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: Hey, solarpreneurs.
Speaker: Today, we're going to be talking about how you can use competitions to your advantage and dominate them.
Speaker: So we are entering the summer season, or if you're listening to this at a different time, I think there's some great tips, some nuggets you can pull from this whenever you're competing.
Speaker: So welcome to the show.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: I recently joined Sam Tarr's little door-to-door experts group.
Speaker: They're doing a competition right now called the National Knocking League that runs, I think, about two months ago.
Speaker: And then, you know, company, we got a bunch of competitions starting up.
Speaker: If you are entering summer season, you know that this is the time to grind.
Speaker: This is when people are typically getting their highest bills in solar.
Speaker: And most companies are running lots of competitions during the summer.
Speaker: And if you're running a deal or running a team, I would consider running some competitions.
Speaker: because wh at a great advantage it gives you, especially in the summers, to get ahead and push hard.
Speaker: Longer daylight hours, really no reason you shouldn't be competing.
Speaker: So yeah, in lieu of that, I thought, let's do a podcast on this.
Speaker: And if you are not involved in competitions, then it might be a good idea to join a group or possibly a company that has competitions.
Speaker: Or just create your own.
Speaker: That's what a lot of these programs are for.
Speaker: Maybe we'll do a solopreneur competition.
Speaker: Let me know if you've got interest in that.
Speaker: Have thought about running some competitions.
Speaker: But I know there's great programs like, you know, Door to Door Experts, Noxstar, Danny Pesci.
Speaker: He's doing his Lord of the Doors right now.
Speaker: a bunch of different competitions you can find where you can buy into these and just participate in them.
Speaker: And they do prizes and everything too.
Speaker: So consider joining one of those if your company does not have some strong competition or if you just want a little extra challenge.
Speaker: All right, so I'm going to give you guys four tips, four things that really I think you can focus on to help you win these competitions and just perform at your maximum level.
Speaker: Hey, it's all about the buy-in, right?
Speaker: So let's get into the four tips, right?
Speaker: Tip number one is the buy-in.
Speaker: Okay, I guess I gave it away.
Speaker: But that is, especially for you married people, maybe you're in a serious relationship.
Speaker: Something that I have learned over the years and that we've been talking about a little bit lately with some of the competitions I've entered is you need to get your spouse or significant other to buy in as well.
Speaker: I mentioned in the previous episode, I actually just had our third kid.
Speaker: We had our third kid and definitely got to ask for some permission to grind because when you have...
Speaker: not only two, but three kids, you know, you can get in trouble if you just run off 12 hours a day.
Speaker: So I have to get to buy in from my spouse and let her know what competitions, when the competitions are, how long they're running, how much I plan to actually grind during these competitions.
Speaker: I think it's very, very important.
Speaker: If you want to win, get your spouse bought in or maybe get
Speaker: your friend, whatever, get other people around you bought into the competition because not only will they hold you accountable to push more, but you're getting permission in the case of people that aren't married or in the case of people that needs to maintain their relationships.
Speaker: So trust me, learn that the hard way sometimes.
Speaker: So learn from my mistakes.
Speaker: But remember, we not only want to crush it in sales, in solar, but we want to crush it in all areas of life.
Speaker: And that's one of the values we have here on our team, actually, is not just succeeding in business and in sales, but succeeding in faith, family, fitness, finance, all of the above.
Speaker: And I think we should all strive to do that, everyone that's in the solar industry.
Speaker: So that's tip number one.
Speaker: Make sure you buy in and talk to your relationships.
Speaker: And then tip number two is focus on the controllables.
Speaker: As I was planning this podcast, I was reminded of, most of you guys have probably seen this, but the Michael Phelps photo of him winning the race and famous photo, the guy in second place,
Speaker: He's not looking at the finish line.
Speaker: He's looking at Michael Phelps.
Speaker: So I think too many of us, we're focusing on what can we do to not lose.
Speaker: But how about focusing on what can we do to win?
Speaker: How many conversations are we going to have during the day?
Speaker: How many deals do we need to get in?
Speaker: If we just work our tails off, if we just push hard and focus on the winnings,
Speaker: then I think everything else will fall into place.
Speaker: It should never be, okay, let's figure out what do we need to do to just barely inch by, to just beat the next competition, right?
Speaker: We should be focusing on the winning.
Speaker: I'm reminded that our competition, they have three-day rounds right now, and it's elimination, right?
Speaker: So it's you got to make them the next round or you're going home.
Speaker: I think they do have a consolation bracket.
Speaker: So that's tip number two is focus on the controllables and focus on what you can do to not just not lose, but to actually win.
Speaker: So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Speaker: Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app.
Speaker: It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
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.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
Speaker: I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
Speaker: But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show.
Speaker: You need to give my listeners a great deal.
Speaker: And they did.
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.
Speaker: That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show.
Speaker: Okay, and then tip number three is start a group chat with your team, with the people in the competition.
Speaker: In my case, I guess some competitions, maybe you're just doing it, man versus man.
Speaker: But our competitions, it's like team deathmatch style, right?
Speaker: Shout out to the old Halo days.
Speaker: So we got teams of five and we're going head to head against different competitors.
Speaker: And so I like that style because we can all motivate each other, be in a group chat, get each other fired up.
Speaker: So right now we've got all five of us, we're closing deals.
Speaker: And then we've got the setters in the competition and we all have the common goal.
Speaker: We know we need a hit, so we're getting our setters fired up.
Speaker: We're dropping additional incentives for the setters.
Speaker: This week we're doing the top setter with a minimum of two sets that close is going to get a pair of the Nike 270s, I think they're super nice, like $200 shoes.
Speaker: So yeah, consider getting all your team together.
