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 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 Solarpreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: What's going on?
Speaker: I am stoked for today's episode because we have probably one of the most high profile entrepreneur of the year, CEO and founder of Legacy Power, Mr. Doug Robinson in the house.
Speaker: Hey, great to be with you.
Speaker: I'm excited to be here.
Speaker: Thanks for inviting me to be on today.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker: And we're here in the home office.
Speaker: Got a great office just overlooking the mountains and everything.
Speaker: Yeah, it's been really fun to see it grow here.
Speaker: You know, they call it Silicon Slopes here.
Speaker: So many tech companies and just a beautiful environment, a ton of tech growing, and it's been a great place to grow a solar business.
Speaker: Yeah, I can tell.
Speaker: Yeah, I know my parents.
Speaker: We were talking before, my parents live right down the road here in Highland and...
Speaker: You know, six years ago when they moved out here, maybe it was like eight years, there's none of this.
Speaker: I'm sure you've seen it grow at downtown.
Speaker: Yeah, nothing.
Speaker: And wild how small of a world it is.
Speaker: So, yeah, it was great to connect.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: But I'm excited because, I mean, you're probably, we've had some like, you know, owners of dealers, things like that on.
Speaker: But I don't think we've had anyone that's running as big of an organization as you guys.
Speaker: So I'm excited to hear just how you're growing and,
Speaker: Yeah, what's taking you guys to the next level.
Speaker: But yeah, do you want to give us like, I know you cut your teeth and door to door, you've been in this forever.
Speaker: When did you start like door to door and everything?
Speaker: Yeah, great question.
Speaker: So I think my entrepreneurial journey starts back when I was a young kid.
Speaker: We had a family lawn care business.
Speaker: And I remember going door to door with flyers for my brothers.
Speaker: because they would mow and trim and they'd say, go lay these flyers out or go knock on doors and see if people want their lawns mowed.
Speaker: So this is like when I was probably early 90s doing that.
Speaker: So did that, didn't really recognize it as door to door.
Speaker: It was just like, go get the neighbors to be able to cut their lawns.
Speaker: So it's my first early memories of doing it.
Speaker: And then as a student athlete, played a little bit of junior college football, had a good run there.
Speaker: It was a great time of life.
Speaker: and i served an lds mission in eastern europe so i went to romania and learned romanian was there for two years and did door-to-door on my mission and and uh you know i learned to communicate with people i think that was a big part of my journey of growth and development when you get outside your comfort zone that's where real learning takes place and for me you know 19 years old
Speaker: going to Eastern Europe, knocking on doors to talk about my belief set and what it is.
Speaker: And it's not always received with the most.
Speaker: That topic can be polarizing, I think.
Speaker: And so, you know, you face rejection.
Speaker: You face a lot of rejection and learning that skill set.
Speaker: transpired into when I returned home, I needed to make some money.
Speaker: I was a student athlete.
Speaker: I was broke, had no money and needed to figure it out.
Speaker: Um, wanted, I wanted to get married.
Speaker: I wanted to provide.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: As I looked at my options out there, a buddy of mine, Brandon Ripplinger is his name.
Speaker: He's one of my mentors, great friends even still today.
Speaker: He's a varsity wrestling coach here in Utah, one of the high schools now.
Speaker: We stayed in touch, but he invited me to sell door-to-door.
Speaker: I didn't know what it was.
Speaker: I just knew that it was an opportunity, and so he invited me to come and sell satellites, Dish Network and DirecTV, door-to-door, and that was in 2002.
Speaker: So that's when I started, cut my teeth in the door-to-door satellite space.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: And you're like a dinosaur in it, door-to-door space?
Speaker: I know, man.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: It's been a long time and met a lot of amazing people, had a lot of amazing experience, and I've had some lows, too.
Speaker: I don't think anybody's journey is straight up.
Speaker: I think it's a series of ups and downs and sideways, but that's where I got started.
Speaker: I remember my father-in-law, at the time I married my high school sweetheart.
Speaker: It actually worked out, but he's an orthopedic surgeon, somebody that I highly respect, but I remember...
Speaker: early on trying to gain his trust and admiration, right?
Speaker: Like you, you want your father-in-law to respect you.
Speaker: And that's, you know, it was like a motivator for me to provide for his daughter.
Speaker: And I remember kind of,
Speaker: You know, like you're going to provide through door to door.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah, this is what I'm going to do.
Speaker: This is my career.
Speaker: And I was stoked about it.
Speaker: But, you know, I think that was a big motivator for me was proving to people that I was enough.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Well, I learned yesterday, I don't know this, but you're the youngest in your family, right?
Speaker: Yeah, the youngest of five.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, yeah, that was surprising because, I don't know, like, I just think of my family, like, my youngest sister.
Speaker: Usually you think they're, like, spoiled.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, for sure.
Speaker: We all are.
Speaker: We all are.
Speaker: We own it, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Spoiled, rotten, was gifted everything, was given everything, you know, just drafting off the coattails of my older siblings.
Speaker: So, I'm like, man, this guy's a hustler.
Speaker: Are you, like, okay?
Speaker: started this massive organization door-to-door sports and all that so was your family pretty entrepreneurial do you feel like
Speaker: You kind of had to hustle through your life and everything?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My home life growing up was always sports and then very traditional family.
Speaker: My mom almost every day had dinner ready on the table.
Speaker: We'd sit down and have a dinner and more formal utensils out, that type of stuff, set table, everything.
Speaker: Very traditional and
Speaker: She, I always remember we had conversations with my dad about his business.
Speaker: You know, he, his business went up and down throughout the years, but, uh, we always, we all worked in the family business.
Speaker: Um, he sold product to school systems around the country.
Speaker: That's what he did.
Speaker: And so, um, he would travel during the summers.
Speaker: So this, my dad being away from home during summers, um,
Speaker: was a very normal thing for my family because the school systems, that was the sales cycle, was during the summer, that's when you would sell to the school districts.
Speaker: And so he traveled the country doing that.
Speaker: But whenever dad was home, we were always talking through, you know, what, you know, what business was happening and what was going on and those types of things.
Speaker: So I think I was exposed at a young age to business.
Speaker: You know, that's part of what we did.
Speaker: And I think that really helped a foundation for me of business principles and some of those things.
Speaker: So got to thank my dad.
Speaker: He's one of my heroes and my siblings as well.
Speaker: I,
Speaker: Yeah, I was spoiled.
Speaker: I probably had more than what my older siblings did and those things, but I learned from the things they did good, and I also learned from their mistakes.
Speaker: Seeing them get yelled at and disciplined, I kind of avoided those things in my youth, and I think that was helpful for me.
Speaker: Yeah, good.
Speaker: Well, good.
Speaker: You, you know, went against the, I guess, the thinking that sometimes the youngest kids are, like, you know, getting the hand out.
Speaker: Are your brothers and, like, are your siblings, are they, like, entrepreneurs, do you think?
Speaker: Yeah, many of them are.
Speaker: I look up to all my siblings in so many ways and they all have strengths and weaknesses and all those things.
