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How To Keep Your New Reps From Quitting
0 Playsin 1 hour
Recruiting is half the effort, while retaining your reps is another challenge in itself. This episode will give you strategies to keep your reps engaged, supported, and provided with genuine growth and fulfillment as a whole within your team.
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Transcript
Introduction to Year-End Solar Blitz and Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Would you like to make more money than you've ever dreamed of? Then join us on our final Blitz of the Year in sunny Southern California this November through the 22nd. We're going to have Golden Door Award winners, people who have had a thousand plus career installs in solar. So make sure to click the link below, get your spot before it they run out. we have 20 spots, very limited.
00:00:24
Speaker
We'll see you there.
00:00:27
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 fell.
00:00:44
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.
00:00:56
Speaker
What is a solopreneur you might ask? 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.
Challenges in Solar Rep Retention
00:01:06
Speaker
Hey, Solarspreneurs, today we're going talking about what we can do is to solve the retention problem in solar.
00:01:13
Speaker
Did you know that more than 40% of solar reps quit after their first year? and ah shocking number. So what can we do to help with this? How can we help reps stick this out in such a great opportunity? We're going talking about that and a whole lot more. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Taylor arms Armstrong. We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and and actually stay in solar and not be one of the reps that quit.
00:01:37
Speaker
So before we get into that, have a couple reminders. If you have not already, please go leave us a review over on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to the podcast.
00:01:50
Speaker
I would love to feature some new reviews. and Maybe you got things that we can improve on. Please leave us whatever your honest feedback for the show. And the second thing is we have a few last minute spots for our blitz.
00:02:02
Speaker
If you're listening to this when it came out, we have our blitz here in the next week. So hit me up. We do have one or two spots remaining. And if you miss out, still click the link below because you can get on a waiting list for our next blitz that we will have coming out.
00:02:19
Speaker
in 2026. Can't believe I'm saying that. Never thought we would get 2026, but here we are. Click the link and would love to have you in this blitz or on a future blitz. Okay. And that being said, let's jump into the content. This is something I've been thinking about as we've brought in reps to our team.
00:02:36
Speaker
Not going to lie. We've had few people quit that were and It seemed like they had a bright future in solar. And it's been tough seeing people leave. You know, they'd get some big deals, even some guys where they got some massive paychecks coming.
00:02:50
Speaker
And still, where there were just some things that happened, caused them to lose confidence. And they left for a different different and industry. And then as we've onboarded a few newer reps, it just got me thinking...
00:03:01
Speaker
Why is it such a struggle for people to stick in solar? Hey, why is the learning curve so steep for a lot of these people? And, um you know, it's sales. It's not for everyone.
00:03:12
Speaker
I think to a degree, there's always going to be a higher percentage that quit a job like this when it's 100 percent commission outside sales. But I think the other side of it is we got to look in the mirror and see what are we doing as a
Strategies for Solar Rep Retention
00:03:24
Speaker
team? Maybe you're someone that's training a newer rep. We got to look at what are our processes? What are our frameworks? What are the systems that we have in place?
00:03:31
Speaker
And maybe you're listening to this and you don't have any processes or frameworks or systems. And it's just... You just throw mud at the wall and hope things stick. hey But whether you're selling accounts or whether you're trying to bring on recruits and build a team, you got to have some sort of system in.
00:03:46
Speaker
Otherwise, you're just going to have lots of lost solar customers and lots of lost recruits. And especially as you build up to a bigger team, it gets even more important that you have a system in place. And that's part of what happened with me over the last year is analyzing what went wrong as we started to build more and more. There were things that we have to figure out system wise and we lost guys because of it.
00:04:08
Speaker
Because, you know, when you have a team of five to ten, you can give them lots of attention. You can check in you can do your thing. But as you start to scale past ten people, just like Extreme Ownership, even not if you haven't read Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink says that no one should be over more than I think it's like 10 people max just because it becomes too much. It's too hard to lead more than 10 people effectively. hey So we're going to look at a few things that we've changed in our processes.
