Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps 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: Today, we have a very special episode coming.
Speaker: We are here live with my friend, a high-performance coach, Mike, and I just double-checked his last name before we started the call.
Speaker: It's Mike Sesniak.
Speaker: Mike, thanks for hopping on the podcast here with us today.
Speaker: Taylor, thanks for having me, brother.
Speaker: Looking forward to this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then, yeah, it's been a little bit coming here.
Speaker: Mike, I know you've been helping out a ton of reps and managers, all types of people in the solar industry.
Speaker: And it's been pretty crazy just hearing your results.
Speaker: You know, we have a mutual friend, Mikey Lucas.
Speaker: I know you've helped him out a ton.
Speaker: He was on the podcast.
Speaker: And I was just raving about you, how you've been able to just help reps turn it around and achieve, you know, and seeing results.
Speaker: And what's even more cool about it is we were just talking before this, you, have you even knocked a door yourself, Mike?
Speaker: Have you even done door to door yourself?
Speaker: Not to sell anything.
Speaker: which is like, I gotta be really careful.
Speaker: I like Eminem eight mile this thing.
Speaker: Like I don't claim to be a door to door sales guy.
Speaker: I just claim to know how to help them make a lot more money than they're currently making.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, but yeah, Mikey's the reason that we got into this space, which I'm sure we'll dive into, but yeah, I've been in sales my whole life.
Speaker: right?
Speaker: Starting in eighth grade, my first job was selling retail.
Speaker: I built, I like started my first company for anyone watching the video, like these duct tape wallets in fifth grade.
Speaker: So like I've been selling my whole life.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, not door to door.
Speaker: So like, can't even compare.
Speaker: I sell on zoom and on the phone.
Speaker: So my job's way easier than y'all, but our systems sell really expensive problems for our clients.
Speaker: So
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, that's awesome.
Speaker: I think it just goes to show for me, like you don't have to be, um, like you don't have to be a master door to door guy to be able to coach people.
Speaker: And I know we'll get into that more, but I think a lot of what you do is help guys turn their mindsets around and just really achieve the right kind of mindset they need out on the doors, out closing deals.
Speaker: And that just goes to show.
Speaker: I think that's probably, you know, 80% of the game is just getting your mind right and getting all the thing that's happening above, um, right.
Speaker: As you go out there.
Speaker: But no, so we'll dive into all that and excited to kind of hear about your background, Mike.
Speaker: He has a podcast.
Speaker: He's been coaching.
Speaker: How long have you had your coaching business going on now, Mike?
Speaker: Geez, four or five years and working with Door to Door specifically.
Speaker: I mean, we niched fully into Door to Door during COVID.
Speaker: So I guess that's like a year and a half coming on two years or so that we've been working with Door to Door though.
Speaker: Okay, right on.
Speaker: So yeah, incredible results you've achieved for people.
Speaker: And I mean, with a last name like that, how could you not be a coach?
Speaker: I keep thinking of, you know, Duke's coach, Mike.
Speaker: Yeah, Coach K. I keep looking at your name.
Speaker: So you guys must be something in the water there with coaching.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But so Mike, let's get into, yeah, I want to hear kind of how you transitioned specifically in the door-to-door space, why you got into coaching.
Speaker: I know you have a cool story with your anxieties and all that.
Speaker: So can you give us some of your background and how you got into all the whole coaching side of things that you're doing?
Speaker: Yeah, totally.
Speaker: So like I mentioned, I've been in sales my whole life, spent about a decade in the retail space from eighth grade through the beginning of my software career, because the beginning of my software career was unpaid training.
Speaker: I spent seven years in corporate as a software engineer.
Speaker: Once I graduated college, I went straight down to Wall Street and wrote code for a living for seven years.
Speaker: And I use all of that money to pump into myself, my businesses, mentors, masterminds, coaches, whatever I could do, right?
Speaker: Like I wanted to grow.
Speaker: And a large reason that was just the people I had surrounded myself with, like,
Speaker: You know, I started three companies while I was in corporate.
Speaker: The first was in the network marketing space.
Speaker: Second was an e-com and drop shipping.
Speaker: And third was finally coaching and consulting.
Speaker: So I learned a ton in the first two, surrounded myself with badass humans that really preach personal development.
Speaker: They preached investing in yourself.
Speaker: And I learned pretty quickly that I needed to deploy the money that I was earning in software engineering.
Speaker: Cause you make pretty good money over there from a salary perspective.
Speaker: It's pretty much like as close to F you money as you'll get outside of commission sales or business owners or whatever.
Speaker: So I knew that I had to deploy that.
Speaker: And like you mentioned, during that process, I was really quickly figuring out what anxiety and debilitating panic attacks were and
Speaker: Wouldn't wish that on my most mortal enemy.
Speaker: Um, but this is at a time where like in corporate on the outside, everything looked great, right?
Speaker: Like every year was big pay raise, big promotion, like very linear climb in corporate America.
Speaker: And I was like the youngest senior engineer on my team.
Speaker: I had the six figure salary.
Speaker: I had the luxury apartment on the upper east side of Manhattan with the fountains outside the doorman, the fountains inside, like, by the way, only did that because my roommate had connections.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But like all this stuff that we're supposed to want, right.
Speaker: Like the vanity stuff.
Speaker: And behind closed doors, it was like nothing even close.
