Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a 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: Okay, what is going on?
Speaker: We are back on another podcast, and I'm stoked today because we have someone that is coming on for the second time.
Speaker: Not too many people that can say that.
Speaker: So we have the one, the only, Mikey Lucas coming back on the show.
Speaker: Thanks for hopping on with us again, Mikey.
Speaker: Yeah, man.
Speaker: Thanks for having me, brother.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker: And a lot has changed since we, what is that?
Speaker: Like, I think it's been what, year and a half, two years maybe?
Speaker: Yeah, two years I think now, yeah.
Speaker: When I was out in San Diego with you, yeah.
Speaker: Been almost two years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Been a while.
Speaker: And so I know a ton has changed.
Speaker: And me and you, we didn't talk for a long time either.
Speaker: Last time I saw you was at SolarCon.
Speaker: This guy was running around in his, what's that Middle Eastern getup?
Speaker: It's called a Thove.
Speaker: Thove, okay.
Speaker: So he's running around in his Thove and telling people about this energy fund.
Speaker: But yeah, he definitely drew some attention.
Speaker: I was like, who is this?
Speaker: We got Iraqis running around over here.
Speaker: Who is this guy?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't even recognize you until like the second year.
Speaker: A bunch of dudes were like, yo, did you, did you like convert to Islam?
Speaker: And I was like, nah, man, Jesus is Lord, bro.
Speaker: We're so good, bro.
Speaker: It's just a cultural thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, I know you're doing some cool stuff and maybe tell everyone why you're wearing that.
Speaker: Everything.
Speaker: But yeah, do you want to tell us what you've been up to the past year and a half?
Speaker: So and any of kind of transitions, you're not selling solar, at least I don't think you're selling solar day to day anymore, but you're doing a lot of other things.
Speaker: So yeah, do you want to give us just kind of a quick update on what you've been up to the past year, year and a half?
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: So I'll kind of give like the the overview, but then I kind of I want to I would like to talk about like why it happened.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So basically what I'm doing right now, I transitioned.
Speaker: My end goal was to become the bank.
Speaker: So eventually I wanted to own a bank, right?
Speaker: Be an venture capitalist, be an institutional investor and an angel investor.
Speaker: I was looked up to those guys.
Speaker: Those guys are the guys that were driving the Rolls Royces.
Speaker: They had all the nice, you know,
Speaker: the beautiful families, the nice homes and all that stuff.
Speaker: And that was like what I thought I wanted.
Speaker: But in reality, what I actually wanted was I wanted a challenge.
Speaker: And door-to-door absolutely challenged me for the decade I did it.
Speaker: I installed in my career within my offices $178 million in solar.
Speaker: 27 of that was my own.
Speaker: A million was my own.
Speaker: And I knew that I wanted to get challenged.
Speaker: So the next progression, kind of like going from a real estate agent to a real estate investor to then a builder and then a
Speaker: The bank was for Mikey Lucas was, you know, go in, be a setter and then go in, you know, be a closer, self-generate, then go and get leads.
Speaker: Then you'll start your own kind of management and kind of work your way up to regional manager or whatever, whatever, and then start your own dealer and so on and so forth.
Speaker: Kind of the same concept within DoorDotRore.
Speaker: I knew that energy was definitely my industry I wanted to stay in.
Speaker: It was my expertise.
Speaker: You know, I technically fought oil and gas for a long time, but I didn't really wasn't really fighting oil and gas.
Speaker: I was fighting this this systemic issue we have with our energy with an energy crisis that we all believe in.
Speaker: And we all know that is true.
Speaker: I actually get more afraid.
Speaker: I know you're in California, so you see more prevalent than we do here in Texas.
Speaker: But I'm actually more afraid of our energy grid.
Speaker: and energy production, when I see more Teslas and electric cars on the road, it actually scares the crap out of me because I know how much power those things pull.
Speaker: I mean, if you guys own a house, you've ever seen with your Tesla pulled in, or plugged in rather, that meter spins very, very, very fast.