Speaker: know it's been a great relationship to to build with you know and see their journeys and learn from their journeys um some more entrepreneurial than others but my sister's a crazy hard worker she's a nurse and i just respect nurses and what they went through with covid and you know all of that it's it's really crazy to look at that industry but um she's somebody who has just a ton of strength and
Speaker: is a real example to me of work ethic and grit and she'll handle anything.
Speaker: She was like my second mom growing up and somebody I respect a lot.
Speaker: Yeah, I got to hand it to her.
Speaker: Yeah, the nurses work tough hours and all that.
Speaker: It's definitely hustling.
Speaker: So, no, I can tell, yeah, I mean, obviously you came from a great family, kind of entrepreneurial background.
Speaker: So I want to get in.
Speaker: I know, like, it's been, like, ups and downs, just like every business, but you guys have come out on top and, you know, some stuff has gone down.
Speaker: So I want to hear about that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I guess before that, I was talking about John Soriano.
Speaker: He told me to ask you why you decided to leave it.
Speaker: Legacy and kind of the background behind that.
Speaker: Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that come into this.
Speaker: The word legacy, it can mean different things to different people.
Speaker: In software, if you have legacy software, it's actually old archaic.
Speaker: That's not a great name, right?
Speaker: Like old archaic software.
Speaker: The word legacy to me, when I think of it,
Speaker: It's who you are and what you're leaving behind and how you're making the world a better place and how you're teaching your kids and future generations and impact.
Speaker: Like the word impact, like how are we impacting lives?
Speaker: Look at your podcast.
Speaker: Look at this, what we're doing.
Speaker: We're going to impact lives.
Speaker: You've impacted a lot of lives by sharing best practices.
Speaker: I think that's awesome.
Speaker: You're leaving your legacy.
Speaker: It's part of your legacy, right?
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: For me, there was actually an event that I went to.
Speaker: It was called the Legacy Event, and it was a wealth engineering event that happened in probably 2006.
Speaker: And they invited a bunch of people to, you know, big stage, everything, and they talked about principles of success, but it was called the Legacy Event.
Speaker: And one of the individuals there talked about...
Speaker: What he wanted to do was he wanted to have a family bank one day that future generations could come and get money from the bank, but not because of the bank and the money.
Speaker: That would be the lure in.
Speaker: But, you know, his grandkids and great-grandkids and...
Speaker: you know, going on through generations, they would have to do certain things, read certain books, accomplish certain tasks to tap into the family bank.
Speaker: And he said, because I've got this bank and, you know, accumulated this wealth.
Speaker: Their lure will be the money, but I'll be able to teach future generations the principles of success to help them.
Speaker: And he's like, that's the legacy that I want to leave.
Speaker: And I was like, that's bigger thinking than where I was at.
Speaker: You know, I was thinking about like, how do I make enough to get a new car or whatever?
Speaker: That's like where I was at in that time of my life.
Speaker: Here's this guy thinking about generational wealth and how he can train and teach the minds of future generation.
Speaker: And that's the legacy.
Speaker: So that was really cool to me.
Speaker: And then I paired that with a book, Launching a Leadership Revolution.
Speaker: Really cool book, but it talked about three tiers of motivation.
Speaker: The first tier of motivation was money.
Speaker: And he said, you know, money will help somebody for a short stint and be like fuel on the fire for a short stint to go on sprint.
Speaker: But after time, that motivation wears off.
Speaker: The second tier of motivation was recognition and respect that he talks about in there.
Speaker: You know, people will fight to be recognized.
Speaker: That's why we have leaderboards.
Speaker: That's why we have, you know, those types of things to get that recognition.
Speaker: The respect side is really interesting to be respected amongst your peers.
Speaker: You'll do a lot.
Speaker: But he also talks about self-respect, which I think is cool.
Speaker: Like, do we respect ourselves?
Speaker: Do we have integrity?
Speaker: When nobody's looking, what are we doing?
Speaker: Do we have that self-respect that we have character, which I think is awesome.
Speaker: And then the third tier of motivation was this idea of a legacy.
Speaker: It's your why.
Speaker: It's your purpose.
Speaker: It's beyond money, beyond recognition, beyond that.
Speaker: Like, what is your why and what do you want to do?
Speaker: And, you know, mine's all about my family.
Speaker: Like, it's all about...
Speaker: my kids, my family, like that is number one for me.
Speaker: And so if that's number one for me and I'm centered on that and my relationship with, with my maker and you know what that is and is that comes together and that creates a foundation for,
Speaker: Now, all of a sudden, what's your why?
Speaker: And my why is to help people become the best versions of themselves, to become the best version of myself, and to help them do it.
Speaker: And when we impact, what I hope that people think about Legacy is I became better from my time at Legacy, however time that was, and if they end up
Speaker: competing, which has happened in our business throughout time, I hope they're successful.
Speaker: I hope they took something good away and that we've impacted their life for good.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: And it's cool because you talked about, you know, before we started recording and how you're spending more and more time with kids and all that.
Speaker: I know it's like they're teenagers, so a couple years they'll be gone from the house and everything.
Speaker: But it's cool you have this, you guys have the values where I've seen it again, like you and John Soriano.
Speaker: I'm sure most of your leaders are the same, and it's cool.
Speaker: Do you feel like that's something that's talked about a lot in the company is like,
Speaker: you know, the meaning behind the name and like the values.
Speaker: Is that something you guys talk about a lot?
Speaker: We talk about it a ton, yeah.
Speaker: You know, when people onboard, we talk about our mission statement.
Speaker: Whenever I travel, I'm always talking about our mission statement.
Speaker: And our mission statement, it's fairly simple.
Speaker: Part of the mission statement came from the book, The Rhythm of Life.
Speaker: I was up at an event where Coach Peterson was at Boise State, and he was talking about building a football team.
Speaker: I love football.
Speaker: I played a little bit of college, and it was awesome.
Speaker: But I learned from him, he said, when I'm recruiting a player,
Speaker: He said, I don't just look for the best football players.
Speaker: I look for the best people and people who want to strive to become their best selves.
Speaker: And he said, I learned this from the rhythm of life.
Speaker: And he talked about this book.
Speaker: And Matthew Kelly, I think, is the author.
Speaker: And in that book, it talks about becoming the best version of yourself.
Speaker: So we adopted that as part of our mission statement where essentially our mission statement is to create an extraordinary customer experience while becoming the best version of ourselves and helping others do the same.
Speaker: It's actually not about solar.
Speaker: It's not about a product.
Speaker: It's not about anything.
Speaker: It's about people.
Speaker: Our business is a people business.
Speaker: The asset within our business is our people.
Speaker: It's our customer care agents.
Speaker: It's our taking care of our customers.
Speaker: It's our sales support agents that are helping our sales reps.
Speaker: It's our sales reps that are out hustling every day.
Speaker: It's our 500 W-2 employees from accounting to commissions to everything.
Speaker: These people are
Speaker: are what makes Legacy great.
Speaker: It's not me, it's the people inside of it.
Speaker: And I think I just want to surround myself every day
Speaker: with people that have a desire to become their best self.
