Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: We are here with the one, the only, Tanner Huber.
Speaker: I'm excited for him to come on the show.
Speaker: We're going to be jamming on building teams, running summer programs, some cool topics we're going to jump into.
Speaker: So, Tanner, thanks for coming on the podcast with us today.
Speaker: Yeah, Taylor, thanks for having me, man.
Speaker: I've actually listened to your podcast for the last three, four years now since you started up.
Speaker: It's been awesome and it's cool to be here.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Appreciate the support.
Speaker: And yeah, just great to connect with guys like you.
Speaker: I feel weird saying your name because Tanner, he's my brother.
Speaker: That's my brother's name.
Speaker: And he came out for it this summer.
Speaker: He left me.
Speaker: He's not doing solar, so couldn't bring him back.
Speaker: I know I've got a younger brother I'm bringing up through the ranks too he's like 17 right now and so I'm excited to get him out on the doors the next couple years we actually h ad a little group of 18 year olds kill it last year a couple of them cleared over 100 grand the first year so I think you can do it too yeah that's awesome well cool so yeah I'm excited to get in the show Tanner you've been you co-founded nlight energy correct me if I'm saying anything wrong nlight home nlight home yeah you guys can
Speaker: Find us Instagram, go NLight.
Speaker: But yeah, NLight Home.
Speaker: NLight, okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: NLight Home and you guys have been running since 2016.
Speaker: And what's most impressive that we're going to be talking to our listeners today is I don't think I've heard anyone just focusing as much on the summer program, at least for as long as you guys have been doing it.
Speaker: um since 2016 and you've been building huge summer teams i know you got year-round teams but um you said you've you know keep a year round of 20 to 30 guys and then you jumped like like 350 reps or something in the summer is that right yeah yeah that's kind of how we do it yeah but uh but yeah that's that's kind of the unique thing i'd say in light we started and our slogan was the solar summer like we're and actually the solar summer.com is one of our websites but
Speaker: we prided ourselves on being the one that mastered it over the summer because solar is tough.
Speaker: I mean, especially five, six years ago when install times were a little longer and processes weren't as smooth.
Speaker: It was a, it was a daunting task to put together a program that could get installs in two, three weeks and train young 19, 20, 21 year olds to go sell such a large contract.
Speaker: Cause back then it was like, you know, all the pest, all the alarms would say, no way.
Speaker: You can't do that.
Speaker: You're only 20.
Speaker: This is too big.
Speaker: Takes too long.
Speaker: You're never going to make money.
Speaker: And we figured it out.
Speaker: And honestly, now, you know, now there's a lot of people I'd say in our space, but because we're coming up on our seventh year, we figured out a lot of things.
Speaker: Like, I mean, I'll be honest.
Speaker: You're one, two, three.
Speaker: We learned a lot.
Speaker: We learned a lot and went through a lot of growth and found our culture and our process and made it happen.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: So yeah, I want to hear your story and just, I mean, why you guys decided to focus so much on the summer when at the time, I don't think anyone was really doing the summer focus.
Speaker: I remember when I got in solar 2016 as well.
Speaker: And yeah, my company was like, no, do not focus on the summer.
Speaker: We can't have like the spikes in production.
Speaker: You're going to mess up our installers.
Speaker: We don't want just summer spikes.
Speaker: We want guys even kill.
Speaker: We want them staying all year long.
Speaker: So, um, yeah, I'm curious to know how you guys handled all those.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: So, so it's interesting.
Speaker: I mean, like, man, there's so many technicalities behind it.
Speaker: And as I've grown up and as I've gotten more into the business side and as a partner, I understand it better now.
Speaker: You know, when you're a door to door rep, you're just like, yeah, install my deals and install them quick.
Speaker: What's what's going on, you know?
Speaker: But it really is a conflict of interest.
Speaker: I'd say you have a summer program in solar.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because as an installer, you want a consistent, easy flowing process where you're just installing X amount of deals every month and your crews are busy, right?
Speaker: Your crews are just consistently busy.
Speaker: When we inject the spike, I mean, doing tons and tons of volume, hundreds and hundreds of deals a week,
Speaker: over a four-month period it does cause issues that we were able to figure out and that's what everybody else was running into yeah and and so because profitability wise you want to have it steady and even keel and so but then also you also want quick installs and so yeah you got to find that kind of sweet spot and again i mean we've kept it to two three week installs even with throwing in
Speaker: you know, almost about a megawatt a week every summer, you know, so we're able to really, really make it work.
Speaker: It's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, and then, and then also I'll talk about reps, right?
Speaker: So, and why we switched to the, to the summer program, just based off of the individuals we're working with and year round guys are hard to,
Speaker: to keep motivated and to get large production.
Speaker: And in a summer you've got, you know, your, your structure and all your guys really pushing.
Speaker: And I, I'm actually LDS.
Speaker: And so I related it, I related to people to being a ward missionary versus a missionary out in the field.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And you definitely get a lot more production out of a missionary mission than award mission, you know, word missionary because their structure.
Speaker: And I attribute back to the day, I mean, I hadn't thought about doing a summer program.
Speaker: It wasn't my idea, right?
Speaker: But my partner, Sanjeev Takur, awesome guy.
Speaker: He just thought, okay, there's all these dealers coming into the market in 2016, 2017.
Speaker: How are we going to be different?
Speaker: And what are we going to do?
Speaker: And I came in with another buddy of mine and we blew it up just for a summer.
Speaker: He was like, wow, these kids, they didn't actually want to hire us on.
Speaker: They didn't want to bring us on, but they were like, man, these kids are doing well.
Speaker: Let's do some more of it and let's try it.
Speaker: We kind of dipped our foot in the water.
Speaker: Let's try a summer program.
Speaker: We do a little small run the next year and everybody came out loving it, making a ton of money.
Speaker: And so we kept pushing that way.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's definitely an interesting idea.
Speaker: And I think, like I said, no one was doing it at the time that I heard of, but I know there are companies now that are making that the focus is just coming out, having guys sling for the summer.
Speaker: We had on a Sully zinc.
Speaker: I don't know if you heard that podcast, but she's also running a summer program out in Texas.
Speaker: And a lot of our guys are, you know, making way more money than these year round guys, just because they're pushing way harder.
Speaker: We're all the year round guys.
Speaker: Like you said, they're lazy and
Speaker: sometimes not always but you know right that they can go get one deal two deals a month and live a comfortable lifestyle yeah but when you got a summer kid out here with high hopes and expectations and this is and they've relocated just to be here for four months well they might as well go make a lot of money you know they might as well well what else i'm gonna do like go knock some doors for those six eight hours a day and really put in some good volume yeah
Speaker: True.