Speaker: And then if you're listening to this, you be the ringleader, get your team bought in, get your guys motivated, drop the additional incentives, right?
Speaker: Because if you get your guys all bought in, then you're much more likely to win it.
Speaker: And many times I've seen this be the difference between the winners and the losers is the people that have their group chats, the most dialed in and the group bought in, fired up for the goal.
Speaker: Get your group chat fired up.
Speaker: All right, and then last but not least, make sure you prepare yourself for the long days.
Speaker: If you really are buying in, really grinding, really pushing to win the competitions, you know you're probably gonna be putting in 10, 11, 12 hour days.
Speaker: So prepare for that.
Speaker: If you're going out 9 a.m.
Speaker: to 9 p.m., you got to make this thing sustainable too, right?
Speaker: Depending how long the competition is, you got to make sure you're packing your food.
Speaker: Make sure you are packing your chargers, portable chargers, right?
Speaker: Make sure you're packing your slicks, maybe you're using paper handouts like me to drop off little cards to your customers, appointment reminder cards, right?
Speaker: That's what I use, qualification cards.
Speaker: Hey, and then another thing, too many people in door-to-door, in solar, they're relying on just the energy drinks, the Adderall.
Speaker: They're pumping this stuff through their veins like it's candy.
Speaker: Hey, I've been there.
Speaker: I've done that.
Speaker: I don't think it's sustainable.
Speaker: And I think people are just relying on the Adderall, relying on the monsters,
Speaker: then it's going to be, it's going to take a toll on your body.
Speaker: I mean, you look at some of the ingredients in this thing, these things.
Speaker: So why not give yourself a natural boost of energy?
Speaker: Okay, something I shared on our little team call today is staying hydrated.
Speaker: Like the first thing you do when you get out of bed should be fill up your mug.
Speaker: I've got my little Stanley cup, my 40 ounce Stanley cup.
Speaker: Fill on that thing.
Speaker: I'm grabbing lemons.
Speaker: We got a lemon tree in our backyard.
Speaker: Putting lemon, freshly squeezed lemon in there.
Speaker: and I'm just chugging that thing.
Speaker: 16 ounces minimum of water when you first wake up.
Speaker: Nothing better to start your day with hydration and then getting seven to eight hours of sleep.
Speaker: I think that's way more energy than chugging the monsters.
Speaker: Okay, so make sure you get proper sleep.
Speaker: Make sure you're cutting out the recreational drugs, the alcohol, limit social media.
Speaker: Hey, another thing we've talked about in training is just if you got an iPhone, which everyone should.
Speaker: If you're not, what are you doing?
Speaker: Get an iPhone.
Speaker: But you can set the screen time to notify you if you're going past your 20, whatever you want.
Speaker: want the limit to be.
Speaker: Maybe it's zero minutes during competitions, but set the limit.
Speaker: Maybe it's 20 minutes on social media and then you have the notification going off to tell you to get off social media.
Speaker: And then just pack food, get yourself a little backpack cooler, pack your snacks, pack your food, and then get your workouts in, get your cold plunging.
Speaker: For me, I don't have a cold plunge yet, but I'm a fan of the cold showers.
Speaker: I know cold plunges are like a trend right now.
Speaker: But just get yourself in a cold shower.
Speaker: You don't have to have the fancy cold plunges.
Speaker: All these people on social media showing off their jumping in cold plunges.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: But just get yourself the cold shower.
Speaker: And I think you're getting the same effects.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So that's some tips with it.
Speaker: Make sure you're prepared.
Speaker: Make sure you're sharing these things with their team, getting them with your team, getting them bought in to also prepare themselves and make sure they're not slacking off.
Speaker: Make sure they're not wasting valuable time during competition and competition season.
Speaker: Okay, so those are just a few things that hopefully can help you guys out as you are getting ready for your competition season or whenever you're listening to this.
Speaker: So just to review, that's number one, buy in.
Speaker: Make sure you get the people that you have relationships with bought in so you don't lose friends, you don't lose husbands.
Speaker: We're not here to create divorces being in solar, right?
Speaker: We want to win in our relationships.
Speaker: So get bought in and get bought in as a couple or whatever.
Speaker: as whoever, yeah, whoever you need to let know in your life.
Speaker: And then focus on the controllables, focus on the winning, not on how can you not lose.
Speaker: Start your group chat, get it dialed in.
Speaker: And then last but not least, get prepared, stay prepared, take care of your body.
Speaker: You don't want to sacrifice, you know, your sanity or your body just to win a competition.
Speaker: And then just sell ethical, right?
Speaker: Whatever the stakes are, whatever the prize is, it's never worth it to win a competition if you're being unethical.
Speaker: And you're not going to feel good even if you do win it.
Speaker: Hey, so send this to anyone who is entering the competition or if you have a group of people in the competition, send this to your group, right?
Speaker: What a better way to get them bought in than to listen to this podcast.
Speaker: Hope these things help.
Speaker: Again, reminder, hit me up if you have content suggestions, if you have people you want on the show, on the podcast, or if you have topics you want us to cover, we're always looking for quality guests to come on.
Speaker: And make sure you tune in to the next episodes.
Speaker: We've got some insanely good guests just blown away by some of these people.
Speaker: And the nuggets they're sharing have literally...
Speaker: A lot of them have changed my sales career, have made me, I would say, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands from things that I've learned just doing these interviews.
Speaker: So I hope you can also learn from these and implement them as well and change the course of your career.
Speaker: So thanks for tuning in the podcast.
Speaker: Please leave us a review, share the podcast with someone, and we'll see you on the next one.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
Speaker: 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.
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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: And it's called Solciety.
Speaker: 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
Speaker: by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day.
Speaker: Currently, Soul Society is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
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Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to soulcidity.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
Speaker: you
