Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a 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, Sorpreneurs?
Speaker: We are back with another episode, and I'm excited today because we are in the studio with Mr. Dan Dunn.
Speaker: What's going on, Dan?
Speaker: Thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker: You bet.
Speaker: Good to be here.
Speaker: Let's edit that out.
Speaker: Well, you're hearing me too.
Speaker: Good to be here.
Speaker: Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker: We're here in Newport Beach.
Speaker: Made the drive up here from San Diego, and we're doing some video content too, so excited about that.
Speaker: So Dan, you want to tell us a little bit how you got in the solar space and your background, where you came from and everything?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah, I should have this down to an elevator pitch by now.
Speaker: I was born in Illinois in the Midwest.
Speaker: I was then transplanted to California, so I claim California is my place of growth, I guess.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Kind of sounds a little cooler.
Speaker: And then went to, yeah, went to college in Utah.
Speaker: I then, and I majored music and English.
Speaker: We just talked about that before this podcast started.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I loved music nerd.
Speaker: Music nerd.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And actually the movie Pitch Perfect, I was actually telling this guy to the left here off camera earlier that my wife and I met through similar circumstances as Anna Kendrick and the guy, I don't remember his name.
Speaker: Anyway, she was in a female acapella group.
Speaker: I was in Vocal Point, a male acapella group.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Kind of came together like the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story.
Speaker: Anyway, so yeah, met my wife there.
Speaker: Been married almost 16 years.
Speaker: Live in Southern California.
Speaker: Love this place.
Speaker: Feels like home.
Speaker: Will never leave.
Speaker: And own Harness.
Speaker: Started the Harness brands in 2017, so we're almost five years old next year.
Speaker: Okay, awesome.
Speaker: And then have a production company in the music space called Prosity Music.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And that's me in a nutshell.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: I love hearing guys that are like, you know, like music nerds and stuff like that.
Speaker: Cause I was just telling you, I was a music major myself in college.
Speaker: studied drums, percussion.
Speaker: That was the dream.
Speaker: I was all about, you know, just graduating and being a music teacher, making my 30, 40 grand a year.
Speaker: And I was like, this is it.
Speaker: I'm going to love it.
Speaker: That's the dream.
Speaker: And then, yeah, came out.
Speaker: I've been sales.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Came out, made that, you know, like in the summer or whatever.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay, it's a little bit longer.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: I can still picture, hey, imagine dragons when they have their live shows, they need some good drummers up there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Have you ever been to one of those?
Speaker: I haven't been to their show, but I haven't been to, I don't know, been to lots of other concerts.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Same with them.
Speaker: Maybe they'll listen to this podcast.
Speaker: If they're listening, give me a call and I'll be their drummer.
Speaker: We got a table right here.
Speaker: You can start banging away.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: But yeah, what I wanted to ask you, Dan, I mean, being like music, English and all that.
Speaker: Do you feel like, I mean, I don't think there's a ton of us that did music before, you know, solar, but the few that I have met that have, I feel like, I don't know, it's helped them in a way, maybe like creativity.
Speaker: Do you feel like music has helped you in business or in any aspects of what you're doing now?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So, I mean, scientific studies have shown if you put your kids in piano lessons early on, they'll connect certain parts of their brain and think more critically.
Speaker: And I'm not trying to puff myself up at all.
Speaker: I mean, don't feel deficient out there, guys.
Speaker: If you didn't get piano lessons, it's not your fault.
Speaker: But it does help, yeah, you looking at problems from multiple sides of the spectrum.
Speaker: And so when your brain makes those connections, you have kind of that openness to multiple solutions and seeing both sides of an argument.
Speaker: It really, really helps in problem solving, interpersonal relationships, leading.
Speaker: It helps in, I think, all aspects of business, to be honest.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Leading, why do you say that?
Speaker: Well, because as a leader, you're going to come across the fires we have to put out constantly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so to put out fires, you could, you could throw a huge bucket of water on it and say it's good, or you could kind of massage it and come at it strategically and see if there's, you know, two or three different ways to go at it and which one's best consider the consequences.
Speaker: Being able to look at that, that cube from all sides, I think will, uh, it has paid dividends.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, no, and I always compare it to just like, I'm sure, you know, music, were you like a specific instrument or were you just voice?
Speaker: Piano voice, yeah.
Speaker: Piano voice, okay.
Speaker: Yeah, for me, it's like, I don't know about you, but all those hours you put in practicing.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: That's something that I feel like.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Like, I was no way like a natural sales guy or whatever, and I still like, I'm not like the top guy, but...
Speaker: Because of all those hours that I put in, not being the top drummer or whatever, I'm like, okay, why don't I just use that same, you know, method of getting better at sales.