Speaker: So yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm super curious to dive in and you know, get into a little more of the weeds here how exactly how you guys run it.
Speaker: But before that, can you give us just like, I don't know, the summary of how you got started in solar and your background in that and why you guys started to start in light?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So, um, came home from my mission, just like everybody else getting approached by everybody to go to door to door.
Speaker: Didn't want to do it.
Speaker: I didn't think that pest back then it wasn't as popular.
Speaker: Didn't like the product.
Speaker: I was actually looking into Vivint, thought it was cool.
Speaker: They're the big dogs.
Speaker: And I thought, man, you know, maybe I'll go sell for this huge company.
Speaker: But then one of my friends and I'll shout out again, I always shout him out on podcast, Bryson Mummer.
Speaker: He introduced me and he said, Hey, solar is awesome.
Speaker: Solar's great.
Speaker: You know, they're doing PPA, the sun run.
Speaker: I was like, this sounds like too good to be true.
Speaker: It's a no brainer, you know?
Speaker: And I mapped out a roadmap to make a hundred thousand dollars in each industry as I was looking into it.
Speaker: And I thought, okay, what do I got to do in pest control?
Speaker: Well, probably about five, you know, as a first year, 500 accounts or so, maybe more or less, I'm not super familiar, but 500 accounts.
Speaker: I was like, that sounds like a lot of signing papers, you know?
Speaker: And then I looked into alarms and it's a couple hundred accounts.
Speaker: And I was like, well, as a rookie, I don't know that that's been done very often.
Speaker: And I believe in myself, but it sounds like a pretty tough road.
Speaker: And then I looked in solar and it was 15, 20 accounts and making a hundred grand.
Speaker: I was like back then and commissions are better now, right?
Speaker: You can even do it less.
Speaker: But I was like,
Speaker: I think I could do that.
Speaker: You know, I think that's my route.
Speaker: And I initially came on because of the product, but I will say I have stayed because of culture and relationships.
Speaker: And you know, that's, that's almost everything here in the business.
Speaker: You can hear a bunch of people talking a lot of talk, but,
Speaker: at Enlight, they really made it happen.
Speaker: And actually, I didn't first come to Enlight, to be honest, I actually went and sold with a guy.
Speaker: And I won't mention names, but it was just me and a guy.
Speaker: And man, we sold for two months, I installed zero deals, set all these appointments.
Speaker: And to what now in hindsight, I thought I sat down at least maybe 20, 30 appointments, maybe it was 10, 15.
Speaker: We closed zero, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I was like, man, this is dumb.
Speaker: I don't know about this.
Speaker: And then I met Josh Bowling in my ward here in Sacramento.
Speaker: And my parents were like, yeah, he's a vinent guy.
Speaker: And I was like, he's a vinent guy.
Speaker: And I just thought he was doing alarms.
Speaker: But he wasn't a vinent guy.
Speaker: He was an n-light guy.
Speaker: And he was doing solar.
Speaker: And they had been around for about six to eight months at that time.
Speaker: And he's providing for his family.
Speaker: And I was like, hey, Josh, dude, I've been in 15 appointments.
Speaker: I haven't seen a single thing close.
Speaker: I'm done.
Speaker: I've got four appointments tomorrow.
Speaker: It's a Sunday.
Speaker: I got four appointments on Monday.
Speaker: Can you go close them?
Speaker: And he's like, you know what?
Speaker: If we put him through our company, yeah, I'll give it a shot.
Speaker: He went and closed all four.
Speaker: And I'd seen, you know, I was 0 for 20 with my other guy.
Speaker: And I was like, just amazing.
Speaker: Take me under your wing.
Speaker: I talked him into it.
Speaker: Like I said, I was a young kid.
Speaker: So they're like, I don't know.
Speaker: You know, they h ad a team of 10, 12 year round guys.
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, sure.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: And again, after I started at Enlight, actually, they were the year-round program, maybe a bunch of older, I'd kind of say, not dried up door-to-door guys, but guys who were tired of doing alarms.
Speaker: They wanted to stay in one spot, but they weren't super motivated.
Speaker: And I actually had a tough road my first month.
Speaker: Still maybe had a couple deals stick.
Speaker: I kept having these cancels.
Speaker: And then finally it clicked in my last like eight weeks, did 22 deals, made my 70 grand, you know, 75 grand in the summer and was like, Oh, okay.
Speaker: I like this.
Speaker: This is something I can do, you know?
Speaker: And Enlight took care of me.
Speaker: I'll be honest.
Speaker: It's funny actually to this day.
Speaker: And it's probably really bad if any lawyers are listening.
Speaker: You know, I signed something initially with Enlight back in the day in 2016, 17,
Speaker: And I've been paid every bit of overrides, every bit of commissions, everything, even more than I've been promised without having to get in the weeds and the nitty gritty of contracts and things.
Speaker: Never had to sign stuff again.
Speaker: And so that's something we pride ourselves on at NLINE, just being upfront and honest with our guys where in the industry, everybody's looking for ways to scrape back money.
Speaker: We're looking for ways to help guys out and make more.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, as you know, a lot of people can't say the same in the industry, unfortunately.
Speaker: And, you know, delays in pay I'm going through actually some of that stuff right now, which is tough.
Speaker: So super cool.
Speaker: Well, dude, actually, I mean, that actually brings up a memory.
Speaker: So it feels like so long ago because now we work with very consistent, you know, very consistent installer partnership.
Speaker: But back in the day when we started,
Speaker: our installer went under.
Speaker: I had no idea.
Speaker: I was, I was just a rep, right?
Speaker: And there was probably about 30 to $40,000 in commissions.
Speaker: And that, that company just, just said, Nope, we're not paying and light on this.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And as a small dealer, that could be the end of it.
Speaker: And it probably should have been, you know, we were in the red for sure.
Speaker: But guess what?
Speaker: I got paid.
Speaker: I got paid everything.
Speaker: I didn't even know that that happened.
Speaker: And a year or two later, they started getting more in the administrative side.
Speaker: Sanjeev, my business partner, told me, yeah, I mean, they he's like, we were out like he's like our installers at about a million bucks.
Speaker: He's like, but we were out, you know, a couple hundred grand in commissions.
Speaker: And then he said he's like that I paid out of my own pocket.
Speaker: I paid you.
Speaker: from my bank account, you know, and he's like, it took, and that's why a lot of guys, especially now I don't see as many people jumping into dealers.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: How about you?
Speaker: Do you see a lot of young or, you know, like single reps trying to start dealers nowadays?
Speaker: I don't see it as often.
Speaker: Yeah, not as many, I don't think.
Speaker: But anyway, a lot of people are like, well, I'm just going to start myself.
Speaker: Dude, Sanjeev, he started up NLite.