00:04:34
Speaker
okay And I'll be the first to say I don't have this figured out. with This is a few things we're tweaking. A few things we're seeing that have started helping, but I would love to hear what are your ideas. So if you're watching this on YouTube, where you're listening to it, shoot us a DM, leave us a comment, let us know what's working for your team.
00:04:51
Speaker
If you have a higher retention rate, the first thing that we have changed around a little bit. Just setting detailed expectations. It's funny, as I was just doing a little bit of research for this episode, um i found just a post, don't know if anyone goes on Reddit,
00:05:09
Speaker
on reddit Yeah, some of the Reddit comments are kind of funny, the stuff people say. But someone left a comment on Reddit about a solar cells position they applied for. And it says, something seems off about solar cells jobs I'm applying for.
00:05:23
Speaker
He says, I've applied for a few jobs for solar cells, and I've gotten automatic responses from every single one for me to schedule a meeting the same week. I think of how all of my engineering jobs have been the traditional and slow hiring process and don't hear anything from anybody for a week minimum.
00:05:38
Speaker
I guess I was hoping some solar professionals might shed some light on this. Why do these roles feel fishy? I think it's because all of them also advertise the 80 to 200K ballpark for salary earnings. so I found them on Indeed, though. Is it just me or are these roles fishy? It's made me laugh as I'm reading it because that's totally how it is, right? You put these ads up on Indeed, people get reached out to instantly. And which, you know, that's the training that you're given is that the quicker you can reach out to an applicant,
00:06:05
Speaker
the higher percentage are higher percentages that you can get them to come to an interview hey but at the same time it's like are we hiring that quick that people feel like this isn't a legit job hey because if you just give them the position instantly make them feel like they didn't need to do anything you're going to get people questioning like why is it so easy to get this job what's going on here you know it's something that's probably we probably all should look at as an industry is ah maybe we should look at doing like multiple interviews, making it a little more traditional.
00:06:35
Speaker
Maybe people would take a little more seriously.
Tools and Resources for Solar Sales Success
00:06:37
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego. And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
00:06:49
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 Solar Scout. But it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:07:02
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.
00:07:16
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need to give my listeners a great deal. And they did.
00:07:27
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. Okay, back to the show.
00:07:41
Speaker
right But aside from that, if you are someone that's interviewing people for a solar position, are you setting the proper expectations with them? okay Are you shooting it straight how the job actually is and what it looks like in their first two weeks?
00:07:55
Speaker
We have a graphic that we go over with people that details day by day exactly what they should be doing. Stuff like knock 100 doors with a mentor, switch off doors. Then day three, it's like they're knocking 100 doors solo, you know, in the same neighborhood as their mentor. Okay, so expectations of what should happen. And then speaking of mentor, just having someone that's their trainer.
00:08:14
Speaker
If you are someone that's running a lot of appointments or leading somewhat bigger team already, you should look at getting someone to be over this person and check in with them. Hey, so that's one thing that we've tried to improve on.
00:08:27
Speaker
that we've seen help our team is just setting those detailed expectations, having the new rep know exactly what's going to happen. The second biggest thing before I came into solar, a lot of you know that I started in pest control.
00:08:40
Speaker
Pest control is pretty dialed. Some of these teams, and when I worked for a bigger company, it's like it was summer sales. You got multiple trainings, Zoom calls before you went out for the summer. You were given a big manual and we're instructed to read like 30 minutes minimum from this manual every day. You know, had all the objection, pitch, everything, exactly what to say, exactly what to do, like routine wise outside the doors. And as I've gotten in solar, it's like, why don't we do some of the same things we did in pest control? Yeah. I was never giving like a training manual. A lot of people I talked to, they were just thrown out on the doors to the wolves with little to no training.
00:09:18
Speaker
And um I think that's a big reason why we see so much turnover in solar. So something we've started doing is just we actually traded it created a training manual for solar reps. hey And something we're tweaking is we're going to actually print this manual out and we're going to give it a physical manual to reps.