Speaker: All the hours I put in practicing, not a lot of guys are doing it, you know.
Speaker: I just made that connection now.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: I used to like hold myself up in a practice room for four to six hours a day just going at the keys.
Speaker: And then, of course, that's what I did on the doors too.
Speaker: That's weird.
Speaker: Never made that connection.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So cool.
Speaker: I think it's super power for sure.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: Many people, you know, can go the distance like that.
Speaker: But cool, man.
Speaker: So tell us, Dan, how so harness you started that in 2017.
Speaker: You said, right?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And were you just working on a sales team before?
Speaker: How did you transition to like starting your own company and everything?
Speaker: Yeah, so back in 2002, I started doing pest control for a couple summers.
Speaker: Then I did alarms for eight and a half years, mostly summers, but also some year-round programs.
Speaker: Built up, you know, teams and regions during that time, and then transitioned to solar in 2012 with Vivint when they started their San Diego office.
Speaker: I was in that original office that was full of all kinds of cool guys.
Speaker: We were...
Speaker: We were a cool crew.
Speaker: Anybody that's listening, I don't know if you are, but it was cool.
Speaker: Everybody from that office branched out and either became at least DMs, mostly regionals, VPs, company owners, et cetera.
Speaker: And so helped them, went up to Orange County and then left for SolarCity and Tesla.
Speaker: And when Elon fired us all in 2017, best thing that happened to me, that's when I started Harness.
Speaker: I felt like I had learned enough.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A lot of good, a lot of superstars came from that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Including, uh, you know, Taylor McCarthy.
Speaker: We were just talking about that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: We've been slower though.
Speaker: Do you know Rob Reimer ever?
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: We used to call him the bull.
Speaker: Was he back there in 2012 with you guys?
Speaker: He was.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He was in that office.
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he, uh, yeah.
Speaker: New power of the company he used to work for.
Speaker: He went on to be like VP of sales of that company.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: He was my boss for a long time.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: But I know that's cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A lot of superstars came from that.
Speaker: And, um, I know it was like rough, at least according to Rob, he says pretty rough in the beginning.
Speaker: A lot of issues with stuff, but we felt so good about selling a 15 cent PPA for like $200 a kilowatt or one 80.
Speaker: I think it was.
Speaker: We were so excited about 180 a kilowatt for a PPA.
Speaker: And by the way, the customers back then, from a customer standpoint, we were setting people up with 15 cent PPAs.
Speaker: Now in San Diego, I think the average might be up to 19, 20 cents, something right there.
Speaker: I was talking about this with my team the other day.
Speaker: companies feel at liberty to continue to raise the prices as long as the utility continues to escalate in proportion to that.
Speaker: So it's interesting.
Speaker: The whole urgency pitch is real.
Speaker: It's not just a sales tool.
Speaker: Like, go solar now or you're going to probably pay more in the future.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I love those things.
Speaker: It's like natural urgency that we don't, like, we don't have to make it up.
Speaker: It's like stuff is actually happening, tax credits.
Speaker: Yeah, it's actually happening.
Speaker: A lot of good reasons.
Speaker: No, that's cool.
Speaker: And so Harness, so 2017, do you think you would have, like, went on to start Harness had SolarCity not, you know, had they not let everyone go?
Speaker: Do you think you would have gone that same path eventually?
Speaker: That's a great question.
Speaker: Eventually, maybe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thing is, I was I was pretty bought in to the vision.
Speaker: I was I was a little bit of an Elon worshiper.
Speaker: Not a bad way.
Speaker: I mean, I did have a big blown up picture of him.
Speaker: You know, that Obama poster with the hope, you know, the blue and red and white.
Speaker: I made one of Elon and I put progress.
Speaker: And it was a little foolish, I think, but I had that up in the office and yeah, I just, I loved his vision.
Speaker: I was at like the Gigafactory Grand Opening in Sparks, Nevada.
Speaker: I loved what we were doing.
Speaker: I felt like it was obviously much bigger than us.
Speaker: So everybody feels great about that.
Speaker: But
Speaker: When it stopped, it was an easy decision to do my own thing.
Speaker: I'd already been knocking doors for 15 years straight with no stops, you know, consistency, piano practice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, you know, running regions and divisions, stuff like that.
Speaker: So I felt like it was a good time.
Speaker: But had he not fired us?
Speaker: That's a great question.
Speaker: I think I would have stuck with it for a while.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was cool.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: I lost it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, yeah, it's true.
Speaker: Everything happens for a reason.
Speaker: So maybe a good thing that happened.
Speaker: Definitely in hindsight.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, so like, I mean, I know it's, you know, a lot of challenges going through starting your own company, starting your own brand business, all that.
