker: Uh, I think he's anxious for your attention and everything.
Speaker: So I don't want to keep you from, uh, and he wants to, he wants to go play.
Speaker: And so we don't keep you all day, but just, uh, to wrap up here, where can people find out more about you if they want to potentially start working with prospect bacon.
Speaker: And then also, if you want to tell people about the podcast, do you want to give a little, uh, plug for what you got going on there?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So depending on who launches first, our podcast may not be up yet or it may, but it's, it's called grow your solar business.
Speaker: And so the idea of our show is just interviewing a bunch of people, you know, not with just solar experience, but just with experience growing businesses and companies and relating that to finding success in the solar industry, not just as a rep, but like growing your business or company to,
Speaker: new levels of revenue, bigger marketing budgets, more teams, figuring out hack strategies and solutions so you don't have to learn it the hard way.
Speaker: You can find us at www.prospectbacon.com.
Speaker: or just scroll on Facebook long enough, you'll probably see an ad of somebody cooking bacon with a shirt off and you'll find us that way.
Speaker: He does have entertaining ads.
Speaker: Go shoot Josiah a follow.
Speaker: Let them know you appreciated him coming on the show today.
Speaker: We appreciate you, all the knowledge you dropped, all the nuggets and all the bacon you fed us here on the show today, Josiah.
Speaker: And guys, if you haven't tried out any Legion, it's a great place to start.
Speaker: Obviously, make sure you have your budgets in place.
Speaker: And I mean, last question I had to end the show, Josiah, I got asked this by like a new rep, actually.
Speaker: He started, it's his first week knocking doors.
Speaker: And he says, Taylor, I saw an ad the other day for some solar legion.
Speaker: What like, I think I'm going to start doing that.
Speaker: So, and maybe I don't have to knock as many doors.
Speaker: So would you say there's a right time for people to get into solar legion?
Speaker: Or what would you say to like, maybe a new rep that started two weeks ago, they're knocking doors.
Speaker: Would you encourage someone like that to start, you know, checking out solar legion or when would be a right time or right level?
Speaker: You would say just kind of wrap up here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, you'll pay for leads one of two ways, either with your time or your money, but you always pay.
Speaker: And so for somebody whose money is more valuable than your time, I would suggest to stick to door knocking till you get to a place where your time is more valuable than money.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Great advice.
Speaker: So get to a level where your time is more valuable than the money.
Speaker: And I think that's a good way to end the show.
Speaker: So Josiah, thanks again for coming on the show with us.
Speaker: Guys, go reach out to him.
Speaker: Let him know.
Speaker: Thank him for coming on the podcast.
Speaker: And I'm sure we'll talk soon.
Speaker: Thanks again, Josiah.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Thanks, brother.
Speaker: See ya.
Speaker: I appreciate it.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker: Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
Speaker: One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
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