Speaker: Because some people don't.
Speaker: Some people settle out.
Speaker: They just want to try to get by and take the easy road.
Speaker: That's not the people I want to be around.
Speaker: I want to be around people who want to stretch themselves and grow.
Speaker: And I think if you have that, you can't be stopped.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that's important in solar because you know how it is.
Speaker: Like commissions are so high.
Speaker: Like most of our listeners are on the doors making these insane commissions.
Speaker: And it's like, like you're saying, I think if you're only money motivated,
Speaker: What's to stop a guy from just going out and getting one cell on the month, making some money?
Speaker: But I think if you think of the other things behind it, the other motivations, not purpose.
Speaker: And I know a lot of guys want to go out and start their own dealers and solar companies.
Speaker: You guys have built a massive organization.
Speaker: But when you were first starting Legacy, was there a ton of thought behind the name, the mission statement, all this stuff?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I feel like a lot of guys just got on you.
Speaker: we're going to call ourselves like, I don't know, the solar killers or something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like maybe there's not a ton of thought behind the name and purpose and all that.
Speaker: So do you think that was something you thought about as you were starting the company?
Speaker: Is that something you thought about a lot or is it kind of evolved over time?
Speaker: Great question.
Speaker: When I started in Door to Door, I worked for a company called Atlas Marketing.
Speaker: It was the name of the company I worked with from 02 through 08.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: In that business, we grew regions and divisions, but when I started, door-to-door didn't exist really.
Speaker: I didn't know one person that went door-to-door for the summer.
Speaker: I never had met anybody.
Speaker: It kind of wasn't really what it is today.
Speaker: Everybody knows somebody who's done a summer program.
Speaker: A summer program really didn't exist, or at least to my knowledge, didn't exist.
Speaker: And so looking at that, I've seen it evolve where it seems like each team and each region and everything built a brand, built some sort of their own brand.
Speaker: And for years in the home security business,
Speaker: In 08, when sort of the economy turned and the economy crashed, I pivoted from the satellite industry into the home security and home automation space and spent the next seven years in that space.
Speaker: But my region name, as I was growing my sales organization,
Speaker: was called Legacy.
Speaker: So for years, I was the Legacy region and, you know, I had elements of our mission statement today was a part of Legacy, become your best self and become, was always a part of it.
Speaker: And so I think it's been an evolution, the name Legacy and becoming your best self and tying those together.
Speaker: for well before Legacy was even created.
Speaker: And so when it came time to start the company and get going and everything, it was a natural fit for us.
Speaker: The letters, LGCY, and shortening it, many companies will do that from a brand perspective, but also many utilities, PG&E, SDG&E, are letters, and they're shortened.
Speaker: And then we actually chose the name power instead of solar because we felt like it would make the doors a little softer.
Speaker: When we first started in 2014, if you said, hey, I'm with legacy solar, you'd say solar on the doors.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: So we went the power out of trying to tie ourselves to a power company, not just a solo company.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, what's interesting is I've talked with John and some of your other leaders that you guys have kind of like, I know they have like their divisions, like John is over like the bowers.
Speaker: That's correct.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it sounds like it's kind of a similar thing that you were doing in OI Arms, like your leaders create different divisions type thing.
Speaker: Yeah, I think people want to belong to a tribe.
Speaker: They want to be a part of something.
Speaker: And I think it's healthy within an organization for people to establish and leaders to establish, you know, what are their core values?
Speaker: What are their principles?
Speaker: What are they relating to when you first –
Speaker: get introduced to something, what's your story?
Speaker: First thing you ask me is tell me about your company name.
Speaker: Similar with any of our leaders, what differentiates them?
Speaker: Why would a rep want to work with a Valor or any of the other groups within our organization?
Speaker: And so I think that's a normal thing.
Speaker: I think it's really healthy.
Speaker: I think it keeps...
Speaker: internally it helps John continue to feel and actually be an entrepreneur and continue to grow and evolve and he's done a great job as well as many of our other leaders yeah well I'm really impressed by that because I've heard it from John it's just like yeah it's like a really compelling story but he has almost kind of like his own brand within the company and everything certainly I think that's how guys like
Speaker: I don't know, I see other companies where maybe they don't have a strong culture like that and guys don't feel like they're growing and creating their own brands.
Speaker: But what is your personal brand, right?
Speaker: I mean, I think that's a question.
Speaker: How are you going to define your personal brand?
Speaker: And for listeners, maybe that's a takeaway for them.
Speaker: What is your brand?
Speaker: And I hope it's on a strong foundation.
Speaker: The solar killers, if somebody is called that out there, I'd be like, is that really the brand that you want?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I was like, sorry if I offended anybody, but, but you know what I'm saying?
Speaker: It's like, what's the foundation in bedrock?
Speaker: And is it tied to a lasting principle or principles that truly are a bedrock foundation for you?
Speaker: And I think that's like, you're always anything you do, you're building your personal brand.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: So yeah, that's good for people trying to start their own organizations.
Speaker: I know I don't think I would think about that.
Speaker: Just like the mission statement, I've been with companies who didn't have really any mission statement, who didn't have that story behind it.
Speaker: So I think that's really cool and something that I've seen has helped you guys have a lot of growth in you.
Speaker: create a really good culture.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: But yeah, I want to talk about, I know you guys have gone through some challenges just like every company, you've been through ups and downs at Legacy.
Speaker: And I know you guys have like the whole, you know, Sunder thing, guys going, breaking off, doing their own company.
Speaker: So
Speaker: I don't know if you're open to talking about some of the ups and downs you guys have gone through.
Speaker: I know that was a big one.
Speaker: How do you overcome some of these ups and downs?
Speaker: I know solar is changing all the time.
Speaker: Do you have any advice for people who are trying to build?
Speaker: How do you weather these storms?
Speaker: I think in business, ups and downs happen.
Speaker: Markets change.
Speaker: Times change.
Speaker: I'll go back in time a little bit.
Speaker: Think about 2008.
Speaker: I don't know how many listeners remember 2008 and experienced it, but it was crazy.
Speaker: I remember the Lehman Brothers going bankrupt and banks going out and everything.
Speaker: We went into this massive recession, right?
Speaker: And so businesses had to pivot and shift and grow, and it was a challenge in economic times.
Speaker: I look at interest rates this year.
Speaker: It's impacted the industry.
Speaker: You know, you come and dealer fees have increased, the cost of capital has gone up, and it's created a lot of pressure and strain across multiple businesses.
Speaker: Some has seen, some has not seen.
Speaker: Some entrepreneurs, you know, are putting on this strong face, but behind the scenes, they're really struggling, and it's really heavy.
Speaker: And, you know, so really as I look at the landscape and I look at all these different, you know, areas and I look at all of these different entrepreneurs and how they've been struggling and where things change, I think what's really important is that you take the situations, you take the whatever challenges and you find a way to overcome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, because some of these things are out of our control.
Speaker: But what are you doing to overcome?
Speaker: And people, what happens if somebody ends up working with you and they no longer are?