Speaker: So starting out, I'm sure it wasn't all like sunshine and rainbows and all that.
Speaker: What was, what were some of like the challenges that you had to go through to get, you know, get things rolling with harness?
Speaker: Yeah, luckily I had the team from SolarCity pretty much.
Speaker: It was easy because there was no non-solicitations.
Speaker: They fired us, so we just started.
Speaker: No big deal.
Speaker: So I started with a sales team, so that was nice.
Speaker: But partner-wise, a lot of companies instantly become dealers for other installation companies.
Speaker: That was the thing.
Speaker: I'm a diligent student of who I'm gonna be hopping into business bed with.
Speaker: And I did, I remember to this day, I did 17, I interviewed 17 different EPCs, which are installation companies.
Speaker: Holy cow, yeah.
Speaker: Went through it, got it on a PowerPoint, did like a, you know, a risk benefit analysis of it.
Speaker: And I even presented it to my team like, hey, guys, this is what I've been going through to make sure we're go ing in the right direction.
Speaker: Settled in on one.
Speaker: I won't mention their name, but I settled in on one.
Speaker: And on paper, they were the best.
Speaker: And then in reality, they were horrible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wow, even after all that research.
Speaker: Lost me a lot of money.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Interestingly enough, I wish the story was different, but what it did teach me was, again, you can look good on paper, execution's everything.
Speaker: When you're in a partnership, a lot of times too, and those go south like that, you have to cut your losses.
Speaker: There were definitely some losses.
Speaker: early on in the business, first year, but I also came into the business knowing all the stories I had read.
Speaker: That's pretty common.
Speaker: It's pretty common in your first year or two, anything in the five-year range.
Speaker: It's common to have some struggles, have some learning lessons, some big ones.
Speaker: And yeah, it really tests your mettle of if you're serious about the business and the long-term aspect of it or not.
Speaker: Yeah, no doubt about that.
Speaker: Yeah, and so something that, well, I'm sure you've struggled with it too, like your teams just, I mean, commissions are so high in solar right now.
Speaker: People are making 10, 15 grand on single deals and stuff, especially out here in California.
Speaker: Like how have you in your teams, I don't know if it's changed as time has gone on, but what are some things you're doing to like keep your guys motivated or stuff that you like pass down to like your sales managers for our listeners on that?
Speaker: That's a good question.
Speaker: considering what they make?
Speaker: Is that what you're asking?
Speaker: Yeah, well, just because... That's one obstacle.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's like the curse of solar, right?
Speaker: It's like, guys make 10 grand on a deal and then they're like, oh, I'm... Take it off for three weeks.
Speaker: Yeah, I'll be back next month.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, that is an interesting question, and it is something, of course, we've grappled with.
Speaker: One way is to constantly have them expanding their idea of themselves.
Speaker: So there's an income thermometer in every single person.
Speaker: And so once you've reached that thermometer top of $100,000 a year, if that's...
Speaker: essentially what you think you're worth or I don't even know if it goes that far in your head.
Speaker: Usually you're just like, this is where I'm comfortable.
Speaker: I love freedom and I love taking off and going on experiences and now I have the freedom to do that.
Speaker: That's all fun and games.
Speaker: And I think everybody deserves to have that time in their life.
Speaker: But if you mention this concept of expanding the idea of yourself often enough in meetings, which I try to,
Speaker: Then you can, we actually have an archetype I created.
Speaker: So Chad the cheetah or Chadra for the women.
Speaker: And so there's a turtle, Tom the turtle, there's Harriet the hare, and then there's Chad the cheetah.
Speaker: So essentially like how fast can you accelerate your progress towards semi-retirement, towards being like a, you know,
Speaker: 10 or 20 or 100 door owner properties, etc.
Speaker: You can follow Dave Allred or some of these guys in the industry that have made it and have done that.
Speaker: And it's a reality for us in solar.
Speaker: We can get there quick because of the money.
Speaker: So do you want to just kind of live
Speaker: at this range, which I understand is extremely enticing and fun, but you could also make a million dollars in the next few years and accelerate your progress and do a whole lot more with your life.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So it sounds like just basically helping them see a higher vision and set bigger goals for themselves.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Have to.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: And so what are some ways that you do that for your reps?
Speaker: Is it like you personally sitting down with them or you like having your managers sit down and I don't know, like quarterlies or anything you guys are doing to help them actually like see those bigger goals and visions for themselves?
Speaker: All of that.
Speaker: We started doing quarterly summits this year, which I don't know why we didn't do them before.
Speaker: They're extremely, they move the needle a lot because we all get together and have that memory together.
Speaker: This quarter, we're getting together at Pirates Cove in Henderson, Nevada, overlooking Lake Mead.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I've heard about that.