Speaker: Like, let alone if you have your AC on in the summertime and your Tesla plugged in.
Speaker: Golly, that thing is moving quick.
Speaker: So I knew that there was a major problem.
Speaker: And, you know, Jim Rohn talks about we we get paid for the problems that we solve.
Speaker: And I think that this is a major problem, which is why I started the American Energy Fund with my partner, Brad Barron's.
Speaker: You know, we believe that we need to have a clean transition to a sustainable energy future.
Speaker: And, you know, we can't necessarily rely on the government to help us get there, but we can, as entrepreneurs, as business professionals, we can do that.
Speaker: So that's what we started, you know, the American Energy Fund for.
Speaker: You know, we were putting...
Speaker: I always tell people like, you know, hey, you know, while you're partying on a Saturday, we're going to go make sure we keep the lights on.
Speaker: So I know that if we don't do something about it now, there's a chance that the electric grids in the United States, not just here in Texas, but the electric grids in the States.
Speaker: First of all, they're extremely vulnerable.
Speaker: But, you know, if we don't do something about it now, we're going to have major issues in the next foreseeable future.
Speaker: That's why I started the grid.
Speaker: I started the American Energy Fund.
Speaker: But yeah, I've got a mastermind.
Speaker: I coach.
Speaker: I don't do any sales anymore.
Speaker: I just do financial coaching and education.
Speaker: So I help solar professionals, door-to-door professionals, real estate professionals as well, create $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 a month in passive income.
Speaker: So it's easy to make money.
Speaker: It's the hard part's keeping it, right?
Speaker: The easy part's
Speaker: The hard part's not making it.
Speaker: The hard part's keeping it and investing it well.
Speaker: And the issue is that there's TikTok experts online and gurus on YouTube.
Speaker: And most of them don't tell you what the billionaires are telling you.
Speaker: So my motto or investment thesis is invest like a billionaire, not a millionaire.
Speaker: So that's kind of what I've been up to, Taylor.
Speaker: That's what I got, bro.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And hey, by the way, you got your Vegas Golden Knights get up on.
Speaker: So congrats on the win.
Speaker: Appreciate it.
Speaker: Go Golden Knights.
Speaker: Love us or hate us, baby.
Speaker: We're still the winners.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We've got the sports themes going.
Speaker: If you're looking at the video, I got my little Padres shirt on.
Speaker: So we're in the teams.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're going to win the ship here this year as well.
Speaker: The Padres.
Speaker: I hope so.
Speaker: I hope so.
Speaker: I'm not really a baseball fan, but I went to a game.
Speaker: They gave me the shirt and
Speaker: I'm like, hey, that shirt is sick.
Speaker: That shirt is sick, bro.
Speaker: Hawaiian Padres.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: Was it on a Sunday or Saturday?
Speaker: It was like on a Wednesday, I think.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: It was last week.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: That's probably why.
Speaker: Yeah, I went with a bunch of our team and none of them really are Padres fans.
Speaker: So by like the fifth inning, there was only like three of us left at the game.
Speaker: I think the box seats just, you know, eating food and stuff.
Speaker: But it was fun.
Speaker: It's a good time.
Speaker: I have a restaurant.
Speaker: I have an Everbowl in Padres Stadium, actually.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I have to hit it up next time.
Speaker: But anyways, not to turn this into a sports podcast.
Speaker: That's for next show, I guess.
Speaker: But it's cool to hear what you're doing.
Speaker: And what I like about that is most solar reps probably don't even care, especially starting out.
Speaker: Like, I know I didn't know about any of this stuff and I didn't know we were in an energy crisis.
Speaker: So that is good to know.
Speaker: And cool to hear that people are thinking about that for our future generations.
Speaker: But yeah, that reminds me, like, you know, what happened in California in EM3 where they're now requiring batteries to
Speaker: And I don't know, I think that's part of the reason California did that, it seems like to maybe take stress off the grid so much and have people be more self sufficient.