Speaker: Sometimes people do it in a way where it's straight up and they say, hey, I'm no longer working with you.
Speaker: And sometimes they just disappear.
Speaker: And it can happen either way.
Speaker: And I've seen it many different ways over 20 years, right?
Speaker: And how do you handle that?
Speaker: How do you, if somebody was working with you one day and then suddenly they're not anymore, how are you going to handle that?
Speaker: And how do you get through it?
Speaker: And I think part of the word legacy is resilience.
Speaker: Like, we've just been resilient.
Speaker: We've been able to overcome obstacles.
Speaker: But is that really different from any other business?
Speaker: You know, but, I mean, I can tell you tons of examples of things we've had to overcome.
Speaker: Las Vegas shut down.
Speaker: I don't know if you remember that.
Speaker: It was in maybe 2017 or something.
Speaker: But they shut down the whole state.
Speaker: That was 40% of our business.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: shut down, we had to be resilient, we had to pivot our guys and shift to other markets, and that shut down.
Speaker: South Carolina went through legislation, that was a big part of our business.
Speaker: We went through that, we went through the AVP in Illinois, where we got shut down in Illinois, and could no longer, and then happened to many other companies as well, and so we had to pivot and shift and lost people as a result of it, but I think for anybody listening, challenges will come in your life.
Speaker: Some are in the forms of people, some are in the form of maybe it's family, maybe it's addiction, maybe it's mental health.
Speaker: There's stuff that comes at every one of us as people, and I think our ability to understand
Speaker: What can we control?
Speaker: What's within our control?
Speaker: It's our effort and our attitude.
Speaker: I teach it to the kids on the ball field.
Speaker: I teach it to our sales reps, but that's what we can control.
Speaker: And how do you pull yourself out of something bad just happened to me?
Speaker: How do I say, what's my role in it?
Speaker: Learn from where you went wrong.
Speaker: Be honest with yourself.
Speaker: Don't be self-deceived.
Speaker: Learn from it and get better as a result of it.
Speaker: That's huge.
Speaker: Especially us on the doors.
Speaker: It's like sometimes a customer cancels or whatever.
Speaker: We think it's the end of the world.
Speaker: I just lost out on my biggest commission ever.
Speaker: Big deals cancel and things like that.
Speaker: But yeah, you've gone through massive things.
Speaker: Entire market at 40% a year.
Speaker: I'm probably in Wilson.
Speaker: Yes, it shuts off one day.
Speaker: Many entrepreneurs salespeople, they're facing the ups and downs, but enjoy the journey.
Speaker: People have to understand that's the journey, the ups and downs.
Speaker: And when you zoom out, you're like, oh, these dips and these lulls and these hardships is part of our growth.
Speaker: And Sunder, you brought that up.
Speaker: I've had to reflect on this a lot.
Speaker: What was my role in it?
Speaker: I can choose to be the victim over it of so-and-so did this, that, and the other.
Speaker: Or I can just say, what's my role in it?
Speaker: what was my part of this?
Speaker: What do I have to own and how do we get better?
Speaker: And we got better as a result of it.
Speaker: We're a better organization having gone through that, but that was a big change.
Speaker: And, um, you know, so there's, there's no ill will, there's no hate there.
Speaker: There's no, you know, whatever that is.
Speaker: It's like, I've moved on.
Speaker: We've got better.
Speaker: I hope they're successful and move forward.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Well, yeah, that's some pretty big challenges and like, yeah, I'm sure it all kind of shapes you guys and
Speaker: I guess what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Speaker: You guys are coming out on top for sure.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: You have to, right?
Speaker: That's part of the journey.
Speaker: How were you feeling?
Speaker: Some of these challenges, though, at the time.
Speaker: I mean, I know you've been through a lot.
Speaker: What were your thoughts at the time?
Speaker: Were you feeling like, you know, like?
Speaker: Super discouraged?
Speaker: Because I'm sure... Yeah, heavy, you know, heavy anxiety, stress.
Speaker: I think these are all words that we all understand in our own ways.
Speaker: And have I felt those?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Have I felt betrayal?
Speaker: Yeah, I've felt betrayed at times.
Speaker: You know, have I felt hurt?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Have I felt heavy?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I've felt all of these things.
Speaker: But it's how quickly can we identify those feelings?
Speaker: deal with those feelings.
Speaker: You have to deal with them and find the lesson that you need to learn from the situation and how do you move forward.
Speaker: Like that process for some people, they get caught up in that process and they get stuck in and they become victims.
Speaker: And their story becomes one of victimhood of, of I'm a victim, I'm a consumer,
Speaker: look at everything that happened to me, oh poor me.
Speaker: But the people that are rise to the top are the people I think that deal with that, put it in their place, learn and grow and continue to climb.
Speaker: And take any example of anything,
Speaker: I'm getting messages, Eric Weinauer, I think.
Speaker: He's a blind guy who climbed Everest.
Speaker: Like, think about this story.
Speaker: Blind guy climbing Everest?
Speaker: Like, are you... That's unbelievable.
Speaker: He could have been a victim, you know, of his eyesight and can't do things.
Speaker: He goes and climbs Everest?
Speaker: Like, that's crazy, right?
Speaker: But he took what was a hardship for him.
Speaker: He built on it and became great, I think.
Speaker: how many other stories of that are there of dealing with failure or challenge of you know the book failing forward or you know a lot of uh principles here but yeah yeah and i think that's the people who are winning especially in solar like i've gone through some situations where you know missed out on pay um install or stopped paying us just kind of recently unfortunately and i know that's kind of like
Speaker: The unfortunate sign of solar is, you've seen it too, companies disappearing, small dealers going under, installation companies just not paying out people.
Speaker: So it's unfortunate, but it's funny, as I've gone through some of these things, some of the reps that complain the most, they're the ones that are owed maybe 10 grand or something from all this.
Speaker: And then the guys that are out like hundreds of thousands, they just went and started something else and completely replaced that.
Speaker: And yeah, of course, we're all frustrated and everything, but I think the guys who are winning are just like, okay, that sucks, but just try to not think about it and just move forward and do everything you can.
Speaker: It seems like that's something that's helped you do.
Speaker: I'm sure, yeah, you're frustrated and it's heavy, but you thought it was just pretty quick.
Speaker: You recognize that and you're like, all right, I just got to do what I can and control him.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember the situation when some people left our organization that we talked about a little bit.
Speaker: Luke, my business partner, broke his back playing pickleball.
Speaker: Well, and he'd pick a ball and keep beating.
Speaker: He punched on a shot, he blew a disc, and the disc ended up breaking off a piece of vertebrae in his back, and his legs went on.
Speaker: So he went into the hospital, seven days was in the emergency room because he couldn't walk.
Speaker: They ended up getting into surgery and found this thing that was wedged in there.
Speaker: But that was the same time that...
Speaker: you know, that other company started.
Speaker: A lot of people left.
Speaker: And I look at it, so Luke from his bed in the hospital is texting, trying to see what's going on.
Speaker: People have gone dark.
Speaker: Nobody's talking to us.