Speaker: Like it was completely in shambles because I was experiencing that.
Speaker: And I bring that up because after a year and a half of this journey, right?
Speaker: Like my first panic attack was January 1st, 2014.
Speaker: which kind of tells you about the mental side of this whole thing, right?
Speaker: The new year, granted, of course, you're a little hungover that day.
Speaker: I was like a single 93 year old dude living in Manhattan, right?
Speaker: But, you know, from that moment,
Speaker: It was a year and a half journey of, you know, going to the doctors, getting my chest x-ray, doing breathing tests.
Speaker: Like I legitimately thought it was a physiological issue.
Speaker: I had no idea what any of this stuff was like.
Speaker: Never heard of anybody going through it and no one in my personal life could relate to it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So like I thought my lungs straight up didn't work.
Speaker: And I'm grateful that I found out, like I basically self-diagnosed it afterwards.
Speaker: I'm like this, I started hearing like anxiety and like, this kind of sounds like what it is.
Speaker: I started doing research and I say I'm grateful because then they would have probably just tried to push a bunch of pharmaceuticals into me, which I proved I didn't need.
Speaker: With disrespect, that's just not a route I would have wanted to go for me personally.
Speaker: And yeah,
Speaker: After that year and a half journey of being the engineering nerd that I am, I had to like reverse engineer what was going on.
Speaker: Like what was happening in the attacks?
Speaker: Why was I going through what I was going through?
Speaker: And what I found, Taylor, was 100% of the attacks happened in a moment where I felt guilty for not working.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because back then, remember, I was doing the whole I was selling 40 to 60 hours of my week to the corporation that I was working at.
Speaker: And then I would do the whole five to seven a.m., seven to 11 p.m.
Speaker: side hustle.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like I very much fell into the toxic hustle mindset and like that that culture.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: It worked for me until it didn't.
Speaker: And I was starting to figure out how and when and why it didn't.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So what that made me realize, like, okay, cool.
Speaker: Well, how can I not feel so guilty?
Speaker: I realized if I was able to show up more powerfully when I was working and pair it with a little bit of a healthier mindset, I might not feel so shitty when I wasn't working.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And ultimately I realized I had no idea what it meant to be productive.
Speaker: Like no idea.
Speaker: I thought I did, but I was very quickly realizing that like doing things doesn't matter if the things you're doing don't matter.
Speaker: So I like to say that kind of like cracked the door open because productivity is just a small subset of the work that we do with our clients.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: For me, it will always be my baby.
Speaker: I joke that it was like my gateway drug to high performance.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because it cracked that door open.
Speaker: But it wasn't for a couple more years.
Speaker: I met some of the leading coaches in the world and like really kicked that door through and started coaching on my own.
Speaker: But that started it.
Speaker: So, you know, this company that is the results engine, it started as a side hustle, like I mentioned, it's the third company that I had started and built it as a side hustle for a year and a half, then finally got to a point where I was like, screw it, I dove off the cliff, figured out how to fly.
Speaker: That was two and a half, like three years.
Speaker: I don't even know how many years.
Speaker: I feel like time's moving faster now and it's like COVID era.
Speaker: But that was probably about three years or so ago.
Speaker: And we've been running the business for about four or five years.
Speaker: So yeah, a little bit of a ramble, but hopefully that answers your question.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's cool.
Speaker: Yeah, it's interesting because most engineers I know, they want nothing to do with that, you know, like personal development stuff, hiring coaches.
Speaker: I've never heard of like an engineer.
Speaker: Usually they, you know, no offense.
Speaker: Usually they just think they know everything and there's like no coaching to be had that I've seen.
Speaker: To be honest, it's like,
Speaker: the fact that like I could communicate, like I don't resonate with engineers as much, right?
Speaker: Like I think like one, but I definitely did not fit there.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that almost was like to a benefit because I was like, okay, well I can actually communicate the work we're doing.
Speaker: And I use that.
Speaker: I was pretty average.
Speaker: I was like, I was a good engineer, but I wasn't like,
Speaker: I wasn't the best.
Speaker: I wasn't any of that.
Speaker: I excelled because I could communicate and people liked working with me.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I just used that to get where I wanted to go.
Speaker: So you had the skillset that probably most engineers don't have.
Speaker: You're good at the engineering and the talking part of it and stuff.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: And so, yeah, were you, so it sounds like your anxiety, it was caused by, you were saying it was just caused by not like, you felt like you weren't working enough type thing or was that the cause of it or how, what was the cause of all the anxiety exactly?
Speaker: I mean, it was just like, I had very high goals and very high expectations for myself, which I'm sure a lot of people listening to this can relate to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I didn't know how to navigate it.
Speaker: I didn't know how to work in alignment with those things.
Speaker: And I didn't know how to manage my thoughts around it.
Speaker: So I kind of had to learn a lot of that.
Speaker: It started with, you know, it started with navigating my time effectively, showing up powerfully when I was working, right?
Speaker: Actually being productive, learning what that really meant.
Speaker: Not busy, but productive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then it led to a really long journey of, you know, figuring out how to navigate my thoughts, learning what meditation was doing personal development.
Speaker: I hate the word realistic, but like understanding how to like manage that balance between ring being realistic and being completely unrealistic when it came to those really high goals and expectations and like marrying those two together.
Speaker: But it was always work related.
Speaker: It was like, I just want to be more, do more and have more, which I think a lot of high performers can relate to.