Speaker: So what's your thoughts on that?
Speaker: And do you think what California did?
Speaker: Do you think that's headed to other markets in the near future?
Speaker: Or what do you think about that?
Speaker: Yeah, dude.
Speaker: So yeah, I do agree to a certain extent.
Speaker: So let me explain myself on that.
Speaker: Elon has always said that, you know, and most of my, just to be clear, most of my information comes from Elon.
Speaker: I'd say over, you know, between 50 and 60% of my information comes from Elon.
Speaker: And then I obviously go source it and check it.
Speaker: But most of it comes from Elon.
Speaker: Elon's obviously a really, really big thinker and a big supporter of Elon in most of his life, right?
Speaker: Not all of his life, but most of his life.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: He's got some, you know, if, if you believe in a meritocracy where like the best idea wins, Elon's ideas are typically pretty good, right?
Speaker: For the most part.
Speaker: And he hasn't been wrong very, very much as of recently over the last at least 10, 15 years.
Speaker: Elon has always said like one of the reasons he started SolarCity was one of the reasons was rather one of the results or I guess one of the, not the results, but one of the plans right inside of the end goal to have a sustainable energy future, like a green future basically, transition out of fossil fuels into a renewable sustainable energy future is what his goal with SolarCity was and Tesla's now.
Speaker: But
Speaker: His idea was to have micro grids.
Speaker: So one of the things he was talking about with Tesla Energy, with the batteries, Tesla Powerwalls, was to be able to store the power during a crisis, be able to give the power back to the power grid, which is basically these little neighborhoods, if you will, of micro grids.
Speaker: Now, is the energy grid set up to do that?
Speaker: No, the energy grid is set up to do one thing from power company, from power generation to the homes and the businesses, not the other way around.
Speaker: But if we transition to that in the future, or if we can get more micro grids on the grid, on our grid, then yes, absolutely, it's gonna get to that point.
Speaker: And I think that's just one of the smartest things they can do.
Speaker: The hard part is, if we use California, an example, right?
Speaker: It's like, you know, California has its issues in and of itself, right?
Speaker: So they're buying, they're shutting down nuclear, natural gas,
Speaker: and coal power plants left and right, which is what's led to this massive spike in cost.
Speaker: And it's almost like it's a no-brainer to do solar in California.
Speaker: I don't care what utility you're in, sub-utility, whatever you're in, it is an absolute no-brainer.
Speaker: It's almost like you're an idiot if you don't do solar in California.
Speaker: I mean, if you can, if you can own your home.
Speaker: So do I see that happening in the future?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The same thing they're trying.
Speaker: I've been wanting when I worked at SolarCity, which is Tesla now, back in the day, I would watch the Texas Public Utilities Commission's videos and they were talking about like having microgrids, the same concept.
Speaker: And yeah, it seems like that's going to be going where the future is at.
Speaker: Now, what the cool thing is, Taylor, is that that's actually already happening overseas.
Speaker: So in America, we just turn the lights on, expect the lights to turn on.
Speaker: Overseas, which you've been overseas and I've been overseas as
Speaker: well, they don't just have readily available access to electricity like we do here.
Speaker: So it is a privilege to have electricity overseas.
Speaker: They're actually built, instead of running in very expensive lines from power companies and generations and transmission centers, they're actually just creating battery backup and or diesel battery, a diesel powered battery.
Speaker: basically microgrids and little central stations for power for the villages, small cities and towns.
Speaker: That's happening right now.
Speaker: We actually, we're working on a project in Thailand right now where we're doing that.
Speaker: So for them to be able to send the power back in, it's going to cost an extra like 150 grand USD, American dollar to be able to get more electricity for, they've already built this.
Speaker: It was a small village, then it became a town.
Speaker: It's almost to a city now.
Speaker: So they don't have enough power.
Speaker: So they're basically living on some electricity light bulbs, but they don't have AC.