Speaker: And yeah, you think like heavy, broken back in the hospital and like you just lost hundreds of people who just walked out the door.
Speaker: How do you recover from that?
Speaker: What do you do?
Speaker: What do you feel in that moment?
Speaker: Yeah, it was despair and heavy.
Speaker: But Luke, and it's one of the greatest things about my partner, Luke, he will outwork anybody.
Speaker: And from his back in his hospital bed, he was texting and calling and figuring it out.
Speaker: And we started building.
Speaker: And rather than being victims, it was immediately back to work and back to the grind and hustle and grit and determination.
Speaker: You know, you look at us now, we're
Speaker: top 10 installer in the country now.
Speaker: Thousands of salespeople across 26 states, driving volume.
Speaker: We installed 128 megawatts last year.
Speaker: We've installed 70,000 solar accounts in our career.
Speaker: That puts us in the top 10 companies all time ever in solar.
Speaker: That's rewarding.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: We've done a lot of good.
Speaker: We've impacted a lot of lives.
Speaker: I think something that many people miss in solar, it's not just red lines or adders or commissions or anything.
Speaker: We legitimately are making the world a better place.
Speaker: And so that's one of the things that I think unifies us as an industry.
Speaker: You know, when we lost people, went through hard things, they stayed in solar.
Speaker: they're growing, we're doing good for our world.
Speaker: This is bigger than me, it's bigger than legacy, it's bigger than any one company or one person.
Speaker: We truly are making the world a better place.
Speaker: The carbon emissions that we're reducing
Speaker: the air quality that we're improving, the water conservation that we're doing from producing clean, renewable energy are the things that I don't think it talked about enough because we truly are doing good.
Speaker: And I think that's something that should unite all of us in the solar industry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think for listeners, that's something we don't think about a ton.
Speaker: I know a lot of us think about the commissions and how much money there is, but I know a lot of,
Speaker: People don't sell, like you gotta have that deep belief in the product, right?
Speaker: It's like, you don't have that and the customer's gonna sell you when they're only saving 10 bucks a month and they don't think it's worth it to go solar, like what else are you gonna tell them?
Speaker: Yeah, it's like, oh, this is savings and you know, we're just pitching savings and I'm like, let's stop you guys.
Speaker: Like, think about this.
Speaker: Germany, a large percentage of their population has solar.
Speaker: And when somebody gets solar on their home, they get a heat pump, they get a battery, they get an EV charger, and they get solar.
Speaker: And they pay like 90,000 euros for it.
Speaker: But it's a package deal, and that's what you get.
Speaker: That's how it's sold.
Speaker: And I think like...
Speaker: it's not a savings proposition.
Speaker: This is an electrification of the home and transforming our grid, transforming the way that we produce and consume power.
Speaker: This is the electrification era that we're at the beginning stages of.
Speaker: And I think we majorly lose sight of what we're doing.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Especially in California, I think.
Speaker: Well, now we've got NEM 3.0 going on, but...
Speaker: You look at California now where all these groups are freaking out, losing their minds.
Speaker: They have to add a battery.
Speaker: Sounds like we're so conditioned.
Speaker: Yeah, they're freaking out because they lack education.
Speaker: Like, that's what it is.
Speaker: They're freaking out.
Speaker: They lack education, and they feel threatened, so they get all panicky.
Speaker: And I understand that.
Speaker: I understand change is hard.
Speaker: And so we went at it, and we just said, we're going to get educated on this.
Speaker: We've spent countless time, hours, effort getting options.
Speaker: And so I think for any listeners that are confused about it, call us.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know a lot of people like small dealers.
Speaker: I didn't have people that are just kind of running one-man shows out in California reach out to me and be like, dude, I think I need to join with a big organization.
Speaker: I have no idea what's happening.
Speaker: There's a lot of fear around.
Speaker: I think whether they join with us or not, I think come find out how we're approaching it.
Speaker: Come find out how we're pivoting it.
Speaker: Come find out and learn about what it actually is
Speaker: because once you learn, it's not actually that scary.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: So yeah, I want to talk a little bit.
Speaker: I know you guys are doing a couple new things here at Legacy.
Speaker: You're doing some of your own installs.
Speaker: You guys got some cool stuff that's being rolled out.
Speaker: So I want to ask you about that and then just finish with some stuff that might help, like, you know, just individual sales reps out on the doors.
Speaker: But yeah, so you guys are starting to roll out your own installs.
Speaker: I know for a long time in California, you just had like installation partners and everything.
Speaker: So for you, like where do you think the market's headed and what's, I mean, why is it now you're kind of starting to roll out your own installs and everything in these different markets?
Speaker: What do you think?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Number one, we have had many great install partners.
Speaker: We have many great install partners and they all know who we are and what our roadmap is for expansion.
Speaker: So I call that out because I'm very honest and straightforward with all of our installers about what our plans are.
Speaker: So about 18 months ago or so, we started, we said we want to get into the install side.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: A lot of people think it's money.
Speaker: Like, oh, it's about money.
Speaker: Like, unless you're doing major volume, you don't actually make more money installing.
Speaker: And the cash need to buy the panels and stuff
Speaker: you know, store them in inventory, you know, warehouse, like taking like all the overhead that comes with it.
Speaker: Um, you can make more money, but it has to be done at scale.
Speaker: It has to be done very methodically.
Speaker: And I think, so for us, it wasn't actually about money and doing it for money.
Speaker: It was about controlling the customer experience and how could we create an app where the customer, the sales rep, the
Speaker: the installer, all were in clear communication one with another to understand where the left hand is connected to the right hand.
Speaker: Because I've seen at times where that, how many reps have said to you, I don't know where my project is?
Speaker: All of them.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: How many customers have been frustrated because they don't know what's happening?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: big problem for sure.
Speaker: You've seen it.
Speaker: I saw it.
Speaker: So we said, look, if we can take a little bit more control and control the communication, we felt we could provide a superior customer experience by connecting everything.
Speaker: So now, what do we do?
Speaker: We have automated emails going out to our sales reps and to our customers at every stage of the installation process.
Speaker: We have an app for the customer where they can see where their project stage is and they can message our customer care team.
Speaker: We have an app where they can add referrals and those referrals can get routed back to the sales rep immediately with full transparency.
Speaker: We have technology solutions that connects it.
Speaker: Even our docking app allows sales reps, setters,
Speaker: to see where the stage of where their deal is regardless of who the closer is.
Speaker: That's been a big problem for setters that we heard like, so-and-so's closed my closer and so-and-so's my closer and I got to call each of these individual closers to find out where my job is.
Speaker: So we gave the setters full visibility in their own pipelines.
Speaker: So there's a lot of things I think that we've done to help simplify and
Speaker: really take care of the customer.
Speaker: And I think us taking on installation was part of saying, okay, we want to control the customer experience.
Speaker: We want to make sure we're doing everything we can to get them to PTO as quickly as possible so that they can start saving like what they'd hoped.
Speaker: And so those are some of the reasons why is really controlling that customer experience.
Speaker: Remember our mission statement.
Speaker: Our mission statement is to create an extraordinary customer experience.