Speaker: I just didn't know how to get there effectively.
Speaker: And I had to go on a journey to figure that out.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: It's cool to hear because as I'm sure you've seen too, Mike, a lot of people in this industry struggle with, I think, anxiety, addictions, just different stuff going on.
Speaker: You know, a lot of us sales guys, we have ADD and I know there's a lot of like mental disorders in the space, stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's cool to hear guys that have gone through this.
Speaker: Yeah, one of my best friends in the industry, he had struggled a ton with anxiety.
Speaker: And I don't know if he figured out some of this stuff.
Speaker: I remember I went to his wedding and he had so much anxiety the day of his wedding.
Speaker: It took him.
Speaker: We sat there for the ceremony.
Speaker: We sat there like two and a half, three hours before he even showed up.
Speaker: Just because he was literally in the bathroom, just like puking because he's like so nervous.
Speaker: Probably going through a panic attack.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't understand this stuff, but to me at the time, I'm like, man, come on.
Speaker: It's not that big of a deal.
Speaker: Just get out there.
Speaker: You're making a sit here for three hours.
Speaker: It's always tough because if you haven't experienced it, you can't relate to it.
Speaker: It's like what triggers my anxiety might have nothing to do with you and vice versa to your buddy.
Speaker: Like what triggers his anxiety might have zero effect on me.
Speaker: The part I didn't share about that January 1st, 2014 is while I was in the middle of that attack, I picked up my phone and I called my mom.
Speaker: Because you like, you want some connection in that moment.
Speaker: And I literally press mute on the phone because I was head deep in a toilet puke, my brain's out.
Speaker: And I like, I didn't want to freak her out.
Speaker: I pressed mute because I didn't want to freak her out more than my tonality already clearly was freaking her out.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because like my roommate was out of town.
Speaker: It was New Year's Day.
Speaker: So he always went up to Vermont on a ski trip or whatever.
Speaker: And like,
Speaker: Dude, I was like chilling on New Year's Day.
Speaker: Like, what do I have to really freak out about?
Speaker: Like, I was 23 years old.
Speaker: I was a mid-level engineer already making a ton of money.
Speaker: Beautiful apartment.
Speaker: Just watching Captain Phillips.
Speaker: Like, it's supposed to just be lounging, right?
Speaker: Like, on the surface, it doesn't make any sense, right?
Speaker: But your body doesn't agree.
Speaker: And, yeah, I wouldn't wish on anybody else.
Speaker: I don't think you cure it either, but I think you just learn to navigate it a little bit better.
Speaker: Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker: And so for you, was it working with like, you mentioned like your schedule, things like that.
Speaker: Was it like therapy that helped you or was it like working with coaches or was there any one thing or was it a combination of all that that kind of helped you get through all that?
Speaker: Yeah, combination of all of it.
Speaker: I've never personally done therapy.
Speaker: I'm a huge advocate of it.
Speaker: I've heard it's amazing and I believe that it's a great bit of work and I love to see that the stigma is being chipped away at it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: because it's not a weakness it's like it's a tool and a lot of my most powerful like most successful friends like use it religiously as a tool to continue to grow for me it was just like this ep like i think it's epic like personal development journey just consuming everything that i could learning how i navigated learning what was most important to me and also just graduating through seasons of my life um
Speaker: And as I did that, as I started getting connected with systems that you're like building out systems that worked for me and then getting connected with the science of why it worked.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Again, being the nerd that I am, I need to understand why what we do works.
Speaker: that was really, I kind of just dumb lucked my way into it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It was just like catching pieces in every, every position.
Speaker: And obviously I had my own coaches and mentors throughout that process, like still have my own coaches, still member of multiple, you know, high level masterminds.
Speaker: So I'm a massive, massive advocate for those things, but it was kind of like this eclectic journey, I guess.
Speaker: Like you can't really put a, put your finger on like why,
Speaker: Something happened.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, at least I've struggled too.
Speaker: So yeah, it's kind of, yes, like all of the above minus therapy, but I'm sure I'll have that at some point in my life too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Now I think that's important for our listeners to hear you guys that, you know, do struggle with that.
Speaker: But yeah, I guess just to kind of transition, I know we don't have a ton of time here, Mike.
Speaker: So you've been coaching and I know you talked how you decided to transition in the door-to-door.
Speaker: Can you tell us why did you decide to kind of niche down into the solar space?
Speaker: Are all your clients right now, are they in solar?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right now, all but one R. The short answer to this question is Mikey Lucas.
Speaker: But the longer answer is, so when we got into the coaching space, I was very passionate about serving millennials.
Speaker: I felt that we were a very misunderstood generation.
Speaker: I was working with a lot of older
Speaker: people in corporate and I felt like we were just misunderstood.
Speaker: So I was really passionate about people serving, serving people in my age demo.
Speaker: But I also understood that most people didn't think like me and most people were not willing to invest in themselves at the level that I was.
Speaker: They weren't willing to get that uncomfortable.
Speaker: So I feel like I navigated towards working with commission sales and, and, um, small business owners.
Speaker: because I knew that if I could at least loosely associate a dollar sign with the promise, not making income claims, but associate the work we would do to an increase in sales or an increase in revenue, then it would be easier for me to paint that picture and get paid what I was worth.
Speaker: So that's where we started.
