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Recruiting Wins and How to Set Proper Expectations with Customers
56 Plays4 years ago
Related Episodes: 3 Reasons to Take Pictures with Your Customers
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Transcript
Introduction to Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
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.
00:00:19
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.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solarpreneur, you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
00:00:41
Speaker
What's up, solarpreneurs?
00:00:42
Speaker
Taylor Armstrong here.
00:00:44
Speaker
And as usual, here at this podcast, we're here to take your solar cells to another level, help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and
00:00:52
Speaker
and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:00:56
Speaker
Thanks for making the Solar Printer podcast the first listen of your day.
00:01:01
Speaker
And just want to say how grateful I am for all the listeners.
Podcast Journey and Listener Growth
00:01:06
Speaker
This podcast, we have been going for, I think, about three years now.
00:01:11
Speaker
Obviously, there has been times where we have not been quite as consistent, but the past year, we've been bringing the episodes almost every single week, two episodes a week.
00:01:22
Speaker
So if you haven't caught on, typically it's Tuesday and Friday that we are bringing the heat for you, shining the sun on the powerful techniques to help you close those deals.
00:01:33
Speaker
But let's be real.
00:01:36
Speaker
Sometimes there are busy times.
00:01:38
Speaker
Sometimes we got a lot going on.
00:01:41
Speaker
So it's not always that way, but 95% of the time, Tuesday and Friday, we're bringing in new, fresh content here.
00:01:49
Speaker
So make sure you are back every Tuesday and Friday to hear what we release for you.
00:01:56
Speaker
So today it's going to be kind of a random episode.
00:01:58
Speaker
We're going to be talking about a few things, some recruiting wins, some ways to set up your solar appointments,
00:02:07
Speaker
But before we get into that, we are almost, in case I get people asking, hey Taylor, how many people actually listen to this podcast?
00:02:15
Speaker
Am I the only one that actually listens to this?
00:02:18
Speaker
And sometimes in the beginning I felt it was that way.
00:02:22
Speaker
Obviously at the beginning we only had, you know, sometimes 50 people a week listening.
00:02:28
Speaker
Luckily we have grown the podcast and that's why I'm so appreciative because thanks to our awesome listeners, we
00:02:34
Speaker
I know we've got people leaving reviews.
00:02:36
Speaker
We've got people sharing the podcast.
00:02:38
Speaker
We've got people sending it to their teams, using it in their trainings, having it as a part of their onboarding experience.
00:02:46
Speaker
So for that, I'm extremely grateful.
00:02:49
Speaker
And the numbers, in case you're curious, we are doing around 15 to 20,000 listens a month.
00:02:59
Speaker
I think our most downloads in a single month was about 18 or 19,000.
00:03:06
Speaker
And what's crazy, I use a podcast hosting platform.
00:03:10
Speaker
It's called Simplecast.
00:03:12
Speaker
And right now on the plan I'm on, I'm on like the amateur podcasting plan through Simplecast.
00:03:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:19
Speaker
Even though I feel like a pro, but I am on the amateur plan and it allows us to have 20,000 downloads max per month.
00:03:28
Speaker
So I am putting out a challenge.
00:03:30
Speaker
I want you guys to help me break that.
00:03:32
Speaker
I want you to make me pay more monthly because once we get past 20,000 downloads, I have to upgrade my plan and pay more.
00:03:41
Speaker
So please, please make me pay more.
00:03:43
Speaker
I would love to pay more than what I'm paying right now for the podcast hosting.
00:03:49
Speaker
So if you haven't already shared the podcast or left a review, that is the next step.
00:03:54
Speaker
Let's take this thing to 20,000 plus in a month.
00:03:58
Speaker
And that's how we're going to do it is by you sharing, you leaving your view and continuing to listen.
00:04:04
Speaker
So once again, appreciative to all our listeners and just love you guys.
00:04:09
Speaker
Thanks for supporting the show in all the ways that you do.
00:04:14
Speaker
So let's jump into the topics.
Recruiting via Social Media
00:04:16
Speaker
First, I'm going to talk a little bit about recruiting.
00:04:18
Speaker
And the reason we are jumping into recruiting, I have had some recruiting wins that I wanted to share with everybody, with my solopreneurs.
00:04:27
Speaker
And if you haven't listened to the podcast on me talking about posting videos, a lot of you follow me on social media, on Instagram, Facebook, and you have maybe seen me post these videos with customers, kind of the client testimonials.