Speaker: Our teams.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Same thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's one of those things that gets tossed around the industry.
Speaker: So we rented it out for three days and we're, uh, we're taking, uh, our top producers there for the three days and then we're taking the rest of the company.
Speaker: We'll meet there for like a half day, you know, for the summit.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And yeah, getting together and having those memories, having the camaraderie and the culture come together, super important.
Speaker: And during those summits, of course, we address that topic among many others.
Speaker: That's one needle mover.
Speaker: Another one is, yeah, having
Speaker: you know, we have weekly calls with our leaders, of course, and we disseminate what's most important.
Speaker: And there are things that we talk about over and over.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's, that's one of them.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, that's huge.
Speaker: It's communication.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: I'm, so I'm working down with, uh, uh, Jason, I don't know if you know Jason newbie squad down there, but sure.
Speaker: Yeah, he's talking about Pirates Cove too.
Speaker: He said, yeah, I think he said Vivint got like banned from it or something like that.
Speaker: No, that doesn't surprise me actually.
Speaker: No, it doesn't surprise me.
Speaker: No, he's like, but I didn't get banned.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: Yeah, he's no longer associated.
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: I went there with Trevor.
Speaker: Trevor in the top.
Speaker: He's winning the cup every single year on the alarm side.
Speaker: I wonder if their group did it because they're pretty wild.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I guess that's a story Jason will have to tell next podcast.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I like the quarterly summits idea.
Speaker: I think that's huge for probably, you know, the culture and things like that.
Speaker: Anything else that you guys are doing, just like build the culture of working, of like going out every day, of not getting lazy reps.
Speaker: What else are you guys doing?
Speaker: That's a good question.
Speaker: So we have, we started a prime program, prime, and I think this industry is moving in this direction anyway.
Speaker: Prime is essentially our setters.
Speaker: So, you know, we have setters in most of our offices now.
Speaker: It's a very structured program that keeps, I wouldn't say that keeps people not lazy and may even contribute to a little bit more.
Speaker: But I don't think so because it's very dialed in and of course we have it structured to where we give the most appointments to the highest skilled closers.
Speaker: And so I think that helps a little bit, but also just the cadence of accountability and
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: To be frank, this question is interesting because we as a company, we're not high, like, what's the best way to put this?
Speaker: I'm not super, super concerned with being like the top sellers in the whole country as far as solar sales.
Speaker: I'm concerned with quality mostly.
Speaker: And so I would take, honestly, 100 installs from a group a month versus 300.
Speaker: I know that sounds rash, but I would take them if they were super quality, the sales were done with trust and not sloppily and not creating a whole bunch of stress and extra stress for people.
Speaker: That's just me.
Speaker: That's the way I want to run the business.
Speaker: One of the things I noticed with publicly traded companies is they're always making decisions based on their stockholders.
Speaker: And I never wanted to have that again as just, again, an archetype of what I didn't want.
Speaker: So in this company, we're more principles focused.
Speaker: And I think just trying to always do the right thing.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's huge.
Speaker: Yeah, I talked with, you know, some of my friends that own their like EPCs, stuff like that.
Speaker: I mean, they deal with some of these dealers who it's just like they're pushing through deals no matter what on any type of roof.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Getting guys to sign like roof waivers and stuff and just throwing panels up there.
Speaker: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker: And you're getting more sales, but yeah.
Speaker: 25 years, people.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: That's a long time.
Speaker: But it's like, yeah, you throw in these roof waivers and then just put the panels up.
Speaker: Stuff is going wrong.
Speaker: It's like, what's that going to look like down the road for customers and things like that?
Speaker: It's literally the roof over somebody's house.
Speaker: They work their entire life to buy their house and make sure it's good.
Speaker: So no, I definitely appreciate that.
Speaker: I think that's the only way really to build long term and make sure you're focusing on your customers and your clients.
Speaker: Well, that brings up a point.
Speaker: I mean, because there's so much money to be made in the solar industry, it's naturally attracting fly by night people.
Speaker: So it's an unfortunate fact.
Speaker: The industry right now, I feel, needs a huge pivot towards integrity-based sales and installs.
Speaker: And I think on the installation side especially, there needs to be a big step up in quality and customer service towards sales partners.
Speaker: It's a little lacking.
Speaker: I know, no doubt.
Speaker: And it's like, how many times have you heard it?
Speaker: Um, I hear it all the time.
Speaker: We're like, Oh, what's the reason you haven't gone slower?
Speaker: Oh, cause our neighbor had a bad experience.