Speaker: And when we started working with Mikey, him and I met through one of these masterminds.
Speaker: He saw me speak
Speaker: And he came up to me afterwards.
Speaker: He had just joined the mastermind.
Speaker: I had been there for a year and a half or so, two years.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: He came up, introduced himself.
Speaker: He's like, dude, I need your help.
Speaker: And transparently, this was my introduction to door-to-door sales.
Speaker: Like I'm from New York.
Speaker: No one's knocking my door, right?
Speaker: Like I always joke, like I think Vivint has one office in all of my county in New York.
Speaker: And other than that, it's pest control teams that get sent out to the Hamptons and Long Island on the summers, right?
Speaker: So I was very foreign to the concept, but, you know, Mikey was like, hey, I sell solar.
Speaker: I knock doors.
Speaker: I'm like,
Speaker: Okay, that's weird, but like, cool, let's talk about what it would look like to work together.
Speaker: So we got to work.
Speaker: He got stupid results and I was like, is this a fluke?
Speaker: Like what's going on here?
Speaker: Because no other, we've worked with sales pros in countless industries and nothing compares to solar, right?
Speaker: Nothing from an earning potential and also an opportunity for impact, right?
Speaker: And like doing really good stuff in the world.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I don't think people outside of sales realize how important that is to salespeople.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But that's another conversation.
Speaker: Um, so Mikey being Mikey kept trying to get me to fire all my other clients and only work with door to door industry, specifically his team.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I told him to kick rocks.
Speaker: I'm like, go away, bro.
Speaker: Like, let's just keep making sure that you keep getting results that you're getting.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So slowly but surely, he started moving some of his guys into our program.
Speaker: And we started working with a bunch of them.
Speaker: They got great results as well.
Speaker: And then COVID hit.
Speaker: And when COVID hit, you know, at that point, we had
Speaker: I don't remember exactly which industries.
Speaker: We had staffing and recruiting, we had some consultants, we had some sports coaches, some content creators, really like all across the gamut.
Speaker: And people were doing well up until that point.
Speaker: But when COVID hit, they were all impacted in such different ways.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Some of their industries are, we had one client who was one of the top sales guys in his entire company and his whole team was let go.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He wasn't affected outside of the fact that all of their work went on his plate.
Speaker: So our work shifted a lot.
Speaker: And thankfully he wasn't, you know, he didn't lose his position, but like some industries were decimated dude.
Speaker: And at the same time, our door to door clients were going through the roof.
Speaker: I'm like, I was so perplexed by this, right?
Speaker: But that was ultimately the moment where we're like, screw it.
Speaker: Maybe I should have listened to this crazy dude from Vegas.
Speaker: And all of our messaging went straight to door to door.
Speaker: Now we have one client who's not door to door.
Speaker: And that's because I went to high school with him and he's a great dude.
Speaker: He just has seen our journey.
Speaker: He's like, I know you can help me.
Speaker: But of that 99.9% that is door to door,
Speaker: I'd say probably like 87% of it or so is solar.
Speaker: So that's really where we've like kind of built a name for ourself, but we have clients, we've had clients in roofing, pest control, alarms, water filtration, windows,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A lot of stuff.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I know you've had some, I mean, just before this, I was watching some of your testimonials and it's crazy to hear almost everyone, you know, doubled their, their sales, their commissions.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just crazy stories.
Speaker: So you're obviously doing something that works for all your clients.
Speaker: But yeah, can you tell us, I don't know, do you have any like stories of maybe one or two students that were super successful?
Speaker: Maybe you got crazy results for them or maybe they're in a terrible situation.
Speaker: You helped turn them around, turn them around, get some massive results.
Speaker: Maybe just so some of our listeners that haven't heard much about you can hear what you've done for some of your students.
Speaker: Yeah, our clients are badass, dude.
Speaker: So let me start with this.
Speaker: Like our clients win because they're very good at what they do.
Speaker: right?
Speaker: We just help them do more of it without burning out and while making their life super freaking dope.
Speaker: So that's the most important piece.
Speaker: If our clients didn't already know how to close deals, I can't help them close more of it.
Speaker: We're not sales training.
Speaker: We're not sales coaching, none of that.
Speaker: So that's the insert disclaimer here, right?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But we spoke about Mikey, I think when we started working with him, I think he added like 14 extra personal deals a month.
Speaker: So in Vegas for him, that was like an extra 50 grand a month in commissions.
Speaker: We've had clients go from two to eight deals a month.
Speaker: We've had go from three to nine.
Speaker: Earlier this year, we had a client that was making about 50 grand a month.
Speaker: He graduated the year, the month he graduated, he made 102 grand.
Speaker: And I think this quarter, we're recording this in Q4 of 2021.
Speaker: It's 2021, right?
Speaker: I always forget the year.
Speaker: I just like stop caring about it.
Speaker: And then I say it out loud.
Speaker: I'm like, is that right?
Speaker: He stands to earn, depending on how the installs line up, obviously, but he stands there in close to half a million dollars in Q4.
Speaker: which is just wild, right?
Speaker: 26 year old sales guy.
Speaker: Like what?
Speaker: Like that's insane.
Speaker: So, you know, really all across the gamut, but what we're helping all these guys with is really adding structure into their days, right?
Speaker: Treating it like a business.
Speaker: Knowing how to navigate that and execute consistently.
Speaker: Consistency is the number one word we hear in this industry.