Speaker: I don't think he made a dime until like year three or four.
Speaker: And so all these guys thinking, oh, I'm going to go make this money.
Speaker: Well, to provide real value and to really back your reps, it takes some good volume and it takes a while.
Speaker: And in that case, I was taken care of.
Speaker: Where I know in other companies, it would have been a rough road.
Speaker: I would have been out 30 grand.
Speaker: I just love the culture and integrity.
Speaker: That's huge for us.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's huge.
Speaker: And no wonder you guys have been able to sustain a lot of success.
Speaker: Because like you said, there's so many dealers where that happens.
Speaker: They're out of business.
Speaker: They don't pay their reps.
Speaker: I mean, I've been with a few different dealers and stuff like that has already happened to me.
Speaker: So I think anyone who starts a dealer, it's going to happen at some point.
Speaker: So that's a good question to ask yourself.
Speaker: If you're thinking of starting a dealer, do you have the deep pockets to pay your rep still?
Speaker: Something like that happens.
Speaker: Because I don't think I've heard of a dealer that something like that hasn't happened to.
Speaker: So it seems like it's pretty much inevitable.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, it's inevitable.
Speaker: It'll happen.
Speaker: You gotta, you gotta make sure you're partnering up with the right people.
Speaker: And I mean, I haven't heard that.
Speaker: Anyways, in the industry, I don't want to mention names, but a big, big, uh, probably the biggest solar company just parted ways with one of the biggest installers.
Speaker: I think Titan just backed away from somebody.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I don't know what happened there, but.
Speaker: It even happened to the big levels, man.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: Crazy stuff.
Speaker: Well, no, that's cool to hear your story, Tanner.
Speaker: And something I want to ask you, because I know we have a lot of listeners on the podcast here that we're probably in similar situations.
Speaker: Like you said, you had a tough start, took things a while to kind of click in and start making awesome money.
Speaker: So is there anything that you did specifically or anything you feel like helped you have that like click in moments where, you know, first month or two, weren't having deals close, lots of cancels, where all of a sudden something changed and you were able to just turn it around?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, the thing with solar I love is it's like you're mining for gold and there's golden nuggets, right?
Speaker: It's not like, oh man, I need to do a thousand of these.
Speaker: It's like, no, I mean, you know, I wish we're all doing a couple hundred a year, but if you can get that consistency of a couple a week, you're good.
Speaker: That's all you need.
Speaker: And so what I kind of did is I broke it down and I do this with my reps and I just find the bottleneck.
Speaker: So there was a point in time where I was like, man, I'm just really killing it in leads.
Speaker: I'm getting a lot of appointments set.
Speaker: but they're not sitting down, right?
Speaker: Or they're sitting down, we're signing and they're not getting installed.
Speaker: And so I was looking through it and there was points that I was, parts of my job or my sales process, I was doing really well.
Speaker: And there was other parts that were suffering drastically, right?
Speaker: And there's certain things you can do to improve those.
Speaker: And it all starts with what you put in.
Speaker: In my mission, we kept talking about the masa and the tortilla maker out of Mexico City.
Speaker: And so it's like, you want to make sure first and foremost, you're putting masa in, right?
Speaker: If you're not putting in hours and doors, nothing's going to come out the other end, right?
Speaker: But if you've got, okay, I've got my motivation, my determination, my, you know, my, my discipline down, that's first.
Speaker: I'm putting in my eight hours a day, putting in my
Speaker: 150 doors or whatever it is.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And my, and then, and then all of a sudden you're like, well, my conversion ratio sucks.
Speaker: I've got two leads a day.
Speaker: That blows.
Speaker: You're putting in a ton of time.
Speaker: You should be getting a lead an hour, you know, then you work on that.
Speaker: Then once you got your eight leads or, you know, eight leads a day, they're like, wow, I'm booked.
Speaker: Then they don't sit and you got to work on, okay, what are you doing to make them sit?
Speaker: So I just kind of went through every little thing.
Speaker: And I'll tell you, Taylor, the thing that made me,
Speaker: had a jump in my production, going from installing 20, 30 a year to that.
Speaker: I'm still only doing like 60, 70 years.
Speaker: I'm doing summers and I'm trying to run a business, you know?
Speaker: But what made me jump from, you know, two, three a week to like that six to eight, you know, consistently per week is I actually started recording myself and I actually ran our entire training program for a while, making trainings, you know, making sure trainings were happening, videos, all that.
Speaker: And as I got into the weeds of our training and listening myself,
Speaker: I was like, wow, I sound like a goof or a man.
Speaker: I can improve that.
Speaker: I'm a loser.
Speaker: You know, why am I saying that?
Speaker: It helped my training process a lot.
Speaker: And to this day, yesterday I was with a recruit and said, Hey, record this whole close, send it to me.
Speaker: I want to listen to it because, you know, seven years in, I'm like, seven summers.
Speaker: And I'm like, I still need to refine stuff because I'm not perfect.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: And I think listening to yourself, watching game film, you know, being that athlete, being the competitor,
Speaker: will make you a lot better.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome advice.
Speaker: And yeah, so many people have come on the podcast say the same thing.
Speaker: So it's funny how like people are looking for this secret, you know, secret line or whatever.
Speaker: It's like pretty much every top producer, you guys are all saying similar things.
Speaker: So it's just like for those that are struggling or going through a rough patch, whatever.
Speaker: Yeah, do those things.
Speaker: Start tracking your numbers like crazy.
Speaker: Start recording yourself.
Speaker: And I don't know if we should get you hooked up.
Speaker: Have you heard of Ciro, Tanner?
Speaker: It's like a recording app.
Speaker: I'll tell you more about it later.
Speaker: But yeah, it's an app where like,
Speaker: reps can just hit record on it um it's you can turn it into like a widget on your phone so it's super easy to just go hit record and then what it does it like transcribes the whole recording into different sections so you can go on objections and then you tag your manager in it so it'll ping them and say hey go review this section or go let's shout out shout out to zero so s-i-r-o or how do you yeah s-i-r-o yeah
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'm gonna look that up, man.
Speaker: You know, I think we're using rep card now and stuff like that.
Speaker: I'm like, I already, I always love a little added technology in there to make your sales process better, training process better.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So I'll shoot you the pot.
Speaker: We did a podcast with him and we'll talk more later.
Speaker: But yeah, anyways, for those that are trying to record yourselves, I would suggest definitely using something like that.
Speaker: But anyways, so yeah, awesome tip you had there, Tanner.
Speaker: So let's jump into just kind of how you guys started the summer program.
Speaker: I want to hear more about that, how you guys structured it and maybe keys to success.
Speaker: So was it, you said this was your business partner's idea to just kind of like focus more on the summer?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, so Sanjeev Dukur, Josh Bowling.