Speaker: Oh, cause our friend, cause our uncle's roof is leaking.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like how many more customers could we all have if we were just doing quality work and, you know, not lying to people.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Ripple effect.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's definitely super frustrating.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But no.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's good to hear that, you know, that you're passing that on to your leaders and to your company, because I think that's really what the industry needs.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: So how many teams do you guys have?
Speaker: So you said you're in California, Utah.
Speaker: Where else?
Speaker: California, Utah, New Jersey, a little bit in Nevada and a little bit in Florida.
Speaker: And then we've got a team in Puerto Rico as well.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: How many reps do you have for the whole company?
Speaker: We're around 250.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Right on.
Speaker: And so what do you see?
Speaker: I'm sure obviously some teams are better than others.
Speaker: What do you see in your great teams, your best team versus teams that are struggling?
Speaker: Anything you see that's helping contribute to a good team versus the teams that are struggling?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I think a good team obviously starts with leaders.
Speaker: So you can't have a good team without good leaders.
Speaker: It's obviously a, again, a ripple effect.
Speaker: I hate to use that phrase twice, but so if the leaders aren't dialed in, you can, you don't even need to see or meet the leaders.
Speaker: You can tell by the team if you just met the team.
Speaker: But anyway.
Speaker: Once that's dialed in, and this is part of what the leaders do, having the team have an identity, yay, a name, and even a creed, something that they can coalesce around as a principle or principles that they live by.
Speaker: Once they have that, an identity as a group, then it's about having fun, which is part of culture.
Speaker: It's kind of what we think about with culture.
Speaker: Like you want a yacht somewhere.
Speaker: So having fun and then getting into flow.
Speaker: I was listening to Aubrey Marcus podcast recently and he had that guy on there, supposed to be the master of flow.
Speaker: My VP Owen recommends to me anyway.
Speaker: He says there's steps to get into flow and, and,
Speaker: The first one's curiosity.
Speaker: So if the leaders can create curiosity with their people somehow, I mean, we could brainstorm around that for a while, but we've had ideas about it and we're looking to increase this constantly because when people are in flow, they don't have to think too much.
Speaker: They just feel and they're feeling great about what they're doing.
Speaker: And you know, flows like we just went surfing this morning and got tossed around the water, positive ions flowing all around.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that was the best way for me to start my morning before I got here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So activities like that, if we can, if we can make, um, sales and solar as flowy as, as the way I feel when I'm surfing, um, then I think we've, we have hit the jackpot.
Speaker: So our best teams, um,
Speaker: they feel that they don't feel like they're going to work.
Speaker: They feel like they're just in rhythm with a bunch of their friends and they're making a ton of money together, which is awesome, but they want to show up to meetings.
Speaker: It's fun, you know?
Speaker: So there's good quality content being shared in the trainings.
Speaker: The bad teams, again, bad leaders,
Speaker: or it's hard to say bad, ineffective.
Speaker: Ineffective leaders, not doing some of these things, no identity, maybe they missed on the culture piece.
Speaker: They're not having much, they're too serious, they're not having enough fun.
Speaker: And fun's not just like throwing out incentives and let's meet a Jamba Juice.
Speaker: It's like, you know, it's making jokes and having actually vernacular, having like inside jokes around your work.
Speaker: That kind of stuff's fun.
Speaker: So that's what it's all about.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: And yeah, big struggle.
Speaker: Well, like companies I've been a part of, I mean, that's a big struggle is starting new offices, especially like when it's far away from your home base.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Or what have you.
Speaker: It's like sometimes it's tough to keep that same culture and expand and, you know, find good people.
Speaker: Because, yeah, I mean, one of the first companies I was with, it's like.
Speaker: We expanded to, I think we opened up five offices in a year, but then the next year, all of them closed down except for like one.
Speaker: It was just like, cause they didn't have like solid leaders in place and I don't know.
Speaker: It was just tough to keep it going.
Speaker: So one thing that we've found is to use your best office and bring your leaders that are struggling or new leaders, for sure new leaders, bring them into that office and by osmosis they'll learn and feel the culture.
Speaker: So in fact, we just hired a new Vegas manager today.
Speaker: I just got off a Zoom call with him this morning.
Speaker: And he's coming in for two weeks into San Clemente where our top office is.
Speaker: And he'll be learning by osmosis what they're doing.
Speaker: And it's not even just because you could describe to him what to do, but it's you got to feel it and you got to meet the people and see how happy they are and talk to him.
Speaker: And like all that's going to be super valuable, invaluable.
Speaker: And he'll bring that back to Vegas and have a much better start.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: So that works pretty well.
Speaker: They kind of see what the other people are doing and like, Oh, I'm going to go implement that in my office.
Speaker: Pretty basic, but I don't think a lot of people are doing it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know we definitely weren't when we were having that problem.
Speaker: So, right.