Speaker: They don't have any of these and it's hot.
Speaker: in Thailand.
Speaker: If you've ever been there, it's like the Philippines is sinking hot all the time all day long.
Speaker: It's like, you know, Florida 24-7.
Speaker: But yeah, so the microgrids, they will get there.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: That's going to be one of the best things that's ever happened to the electricity market.
Speaker: It's kind of like with shoes.
Speaker: I heard this the other day.
Speaker: I watched the movie Air last night with my wife.
Speaker: Shoes.
Speaker: They changed shoes twice before the Jordans came out, is what the guy said.
Speaker: They got a creator of the Jordans or the engineer of the Jordans.
Speaker: He's like, the first one for the last 600 years was they were just the same shoe.
Speaker: And the only distinction, there's been two distinctions now, is the shoes and then the left from the right shoe.
Speaker: So it's kind of funny.
Speaker: It's like the power grid is this old, outdated grid.
Speaker: So yes, Taylor, do I see microgrids coming in?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The key here is not just...
Speaker: okay, cool, there's gonna be microgrids.
Speaker: For me, it's how do we capitalize on that?
Speaker: How do we make money on that?
Speaker: It's not just by just selling solar.
Speaker: It is for your listeners and for yourself.
Speaker: It is, hey, go make money by putting up little power plants on homes.
Speaker: And then how do you now invest in that on a utility scale as an investor?
Speaker: And absolutely, all of your listeners can absolutely do that.
Speaker: And we're doing that through the American Energy Fund.
Speaker: So yeah, it's a big deal.
Speaker: I love, love, love, love investing in the grid.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, I've heard from people that know more about it, like overseas, a lot of countries, when people go solar, it's not like where they just add up solar panels.
Speaker: It's like they do the whole home.
Speaker: They add the batteries, they add, I don't know, generators, like a bunch of other stuff as they're doing it.
Speaker: So yeah, I think that's probably where it's headed.
Speaker: And it's cool to hear about that.
Speaker: Um, but no, that's cool.
Speaker: And so I want to switch, shift gears a little bit.
Speaker: And, um, I don't know if everyone knows, but probably most people at this point know that you also were on a podcast called road to the golden door, which is super dope.
Speaker: And I was, um, yeah, I got to be on that.
Speaker: And I think it just came out.
Speaker: You just did it just a release yesterday or something last night.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Sweet.
Speaker: It premiered.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Premiered.
Speaker: Sweet.
Speaker: So at the time of this, it's probably been out for a few weeks at this point.
Speaker: So you can go check that out.
Speaker: We'll link to it.
Speaker: But super cool podcast.
Speaker: And it's really cool because you're teaching guys how they can like the mindset they need to get their first golden door and guys that have gotten multiple golden doors.
Speaker: So it's really cool.
Speaker: I think what you're doing is for like the whole door or industry.
Speaker: So
Speaker: I want to shift gears and talk about that a little bit.
Speaker: Why did you decide to start this podcast and focus in on just that one thing, helping guys get a golden door award?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So this is, this is not public yet, but this is a marketing thing.
Speaker: So this is for the listeners.
Speaker: Most people, they start a podcast without an intention.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So my mentor, Cole Hatter always told me, Hey, don't start a podcast unless you can monetize it, unless you can make money on it in some way, fashion or form.
Speaker: And I was like, okay,
Speaker: So I actually started a like just an interviewing podcast, like, you know, whatever, get in front of more people before.
Speaker: I don't remember what it was called.
Speaker: It was something about money, right?
Speaker: It was like some wealth, whatever, right?
Speaker: Wealth, wealthy millennial or something like that, right?
Speaker: It didn't really go anywhere.
Speaker: And I was like, because I didn't have like a passion for it and I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker: So the real reason why I started it was really two things.
Speaker: One, I needed to get in front of my client avatar.
Speaker: My client avatar is a Golden Door Award winner because Golden Door Award winners make half a million dollars, two million dollars a year, which means they have major problems with time to be able to go and invest and the ability to know what to invest into.