Speaker: Okay, so hopefully, you know, they've been heard of.
Speaker: I know Josh was like a legend.
Speaker: Josh Bowling w as a legend at Bibbit.
Speaker: He's like 43, sold all kinds of records, was like top producer a couple years.
Speaker: And I actually saw Matt Taggart posted something recently, and like Josh was right there next to him on some...
Speaker: You know, on this old light high summer, you know, I forgot it was on their app back in the day.
Speaker: But so those two came from a summer program, right?
Speaker: Like they came from the industry of door to door sales over a summer.
Speaker: They moved into solar.
Speaker: Sanji was kind of the solar guy for like 10 years, you know, previous to forming Enlight, doing commercial solar and Vivint solar door to door and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: And then Nlight he formed because he was like, I want to be different.
Speaker: I want to provide quicker installs, better pay, all that kind of stuff for Nlight.
Speaker: a year-round program.
Speaker: Josh Ballen came in and he was like, hey, I'll run the sales team and then Sanjeev, you run the business side.
Speaker: And they were growing, but I don't think it was necessarily like, oh, we got this big vision to be competitors with legacy in these big year-round programs.
Speaker: Because it was, it was like 10 to 12 guys when I showed up and I was like, okay, it's cool, and they're doing good volume.
Speaker: But they said, okay, we're up against these big competitors.
Speaker: And
Speaker: trying to motivate these year-round guys and it's just hard you know and so when we shifted into summer that's kind of when we blew up because we were the only ones and offering such a huge product and it's a huge opportunity like you know solar is to young guys was was a huge competitive advantage and gotten us where we are today
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: It's pretty cool.
Speaker: Well, something I'm super curious about is like, you're saying you went, you go from like 20, 30 people in the off season and you're getting like 300, 350 reps in the summer.
Speaker: How are you guys getting so many guys to come up for the summer?
Speaker: Are these like repeat recruits or what are you guys doing?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you know what I love?
Speaker: Yeah, what I love about Enlight is, one, we have really true values, morals, and we stick to them, right?
Speaker: And Craig, gosh, I'm going to get off on tangents.
Speaker: I need to remember where I want to go.
Speaker: But a lot of companies, they'll say, our value is technology and this big valuation, and we're going to sell one day and whatever.
Speaker: And we just say, no, our value is making you the best sales and you're going to make this much money and very realistic outcomes.
Speaker: And so we come through in our promises every time, every time.
Speaker: And we've set very accurate expectations.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But one big thing I'd say from early on that we did was really treat people as partners, myself included.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Now I am a partner.
Speaker: And but I.
Speaker: we treated people and we didn't say, okay, Taylor Armstrong, how much money can I make off of you this summer?
Speaker: And then I probably won't see again.
Speaker: It was, Hey, we want to build something large, Taylor or whoever, right?
Speaker: How can I help you be the best version of yourself, but grow your business to be, you know, so where you can be financially stable and you can, you know, achieve all your dreams.
Speaker: And we really, and that's why I'd say Sandeep and, and Josh, I mean, Josh too, as an owner was,
Speaker: wasn't pulling money from the company until year four, you know?
Speaker: And so I'd say we really reinvested a lot of that money into people like myself.
Speaker: I mean, I actually got treated super well early on and I was, Sanji would tell me, Hey, you're the LeBron, you're the LeBron James, the team, you're going to be the one making all the money, especially for the first bit.
Speaker: But we need the LeBron James.
Speaker: We need these big players to attract others and to grow.
Speaker: And I think a lot of companies, they aren't willing to forego those initial profits.
Speaker: in order to build something really stable.
Speaker: And so we did forego for years, making really good money as an executive team to solidify pillars.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so I'd say, yeah, to be honest, I get the summer program.
Speaker: I was probably the little pillar number one, but then I brought on pillar two, three, four, five, and now we've grown and it's those pillars who help us grow our business.
Speaker: And we treat
Speaker: these pillars, these guys, McKay, Brandon, all these guys, McKay Newell, Brandon Regeer, their studs, Spencer Hart as partners, and they get paid very well.
Speaker: They get really, really taken care of.
Speaker: They have a lot of efficacy or influence in our business.
Speaker: And so people don't leave.
Speaker: I'll be honest, Taylor.
Speaker: I've seen like in pest control companies where, man, you're re-recruiting every year.
Speaker: At NLight, as a door-to-door young summer guy, there isn't another solar program for a summer that's even close.
Speaker: That's one.
Speaker: And then two, you don't leave solar over a summer to go do pest control.
Speaker: You really don't.
Speaker: I'll be honest.
Speaker: And I love that this is a solar-dominant podcast, so we can say that.
Speaker: But man, when you're making your knock-knock 10 grand on that door, you don't say, you know what?
Speaker: I actually want to do 1,000 of these and make $250, $300 a door.
Speaker: No, you say, how can I just get from that 40 in a summer to 50, 60, you know, and actually shout out to, we actually had a first year rep and tell me if you've ever heard this in the industry as a first year, 21 year old girl, Alison, her name is Alison.
Speaker: She made $455,000 in a summer.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: In a single summer.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Installed 50.
Speaker: 55 accounts, signed probably 80, you know, but with the tradition or maybe more, installed 55 deals over the summer.
Speaker: It was insane.
Speaker: Jeez.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's a record.
Speaker: That's insane.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: I mean, like, I feel like, and like we're small, people don't talk about us.
Speaker: And actually that's part of our whole thing is we don't want to be always in the limelight being like,
Speaker: oh, they're a scandal or, or we don't, I don't think we'll ever, you know, own the Utah Jazz Arena or anything like that.
Speaker: But we had these crazy producers and like, I wish that got out there a little more.
Speaker: And that's why I'm glad we're on this podcast because $455,000 as a first year rep in a summer, I would say even 355, 255.
Speaker: Those are crazy numbers.
Speaker: Our top first year, the year before that broke 300 as a first year.
Speaker: And that was big, right?
Speaker: But then this year, it was just off the charts.
Speaker: We were just blown away.
Speaker: I was blown away.
Speaker: I mean, I didn't really get to sell this summer, but I was like, oh my gosh, she's beating me on the year.
Speaker: Oh my gosh, like I gotta pick it up.
Speaker: You know, it was June and she had 55 or July and I was like,
Speaker: I don't have 55 in the year yet.
Speaker: I need to get moving, you know?
Speaker: So we sell it a couple of days a week, but geez.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll have to grab her on a podcast.
Speaker: That's insane.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was impressive.
Speaker: Impressive.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: Actually we had several, several girls.
Speaker: It's so funny.
Speaker: We actually hadn't had a lot of success with our, with our women knockers out there just because I don't think we provided the right structure for them.