Speaker: Consistency of output, consistency of income, consistency of energy management.
Speaker: If we can't execute consistently, we're constantly chasing the wheel.
Speaker: We're constantly rebuilding the snowball and we're burning way too much energy to do it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it usually boils down to a lot of those things.
Speaker: But when we get those things dialed in, the floodgates open.
Speaker: Because when we execute consistently, that leads to all the discipline, all the self-confidence, all the momentum that we're striving for.
Speaker: And when that's going, the energy management just gets so much easier, right?
Speaker: Like, you know what I mean?
Speaker: When you're in flow state, right?
Speaker: And it feels like any kitchen table that you sit down with is going solar, right?
Speaker: Like, that's the holy grail.
Speaker: That's where we want to get to.
Speaker: And it takes high performance to get there.
Speaker: So we just work on those pillars.
Speaker: Things like the productivity, right?
Speaker: Things like energy.
Speaker: How do we create it?
Speaker: How do we manage it effectively?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because sales is a transfer of emotion and emotion is just energy and motion.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So we might say, everyone's always like, Oh, I just need more customers.
Speaker: Well, cool.
Speaker: What gets to that?
Speaker: Do you need to talk to more people?
Speaker: Like what's happening when you get a ton of nose on the door?
Speaker: How do you manage it effectively?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: All of these are the, these are the types of things that we're working with our clients.
Speaker: So it's great to talk about dollar amounts and deal value, but you know, most people get on the phone and they think they're just not saying the right thing.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: I'll tell you what, like 99% of the time that's wrong.
Speaker: It's not that we're saying the wrong things, it's that our energy behind it is off, right?
Speaker: Or we're not navigating it competently.
Speaker: When we can do those things,
Speaker: half the time it doesn't matter.
Speaker: Like I look back at some of my sales and I'm like, wow, that was the worst question I could have asked to handle that objection.
Speaker: But it freaking closed because I came from the right space.
Speaker: My energy was on point.
Speaker: I came at that, the objection confidently and they knew I was coming to serve.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So there's a lot going on behind the scenes.
Speaker: But that's kind of what we do and how we're serving our clients.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: No, that's awesome.
Speaker: And I mean, it's crazy because most people, I think you probably agree, most people get tons of sales training in their meetings.
Speaker: You know, most companies have their correlations, they're doing sales trainings, but I don't think very many people are focused on the mindset and the consistency and, you know, the structure like you're talking about.
Speaker: So I think that is a big key that a lot of guys are missing is just having that extra piece like you're talking about.
Speaker: And so for you, when you're coaching your clients, Mike, do you notice that like, are some people in different stages?
Speaker: Do you coach them differently or do you pretty much have the same set framework for almost everyone they all need help with?
Speaker: Like, I don't know, their routine and stuff like that.
Speaker: Or how does it work when you first start coaching someone?
Speaker: What's, what do you put them through and what's the structure with all of it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the, the structure, like the skeleton of what we take our clients through is pretty much, uh,
Speaker: Well, there's two programs that we have.
Speaker: Like our launch program is where we're taking pretty much all reps to build that foundation.
Speaker: And then we have our accelerator, which is, you know, guys and girls that are company owners, VP of sales, right?
Speaker: Regionals, people striving for golden door, that type of stuff.
Speaker: That's like really intimate support.
Speaker: But everyone that goes through either of those programs, the structures are the same.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, launch structure is always going to be launch structure.
Speaker: Accelerator is always going to be accelerator structure.
Speaker: But what fills those structures, when I say structure, think of it as like a skeleton, right?
Speaker: We have a skeleton of what works, but what populates that skeleton is going to be unique to their journey.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that will vary slightly depending on where the clients are at.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And what they need to focus on.
Speaker: But,
Speaker: we need data to get there, right?
Speaker: So the short answer is yes and no.
Speaker: Like everyone has the same structure, but the action items that pop that fill that in or like how we navigate it will be different depending on where they're at, but that allows us to target, right?
Speaker: Like what you're struggling with right now, Taylor might be completely different than what Mike is struggling with.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Now we leverage the same exact mechanisms to get the generate the growth, but the action items that populate that structure is going to be completely different because we're trying to solve different problems.
Speaker: We just go upstream and solve the problems behind it, not the symptoms of the problems, if that makes sense.
Speaker: So yeah, it's tough to talk about it like specifically and abstractly, but like, I guess the answer is yes, ultimately.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You know, it's like we'd be stupid not to follow the structure, but everything is customized for our clients to make sure that we're working intentionally.
Speaker: We're very data driven, obviously, the engineering nerd.
Speaker: So like, you know, we just men lie, women lie, numbers don't lie.
Speaker: So we just got to gather the right numbers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So say for example, I know you've worked with a lot of people at this point, but so say you have a rep, maybe it's closing five deals a month, which is pretty decent and sore.
Speaker: That's pretty great money in pretty much every market.
Speaker: So what do you, I don't know if there's like pretty common things that you would notice with a rep that's trying to go to from five deals to 10 a month.
Speaker: But is there some pretty common things that you notice that you can help change right off the bat?
Speaker: It's like, okay, let's get this right.
Speaker: Let's do this.
Speaker: And these are going to be the things that take you to 10 deals.
Speaker: What are some common things or factors or maybe it's energy?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: What do you change with this rep to get them to 10 deals?