Speaker: is at the beginning and that's something that we felt that we wanted to really focus on and drive home.
Speaker: That's huge and I know pretty much every company has these problems.
Speaker: I have centers reaching out to me on my team.
Speaker: I've had to create my own process around that.
Speaker: I have an assistant that kind of reached out to customers and everything.
Speaker: But I think that's awesome that you guys went and actually created solutions for that.
Speaker: And not everyone's going to have those resources and be able to make an app for their company to do all that.
Speaker: But I think for whoever's listening, it's important to have something in place just because I don't think you can build lasting and long-term work.
Speaker: We get to a point where it's like someone's reaching out to customers, everyone wants updates, so it's like what systems, what processes do you have to make around that?
Speaker: I'm a firm believer that the industry for so long has thrown people at problems.
Speaker: That's what we've done as an industry.
Speaker: We've thrown people at problems and add more people to these problems, whereas we believe that technology is the solution for many of these problems.
Speaker: People being on the same page shouldn't be more people.
Speaker: It should be more automation.
Speaker: And so that's what we've really doubled down on.
Speaker: that I think is a competitive advantage in the market is to say, look at the software suite of tools to make your lives easier.
Speaker: And that's really how we've tried to differentiate ourselves from some is saying,
Speaker: We have proprietary software we built in-house with our engineering team.
Speaker: And that means maybe I'm not taking home as much money or those types of things, but we're investing into a platform because we want to scale.
Speaker: We're not done.
Speaker: We feel like we've just got started.
Speaker: Well, it'll probably save you, like, how many extra customer support people do you have to hire that would have been, like, calling customers and all that, where now it just sounds like it's automated pretty much.
Speaker: Automate as much as you can.
Speaker: That's my advice to anybody out there.
Speaker: Yeah, that's super smart.
Speaker: Well, with your install partners, this is something I've, like, wondered.
Speaker: As you go to these install partners, you tell them, like, hey, look, we're kind of, like, starting to do our own installs.
Speaker: I don't know if that's, like...
Speaker: did people get upset about that?
Speaker: Did you really take it away from their volume?
Speaker: What's the conversations you have been?
Speaker: Some have.
Speaker: A little while ago, one of our big installers didn't like that we were getting into their lane and they dropped us.
Speaker: It was on social media and a lot of people talked about it of so-and-so dropped Legacy as an installer and they were doing a lot of our volume.
Speaker: But
Speaker: and getting dropped.
Speaker: We were honest with them.
Speaker: We told them exactly what we were doing.
Speaker: And, you know, it didn't go over quite well and they ended up dropping us, despite saying they wouldn't and that they were fine with it.
Speaker: When push came to shove, they were and things went south.
Speaker: But I've got many examples of partners today where I said, hey, we're going to enter into this, but we're not going to be doing all of our volume and we want to maintain healthy relationships.
Speaker: And we've been able to scale and grow with them.
Speaker: And
Speaker: We're big believers in forecasting with our partners, providing them a forecast of how much volume that we think we'll be doing with them and trying to hold to that.
Speaker: So as we ramp our installation volume, we believe we can outsell our own capacity and we can provide more volume to other installers.
Speaker: And that will forever be a part of our model.
Speaker: We'll never install 100% of our own jobs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: because we'll always be expanding and growing into new markets and so we'll need partnerships.
Speaker: So we very much do well with installers and companies that are in an abundance mindset that we say, how can we all win together and how can we collaborate and how can we figure out this together?
Speaker: It's worked really well with some and some it hasn't worked well with.
Speaker: But yeah,
Speaker: I wish them all success no matter if, you know, things went south or not.
Speaker: I hope they're all successful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You guys that are a big organization, because I know this is something that's a big problem in our industries.
Speaker: These guys will go out, like, summer teams, be dealers, and they'll be like, oh, we think we're doing, I don't know, 20 deals a week or whatever.
Speaker: They bring a huge summer team out, and they, like, blow it out of the park.
Speaker: They're doing way more deals, and then they install companies.
Speaker: Like, EPC is like, oh, crap.
Speaker: We can't wait to fulfill all these.
Speaker: And then,
Speaker: They start their timeline slows way down, then it's like switching to another one, such as like, you know, being, yeah, I haven't been with multiple dealers now sometimes.
Speaker: It's like, that's a big problem.
Speaker: We talked about being the victim a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I'll go back to this a little bit.
Speaker: How many salespeople own...
Speaker: Truly say I'm accountable or leaders or company leaders, I'm accountable for the forecast that I give to my EPC or my installer.
Speaker: And I'm accountable to these people.
Speaker: And that accountability is deeper than the money.
Speaker: So for example, you said somebody goes out, they recruit a big team, they go and scale.
Speaker: Did they provide their EPC with a forecast months in advance of how many people they would have, what their per rep average was to get to a number of sales by month that they were going to have?
Speaker: so that they can plan accordingly for the staffing levels that they need.
Speaker: So doesn't it come down to the forecast of the salesperson more than it does even the EPC?
Speaker: And I think that's what salespeople miss is, oh, the EPC can't keep up.
Speaker: What's their problem?
Speaker: And did you provide a forecast?
Speaker: Did you blow your forecast out by 100%?
Speaker: Well, what do you expect?
Speaker: You know, are you a rah-rah sales guy or rah-rah sales leader, or are you a business professional that can call their business within a 10% variance higher on a monthly or yearly basis to hold people in?
Speaker: That's the next level for people of saying, I'll just do as much as I can, as fast as I can.
Speaker: That's my goal.
Speaker: And I'm like, yeah, that's...
Speaker: That's a great goal, and that's like a good rah-rah sales leader, like congratulations.
Speaker: But why don't you evolve and become a business leader that statistically is understanding how much volume they'll do based off of headcount per average.
Speaker: That's your turn.
Speaker: Yeah, well, and like as you guys are finding these, I don't know if you're over that or you like go look for install partners.
Speaker: I'm sure you got people helping and everything, but how do you guys with where you're a big organization, let's say you go, you forecast or you tell them, hey, we think we're going to be doing this much.
Speaker: How do you know that the EPC is going to be able to fulfill all that?
Speaker: Do you guys take a look under the hood and make sure they got things set up correctly?
Speaker: Or how do you vet these install partners?
Speaker: I think vetting an install partner, number one, is philosophically aligning.
Speaker: How many people sit down with their EPC and say, let's talk about our goals and your goals.
Speaker: How they align, how they come together, what volume do you need?
Speaker: Do you have other dealers?
Speaker: How much volume are they doing?
Speaker: What are you forecasting?
Speaker: And having a conversation, right?
Speaker: What's the principle that we're going on?
Speaker: Because, look, as an installer, one crew can install about one job a day.
Speaker: In some markets, maybe two a day if they're really good or whatever, but most crews one a day.
Speaker: So roughly 20 a month.
Speaker: So how many crews do you need for the volume?
Speaker: You can back into it how many installs per day and what's the capacity.
Speaker: And if you're going to beat the capacity of one of your partners, then if you give them a forecast far enough in advance, they can go and hire additional crews and people to fulfill that need.