Speaker: And also they have a huge tax...
Speaker: a tax, you know, they have a huge tax liability.
Speaker: You know, they pay a lot of money in taxes.
Speaker: So my fund actually helps target those kind of people.
Speaker: So one, what most people don't understand about podcasts or even marketing in general is they think just starting a podcast, you just start a podcast.
Speaker: Well, why do you start a podcast?
Speaker: I didn't just start the podcast just to make money on it, but this is not charity, right?
Speaker: Like I'm married.
Speaker: I'm going to have kids soon.
Speaker: Like I'm doing this.
Speaker: This is a long, this is there's, I have three podcasts this week.
Speaker: One with one with you here.
Speaker: And then two on, for my show, like I'm not just spending an hour and a half to five hours out of my, out of my week, six hours out of my week when I'm working a hundred hours a week, 96 hours a week, every single week for the last couple of years.
Speaker: You know, that's a lot of time.
Speaker: So the reason why I started it was because one, I wanted to, there was one way to get in front of people that I would never have gotten in front of in the first place, but it's also starving, solving a major problem.
Speaker: A lot of people, okay.
Speaker: Most people are not like you, Taylor, where you got, you have a show and you're actually helping and adding value to the industry.
Speaker: I wanted to lift up on a pedestal a lot of these top guys and girls that are in the industry.
Speaker: So the number two thing why I did it was to lift up the people that are already there.
Speaker: Like they get one picture, one moment on stage, and now they're getting their name, their brand, you know, them to get put out on the internet.
Speaker: So the reason why I targeted Golden Door Award winners solely on the top 1% of the door industry is because I want to promote them.
Speaker: I'm like, yo, this is my podcast, but I'm promoting you, bro.
Speaker: Like recruit on this show.
Speaker: Do whatever you want to do.
Speaker: Promote you, bro.
Speaker: Like why are you the best?
Speaker: Let's put you out there.
Speaker: And then thirdly is because obviously I wanted to add value to the industry as a whole, but I wanted to nurture and add value back to the top dogs because the top dogs, it's very lonely on top.
Speaker: So I built the podcast really not for the entire industry, though the industry gets value from it.
Speaker: I built it so that other Golden Door Award winners can go listen to the other Golden Door Award winners and see how much they're struggling.
Speaker: And they're Ashton Buswell after three months of hitting 100 and 200 deals in three months, thought he wanted to quit the very week after he hit that goal.
Speaker: Was like, I'm done.
Speaker: I want to quit.
Speaker: I don't think I can do this anymore.
Speaker: And luckily, his wife was like, you know, hit him back into shape and got him back on doors.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Like to be able to use road to the golden door as a, as a platform for the weaknesses of the top dogs so that other top dogs, uh, top G's in the industry know that we don't, you're not the only one struggling, right?
Speaker: You're not the only one struggling.
Speaker: You're not the only one with relationship issues.
Speaker: You're not the only one with company issues.
Speaker: You're not the only one with utility issues, bank issues, uh, you know, financial issues, whatever.
Speaker: You're not the one with health issues.
Speaker: You're not the only one.
Speaker: I want you to feel like you have a community and that's what I built it for.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: I've learned a ton from it too.
Speaker: My gosh, I learned every, I'm like taking three pages of notes from these guys.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: I'm in the same boat.
Speaker: And what's really cool is I think, like you said, it brings it to a level where people can kind of relate more with these guys.
Speaker: I know when I started, I thought like, oh, I could never hit that many deals.
Speaker: I can never be on stage.
Speaker: But as you like listen to them, you hear that, hey, they're just regular dudes.
Speaker: And I think people realize that as I've done a podcast too, is like, that's what I try to talk about in my podcast every week.
Speaker: How I didn't close this deal.
Speaker: I struggled in this way.
Speaker: Didn't spend enough time with my wife here.
Speaker: So like...