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: So the first piece is obviously like, sales is obviously numbers, right?
Speaker: That's a blessing and a curse because everyone's going to be like, oh, just go knock more doors, bro.
Speaker: Like you just knock more doors and the deals are going to come.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's not how it works.
Speaker: And you know that.
Speaker: So like if you were to spend, if your energy is completely off and you just go spend another hour knocking, you're wasting that hour because those clients, those prospects are going to feel that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So yeah, sales is numbers.
Speaker: So we got to work the numbers, but we need to know how to make the numbers work for us.
Speaker: So the first thing is we have to figure out what is the volume look like right now, right?
Speaker: That client who went from 50 to a hundred thousand dollars a month, he was knocking 20 doors a day when we started.
Speaker: Just 20.
Speaker: He was hyper selective about what doors he knocked.
Speaker: He was literally only knocking a door that he knew someone was home.
Speaker: Like see someone through a window, saw them just pull into the driveway, whatever.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: By the end of it, we got him to 30 doors a day.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: And because he knocked so effectively, he was just like, even adding five doors a day, he was like, how on earth are we going to do that?
Speaker: So that's where we have to start, right?
Speaker: We have to understand what does that volume look like on a day-to-day basis and what is the consistency look like?
Speaker: Because unfortunately a lot of people will just be like, oh, well, you know, they call the day short.
Speaker: They don't knock the doors that they say that they're knocking or they're like, not that they're lying, but they think they're knocking way more.
Speaker: So we track all that data because we need to look like, look at what the trends are, right?
Speaker: Once we dial the mindset piece in, then we can slowly increase that volume, but we need to do it effectively because we're not trying to just do it once and then burn out.
Speaker: Because I think that's what happens far too often in the space because we hear so often, just go knock more doors.
Speaker: You go and you knock a hundred doors one day, but you're used to knocking like 35.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then you don't knock for another four days.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If you're lucky and you get back that fast.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Or you go and close three deals in a week and you make more in seven days that you've made in six months working your, you know, hourly paid paying job.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And you're like, you allow complacency to kick in, right?
Speaker: We need to build the consistency.
Speaker: That's the number one piece, right?
Speaker: That's what it all boils down to.
Speaker: So what that looks like is going to change from client to client, obviously, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But those are a couple examples of like what we have to do to gather that data.
Speaker: Then the question becomes, how do we increase that volume?
Speaker: Not just going to knock more doors for the sake of knocking more doors, but how do we do it sustainably?
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Because that's the key.
Speaker: If it's not simple, it's not sustainable.
Speaker: And if it's not sustainable, what the hell are we doing this for?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Otherwise you fall victim to the solar coaster because the complacency kicks in, you go really hard, you make a bunch of money and then you allow yourself to completely obliterate all the momentum that you've built.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Then you have to build that snowball over again.
Speaker: That's not what we're about.
Speaker: So we're striving for that consistency.
Speaker: We have to poke around to figure out what's lacking and then we know what to solve, right?
Speaker: You hit on energy management before.
Speaker: That's one of the most important pieces that we need to do to maintain that consistency.
Speaker: But we got to know what it looks like first before we can spot treat, if that makes sense.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So kind of like, I don't know, maybe similar to someone that's trying to go to the gym for the first time instead of saying, Hey, you need to go to the gym seven times as we just like make it to the gym and do one pushup, stuff like that.
Speaker: 100% extra.
Speaker: That client, when I was, you asked me for some numbers, I said, we took a client from two to eight deals a month.
Speaker: Literally he hit eight deals a month when we dropped his daily door volume down to one door a day.
Speaker: Because for him, the hardest door was in a lot of people experiences.
Speaker: It's that first door.
Speaker: It's his own door.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Like he couldn't get out and go and knock.
Speaker: Like that was a big barrier for him.
Speaker: So we dropped it to one door.
Speaker: But what happens then?
Speaker: It's like, I know Michael O'Donnell is a massive advocate of many habits.
Speaker: He's talking about it on his Instagram stories every other day, it seems.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Well, no matter who you follow, right, whether it's the author of many habits or, you know, John Asaraf calls it reducing it to the ridiculous, right?
Speaker: Making it so ridiculous that it would be silly not to execute or, you know, Jim Quick calls it small, simple steps.
Speaker: It's all the same thing.
Speaker: We chunk something down such that it's so simple that it would be absolutely ridiculous for us not to execute on it.
Speaker: Now, for that client, what happened there?
Speaker: Well, like literally, I think there was one day that he actually only knocked one door, right?
Speaker: Where he went out, he was just not feeling it.
Speaker: He knocked that one door.
Speaker: He's like, screw this.
Speaker: I'm going to Chipotle, right?
Speaker: I don't think it was actually Chipotle, but I love Chipotle.
Speaker: So I just use that in the story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But every other day he went out and he's like, maybe you'll do five, maybe you'll do 20, some days he'll do 50.
Speaker: He closed eight deals that month.
Speaker: Coming from an average of two and the other part that we didn't talk about is the month before the eight, he did zero.
Speaker: He bageled for the entire month.
Speaker: But we dropped that number down so simply and we reduced it to the ridiculous such that he could execute.
Speaker: And we got the execution up.
Speaker: And what happens is, you know, every time you keep your word to yourself, those micro promises, you're stacking wins, which builds the momentum.