00:09:37
Speaker
You know, just digital. We've we found that like, you know, there's so much slides. There's so many things going on. You get notifications coming up that people just don't pay attention all the time to things that are sent as PDFs or digital guides, digital checklists.
00:09:52
Speaker
So we've created an actual physical manual to send out to them. And this is something brand new that we've started in implementing. on our team, we're going to start implementing, I should say, because we haven't actually printed it out yet.
00:10:05
Speaker
This is something like the manual, it should have but all the things we talked about already, their expectations should have pitch presentation that you want them to say should have a common objections.
00:10:16
Speaker
And if if you would like an example, okay, hit me up, we could send some portions of what we send them or give you some more descriptions of it i don't know, might be a little tricky to send.
00:10:26
Speaker
We have it as like a iPhone note right now, but it should just go over all the common things that happen in solar. Right. And it should include like recordings of, you can, live like door presentations.
00:10:38
Speaker
Hey, we're we're in a bigger organization, so we actually have ah pretty massive training library with, you know, PDFs and things they should download. um Anyone can go out and create this. Just like think you can probably create it with ChatGPT and like a few days. You just go back and forth, talk about exactly what you do, set a schedule for them. That's another thing is newer reps, they need to be told exactly where they're going, who they're going there with, exactly what the hours are.
00:11:05
Speaker
hey, this mistake we've made many times is just not giving them an exact schedule. And then you see by day three, they're just kind of like showing up for an hour on the doors or doing whatever. Okay, so you need should have a check-in time.
00:11:16
Speaker
Tell them when they need to check in and check out. So all those things, put in a training manual, print it out, and then give them like boxes to check off, right? As they knock their first hundred doors, check mark.
00:11:28
Speaker
As they record their first door pitch, check mark. As they get their first bill, check mark. hit little milestones they can hit along the way that'll help them. And as you do that, another one is, you know, learn your actual door presentation.
Training and Development for Reps
00:11:43
Speaker
Memorize your door script. It's a big one, right? Remember my first company, that's something we did do a good job with is we actually required people to have a video recording of their door presentation. They could not go out on their first day until they had a video recording of memorized of the door scripts.
00:12:01
Speaker
And we've gotten away from that, but and think it's a pretty good idea. Make them memorize it because so many times we go out with people where they don't have anything memorized. They're just going out shadowing. Then they don't even know what they're saying and they feel like they're working because they're out there shadowing someone.
00:12:15
Speaker
Hey, so consider doing something like that. I think if you print it out, it'll take it to another level. Again, this is a, I guess we don't have any stats on this yet. I just think something in their hands is going to help them more than like a digital PDF um for newer people. Okay, so again, let me know what your ideas are, what's working in your company to retain reps.
00:12:36
Speaker
This is a massive problem, especially I see it in bigger organizations. It's like people come in the doors, people go out the doors. And it also can be tough on culture, right? If newer people see all this turnover, um you know, I've heard it from a few of our newer guys just questioning me like, man,
00:12:52
Speaker
It's crazy how many people are in and out. Like this person that i was here two weeks ago, he's, where did he go? And it causes questions to come up that makes them question the opportunity themselves.
Creating a Supportive Solar Work Environment
00:13:03
Speaker
So the more you can have that tight-knit culture, get that belief from people and have a solid structure,
00:13:09
Speaker
to get people bought in, the more you're going to grow your organization, the more your reps are going to be bought in. So I hope this helps someone out there. If you are a newer rep and feel like you're not being supported, hit me up. Would love to give you more support. And remember, that's the aim of this podcast is to help take you from zero to 100, give you all the A to Z of everything you need to know in solar.
00:13:30
Speaker
So keep listening to the show and then hit me with your suggestions for guests or topics. We always love to keep those coming and we'll see you on the next episode.
Introducing Solcite: A Growth Platform for Solar Professionals
00:13:40
Speaker
Hey, Solarpreneurs, quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day?
00:13:52
Speaker
For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. and it's called Solcite. This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now. This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.