Speaker: even though we're golden door award winners, we all have a lot of struggles and, um, yeah, it's really cool what you're doing to relate with them.
Speaker: Um, so how many episodes have you had?
Speaker: How many guys have you interviewed on it up to this point?
Speaker: Uh, we're, we're just over 40 episodes now.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're just over 40 now.
Speaker: And, uh, it's going really well.
Speaker: I can't wait to have some of these guys back on because some of these guys are, you know, five time, four time platinum golden door winners, right?
Speaker: I just had Troy DeBenewitz on and he was like a, he's like
Speaker: a three-time platinum right which is like a like like you hit double golden door three years in a row twice so it just keeps hitting platinum now the guy is just insane you know eric salazar michael o'donnell i mean these guys are just like year after year michael schmelzer justin kanutzen these guys are year after year after year hitting it um you know colby free is a two-time about to be three-time golden door winner i've had him on multiple i've had him on i mean these guys are just like just killer so it's cool man about 40 episodes a little over 40 episodes and it's going well i haven't thrown any money at it really
Speaker: So I want to, I'm about to, I'm actually about to, I'm about to start throwing some money at it and start to grow it a little bit more.
Speaker: But you know, I, uh, I've got some really good feedback, which is cool, man.
Speaker: People are like really liking, I mean, there's like bombs being dropped on this thing.
Speaker: Like it's like, I'm a, I'm becoming a really good interviewer.
Speaker: And, uh, I think that's what the cool thing is.
Speaker: Cause like, I'm not there to talk.
Speaker: It's not a sales podcast.
Speaker: It's not a sales podcast.
Speaker: It's a life podcast.
Speaker: But I'm just interviewing these all-stars like yourself.
Speaker: You dropped bombs.
Speaker: I was like, I had two and a half pages of notes on your podcast alone.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: That was a good time.
Speaker: And no, you're doing great work with it.
Speaker: I need to go catch up on all episodes, but I've listened a ton.
Speaker: There's a ton of value there.
Speaker: So we appreciate what you're doing with that.
Speaker: And what's cool is, Mikey, you're a golden.
Speaker: I think 2019, didn't we both step on the stage same year?
Speaker: Not in 2019.
Speaker: I hit it before Golden Door was a golden door in Dallas, Texas in 2016.
Speaker: But I also technically hit it in 2020, which I didn't know.
Speaker: And I don't have the award from 2020, but I did hit it in 2020 as well.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's what's really cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, two times.
Speaker: So you're not only one yourself, but you're interviewing the top guys who are in.
Speaker: And like you said, it's cool because like I got my golden door award, but sometimes interviewing some of these guys that are like multiple platinum hitting like two, three golden doors every year.
Speaker: It's like, man, I got a long ways to go.
Speaker: I thought I was good, but these guys just on another level.
Speaker: So yeah, it's cool to kind of expand the vision and hear the possibilities, see what guys are doing at some of these numbers.
Speaker: But yeah, speaking of that, I want to dive in a little bit.
Speaker: Like, what do you see as you've done these interviews and only done people who've hit these golden door awards?
Speaker: Do you have any like common themes for people who are trying to hit their first golden door?
Speaker: What are some common themes you see across all the success these guys are having that you could share with our listeners?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So for the listeners that are trying to hit it, there's like I can do it in sections.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So the guys that are trying to hit guys and girls that are trying to hit it.
Speaker: The main things that I see is that the Golden Door Award winner, he or she first believed that they could hit it.
Speaker: The only like I think it was like one I think was like Austin Stoker, like didn't even know it was a thing.
Speaker: There was like maybe one or two guys that were like, I didn't even know it was like a thing.
Speaker: And then I was told it was a thing.
Speaker: I think there's one other guy.
Speaker: So there's a couple of things.
Speaker: So one, they believe that they were going to hit it.
Speaker: They set the goal.
Speaker: I'm going to go hit a golden door.
Speaker: So it's almost like they were at door to door con the previous year.