Speaker: And that momentum leads to all the results that we want.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: And it's so easy, as you've seen, for guys to be lazy in the solar industry.
Speaker: Because, yeah, I mean, it's the curse.
Speaker: Commissions are through the roof.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A couple of deals a month is great money.
Speaker: And so it happens to me too.
Speaker: I'll close all the other day.
Speaker: I got, you know, the first door I knocked same day, closed them.
Speaker: And then I had family in town.
Speaker: You know, we just had our kid.
Speaker: This was last Monday, actually.
Speaker: So I guess I kind of had a couple of good excuses, but I'm like, all right, I closed this till I'm done for the day.
Speaker: So it's like, it's so easy to get in that mindset.
Speaker: And I think if guys can conquer that and yeah, just do the minimum,
Speaker: uh what are the minimum exertion at least do that minimum thing and then it's gonna be a lot easier to do the next thing yeah so i think the problem is like you you had solid reasons to call that day short like i think most people would understand family in town for the holidays just had a kid right like those are good reasons the problem is most of us have excuses that we mask as reasons okay right
Speaker: Like that's a huge difference.
Speaker: And I mentioned consistency is the number one word.
Speaker: Complacency is the number two.
Speaker: It's those dirty C words when it comes to the solar space and really all commission sales.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But solar specifically because the deals are so fat.
Speaker: So, you know, it's we need to make sure to navigate that properly.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Oh, Mike, I know we're running short on time here, but I had kind of two more things I wanted to get to.
Speaker: The first, yeah, and the first was, so with the clients you work with, I mean, I've worked with coaches, you know, many times as I've been selling, but something that I try to fight is like the day after I stopped working with that coach, maybe they were, I don't know how long you usually work with someone, three months, maybe whatever it is.
Speaker: what do you do or what do you tell people to not let their results dip after they're done working with you?
Speaker: Because I think that's something that I've noticed.
Speaker: I'll work with a coach.
Speaker: I'll be super dialed in.
Speaker: But then it's one part of my brain.
Speaker: It's almost like a relief after I'm done working with the coach.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, sweet.
Speaker: I don't have to be as accountable.
Speaker: I'm going to kind of let myself, you know, drop down.
Speaker: So what do you tell people as you're done working with them?
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: I know you probably, I don't know, maybe keep working with them, but if someone's done working with you, how do you kind of like hopefully inspire them to keep those results high in, not let it dip after you're done working with them?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love the question.
Speaker: And I love like the openness and transparency because I think a lot of people feel that way, but no one has the balls to actually say it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So here's, here's what I would say.
Speaker: We talked about sustainability, right.
Speaker: And we talked about consistency.
Speaker: Those,
Speaker: Those are the keys, right?
Speaker: Because if we're doing something sustainably, we don't need the motivation or the accountability from someone else to allow us to continue to execute.
Speaker: And our goal, and this is obviously not sustainable business practice for us because we're like not creating recurring revenue, but like our goal is to make it to the point where like our clients can walk.
Speaker: And, you know, one of the clients that I mentioned, the guy went from 50 to 100K, he's going to do 500K in this quarter and he graduated in March.
Speaker: Like it just, he got what he needed and that was it.
Speaker: Like that was cool.
Speaker: And now we have a working relationship.
Speaker: We're going to partner on some stuff moving forward.
Speaker: Like that's amazing.
Speaker: But notice that everything kept growing because we did it sustainably.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So when we do that properly, we have the discipline dialed in.
Speaker: That's all that matters.
Speaker: And we just build it in a way that's in alignment with how we wanna operate our lives.
Speaker: When you do that properly, you shouldn't need the external accountability.
Speaker: And this is what I say whenever clients are enrolling with us.
Speaker: I believe there's two types of accountability.
Speaker: There's the external accountability, which is what most people think of, accountability partners, how much people rely on their coaches, whatever it might be, reverse bets, anything like that, where we're dependent on something externally to incentivize us to act.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then there's the internal accountability.
Speaker: Are we accountable to ourselves?
Speaker: And for me, that's the Holy grail and bridging the gap from one to the other is what we help our clients do.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, um, I don't know if that answers your question, but our goal is to the point where our clients don't feel that way because they know cool.
Speaker: If they need continued support and they want to continue growing because there's always another level.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: We're here to support them.
Speaker: But they don't need that if they don't like they don't have to go that route if they don't need that.
Speaker: And the results aren't going to go to shit if they don't continue to invest.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which unfortunately, I think is something that gets sold in this space a little too often.
Speaker: But but yeah, hopefully that answers your question.
Speaker: It's really about the consistency and the sustainability.
Speaker: When you do that and you have your non-negotiables dialed in, the game changes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And we just make sure that those are things that we can hit even on our worst days.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But we don't need to be dependent externally and we don't have to invest in something that we don't necessarily need because people don't pay high ticket to get a babysitter.
Speaker: Like accountability coaching is a thing of the past.
Speaker: If there's not more baked into the coaching and the growth, then you're frankly wasting your money.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm sure that's something you help guys with as they're, you know, working through your coaching.
Speaker: But I like that.
Speaker: We were saying, you know, external to internal.
Speaker: Cause yeah, I think about a lot of these competitions I've won, I've had to like, just give myself an insane, you know, external accountability.
Speaker: I don't know if you use that like stick app where you like, you know, bet money to charities you don't like.