Speaker: But if it's just seasonal, what about these crews and their families?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Do we think about them, or is it just about our sales and commissions?
Speaker: What about the family that gets hired on to come on and be a part of a crew for the summer, but they were told that they'd have a year-round career, and then all of a sudden the installer has to lay them off because all the sales reps are done and they made all their money.
Speaker: What about the installer families?
Speaker: Do we think about them?
Speaker: And that's where forecasting really comes in of,
Speaker: be a good partner.
Speaker: Be a good sales partner to the installer's families.
Speaker: Think about them.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: Yeah, I never... That's a good point.
Speaker: I didn't think about that.
Speaker: Probably most of the time, Jeff's, I don't know.
Speaker: It's just like...
Speaker: like hey where are they getting the job done here but yeah it's something we don't think about.
Speaker: Yeah and something we've done is we've leaned into retail because Q4 a lot of the summer programs die off.
Speaker: Retail picks up in Q4 so as we spike in retail during that Q4 and do some virtual sales and some other things we can supplement that sort of Q4 lag that rather than this bell curve of production going up and down we can maintain it and so
Speaker: You know, those are the same things, how we're evolving as a business.
Speaker: You know, having sales through multiple channels, a sales partner channel, we're an EPC for sales partners now, and people are becoming aware.
Speaker: We've got our direct program that's ripping and doing awesome and kind of the...
Speaker: key area of our business.
Speaker: We have virtual sales now.
Speaker: So we have 50 agents calling downstairs from this floor.
Speaker: They're calling every day setters and closers.
Speaker: And then we've got retail ripping leads in from the Home Depot.
Speaker: So we're continuing to evolve and grow our business on a national basis.
Speaker: And I think that's important as a business of how do you evolve and grow and get sales coming in from multiple different channels over time.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: Well, no, you guys are crushing it, man.
Speaker: As we start wrapping up here, I can't end the podcast without asking you about your partnership you guys got going on with the Utah Jazz.
Speaker: I told you before, I'm a huge jazz fan.
Speaker: My first kid, his name's Stockton.
Speaker: For John Stockton, my second kid is Miller.
Speaker: after how Larry H. Miller, so we love the Jazz.
Speaker: So how'd you guys?
Speaker: Well, first off, as soon as we get back out next year, I want to host you.
Speaker: So there's an official invite publicly.
Speaker: We'll tweet you right.
Speaker: So there's official.
Speaker: You hold me accountable now.
Speaker: It's on record.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: But yeah, how'd you guys get in touch with the Utah Jazz?
Speaker: I've never seen solar companies.
Speaker: Maybe it's a thing by advertising solar companies partnered with the NBA teams or whatever.
Speaker: Is it out of that whole thing coming up?
Speaker: Yeah, it's really Luke.
Speaker: I've got to give a lot of credit to Luke.
Speaker: You know, greatest business partner ever.
Speaker: I love the guy so much.
Speaker: Luke is a people person.
Speaker: His strength is how he loves people and how hard he works.
Speaker: And
Speaker: We decided to get a few tickets to the Jazz games.
Speaker: That would be great.
Speaker: He loves the Jazz.
Speaker: He says he's their number one fan, but he didn't name his kids after the Jazz.
Speaker: But he was in there.
Speaker: We had a few tickets, and Luke took care of all of the people, administrative people, ticket people.
Speaker: I remember going to one game, and the security guard allowed us to exit in this private act.
Speaker: exit place to like miss the crowds and I'm like, it's like the players exit or something.
Speaker: I was like, what is happening?
Speaker: And they're like, oh, you're with Luke, you can go.
Speaker: The next game I was there without Luke and the security's like, who are you?
Speaker: And I'm like, what are you, well, I know Luke.
Speaker: He's like, nobody goes out this way.
Speaker: And I'm like, what in the world?
Speaker: But the guy just builds relationships everywhere.
Speaker: It doesn't matter what role somebody is.
Speaker: It doesn't matter what they're doing.
Speaker: He's kind.
Speaker: He's generous.
Speaker: And that really is how the partnership started.
Speaker: He built a great relationship with the Utah Jazz and the people from top to bottom.
Speaker: And then when they...
Speaker: They sort of restructured how they were doing their partnerships and the categories.
Speaker: They wanted them to be exclusive to one company so they could really help build the brand and partner.
Speaker: They're executives.
Speaker: They really talk about this.
Speaker: We want partnerships in the local community.
Speaker: We don't just want sponsorships or just throw your bread.
Speaker: Like, how can we help your business and how can your business help us and how can we really partner?
Speaker: I love what Ryan's done with the community and his community feel.
Speaker: And you look at what he did with the All-Star Game, and they really do want to support Utah local businesses here.
Speaker: And so for us, the category of solar became available, and they said, you know,
Speaker: this is what the package is, here's the seats, here's some of the assets that we want, branding, the club, which is really, really fun.
Speaker: There's the Legacy Club and dining experience for everybody and the tickets are on Legacy and various other things, email campaigns and we're the sponsor of the All-Star Games and we get to use the arena and we have the club we can go into even when games aren't playing during business hours, we can schedule time up there.
Speaker: So there's a lot of perks.
Speaker: And that partnership has really helped us say, hey, how can we build a household name?
Speaker: When our people are closing around the country, they can say, oh, yeah, we're partnered with the Utah Jazz, a Utah-based company.
Speaker: It just adds credibility that we're not a fly-by-night company.
Speaker: I think a lot of brands, they partner with professional sports teams to really start to become a household name.
Speaker: That's what we want to do, and we want to keep growing.
Speaker: Grateful, amazing organization.
Speaker: I think we're going to bring a championship home in a couple years.
Speaker: It's happening.
Speaker: We're building towards it.
Speaker: This was step one.
Speaker: Didn't make the playoffs, but we got some amazing pieces.
Speaker: But very grateful to the Utah Jazz, grateful to Luke for making that partnership happen.
Speaker: And we look forward to an amazing future, you know, as partners with their team.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And hopefully you guys got any other partnership.
Speaker: I heard Utah's thinking about getting MLB and stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, it's awesome, man.
Speaker: I love that Utah's getting on the map.
Speaker: I'm a huge fan of Utah.
Speaker: I've seen what Ryan's been able to do, and I want to, you know, he's an amazing businessman and done some incredible things, but I want to learn from him of how can I support our local community here as best as I can.
Speaker: And, you know, so as other opportunities become available, it's certainly a value.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, cool.
Speaker: Well, just to wrap up here, Doug, if people want to learn more about legacy, connect with you more, potentially looking to join the team, stuff like that, what's the best way to do that and reach out to you guys?
Speaker: Anyway, I think it's just reach out, right?
Speaker: I'm on LinkedIn.
Speaker: I'm on Instagram.
Speaker: Our Instagrams are out there.
Speaker: Our company ones are my personal one.
Speaker: I think people can find us on Facebook or Instagram.
Speaker: Any of these different ways, just reach out.
Speaker: If you have a question, don't hesitate.