Speaker: But this year, man, we had three or four women out there just kicking tail, showing the guys how it's done.
Speaker: And we loved it.
Speaker: It was awesome.
Speaker: That's sweet.
Speaker: Shout out to those ladies.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: They will blow it up.
Speaker: That's sweet.
Speaker: So it sounds kind of like you guys are just, to me, it sounds similar to like referrals.
Speaker: You know how you go get a solar referral and you find one person that will give you like, you know, 10 referrals.
Speaker: You find just those gems that just keep cranking out referrals.
Speaker: So it sounds like you guys are doing recruiting kind of in the same, same concept as that.
Speaker: You're finding pillars and then they're bringing on guys and then you're just bringing back these same pillars year after year.
Speaker: And that's what's kind of helping grow in the teams.
Speaker: Is that right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I mean, it's all about retention.
Speaker: I think a lot of people measure their recruiting by how many guys are getting.
Speaker: But if you're not measuring retention either, you're not doing well.
Speaker: And again, I actually, I said like, Hey, people don't leave and like to go do pest control.
Speaker: But again, they only leave and like to go do their dream career.
Speaker: That's about it.
Speaker: You know what I'm saying?
Speaker: It's either like, Hey, you're going to sell solar or you're going to go be that doctor or that lawyer.
Speaker: Hey, and I support you, get your education.
Speaker: We love that.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: And that's kind of how we do it.
Speaker: And I mean, our third year, so it was kind of the year that I think I was able to provide a lot of value to NLI and that I hope, hopefully I still totally do.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But, but that year I actually lived with McKay Newell.
Speaker: He's our, he's one of our regionals and,
Speaker: You know, we recruited McKay, Brandon McGuire, all these guys.
Speaker: And we got, we went from about 15 guys our first little summer.
Speaker: Cause it was me one, one summer, next summer about 15 guys.
Speaker: And then we went 85, 90.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And we blew up.
Speaker: It was me working with McKay and Brandon and these guys.
Speaker: And I could technically say, yeah, no, I recruited 85 guys.
Speaker: No, I recruited like seven to nine guys.
Speaker: And, but we worked, it's about the processes of working with your recruits to recruit.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I always tell all of our guys every, every year, every off season, I say, okay, the four months of summer, you are selling solar.
Speaker: After that, you sell NLite.
Speaker: And you know what I tell them?
Speaker: I'm like, hey, look, don't be embarrassed as a first year guy.
Speaker: You don't feel like that recruiter.
Speaker: Don't feel like the guy who's just wanting to make money on people because everybody's being recruited no matter what.
Speaker: I need you to know that right now.
Speaker: Your friends are being talked to, whether you're talking to them or not.
Speaker: And I kind of joke around, but I'm like, it's like the mission when you say, hey, they're going to go to a church.
Speaker: So might as well bring them to the true church.
Speaker: That's what I say, but I was just joking.
Speaker: But I'm like, NLite, you got to think of it as the truth.
Speaker: You bring them to the truth.
Speaker: Don't feel weird about introducing it.
Speaker: And you need to sell and light the rest of the year.
Speaker: And as managers, as executives, we have to provide so much value and really build out a process and structures and culture that our reps feel comfortable and confident and have this strong desire to recruit and say, I want other people to be a part of this.
Speaker: And so actually what we've been doing lately, and it's a huge...
Speaker: pillar of nlight is our charity uh contributions and our charity movement and we appeal to different people in the industry there's a whole segment of people who don't freaking care they don't care about charity there's like you're a store door we should make a ton of money there's a lot of good people who do care but it's kind of a back back thought you know like oh yeah you know throw some money to charity and then we appeal to a group of people who say hey um i want to impact the world
Speaker: And if I can make money while doing it, a lot of money, awesome, right?
Speaker: So this last year, we've actually, we're on the board of directors of this foundation called Migo Dan Esperanza.
Speaker: And that is a huge, I would say, appeal to people.
Speaker: And it's a huge, it fills me up.
Speaker: It fills me up, Sanjeev, Josh, because at a certain point, money isn't everything.
Speaker: And so we were on this board and we partnered with this foundation and we were able to contribute and donate as a 250 rep company.
Speaker: We donated half a million dollars last year to Migrana Esperanza and they are a child cancer hospital in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Speaker: Yeah, so they own their own hospital down there and we're helping complete it.
Speaker: But I mean, and not to toot horns and maybe you can toot it for me, but I'm saying, but not toot horns on donations.
Speaker: But, you know, it's just that we want that to be who we are and what we're about.
Speaker: And we're actually going to have a nonprofit division here soon.
Speaker: But there's a lot of companies out there who are much, much, much bigger.
Speaker: And they'll be like, yeah, we donate 50 grand.
Speaker: you know, as a multi multi-million dollar company.
Speaker: And you're like, cool dude, that's awesome.
Speaker: But it's not who they are.
Speaker: And actually that, that first year Taylor, when we didn't make any money,
Speaker: Sanjeev decided to take all of us to Mexico City and we donated, I think it was $20,000 to a children hospital there.
Speaker: Again, most of it was out of Sanjeev's pocket.
Speaker: And he said he did it.
Speaker: He said, look, I did it to create culture.
Speaker: Like it was, he's like, I did it to bond us as a group of 10, 15 guys.
Speaker: He's like, when you give when it hurts,
Speaker: That's when it matters.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, you can give when you got a ton laying around, right?
Speaker: When you give when it hurts, that's what forms culture.
Speaker: And that core group that went on that first Mexico trip, that's who is still with us now.
Speaker: And that humanitarian aspect, I'd say really bonds us.
Speaker: And that's like one root core value within NLINE.
Speaker: that you give and it's it's a known thing and actually it's cool because over summer we um we assign a child in need to each rep or a couple reps because sometimes they're sometimes a child needs more like five or six thousand for their
Speaker: for their treatment.
Speaker: And so we'll assign them to a couple of reps, but you know, it's like, Hey Taylor, as a rep, you were assigned, you know, assigned Eduardo, he has this cancer.
Speaker: Here's a video.
Speaker: You can actually WhatsApp text him and his family.
Speaker: And your goal is to raise a couple thousand dollars from your commissions a summer to pay for his cancer treatments.
Speaker: And then we'll fly you down after summer and you get to go meet him and see how he's doing and see his family.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So it's a pretty cool, yeah, that was a big, big side note, but that's actually really important in our business because I don't want to be everybody else.
Speaker: You know, I don't want to, I don't care what everybody else is doing.
Speaker: I don't care if they're doing crypto and paying their reps in crypto or if they got this new tech cool app or if they got this billion dollar valuation.
Speaker: I care about the impact we have on our reps, the impact that we have on the people around us and the sustainability of our company long-term and the real value that we're going to add.
