Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
5 Levels of Solar Leadership
0 Playsin 16 minutes
This episode is an overview of the five levels of leadership by John Maxwell in the context of solar sales. It is important that every leader realizes that leadership does not only come from the task at hand, but also what others see from your identity.
CLICK HERE: https://apply.solarpreneurs.com/
- https://zendirect.com/
- https://crmx.app/
- https://zapier.com/
- https://www.solarscout.app/taylor
- TOP 10 MOST DOWNLOADED EPISODES OF ALL TIME
- https://www.youtube.com/@solarpreneurs
- goals.solarpreneurs.com
- oneliners.solarpreneurs.com
- https://solciety.co/ - JOIN SOLCIETY NOW!
- SIRO APP - LEARN MORE
Recommended
Transcript
Taylor Armstrong's Sales Journey
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong. 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 fail.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you 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? 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.
Introduction to Solar Leadership
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, what's up, solarpreneurs? Today, we're going to be talking about the five levels of solar leadership.
00:00:47
Speaker
These principles were taken from John Maxwell's book. If you have not read it, go check it out. But as some super powerful leadership principles that will change your career.
00:00:59
Speaker
So my name is Taylor Armstrong. Welcome to the podcast. We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and And in this case, become a much better leader in the solar industry.
00:01:10
Speaker
And if you have not subscribed over on YouTube, please go give us a follow on ah YouTube. Again, we're available on Apple, iTunes, Spotify every Tuesday and Friday coming at you.
00:01:22
Speaker
And this podcast, it was inspired because we recently had a really powerful leadership podcast with a great leader in solar right now. That episode will be dropping next week at the time of this, next week. And so I thought I'd do a little bit of a preview and some thoughts on these powerful leadership principles. Okay, so we're going to get a lot deeper in on this in the next episode. Make sure you don't miss out.
00:01:48
Speaker
But for this one, just wanted to get you thinking about where are you at today? on the five levels of leadership. Okay, so if you don't know what the five level levels of leadership are, we're going go through it today. And I want you to think about where you are along these levels as we go through
Levels of Leadership: Title Holders
00:02:05
Speaker
them.
00:02:05
Speaker
We're all different points in our career, different points in our leadership. um I'm far from being the perfect leader, the greatest leader. And it got me thinking about where am I where am i out on this scale, on these levels. Okay, so we're going start from level one, go to level five, see where you're at, take notes.
00:02:23
Speaker
And really the idea is just to get you that self-awareness because if we're not aware of where we're at, then it's going to tough to improve. Okay, so the first level is the leaders with the title. Okay, we've probably all have, if you've been in solar or any sales position for any amount of time, you've probably seen this. There's leaders that's Maybe they were a high producing rep at one point, had some accolades before and they were given a title.
00:02:49
Speaker
Well, what happens with some of these people is once they're given the title, they stop working. And unfortunately, there's companies out there that just throw out leadership titles like they're candy. The people stop working. They just coast on their previous accolades. So um that's the first level of leadership and hopefully you're not i'm in a position where you're listening this and I'm like, man, I was just given a title, but I'm not even producing. I'm not doing anything for the company. Because that is the weakest form of leadership is you have a title, but you're not doing anything. I remember a few years back, I had a interview with a company, you know, without saying names, but I found out pretty quick talking to reps at this company and
00:03:30
Speaker
they They said that their managers came in. They had regional managers that came in and gave trainings. And these guys just got massive overrides on all their reps when they weren't even working. They weren't out in the fields.
00:03:43
Speaker
They were just doing an occasional training. And the feedback I was getting from the reps were that the trainings weren't even valuable because they weren't they didn't have real you know like real life experience going out and doing things.
00:03:55
Speaker
what they're preaching in the trainings. So don't be like that.
Leadership Levels: Respect and Results
00:03:58
Speaker
Don't be a level one leader. Okay. The idea is that you can progress up these levels. You're going to change your life as you progress throughout the, throughout the different levels. Okay. And then the second level, that's just permission. Okay. First one is position. Second one is permission.
00:04:14
Speaker
And that's just a, uh, more of a relationship type leader. Okay. So people are following you because they want to, You have some degree of respect from them. You know, maybe you're not like producing necessarily, but people like you, you know, the good morale. Maybe you can do the rah-rah thing, fire people up. I'm sure we've seen plenty of those people we like, you know, maybe and they're not sharing things necessarily substance of substance. They just make us feel good.
00:04:38
Speaker
And, you know, they can connect with people. They can talk to people. This is better, right? We want people liking us. We want respect of people. um But the next progression is level three leadership. And that is someone that can actually produce. They get results, right? and for me, this is where you start to become a powerful leader.
00:04:57
Speaker
There's still ways to go, but you're leading from the front. You're producing. you know People listen to you because they see you get results. And this is more powerful. You know, you don't necessarily have to be the most loved person.