Speaker: That's, that's a great idea.
Speaker: Um, and yeah, like as far as like, uh, your inspiration and everything, what's, what are things that like motivate you to keep it going through all the challenges and I don't know when there's struggles, ups and downs, what are some things that help you?
Speaker: That's a good question.
Speaker: Multiple things.
Speaker: So I've thought about what's been driving me since I've been a kid, and it's actually hard to put my finger on it.
Speaker: I have some kind of motor in me that won't stop.
Speaker: I feel, have you seen the musical Hamilton?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Well, just the Disney Plus version.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Me too.
Speaker: I haven't been to a live show.
Speaker: But you know how there's a song in there that the lyrics are like, he's running out of time.
Speaker: He always felt like he was running out of time.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: I've always felt that way.
Speaker: I've always felt like, Hey, this is a very, it's a short life.
Speaker: Um, you got it, you got your time to make a mark on it.
Speaker: And, uh, and so I think that's ever present in my mind.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I, I, that drives me.
Speaker: I mean, I actually just heard, you know, some of the most successful people in the world are, are both running away from something and running towards something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So there's like two motors driving them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I can certainly agree with and relate to the running away from things.
Speaker: You know, came from a divorced family.
Speaker: Dad died when I was young.
Speaker: A bunch of interesting, you know, storyline items that I could bring up.
Speaker: But running towards something, I'm running towards really excellence.
Speaker: I'm trying my best to just be excellent because at some point along the way,
Speaker: I got the idea in my head that being excellent is just so much more fun and it's a choice.
Speaker: So why not?
Speaker: Why would you choose not to be excellent?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know it's hard and I'm certainly not good at it all the time, but I think I've developed that skill over time to just, you know,
Speaker: achieve excellence in certain areas of life.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's sweet.
Speaker: I like Hamilton.
Speaker: I remember when I first listened to that, watched the Disney plus version, I was like, listen to that, that same song, I think on the way to my, like my deals and stuff like that.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: It's like running out of time.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I guess it's sweet, but it's true.
Speaker: I mean, especially in solar, that's like a real thing.
Speaker: Cause yeah, you don't know, like, I don't know what your thoughts are, but it's like solar is probably, probably not going to be as.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Can't be this profitable for long.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, not, not 10 years from now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's going to hit critical mass.
Speaker: It's already doing that in certain markets.
Speaker: And in California specifically where we are right now, I'm not going to make a prediction, but we're living on borrowed time for sure.
Speaker: You think so?
Speaker: I mean, yeah, with the level of commissions that we're getting, and just model it off of any other industry and the way it's matured.
Speaker: It's still young, but we can model this off of a lot of other industries, and you can predict what's going to happen in the next five years.
Speaker: pretty well yeah yeah so yeah i mean that's what what we're trying to tell our listeners too is like for those that are listening to this make sure you understand that and take dan's words you're living on borrowed time so push as hard as you can right now be present that's right
Speaker: So it's like the days where you're making huge commissions, probably not going to be around forever.
Speaker: So, so I invest in yourself, invest in coaching and get as good as you can right now.
Speaker: So you can reap the benefits and make as much as possible.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I think is that something huge and something I'm sure you, you know, share with your reps too, I bet.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Again, I mean, we've been on the wave of starting out 2012, just nine years ago, making 185 bucks kilowatt or whatever it was, 180, and being so excited.
Speaker: And then it just kept going up every single year.
Speaker: But it's just like the real estate market.
Speaker: You can't just keep going up.
Speaker: It's going to crash at some point.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I don't I'm not saying we're going to crash, but we're certainly going to see corrections in the market.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: I feel like the grandpa on solar, I started in solar in 2016.
Speaker: So coming up on five and a half years or so, but like, I don't know, all the new reps coming in, they're seeing these huge commissions.
Speaker: I felt like the grandpa, I'm like, Oh, back in my day, I was only making 250 kilowatt.
Speaker: And I know it's real.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the opportunity arrogance is there.
Speaker: It's like, you know, them, like you said, those numbers you mentioned earlier, they think that's normal.
Speaker: That's not normal.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: This is not normal.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: So it's like, guys, you got to understand there's like solar is the gold rush right now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Go take your, you know, pick and hammer and all that and get it now.
Speaker: Get it now and do it right.
Speaker: You know, don't ruin it for the rest of us.
Speaker: Don't be that.
Speaker: Don't be that guy.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Well, Dan, I know we're gonna wrap up soon here.
Speaker: But yeah, last question or two, I wanted to ask you like from your reps that are seeing a ton of success out there compared to reps that are struggling and whatnot.
Speaker: What do you see in what's separating like the super successful reps versus the ones that are struggling on your teams?