Speaker: Cause I hate like, and you've seen it when people are like, Oh, we're going to sell or we've got this billion dollar valuation or we've got this, this app that's worth all this money.
Speaker: And then the next year they're like,
Speaker: Okay, well, we don't have the app, but now we're doing crypto.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Oh, we don't have the crypto, but now we're going to do alarms, roofing, solar, pest control.
Speaker: And so they change every year and there's fluctuating all over and they don't know who they are.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: I definitely want to just stay true to who we are and keep that.
Speaker: that humanitarian aspect and be true to our guys.
Speaker: But anyway, sorry, long tangent.
Speaker: No, no, I love hearing that.
Speaker: And yeah, anyone that's, you know, running a team or running a company, that's, yeah, I hope you're taking notes because that's powerful, man.
Speaker: And I can see, you know, the values you guys have and just how much success it's been able to help your company, your teams have.
Speaker: And like you said, keep guys on because, yeah, if you can build that deep connection and get guys to, you know, really buy in that they're helping a specific person, specific family, that's powerful.
Speaker: And, uh, yeah, my, my companies, we've done things on a smaller scale of that, but yeah, that's, that's really cool what you guys are doing.
Speaker: So definitely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm going to take notes on that, but it's been awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then for sure to your point of just like having the newest technology, newest ops, all that.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, I've been the first company I was with without mentioning names and all that.
Speaker: That was the, that was the thing for like four or five years.
Speaker: Even we were having lots of issues, lots of problems, um,
Speaker: And like the only reason I stayed that long is because, oh, we're, they're like, we're going to sell for sure.
Speaker: You're going to get this money.
Speaker: We're going to sell.
Speaker: And we, you know, valuation, exactly what you're saying.
Speaker: So I think if you're trying to base your company just off of that, that you're going to sell on just this golden handcuff type thing, then it's tough to get your reps as bought in.
Speaker: Cause I know I wasn't really bought in.
Speaker: I was like,
Speaker: the solar reason i was staying so yeah well i'll be honest to anybody who's listened to this and i love that there's a solar dominant you know solar podcast yeah dude solar uh unless they own their financing right like sunrun they're valuable right publicly traded of course yeah right unless they own assets that have reoccurring revenue
Speaker: they're probably not selling for much.
Speaker: I mean, they might.
Speaker: And I think maybe one day I know Lumio is like bundling up these companies, you know, whatever.
Speaker: There's doing a lot of, there's a lot of stuff out there.
Speaker: But,
Speaker: it's going to be rare and it's probably not going to happen because if Taylor Armstrong has a team of 10 guys and they eat what they kill and they just go out and sell.
Speaker: And then I buy them and I said, dude, how much are you selling?
Speaker: Well, we're doing actually like a hundred a week.
Speaker: Oh, are you?
Speaker: I don't know how to prove that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But then I buy you.
Speaker: Well, what's the guarantee that you guys are going to stay there, that they're going to continue to sell a hundred a week or even 10 a week.
Speaker: And so as an investor on my end,
Speaker: That was a really stupid decision.
Speaker: But I'd say like solar companies, they're not sitting on assets where other companies, yeah, some of them are.
Speaker: I mean, I'll be honest.
Speaker: Solar is great because our reps get like
Speaker: 80, 90% of the total payable commissions, like even possible, right?
Speaker: As a, as a dealer, like we only take a small, a small portion for the service and value that we provide.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Where you look at pest control.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I can just talk openly about pest control on this, on this podcast.
Speaker: Pest control.
Speaker: Actually, I sat down with a guy and I said, look, um, how long does an average pest control count stick around?
Speaker: Uh, let's say, I don't know, six, seven years.
Speaker: Sometimes I know my mom's had pest control for like 15 years.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I don't know, let's say five, six, seven years.
Speaker: I don't know how long they do.
Speaker: But even if it's six, seven years, right?
Speaker: Six years at $600, it's $3,600 that that company's pulling in off that contract, right?
Speaker: And they're paying you, I don't know if you're good, you know, first you're 45, 50%, right?
Speaker: So $300, you're one, that's it.
Speaker: off a $3,600 valued revenue contract.
Speaker: So they're paying, you know, a little less than 10%, about an 8%.
Speaker: You know, they love you, Taylor, 8%.
Speaker: You know, they love that rep, 8% worth.
Speaker: Where here in solar, out of everything payable over a 25-year loan, 25-year PPA, whatever,
Speaker: we're paying like 80, 90% to reps.
Speaker: And that's why they make the 10 grand, you know, per sale where pest control.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The executive man, you as a company owner, you're sitting on cash, but as a first year rep,
Speaker: Maybe, you know, when you're like the VP and you're working your way up to regional and stuff, yeah, you're probably getting some good residuals and payoffs, obviously.
Speaker: But I would say I care more about let's get that money to those reps.
Speaker: Let's make a difference.
Speaker: And that's kind of why, again, I don't think any solar, there's not a lot of solar companies out there.
Speaker: I mean, Legacy, I will shout out, they're doing a good job who can go sponsor the Utah Jazz and stuff because you're having this, you eat what you kill.
Speaker: You're not sitting on a ton of value.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Man, I love hearing you bash on the pest because actually I have a cousin right now that's at BYU.
Speaker: You know how BYU is?
Speaker: He's been hit by a thousand pest control companies.
Speaker: And he's like, I'm trying to get him to come do solar.
Speaker: And he's like, Taylor, but pests sound so good.
Speaker: I can like start making all this residual.
Speaker: I'm like, bro, you can literally make it.
Speaker: You're like, yeah.
Speaker: The pest control money in one day.
Speaker: If you recruit like a hundred of your friends, you will make so much money off your friends.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: So I'm going to have to send this podcast to them after we're done.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Send it to them because that is the way that's when I was looking into it and I'm sure, you know, back in the day when you were two, it's like, okay, so if I recruit a ton of people in pest control, I'd make a lot of money.
Speaker: But if I personally do,
Speaker: sell a lot in pest control, I'll make okay.
Speaker: But if I personally work hard in solar, I'll make a ton of money.
Speaker: That's why to this day, as an owner of the company, I go out and bust my butt a couple days a week, really throw them in.
Speaker: Because, hey, if you're going to pay me 10 to 20 grand for going out and working a day,
Speaker: That's hard to talk to you out of.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: I took out a few reps the other day.
Speaker: You know, we closed two deals.
Speaker: Hey, I was like 26 grand.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, that was a good day.
Speaker: You know, solid day.
Speaker: Tell me one pest control guy who's ever done 26 grand commission paid to them in a day.
Speaker: You know, it doesn't happen.
Speaker: And I can do that.