Speaker: And they're like, I want to be on stage.
Speaker: And they went and got it right.
Speaker: That was that.
Speaker: So they had an actual end goal.
Speaker: So there was at least clarity on what they wanted to.
Speaker: I would say that they, one of the main things is that we've had, I've seen rookies hit it first year in door to door ever.
Speaker: And we've obviously seen veterans hit it.
Speaker: So if you're a rookie, you can still hit it, especially now this year, you can hit it as a setter this year.
Speaker: So I'm excited to see the amount of setters that hit 200 deals this year.
Speaker: That's I'm like really excited to see that because there's a lot of there's a lot of recognition that's not being given out.
Speaker: So I'm really glad Sam did that.
Speaker: So rookies can hit it.
Speaker: And I've seen rookies hit it.
Speaker: I mean, they just guys just just hit it.
Speaker: They just there's not like, oh, I'm not good at it yet.
Speaker: Rookies have had it and veterans also hit it.
Speaker: I would say a couple of the main things that if you're trying to hit it for the first year this year is these guys really had a, not a, not a bulletproof routine, but they had some sort of a structure plan routine that there are like their standards were I'm on doors at 9am.
Speaker: I'm,
Speaker: you know, at the gym at 7 a.m.
Speaker: I'm in bed by midnight.
Speaker: Like they had some sort of like, it wasn't a routine.
Speaker: So that's, that's the problem.
Speaker: I have a routine Taylor actually is like routines have to change a lot.
Speaker: Cause like, if like I'm on doors at 9 a.m.
Speaker: Well, what if you have a 9 a.m.
Speaker: appointment?
Speaker: You're not on doors.
Speaker: And then you're like, ah, well now my week's screwed up.
Speaker: No, stop, chill.
Speaker: They just had a standard that they were, they treated themselves as if they were almost W2 employees.
Speaker: They were working from nine, like that's just what it was, or nine to seven, whatever, right?
Speaker: Like some guys are like, I will be home with my wife at 5 a.m.
Speaker: for dinner every day.
Speaker: I haven't seen one guy that hit golden door that's ever done that.
Speaker: Not one.
Speaker: If for the guys that were married, right, they pre overcame that issue of, hey, I, you know, I agree with my wife that I'm gonna be home at five o'clock every single day.
Speaker: Well, brother, you don't have 50 grand a month coming in every single month.
Speaker: you're not going to be able to be with home with your wife at 5.00 AM.
Speaker: You know what you need to do is you need to structure a quality time with your wife when you're not at work and actually get your wife on board to support you to do that so that you guys can go eventually hit your goals.
Speaker: So they also had a plan with their wives.
Speaker: They had to get their wife or their significant other.
Speaker: If you have, if you don't have a wife or a husband at that time, right?
Speaker: Like good, like go and work as hard as you possibly can.
Speaker: But if you do have a wife or a lot of the guys that do have wives and kids, they structured out the 16 hour workday Sunday through Sunday.
Speaker: There was some sort of a clarity on where you're going to spend time with your kids, where it's playing time with your wife, playing time with your kids throughout their week.
Speaker: And they stuck to that.
Speaker: So a lot of the guys, they took all of Sunday and they worked with their family all of Sunday.
Speaker: And that was their thing.
Speaker: And, you know, it's like, then the wife has to get on board with that.
Speaker: And you got to sell your wife on being on board during that year.
Speaker: How does Troy DeBennowitz, a three-time platinum golden door guy, how does he have six kids and a wife?
Speaker: Come on, bro.
Speaker: Like, we like,
Speaker: We act like, oh, I have a wife.
Speaker: I can't.
Speaker: It's like, no, you can.
Speaker: You can.
Speaker: Obviously, there are different situations.
Speaker: I would say definitely the first kid is definitely a lot harder than the sixth kid or fifth kid, right?
Speaker: So there's a situation there.
Speaker: I know that.
Speaker: Yeah, anyways.
Speaker: The other, yeah.