Speaker: The super successful reps have their schedules dialed in.
Speaker: We've got a motto at Harness called Win the Day.
Speaker: You'll see it on our Instagrams.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's on, well, it's actually on the back of my shirt, right?
Speaker: Is it on the back of my shirt?
Speaker: Darn it, not this one.
Speaker: Cool moment.
Speaker: Anyway, you put on the back of our swag.
Speaker: Win the day came from Owen Santos, our VP of execution.
Speaker: It's something that he came up with in his own life basically to win the morning.
Speaker: He wakes up every day at 5 a.m.
Speaker: He's the most disciplined guy I know.
Speaker: Gets his workout in, gets his healthy eating going, gets the surf on, surfed with him this morning.
Speaker: It basically does more than a lot of people do before 8 a.m.
Speaker: is over.
Speaker: And so winning the day is what our successful reps do.
Speaker: They have a pretty regimented schedule that they stick to, live and die by it, and that makes all of their targets time bound, which if you listen to Tony Robbins, you gotta have smart goals, S-M-A-R-T.
Speaker: That T stands for time bound.
Speaker: So I think that's critical.
Speaker: And then they are students of the game, A students of the game.
Speaker: So they're constantly curious.
Speaker: Again, way to get into flow state about how to get better and what's happening and, you know, stay on top of their stuff.
Speaker: So, I mean, I could say a lot more than that, but that separates them.
Speaker: Again, if you want to look at the flip side of the coin, reps that aren't being successful are treating this like,
Speaker: They'll come to a meeting and they'll expect the meeting to kind of fill their cup and other people to give them all the knowledge and the skills that they need instead of taking that bowl by their own, bowl by the horns with their own hands and doing homework.
Speaker: You actually have to do homework to be great at this.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: One of the best things I can give you is when I first started,
Speaker: I had an approach that I would record in my phone every day when I was driving out to the area and I would listen back to it to hear how I sounded to myself and put myself in the customer's shoes like how would I react to this guy coming by door and I would do that over and over and over and over and over like I just became obsessed with like the right words and the right cadence and my metaverbal and nonverbal communication
Speaker: And it probably took me like two and a half to three months right when I got into solar to come up with an approach that I felt was hitting on all the psychological principles that you would need to have in place to make sure the customer responded in a certain way.
Speaker: And that's what you do.
Speaker: You dial that in so that you're hitting on all those things, the takeaways, the questions, the...
Speaker: The motion creates emotion, all that stuff.
Speaker: So critical.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: And yeah, I can tell it's going back to your music days.
Speaker: You're probably doing the same stuff when you're practicing piano, right?
Speaker: Recording yourself, hearing what's going on.
Speaker: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker: It's like so many parallels between it.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: And top guys are doing it.
Speaker: They're recording themselves in their closes at the doors.
Speaker: It's just like so many things that we didn't think we're doing.
Speaker: They're recording.
Speaker: He's not going to lie.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like, I was actually sounding like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Actually said that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, no, I think that's a huge separator and lots of people I've had on the podcast have actually brought that up, that that's one of the number one things that reps can do that most people aren't doing.
Speaker: And yeah, I didn't, I didn't do it for years either, but I'm hearing it so many times.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Recording yourselves, getting feedback and just, you know, analyzing what went wrong.
Speaker: Looking in the mirror.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's huge.
Speaker: Um, well, Dan, we appreciate all the secrets you shared with us today.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: Yeah, I guess last question or two I had, like what's been your biggest, I don't know, is there any time at Harness that there was like a down point or like a big struggle you had at Harness?
Speaker: And then what did you do to get out of it or any, or maybe there hasn't been any, but I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, there was the installation misfire in the early year.
Speaker: The most recent one was actually online leads, man.
Speaker: I'll tell you, I can go off for an hour about this.
Speaker: So many companies sprung up during the pandemic saying that they were experts and gurus at online lead gen.
Speaker: So many dollars were lost to those companies, not only by me, but others.
Speaker: But yeah, that was definitely a struggle.
Speaker: I think we were shut down for probably...
Speaker: I don't know, maybe a month and a half or two.
Speaker: And then we kind of rebounded with the idea that we were, you know, tied to the utility company.
Speaker: And I think everybody in the industry agreed we were essential services.
Speaker: But still, you know, had our best year during the pandemic, which is cool, obviously.
Speaker: But spent a lot of money on online leads that didn't pan out.
Speaker: Again, I could name some companies.
Speaker: I could name some names, but I won't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: blacklisted names.
Speaker: But I would just caution any of the listeners to be very, I would never go with an online lead company that hasn't been vetted by somebody you know that can show you proof of the results.
Speaker: I just, yeah, it's such a trap right now.