00:04:42
Speaker
I don't do it every single time.
00:04:44
Speaker
Sometimes you get rejected, but I did a podcast.
00:04:48
Speaker
We can, we'll share it in the show notes here.
00:04:51
Speaker
on how I get those videos and the reason I think it's so powerful to be doing video testimonials with your customers.
00:04:59
Speaker
So I'm going to post that.
00:05:00
Speaker
Go listen to it if you haven't already because I'm not going to talk too much about how I get it or why I think it's important.
00:05:07
Speaker
Well, I talk about kind of how it helps in the sales in that podcast.
00:05:11
Speaker
But really, the reason I wanted to bring it up is because surprisingly, it's been helping me a ton in recruiting efforts.
00:05:19
Speaker
Some of you see those videos and you might not think that, but I've been getting more and more people reaching out just seeing those videos saying, hey, Taylor, we notice looks like you're crushing it in solar.
00:05:33
Speaker
Can you tell me more?
00:05:34
Speaker
Can we help on a call?
00:05:36
Speaker
The past three months, I've probably gotten, I don't know, six, seven messages like that.
00:05:43
Speaker
And the key with it is it's not going to happen immediately.
00:05:46
Speaker
I've been doing these little videos, posting about solar for, I don't know, a year maybe now with those little testimonial videos.
00:05:56
Speaker
Sometimes they're kind of stupid.
00:05:57
Speaker
Sometimes people probably think I'm an idiot, but...
00:06:00
Speaker
Sometimes people are listening.
00:06:02
Speaker
People are paying attention.
00:06:04
Speaker
So if you are not posting about your solar journey, I just want to invite you, if your goal is to grow in this industry, to recruit a team, to build an empire, almost everyone that I see that's recruiting at a high level, they're doing this.
00:06:19
Speaker
They're posting.
00:06:21
Speaker
They're publishing.
00:06:22
Speaker
And you don't have to be obsessive with it, but just hop on there, post a little picture with your customers.
00:06:29
Speaker
And again, go listen to the podcast if you want to hear how I actually get customers to agree to taking a video with me.
00:06:36
Speaker
But yeah, however you can do it.
00:06:39
Speaker
A little picture, a little video.
00:06:41
Speaker
And as you show up consistently, people are going to start to question.
00:06:45
Speaker
And not only will you get people interested in about the job, but you will also get potential customers interested.
00:06:54
Speaker
If you are friends with maybe your mom's uncle's cousin or maybe your, I don't know, best friend's parents, whatever.
00:07:05
Speaker
Maybe there's someone that has been thinking about solar.
00:07:08
Speaker
They're seeing you show up.
00:07:09
Speaker
They're seeing you post about solar, post that you're saving homeowners thousands of dollars.
00:07:14
Speaker
And they're like, wow, okay, maybe I'll check this out.
00:07:17
Speaker
I have gotten a lead here and there from it.
00:07:21
Speaker
So last week, last two weeks, I actually had my buddy Micah out here.
00:07:26
Speaker
He came from pest control.
00:07:28
Speaker
He had a pest control background.
00:07:30
Speaker
He was actually the person who originally trained me in pest control.
00:07:34
Speaker
I did pest control back in 2012 and I did a two year mission after that.
00:07:40
Speaker
So 2012 and then also 2015 was when I did pest control.
00:07:46
Speaker
And Micah, he was with me my first year, Dallas, Texas.
00:07:49
Speaker
He trained me up.
00:07:50
Speaker
He taught me the ropes on pest control.
00:07:53
Speaker
And now come full circle, he eventually ended up starting his own pest control company, sold it, kind of got out of the game and just wasn't doing a whole lot.
00:08:05
Speaker
He sees me post these videos.
00:08:07
Speaker
He's like, you know what?
00:08:09
Speaker
Taylor seems like he's crushing it.
00:08:11
Speaker
I'm going to check it out.
00:08:12
Speaker
He calls me.
00:08:14
Speaker
Boom.
00:08:14
Speaker
Just like that.
00:08:15
Speaker
Got him out here.
00:08:16
Speaker
First two weeks, he got three deals closed in his first couple of weeks on the job.
00:08:22
Speaker
So you never know who's actually watching.
00:08:24
Speaker
You never know what impact you're having.