Speaker: Yeah, we do.
Speaker: We do something similar with our clients and some of the phases of our launch program.
Speaker: It's a powerful tactic, man.
Speaker: Reverse bets are a crazy little trick.
Speaker: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker: But no, I think it's even more powerful if you can do that internally and not have to rely on all these gimmicks and external things sometimes.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: So Mike, last question and then we'll talk about where people can connect with you more.
Speaker: But what advice would you give to like, we got a lot of managers in the space.
Speaker: We talked before the recording here just how it's crazy how much turnover there is in the solar industry, guys quitting.
Speaker: So for maybe managers or just guys bringing in recruits, what advice can you give to those people on coaching them to, you know, stick, stick in the industry and start achieving success?
Speaker: And I don't know what advice can I give to those people?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I freaking love this question because it's so important.
Speaker: I was sharing with you, Taylor, like one of my,
Speaker: One of my missions, which is weird because I'm like a transplant in this space, right?
Speaker: Like I'm not a door knocker, so I feel like an imposter at times, but like I see what's happening.
Speaker: And like for me, one of my missions is to help chip away at that turnover because we see like, you know, young guys and girls getting sold this pipe dream and these sunshine and rainbows and then sometimes like not given the support to really bring it to fruition.
Speaker: And obviously there's the agency of those people, like they need to take advantage of the opportunity, but
Speaker: You know, it's our job as leaders to grow into the person that can support them to take advantage of this opportunity.
Speaker: So I encourage every leader listening to this, whether you're really managing a team or you're just someone that gets looked up to because you're a stud in your company, you need to keep growing and you need to pour into the people around you, whether there are overrides involved or not.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because if you're a killer, you were able to take advantage and harness this opportunity and really allow it to change your life.
Speaker: And it's our duty to make sure that other people can do the same thing.
Speaker: And especially when there are overrides involved, like if your people don't win, then you,
Speaker: obviously your income is heavily impacted.
Speaker: So whatever your incentivization is, you know, I think we need to continue to pour into ourselves, whether that's being in masterminds, hiring coaches, reading books, listening to podcasts, doing whatever you need to do to stay tapped in and growing.
Speaker: Because if you don't build those assets, you're not going to be able to pour into your people.
Speaker: And unfortunately, I think it gets overlooked because the usually a lot of the way that you grow in a sales organization is based on your sales volume.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So if we don't all of a sudden, then if we're not conscious of this and we're not really intentional around this, we have a bunch of sales studs that are now in leadership roles that might have no idea how to lead.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Other than leading a prospect into a transaction.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So we need to focus on those leadership skills, right?
Speaker: Go to the conferences.
Speaker: It doesn't matter what it is.
Speaker: Just keep doing it because I've heard it far too many times.
Speaker: The success of a new rep often is entirely dependent, not entirely, but it's very dependent on what regional they're working under.
Speaker: We got to make sure that we are that regional or we are that leader or we are that person that inspires them to show up powerfully, that helps guide them along this process and not just throws them out to the wolves because you're trying to play the numbers game too and you're throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks.
Speaker: If we're selling people a pipe dream, we better be damn sure to give them the resources and the support to bring it to life for them.
Speaker: So end rant, take for what it's worth, but like you got to keep growing because you got to keep pouring into people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: No, it's so true because so many people, maybe they're good at sales, but they've never been in leadership roles.
Speaker: And I think that's a mistake.
Speaker: Some people make just because you're really good at selling doesn't necessarily mean you can teach it or you can lead.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: I think especially for guys like that, it's important to go develop those leadership skills, invest in yourself, invest in the coach like Mike, or we've got programs over here at Solrepreneur and that's going to keep things fresh, I think, and help guys lead.
Speaker: So Mike, we appreciate your time.
Speaker: And I know you got to hop on another call here in a minute, but before we let you go, where can guys potentially, I don't know, have you as a coach or connect more with you or find your podcasts, give us your, your plugs for where people can connect with you a little bit more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: First of all, Taylor, appreciate you having me, brother.
Speaker: This is, uh, this is super fun.
Speaker: Um, honestly, man, the best place is Instagram at Mike says, Nick on Instagram, probably got a link back.
Speaker: Cause all the Polish disease, like really hard to spell and beware of the freaking crypto scammers.
Speaker: Everyone's getting fake profiles made.
Speaker: I'm never going to DM you pitching crypto.
Speaker: I will DM you pitch in high performance coaching, but never crypto.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So just slide in the DMS.
Speaker: If anyone has questions or on anything we talked about once, like to go a little bit deeper on stuff, slide in there, either my team will answer, or if they don't know the answer, they'll flag it for me and I'll get you an answer.
Speaker: But yeah, that that's literally like the inside of our funnel anyway.
Speaker: So don't worry.
Speaker: You're not going to follow and just get relentlessly pitched.
Speaker: If you don't want to be, we will open conversation because it's social media.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But yeah,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: DMs are always open.
Speaker: Feel free to reach out with any questions.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Well, Mike, thanks for coming on the show today.
Speaker: Shoot Mike a DM.
Speaker: Let him know you appreciated the knowledge bombs he drops for our solopreneurs here today.
Speaker: And Mike, I'm sure we'll have people connecting with you soon.
Speaker: Thanks again for coming on the show with us today.
Speaker: Thank you, brother.
Speaker: Appreciate it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Talk soon.
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