Speaker: I can do that day over day.
Speaker: You know, if I want to put in that word.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: And it's so funny how like the solar money is just because pest control is good money.
Speaker: Like when I was in college, I was like, Oh my gosh, 20, 30, maybe even 30 grand in a summer.
Speaker: That's insane.
Speaker: And now it's like, you know, in solar, if you're not doing that in a month, you're like, okay, you're not working that hard.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: It's very true.
Speaker: It's true, man.
Speaker: And you know what I've learned and actually I want to talk, I want to share a little, a little gold nugget that we've been working on at NLIFE is when it comes to sales, like we've been really trying to push our guys.
Speaker: We have this mentality as rule within our company of 80, 20.
Speaker: And I think a lot of guys come into a summer or into a company and they're kind of like, cool, like, so where's my 20, 30 grand that you promised?
Speaker: You know, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on.
Speaker: Like, there's some expectation to be set.
Speaker: Actually, that's what I've learned as a business owner.
Speaker: is expectations are super key.
Speaker: I think as salesmen, if we try to go start a business, sometimes we're just like running and gunning and we're a little unclear with expectations.
Speaker: And so we'd say 80, 20 at NLINE, 80% of the time and the work is put into yourself.
Speaker: If Tanner Huber isn't a stud, if he's not a baller, I won't be able to recruit or sell, you know?
Speaker: And then 20% is delegating out and giving tools to others.
Speaker: So as a manager, 20% is really just setting expectations, following up, giving of that 80% that you just did.
Speaker: So I'll be working in my office and I'll try to do 80% of my time is creating value.
Speaker: And then 20% of time is delivering it to others.
Speaker: Because I think too many people get bogged down doing other people's jobs
Speaker: and not investing enough in themselves.
Speaker: And so for example, my reps, their 80% is they need to be putting in the time.
Speaker: They need to be watching the videos, doing the trainings, and taking advantage of that and putting time into themselves and taking advantage of my 20% that I'm giving them.
Speaker: Yeah, that's super powerful.
Speaker: Yeah, don't take enough personal responsibility on and they don't take advantage of those tools that are provided from a company and they think that you're supposed to do it for them.
Speaker: It's like, no, no, no.
Speaker: Hey, man, I'm going to give you everything and all the value and the processes that you need, but you need to take this and excel.
Speaker: That's what we're going to work on at that point.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I love that.
Speaker: And it's just the whole concept of, you know, leading from the front and all that.
Speaker: And, you know, or you've heard like the church talks, all that help put your mask on on their plane before you help other people put their masks on.
Speaker: So it's like, you know, same concept.
Speaker: And I think a lot of people forget it.
Speaker: They're trying to go recruit these teams and get that next big rep when they're not, they're not watering their own field.
Speaker: So love that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And actually,
Speaker: Um, here at Enlight, just real quick to talk about leading from the front.
Speaker: We, we structure our pay that way too.
Speaker: Not, never will our area managers, our managers be able to sit on their butt and just make money off guys.
Speaker: That's not how it's done here.
Speaker: We actually pay them more on their sales as they recruit more.
Speaker: Isn't that cool?
Speaker: So instead of taking more from other guys, we pay them more on their own.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And so it's a cool incentive to say, hey, if you recruit more, you're going to make more on your sales.
Speaker: So then that motivates you to sell more and be a better example from the front.
Speaker: Where other companies structure it and they say, yeah, go recruit, make a ton of money off of people.
Speaker: And then you're kind of incentivized to just recruit and just kind of sit around and make money off your team.
Speaker: But then as a leader, when you go out over summer, you're sitting around and you have really no motivation to go sell.
Speaker: Because you're like, yeah, I'm going to make like 5% of my income on my sales.
Speaker: 95% of it comes from these guys.
Speaker: So we try to change that.
Speaker: We try to always keep a good portion of income coming from those sales.
Speaker: Even if it means we're making nothing on that manager, we say, I want you to lead from the front.
Speaker: Because your value isn't to us, isn't the money we're making on your sales.
Speaker: It's the example you're setting.
Speaker: It's the people you're leading.
Speaker: Even if we're making nothing, you go make all that money on your sales so you can show the rest that it can be done.
Speaker: as a leader.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: That's a great point with that.
Speaker: And so Tanner, as we're running a little bit short on time here, but last couple of questions I kind of wanted to hit you with, um, with your summer program.
Speaker: I know a big problem that you probably seen, um, is guys come out, especially in short amount of time,
Speaker: Um, sometimes it takes guys just like it took you a couple months to ramp up, maybe start closing their own deals.
Speaker: So how do you guys structure it when they're coming out just for the summer?
Speaker: The guys are going to start closing right off the bat or do you the whole like, you know, quote, have your first five, 10 deals?
Speaker: We do.
Speaker: We actually believe in closing right off the bat.
Speaker: You know, I mean,
Speaker: you have to get it approved.
Speaker: You got to be an approved closer and you got to pass it off.
Speaker: But we want a hundred percent of our guys passed off pre-summer.
Speaker: There's a handful of guys, you know, that takes two weeks maybe, but man, if you're after two weeks, not closing an end line, you're not doing your job because Taylor, I'll be honest when I don't know how these other companies do it.
Speaker: I don't, it doesn't go through my mind, but if I came to you and said, Hey, you can be a setter and make, you know, I don't know how they even pay 10% commission or,
Speaker: $20 an hour or whatever, you make 10%.
Speaker: Or you can learn to be a closer and make 100%.
Speaker: And then you tell me, I'll just make the 10.
Speaker: I'd be like, what?
Speaker: I don't even know if I want that person associated with my company because they're so satisfied with just setting leads.
Speaker: And maybe there's different skill sets, right?
Speaker: But again, I hope that that person's motivated enough to learn the skill set of closing.
Speaker: And so we bring on people who are motivated enough to learn to be closers.
Speaker: And so everybody closes here at Enlight.
Speaker: But we have this insane training program.
Speaker: So it started out when I started.
Speaker: It was like, hey, and I shadowed Josh on the doors and Sanjeev ran me through the clothes.
Speaker: And it was like, learn how you can go.
Speaker: Every year it's gotten more meticulous.
Speaker: And now we have this six-step training process.
Speaker: I mean, we've got a call center.
Speaker: We sell in Utah.
Speaker: So they've got to go sell in Utah.
Speaker: They've got to do the call center.
Speaker: They've got to go to California.
Speaker: They've got to do a preseason.
Speaker: They've got the online training.
Speaker: They've got the in-person trainings.
Speaker: They've got the Sunrun portal.
Speaker: They've got the SunPower portal.
Speaker: They've got all of these training processes and we require them to pass off six steps.
Speaker: There's a lot of stuff they've got to do.