00:08:27
Speaker
And especially for those of you that have come from different industries, maybe pest control, alarms, meat, whatever.
00:08:35
Speaker
Hopefully you're all switching to solar because let's be real.
00:08:38
Speaker
It is the best thing to sell door to door.
00:08:41
Speaker
It's the best sell job, I think, in the world right now.
00:08:45
Speaker
Like, how could you be selling anything besides solar?
00:08:49
Speaker
So whatever connections you have, try and reach back out to those people.
00:08:54
Speaker
And that's the other point of this.
00:08:56
Speaker
Obviously, the videos are good, but even better, if you can stay in touch with these people, if you can stay in touch with your previous people you sold with, if you can network, that's one of the main reasons I go to events, not necessarily to recruit.
00:09:13
Speaker
But I go to marketing events.
00:09:14
Speaker
I go to obviously door-to-door con, which you're not supposed to be recruiting there.
00:09:21
Speaker
But you never know what connection you can make.
00:09:24
Speaker
And then as you friend people on Instagram, Facebook, whatever, they're seeing you reach out or they're seeing you, you know, have a ton of success.
00:09:34
Speaker
So we actually had in our office last week, a guy, um, he ran an entire pest control region.
00:09:41
Speaker
He was coming out to check out solar matter of fact.
00:09:45
Speaker
Um, and he's recruited hundreds and hundreds of pest control reps and
00:09:50
Speaker
And his advice that he gave us, he says, Hey, whenever you're out at a restaurant, whenever you're out in the mall, whenever you're out doing your thing,
00:10:00
Speaker
obviously connect with people, compliment people on the job they're doing.
00:10:05
Speaker
But instead of just getting their number, get on their Instagram, hop in their DMs, right?
00:10:12
Speaker
Because what's crazy in the past, I would just get people's numbers.
00:10:15
Speaker
Hey, hey, you're really good at waiting tables here.
00:10:19
Speaker
I can't promise you a job, but if I could get you an interview and what we're doing, it's a sell job.
00:10:23
Speaker
Would you at least check it out?
00:10:25
Speaker
That's kind of the line, you know, classic line you can use for recruiting.
00:10:29
Speaker
But the mistake I was making, I was just grabbing people's numbers, then hitting them with a random text, right?
00:10:37
Speaker
But what he shared with this, this regional, he's recruited hundreds and hundreds of reps.
00:10:42
Speaker
He said, get them on your Instagram feed, get them in your social media.
00:10:47
Speaker
And hopefully you have your social media set up to where you're showcasing your success.
00:10:51
Speaker
You're showing the type of lifestyle that solar gives us.
00:10:55
Speaker
People are going to see that and be like, whoa, is this guy for real?
00:10:59
Speaker
This guy lives this type of life.
00:11:01
Speaker
And whatever, you know, whatever recruit you're trying to attract, hopefully you can reflect that in your posts, right?
00:11:10
Speaker
And I'm no social media master.
00:11:11
Speaker
I'm still trying to get better at social media.
00:11:13
Speaker
But
00:11:14
Speaker
If you look at mine, you'll see, you know, events, you'll see some trips, you'll see some like inspirational quotes.
00:11:21
Speaker
And I know I need to go and beef mine up a little bit, but you want people to be seeing a successful person.
00:11:28
Speaker
And then you want to document your journey, you know, and your stories, get in the habit of posting stories every day.
00:11:36
Speaker
So enough about recruiting.
00:11:37
Speaker
That is just something that's been helping me.
00:11:39
Speaker
So I would invite you go publish consistently.
00:11:43
Speaker
You might have someone reaching out.
00:11:45
Speaker
You might have someone back in your past, maybe someone from high school, from your pest control days, wherever you came from.
00:11:51
Speaker
that you never thought would reach out to you, but they might see what you're posting and hit you up.
00:11:59
Speaker
And obviously with doing stuff like that, it's more organic recruits, but if you really want to take your recruiting to another level, then you do need to be active with it, not just on social media, but doing what this pest control regional guy does at restaurants, actively looking for guys that are good at what they do.
00:12:18
Speaker
As you're out buying shoes, whatever, that is how you really build an empire.
00:12:23
Speaker
When you couple it with the organic stuff, posting on social media, and then also looking for people that may or may not be good at what we do.
Upcoming Episode Teaser: Jason Newby
00:12:33
Speaker
So, and the second thing that we're jamming on today is
00:12:38
Speaker
We have next episode, Jason Newby is coming on the show.