00:05:10
Speaker
But when people see you producing, when people see you out there hustling, especially in what we're doing in solar sales, this is a must have, right? Every team I've seen, if they don't have someone leading from the front, they don't have someone out there on the battle lines, then gonna be really tough to continue to garner the respect of your people. Yeah. And I remember multiple times where I wasn't respected as a leader. I wasn't respected to someone valuable on the team until I hit those numbers and tell people saw that I was out there producing. And that's for me why I do this podcast. um It's very important for me to be out there knocking doors to be out there selling. I literally just came from the field myself. Got three appointments out there knocking on doors today, shot some content, knocked some doors, grabbed some appointments because as I listen to podcasts, I don't like to listen to people that it's like they're just saying stuff, but they're not actually doing it. So it's the same thing in level three leadership. You are putting your money where your mouth is.
00:06:08
Speaker
You're going and doing the thing and you're going to garner much more respect and much more validity as a leader if you are putting your money where your mouth is. Okay, and just, you know, being honest in my situation, I would say this is kind of the level I'm at.
00:06:24
Speaker
Biden gets the next level. But personally, as I look in the mirror, I would say this is about my level of leadership right now. I know I can produce. I know I get results.
Advanced Leadership: Training and Influence
00:06:34
Speaker
But I've...
00:06:35
Speaker
I think I've dabbled at times. I've taken some steps in maybe level level four leadership. If I'm being honest with myself, I don't think I've fully crossed into level four leadership because that is where you actually get other people to produce at a really high level where you've actually created other leaders. So, you know, I guess i guess it's kind of ah up for debate level four You know, you could say that level four is just you train people to get results.
00:07:03
Speaker
You know, I've done I've done that a lot training other guys in our team. Some people would say level four leadership is creating other leaders. I think it kind of crosses into level level four, level five. Okay, but that's the next level is can you get results yourself and can you train other people to get those results?
00:07:20
Speaker
And that's where you see guys that become regional managers. That's where they really create massive influence, where they recruit a lot of people. Because it's like, especially in solar, we need to be able to sell ourselves, but also recruit and train those people to multiply ourselves, multiply other leaders.
00:07:37
Speaker
And that's where you know i would say level five leadership is which is kind of the pinnacle. It's respect, right? Level five leadership is where you've created multiple other leaders. You've created movements in the marketplace and it's respect that you've earned over time through consistency and integrity.
00:07:58
Speaker
Hey, so um think about where you're at. Just wanted to go through these five levels briefly. Hey, and hopefully you, as you think about them, Like, am I a level one leader? Do I just have a title?
00:08:10
Speaker
maybe Maybe you're not. Maybe I have a title. Maybe you're not a leader. But guess what? You are always leading one person and that's yourself. So whether this is day one on the job or whether you're a company owner or maybe you're leading 100 people, what's the next level? What's the next step you can take? Is it just leading yourself or is it crossing into that level five leadership where you're creating other leaders. okay For me, people that have crossed in this level five leadership, that's like people like Jeff Mendez, Poppy Mendez, people like Todd Peterson. These are guys that they have, you know you think about the massive organization they ran over a bit. These are guys that have just created leader after leader after leader. They've recruited thousands of reps through their influence.
00:08:54
Speaker
It's just like they've basically creating a movement right so um it takes a lot to get to that level but all of us are in a different path all of us are in a different progression we shouldn't be comparing ourselves to the next guy but we should be taking the next step forward so what's the next step we can take to cross into the next level of influence Okay, so I hope this got you thinking about where you were at along the five levels.
00:09:20
Speaker
Lead yourself primarily and then figure out how can you go from title to leading others through your production and then crossing into growing other leaders and creating massive influence in your company and in the marketplace.
00:09:37
Speaker
So next episode, make sure you do not miss out because we've got someone where he goes really deep on this and really talks about what you need to get to these next levels.
00:09:47
Speaker
And this guy's name, his name is Jackson Jr. He's actually somewhat new to solar, but before he came to solar, he was a pretty much as high as you get, i forget the title, but over at Grit Marketing, you know a lot of people know the company, they got some of the best pest control reps in the industry, but he was, I think it was like the CRO of that company had recruited, um i think in the thousands of reps that had come on and sold pest control.
00:10:13
Speaker
And he recently made the switch to solar, making waves in solar, literally and figuratively, because he's in California. So we actually does go surfing too. But check out the next episode. You don't want to miss it. He's going to be getting in a lot deeper on these leadership principles and helping you grow in your impact.
00:10:30
Speaker
and influence. So check it out next episode, Jackson Jr. And thank you for listening today. Hope to see on the next one. Keep crushing. Go grow your team this week and go grab some sales.
00:10:41
Speaker
See you next time. So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego. And as we were gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
SolarScout Partnership Announcement
00:10:53
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage. Then we discovered an app called SolarScout. But it's not door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:11:07
Speaker
It shows us who has previously applied for solar, but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood. It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
00:11:21
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, if I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need give my listeners a great deal. And they did.
00:11:31
Speaker
So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them, and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up. That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
00:11:44
Speaker
Okay, back to the show. um What's up, solopreneurs? Hope you enjoyed the episode. 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.
Top Solarpreneur Episodes Cheat Sheet
00:12:00
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start? What episodes should I listen to in the podcast? You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:12:15
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 Solapreneur.
00:12:28
Speaker
We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet. So go download it right now. It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com. Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com. Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs. We will have that in the show notes. Go download it right now.
00:12:53
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them. That's going to show you how. So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.