Speaker: And that's huge.
Speaker: I don't know if you've seen it, but there's like groups on Facebook now, like basically like blacklisted solar online leads.
Speaker: I follow them.
Speaker: People just go and follow them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, talk crap on all the people that screwed them over.
Speaker: The names that have scorned me have shown up.
Speaker: So it wasn't just me.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So no, that's good tips that I know a lot of people are looking, thinking, oh, all nine leads.
Speaker: That's the way.
Speaker: Never going to have to knock a door again, but it's like.
Speaker: They think it's a panacea.
Speaker: It's really not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a supplement.
Speaker: It always should be treated as such.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: Well, Dan, thanks for coming on the show today.
Speaker: Where can people find out more about your teams and what you're doing and kind of connect with you on social media and all that?
Speaker: Yeah, luckily there's this great guy named Serge that's been managing our social medias recently.
Speaker: And anyways, you can find us on Instagram at Harness Your Future.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: We also have Harness Power Official.
Speaker: That's kind of more of a customer facing Instagram.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Easiest way to find us.
Speaker: And you can slide into our DMs and have some conversations.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: And speaking of Serge, I mean, I know Serge comes with a price.
Speaker: He's not doing this stuff for free, but what's driving you to kind of invest in like the social media side of things and what's the goal with that?
Speaker: The goal with that is really because we were a closed loop before, like we were growing mostly organically by referral.
Speaker: And then late last year, December-ish of last year, we just decided, you know what, we're going to do some, we're going to make some more efforts to grow organically.
Speaker: not just organically, but, you know, get ourselves out there a little bit more and show the world what we've got going.
Speaker: Cause we feel like we have something very special here.
Speaker: It's not contrived.
Speaker: It's a special culture of great people that want to be part of this because it's, it's fun.
Speaker: It's special.
Speaker: And we create a lot of cool programs that are proprietary to us.
Speaker: So, um, so we wanted to get that out there a little bit more.
Speaker: And Serge is just such a charismatic gentleman.
Speaker: He came to me, he's like, Hey, I can do all this for you.
Speaker: And he made these massive promises and, uh,
Speaker: No, he's delivered quite well so far.
Speaker: Yeah, he does a great job.
Speaker: Great content, very organized, and he's got some automated systems that are pretty impressive.
Speaker: Yeah, Serge is the man.
Speaker: We've got him smiling on the sidelines here, so giving him a shout out.
Speaker: He's in the room.
Speaker: But no, yeah, social media is definitely important.
Speaker: I know if there's a building brand and also recruiting, I know it helps a ton.
Speaker: Just, you know, recruit your ideal salesperson.
Speaker: Yeah, and I've been averse to it, to be honest.
Speaker: I haven't been on social media in a while.
Speaker: I took a hiatus off Facebook for like, I don't know, a year, year and a half or something.
Speaker: But I think the resistance to social media was like, I just don't want to feel obligated to put myself out there with something contrived.
Speaker: I want it to feel authentic and I want it to feel like...
Speaker: I don't know that we're not trying to like manipulate people into anything.
Speaker: So luckily, Serge has given me free reign on what to put on there and has worked with me on the way I want to do things, which is has been awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Well, Dan, appreciate you coming on.
Speaker: Before you wrap up here, any final, I guess, words of advice you want to share with our solopreneurs, with our solar guys that are listening on the show here today?
Speaker: Yeah, I would just say something I say often, there's magic in the mundane, which just goes back full circle to what we talk about.
Speaker: Like if you practiced piano for hours on end or parlayed any kind of musical talent or any other kind of rhythm, maybe from athletics when you were young, into knocking doors, you know that the magic is in doing the same mundane things over and over and finding the magic, which is the income,
Speaker: the success, the leadership eventually, all the things that you kind of want and are going after, it's in the consistent daily effort.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: And yeah, I'm sure you read the two book, Compound Effects, Slight Edge, but yeah, it's just like...
Speaker: If you haven't read those for our listeners, go read those for sure.
Speaker: Darren Hardy.
Speaker: I mean, that's, yeah, that's the key to success.
Speaker: Most people aren't willing to do the little things every day over a long period of time.
Speaker: Anyone can do it for one or two days, but the guys that are having success in this industry or really anything, they're doing the little things that no one wants to do for, you know, day after day after day.
Speaker: The formula was written long ago.
Speaker: Just got to follow it.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Love it, Dan.
Speaker: Well, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker: Guys, go give Dan a shout out.
Speaker: Shoot him a message, a DM on Instagram, Facebook.
Speaker: Let him know you appreciate him on the show.
Speaker: And Dan, thanks again.
Speaker: We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Thanks, Taylor.
Speaker: Appreciate it.
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