00:12:44
Speaker
And if you don't know Jason, that guy is a crypto multimillionaire.
00:12:48
Speaker
He's made tons in crypto and he happens to be the guy who started the company I'm working with right now, Future Home Power.
00:12:58
Speaker
And just crushing it.
00:12:59
Speaker
They've got a huge team.
00:13:00
Speaker
And speaking of recruits, these guys are recruiting an empire off of pest control guys.
00:13:06
Speaker
Literally, I think I would say more than half our team came from pest control.
00:13:10
Speaker
So if you know guys in pest control that aren't happy, then maybe you should think about hitting them up because we've got guys that are making insane amounts of money that came from pest control.
00:13:21
Speaker
They make great appointment setters and they already know how to talk to people.
00:13:27
Speaker
So that is a great industry to recruit from.
00:13:31
Speaker
Just don't be taken from previous companies.
00:13:34
Speaker
We've actually got two people that are in lawsuits right now because they came from a specific pest company and then they're taking previous recruits with them.
00:13:45
Speaker
So obviously the company is not too happy about that.
00:13:48
Speaker
So be careful about how you do it.
00:13:51
Speaker
But pest control guys do make great solar cells, man.
00:13:56
Speaker
And so Jason, he is having a ton of success here and you're not going to want to miss out because on next episode, he talks about crypto, how to get started in that.
00:14:05
Speaker
If you're not already investing in crypto, he talks about lessons he's learned from building his dealer up from scratch just under a year now and already doing, you know, dozens and dozens of sales every week.
00:14:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:23
Speaker
So crazy to see how quick the success has come from.
Client Expectations and Energy Needs
00:14:27
Speaker
So make sure you tune into that episode.
00:14:29
Speaker
But something I wanted to touch on real quick, and you're going to hear Jason talk more about this in the show, is just how important it is to set the expectations.
00:14:38
Speaker
Hey, we've done a few episodes on this, but one of the biggest keys to Jason's success and something he talks about all the time as he's training our teams is
00:14:48
Speaker
And as he's going to events, doing solar trainings, and as he's selling and closing deals himself, it's just how important you need to set the expectations with your potential clients.
00:15:00
Speaker
Okay, what do I mean by that?
00:15:03
Speaker
Just for one, setting the expectation on how much energy are they really going to get with their solar panels.
00:15:10
Speaker
Something that Jason talks about all the time is...
00:15:14
Speaker
Asking the customers, how much power do you plan to use in the future?
00:15:17
Speaker
Okay, in the previous episode, you've heard me talk about contrasting, comparing and contrasting.
00:15:25
Speaker
Jason, he does this all the time as he's in the appointments with his customers.
00:15:29
Speaker
He says, Mr. Homeowner,
00:15:32
Speaker
Something that has given solar kind of a bad taste, you guys may have even heard about it, is in the past people would go solar and they would still be getting bills from their utility company because these companies were only sizing the solar systems to what people are using right now.
00:15:48
Speaker
So what we're doing now with the program is we actually size it to what you use in the future and not just in the past.
00:15:56
Speaker
Because if we do it to just what you're using in the past and you use more energy, then you're going to get a bill to the utility company.
00:16:05
Speaker
Hopefully all of you are doing this.
00:16:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:07
Speaker
But something we've learned is if you just ask people, do you plan to use more energy next year?
00:16:13
Speaker
A lot of people, a lot of people are just going to say, no, we'll continue using about the same amount of energy.
00:16:21
Speaker
But if you get specific with them, this is the mistake I've made is I have not gotten specific before I started hearing some of these trainings.
00:16:30
Speaker
So what I mean by that is you need to ask them, Mr. Homeowner, do you plan on getting an electric car?
00:16:36
Speaker
Do you plan on putting in AC if they don't have AC?
00:16:41
Speaker
Do you plan on having more people move in your home?
00:16:46
Speaker
Do you plan on putting in a hot tub?
00:16:48
Speaker
Any other reason you could see that you'd use more energy?
00:16:52
Speaker
And as you get specific, you'll see that a lot of times where people didn't really think they were going to use more energy, turns out they were planning to put in AC next summer.
00:17:02
Speaker
Or turns out they were planning on putting in a Tesla pretty soon.
00:17:05
Speaker
Okay, so make sure you get specific with these people.