Speaker: People sometimes are like, oh, Doug, I didn't want to reach out to you.
Speaker: I'm like, what do you got to lose?
Speaker: We knock on doors for a living.
Speaker: Come knock on our door.
Speaker: Come find out what we're all about.
Speaker: Come see what we're all about.
Speaker: And look, if everybody recruits and tries to grow their business, but
Speaker: Whether somebody works for me or not, I want to be collaborative with them.
Speaker: I want to build relationships with people because you never know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and I love that, I mean, Legacy is a huge organization.
Speaker: A lot of times guys don't know leaders, their CEO and everything.
Speaker: But I've talked to guys that are just like sales reps that haven't even been at Legacy forever.
Speaker: And a lot of them will talk to you personally and know you.
Speaker: And so that's cool with it.
Speaker: You still have your big company, but I think in a lot of ways you guys still have that personal feeling.
Speaker: Well, I've been a door knocker.
Speaker: I think that's different.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: Many of the CEOs of installers haven't knocked doors.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like some of the smaller ones, but large scale installers, many of them haven't knocked doors and they don't really understand that.
Speaker: Maybe they went out for a day or something, but not a career event.
Speaker: I knocked doors for 15 years, built sales teams, did the grind.
Speaker: I never forget.
Speaker: I try to never forget the grind of what it takes to go out and do door-to-door.
Speaker: Most people can't do it.
Speaker: Most people don't have what it takes to do it.
Speaker: And so I think it's a really unique skill set.
Speaker: And I try to remember and just honor.
Speaker: Honor the people that go door-to-door, whether with me or anywhere else.
Speaker: Like, honor them because it is freaking hard.
Speaker: And I think I know that.
Speaker: I think that's some of our secret sauce.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: definitely helps do you ever get get back on the doors yeah i'll go out there i don't i don't sell in my own name or you know go out and you know all day and selling to you know break a record or you know those types of things today but i'll get out there with guys and go get some leads with them and stuff and i love it yeah that's awesome well doug it's been awesome and appreciate you making the time for this because i know you're a busy guy
Speaker: And yet we actually plan on doing it yesterday, but he's like, oh, I got to call some Japanese bankers or something.
Speaker: I know you got a busy schedule, so it's been awesome picking your brain, having you on for a little bit.
Speaker: So just to wrap up, I know we focus kind of on a lot of bigger picture things, building.
Speaker: mission statements, some points of that behind the name, behind the brand.
Speaker: So for people who are just maybe starting out in sales, just starting to hit their own doors, what advice would you have for someone that's just kind of starting out in solar, haven't gone through all those years and building teams?
Speaker: What do you think could help a new guy starting out in solar?
Speaker: Be active.
Speaker: Don't be a victim.
Speaker: Move, take action, go.
Speaker: I see a lot of people that think that they're hard workers.
Speaker: I think people should really look at the definition of hard work.
Speaker: Like what is hard work?
Speaker: What does it really look like?
Speaker: And go and work hard and immerse yourself in it and don't quit when it gets hard.
Speaker: You know, I coach baseball.
Speaker: Like my kids' baseball teams are really involved.
Speaker: Like think about the game of baseball.
Speaker: It's a game of failure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: People use these analogies over all time.
Speaker: If you hit three out of 10, you bat 300 in the major leagues, you'll make millions and millions and millions of dollars.
Speaker: That means you're failing seven times out of 10.
Speaker: You are failing.
Speaker: And it's like, how do you deal with a game of failure?
Speaker: Baseball is such an incredible game mentally, but I think it's applicable to sales.
Speaker: How many times will a door-to-door person fail?
Speaker: Let's look at the numbers.
Speaker: Let's make it statistical like baseball.
Speaker: How many doors will a sales rep knock on in a day and seemingly fail?
Speaker: A hundred doors on a day they knocked and didn't get one lead?
Speaker: That happens.
Speaker: You think about that, that's hard to face rejection like that.
Speaker: I knocked a hundred doors and got nothing and you can feel defeated.
Speaker: In the game of baseball, you can feel defeated.
Speaker: One of the things we talk to the players about are how do you find little wins that may not be a hit.
Speaker: Did you hit the ball hard?
Speaker: Did you swing at a ball outside of the zone?
Speaker: If you did, you need to be accountable and be more disciplined as a hitter.
Speaker: If you hit the ball hard and it goes foul,
Speaker: It's a strike.
Speaker: That's bad for you.
Speaker: But if you hit the ball hard, no, you won.
Speaker: You versus the pitcher, you won.
Speaker: So finding the small things, and I think as door knockers, we have to do the same thing.
Speaker: Did we keep the door open a little bit longer?
Speaker: Did we engage and get a spouse to come to the door when it wasn't going to happen so we could engage with them?
Speaker: How do we find the little wins and build upon that?
Speaker: So my advice is to take action and
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hey, I was in the neighborhood.
Speaker: Here I am.
Speaker: Like, let's talk solar.
Speaker: Like, let's go.
Speaker: And I think that, like, relentless attitude, I think it's missed oftentimes.
Speaker: And I think people get victimized a lot.
Speaker: And I think incomes would go up.
Speaker: I think they would be happier and more fulfilled if they would take more action and get rid of the laziness.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a nugget for sure.
Speaker: And, yeah, I've seen it time and time again.
Speaker: That's what separates the top reps from averages.
Speaker: They're out there hustling.
Speaker: They're thinking of it like that.
Speaker: Like you said, game of baseball, and they're not having the pity party when stuff doesn't go their way.
Speaker: Roll with the punches.
Speaker: The principles are taught in a lot of places.
Speaker: Coach Wooden, in one of his books, talks about the pyramid of success.
Speaker: And one of the corners is industriousness.
Speaker: It's this idea of hard work.
Speaker: And then the other side is enthusiasm.
Speaker: You've got to have enthusiasm and you have to be industrious.
Speaker: And that takes you up to the top of the pyramid, which is competitive greatness, which is being at your best when your best is needed.
Speaker: So I think the pillars are work ethic and enthusiasm, industriousness and enthusiasm to get to this crown of competitive greatness.
Speaker: And so I love his books and I've learned a lot from Coach Woon.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Sweet.
Speaker: So guys, everyone listen to this podcast.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Focus on those fundamentals.
Speaker: Have a good attitude.
Speaker: Roll with those punches.
Speaker: And yeah, I mean, you guys have done it in your organization.
Speaker: I think that's something that's talked about top to bottom that I've seen with the legacy of you guys at your company.
Speaker: So I appreciate having you on today, Doug.
Speaker: And I can't wait to see what you guys do next.
Speaker: But congrats on the success.
Speaker: And hopefully we have a follow-up.
Speaker: Maybe we'll do a podcast in Utah Jazz and, you know, hear the court in the background.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: That sounds great.
Speaker: I'd love to.
Speaker: Okay, so guys, reach out to Doug.
Speaker: Let him know you.
Speaker: Thank him for coming on the show today.
Speaker: And I think, again, Doug, we'll talk soon.
Speaker: Okay, thanks.
Speaker: What's up, solarpreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
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