Speaker: That's why we probably could have the five, six, seven hundred reps.
Speaker: I mean, there could be more, but a lot of them aren't willing to do what it takes.
Speaker: We'd say, cool, no worries.
Speaker: You're going to probably have a struggling, have a rough summer ahead of you.
Speaker: So it's best that you don't come out because you aren't able to fulfill these requirements.
Speaker: Wow, that's cool.
Speaker: So you guys are basically set to go off and running by the time they get there.
Speaker: It's none of this boot camp.
Speaker: They already know the stuff by the time they're out for the summer.
Speaker: Dude, we don't want to waste any time.
Speaker: Day one, they're out there closing.
Speaker: Obviously, their cancellation ratio, their first month kind of sucks.
Speaker: We know that already.
Speaker: And then they improve it, slowly improve it, improve it.
Speaker: And then June, July, August, they're just killing it.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: That's a good tip with that.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: And then last question here, Tanner, for you guys recruiting, are you doing the whole like, you know, zip recruiter recruiting local or are you guys trying to get people out of Utah, different states, whatever, kind of like the typical summer sales thing or what's your best strategies on finding those like pillar guys?
Speaker: I'll be honest.
Speaker: We are like purebred.
Speaker: But I'll say like, you know, you're like, dude, go BYU thing.
Speaker: You know, we do a lot of BYU, a lot of BYU guys.
Speaker: But, you know, as you grow, you can never just stay at BYU, right?
Speaker: I think a lot of companies start that way.
Speaker: But, you know, we're up in Rexburg.
Speaker: We're down in Dixie.
Speaker: We're all over Utah, you know.
Speaker: We've been out here in Sacramento.
Speaker: We've been recruiting.
Speaker: But I'd say predominantly, you know, we definitely look –
Speaker: to bring on these intelligent people.
Speaker: You bring on smart people.
Speaker: Our top reps aren't the bros.
Speaker: I've actually, and Taylor, I don't know how, I don't know in your opinion, tell me what you think.
Speaker: Can you spot a stud rep?
Speaker: Can you just tell me like, that guy's gonna kill it?
Speaker: I don't know anymore.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Can you?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: No, it's tough.
Speaker: Because I'll tell you, I didn't think Allison was going to sell $455,000 worth of solar.
Speaker: We've had reps that are the most unassuming reps, but they go through our process and they kill it.
Speaker: And then I have other reps where I'm like, dude, you're a stud.
Speaker: You're on the, you know, your football team guy, you're the lacrosse guy.
Speaker: Like you're just a total baller and he's even got experience, but he's not willing to put in those little steps.
Speaker: And he's outperformed like 10 to one by these other people.
Speaker: So it's crazy.
Speaker: So, so we bring them all on.
Speaker: We bring in a lot of volume.
Speaker: We'd sift it through our processes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And we get those that are willing to work on the other side and willing to complete the objectives.
Speaker: And those are the ones that get to go out with us over summer.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: That's fire.
Speaker: So yeah, great tips for recruiting.
Speaker: Yeah, awesome stuff.
Speaker: You talked about Tanner and I appreciate you coming on the show.
Speaker: And by the way, how did, so we got connected by Bennett, who was my old, you know, guy who started the dealer I was working for.
Speaker: You got any juicy stories on Bennett or can we see any lazy days from Bennett that I can give him crap?
Speaker: No, well,
Speaker: Yes and no.
Speaker: So Bennett, man, you know, he came on, like we didn't even recruit him until maybe a couple of weeks before summer.
Speaker: And he came on and I love, I would love to say, well, I trained him up.
Speaker: No, that guy, man, he trained himself.
Speaker: And then he went out.
Speaker: Yeah, he is, he is a different guy.
Speaker: His mind is just a million miles an hour, but he went out and I remember, I think we were like 33 deals mid June.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it was like a month and a half in and we're like both at 33.
Speaker: And I was like,
Speaker: No, no, no, no.
Speaker: I'm the top guy.
Speaker: Like this was when I got to actually sell.
Speaker: And at Enlight, I wasn't a partner yet.
Speaker: And I was like, no, no, no.
Speaker: My only value, my only value is being the number one rep.
Speaker: Like if I'm not the number one rep, Sanjeev and Josh won't love me anymore.
Speaker: You know, I was like, oh no.
Speaker: And so I was like distraught.
Speaker: I was like, oh my gosh, Bennett is, what the freak is his first year in solar?
Speaker: He is crushing it.
Speaker: I was like upset.
Speaker: Like, what are you doing?
Speaker: You know, and he'd give me tips and tricks when he'd kind of talk.
Speaker: But, and then the last half of summer,
Speaker: Bennett is all about processes.
Speaker: I don't know if you know.
Speaker: And so he actually kind of faded off the doors a little bit, really focused on all these processes, which ended up paying him long term when he went and did his own thing.
Speaker: But I was able to beat him because he kind of got off the doors.
Speaker: And I was like, thank goodness.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: And so I came through and did more than him.
Speaker: But it's those processes that ended up making him a lot of money long term and he killed it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, he's a good guy.
Speaker: He's a good guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, Dan, I know we'll let you get to your training and stuff you got coming up here, but before we wrap up here, if guys want to connect with you or find out more about Nlight, do you have some, I don't know, social media handles or anything?
Speaker: Any way guys can connect with you from the podcast?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So at GoNlight, and actually I manage all marketing at Nlight, so I kind of help oversee that.
Speaker: at go in light.
Speaker: Uh, I got a little touch in there and then the solar summer.com or nlight home.com.
Speaker: But really the solar summer.com is kind of our rep facing.
Speaker: And then for me personally reach out.
Speaker: I also love real estate.
Speaker: I've got 18 units, you know, just flip the sixplex got, you know, a bunch of duplexes under work.
Speaker: Like I love real estate investing.
Speaker: Um, you know, I've got like a, you know, 5.7 million or something in the portfolio.
Speaker: So there's, you know, got a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker: You're going to reach out to me and like get any tips or tricks like, Hey man, how are you doing real estate?
Speaker: Well, first of all, I got to have some money.
Speaker: And so I found that through door to door, but reach out to me.
Speaker: It's at T underscore Hughes, H U B E S. Cool.
Speaker: So Tanner Huber, that's, that's my, uh, my handle there.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Well, we will drop that in the show notes and yeah, maybe we'll have to do another show on real estate because that's something guys looking to get into.
Speaker: But anyways, thanks for coming on Tanner.
Speaker: Thanks for all the value you dropped and guys go hit him up.
Speaker: Let him know you appreciate it for him coming on the show with us today.
Speaker: And I'm sure we'll talk soon, but appreciate you Tanner.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Thank you, Taylor.
Speaker: That was awesome.
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