00:17:10
Speaker
And we've got some pretty exciting guests coming up, but something that I learned is there are calculations depending on what people are doing.
00:17:19
Speaker
So if someone, for example, is planning to add an electric car, you need to add an extra three kilowatts onto your sizing of the system.
00:17:27
Speaker
So if it's a 6 kilowatt system, you should be getting them a 9 kilowatt system if they plan on adding an electric car.
00:17:34
Speaker
We're going to be having a guest coming up pretty soon, talk a lot more in depth about that, but something pretty cool I learned with that.
00:17:42
Speaker
So get specific with them and then compare and contrast.
00:17:46
Speaker
Hopefully you listened to the previous episode, but it was all about comparing old versus new.
00:17:51
Speaker
right?
00:17:52
Speaker
Taking something that was a bad experience and bringing them into a new opportunity.
00:17:57
Speaker
So that's what we're doing when we go through this little fact finding stage.
00:18:01
Speaker
It should be the first thing you do as you step in the appointment, obviously, you know, build some rapport, some relationship,
00:18:08
Speaker
But then you get into diagnosing, right?
00:18:10
Speaker
We are doctors as solar salespeople.
00:18:13
Speaker
If we do not diagnose the problem, we cannot offer them a solution.
00:18:17
Speaker
So make sure you're going through these steps.
00:18:19
Speaker
Get specific with them.
00:18:20
Speaker
What do they need?
00:18:21
Speaker
What do they plan to use on top of what they're using?
00:18:24
Speaker
And in general, people should get bigger systems than what they're using right now because almost everybody uses more energy when they have solar on the roof, right?
00:18:35
Speaker
And then last thing with this, another cool line you can use in your appointments.
00:18:40
Speaker
So after you diagnose the problem, after you figure out if they're going to use more energy.
00:18:45
Speaker
So Mr. Homeowner, so sounds like you guys will need a little bit of extra.
00:18:49
Speaker
If we could get you, I don't know, 30 to 40% more energy and keep your bill exactly the same as what you're paying right now, would that be a win for you?
00:19:00
Speaker
Okay, and get their expectations.
00:19:02
Speaker
Do they plan to save money?
00:19:04
Speaker
This is another question you should be asking as you're going through these fact-finding, diagnosed-type questions.
00:19:10
Speaker
What do you guys plan on getting out of solar?
00:19:14
Speaker
Um, what's your goal in going solar?
00:19:16
Speaker
Some people say save money, you know, depends on the market here in California.
00:19:20
Speaker
Pretty much everyone wants to save money.
00:19:23
Speaker
Some people will be like, help the environment.
00:19:26
Speaker
And then if they say save money, how much money, how much would you expect to save with solar?
00:19:31
Speaker
Then I love doing the percentage amount, right?
00:19:38
Speaker
It means they owe 20%, 30%.
00:19:41
Speaker
If you can get them to agree on a percentage, then you can kind of pre-commit them, right?
00:19:46
Speaker
It's all about setting those expectations, pre-qualifying the customer.
00:19:51
Speaker
So sorry for the random thoughts, but those are just two things that have been going pretty well.
00:19:57
Speaker
Number one with the recruiting, make sure you're publishing, make sure you're keeping in touch with your network.
00:20:04
Speaker
And then number two, just getting ready for this next episode coming out on Friday is, you know, make sure you're setting those expectations, make sure you're qualifying your customers and
00:20:18
Speaker
And then we're going to go much more in depth with that.
00:20:20
Speaker
You're going to hear Jason's specific line he's used in his appointments that have helped him get a Golden Door Award in his first year in solar and really train an entire team to just be savages and close pretty much every appointment they walk into.
00:20:37
Speaker
So don't forget to tune in the next episode.
00:20:40
Speaker
Again, share this with someone that could use help with recruiting or closing or getting their appointments set up better to close.
00:20:47
Speaker
And we will see you guys on the next episode.
00:20:50
Speaker
Peace.
Introducing Solciety for Solar Professionals
00:20:52
Speaker
Hey Solarpreneurs, quick question.
00:20:54
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?
00:21:03
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.
00:21:15
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.
00:21:26
Speaker
And it's called Solciety.
00:21:28
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 by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day.
00:21:47
Speaker
Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
00:21:53
Speaker
So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
00:22:01
Speaker
This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
00:22:08
Speaker
We'll see you on the inside.