Speaker: Having a little bit of clarity.
Speaker: I think the hard part is what the guys that have not hit it yet, they hit 50, 60 deals a year.
Speaker: Um, why they're not hitting a hundred and 130 or a hundred self trends or 200 deals, you know, the point system, that's a point system now, but, um, why they're not hitting it is because they're going too fast.
Speaker: Taylor, they're not slowing down to think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, it just, it's a, it's just this, uh, the book, really good book.
Speaker: If you haven't ever read it, it's a, it's a Christian book.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: called A Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.
Speaker: It is one of the best books to like, hey buddy, you gotta slow down.
Speaker: Slow down, prepare for war, then go into war.
Speaker: Then when you come back, prepare again, plan, have a strategy, then go into war.
Speaker: We just live in this ongoing war, which is why they call it the solar coaster, that ends up
Speaker: Making your brain after three to six months want to go to the easy route.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I would say that's the main thing.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Yeah, it's huge.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: And I know a lot of guys have come and talked.
Speaker: Ashton, he's a good guy that talks about kind of like he's got lots of kids.
Speaker: The wife talks about that.
Speaker: So that's something I thought about a lot is I'm having kids and kind of in that same stage.
Speaker: But another thing too, I would say, and you probably agree with this, is I've seen top producers as I've interviewed them.
Speaker: It's like you're talking about the routine.
Speaker: We're all going to get off that routine.
Speaker: We're all going to have days where we got out late or where like the point we're in the appointment messed up our knocking.
Speaker: And so I've seen in top producers and I've also noticed in myself that these top guys, when they get off that routine, they don't beat themselves up and take like the whole day off or whatever.
Speaker: take like another couple hours off.
Speaker: Because I think a lot of lower producers, they get in this all or nothing mindset where it's like, oh, I didn't get on the doors by 10 a.m.
Speaker: So now this whole day is shot.
Speaker: We'll just go to the movies and start over tomorrow.
Speaker: It's like, no, you still got four hours right now to go out and knock.
Speaker: You can still go make this day, make something this day and not just scrap the whole thing.
Speaker: So I think that's another big thing I've seen.
Speaker: It's not all or nothing.
Speaker: It's you, you go with the punches and
Speaker: Sometimes things aren't going to go your way.
Speaker: Maybe something came up in the morning with kids, whatever, but you're going out still and you're, um, you know, making what you can of the time you do have.
Speaker: So I think that's the main thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like how do you deal with adversity?
Speaker: I don't know if I like, if there's anything, any attribute that I saw the consistent consistency throughout all of them is every single one of them had a really good way at dealing with adversity.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They like anticipated bad weather happening.
Speaker: And what happens in Florida when a hurricane comes and you did not anticipate.
Speaker: And like, we don't think about that as entrepreneurs.
Speaker: I was just talking with one of my, one of my assistants second ago.
Speaker: I was like, I think when people like, in other words, they're just, they're just not anticipating.
Speaker: I don't want to get into that story as it'll take five minutes, but,
Speaker: Basically, people are not anticipating.
Speaker: It's almost like, hey, we told you that there was a war coming or there was a storm coming, financial turmoil is coming, prepare, prepare, prepare.
Speaker: And you're starting to see all these millionaires and saying, man, I lost 300 million of my net worth.
Speaker: You're like, did you not see the signs?
Speaker: Like even them, like even these guys are, are not, you know, they're not susceptible or whatever that they still can get hit by these financial downturns, which is happening right now.
Speaker: And it's going to happen in the future.
Speaker: Like we're just not preparing.
Speaker: It's like, dude, you, you, it's a good thing for us.
Speaker: We have, I mean, solar guys, we have a very stable, uh, people are going to be buying power.
Speaker: They will, they will miss their mortgage before they miss their power bill.
Speaker: It's really hard.
Speaker: I was just talking to somebody about this the other day.
Speaker: It's really hard to lie about you didn't pay the power bill, but it's easy to hide that you didn't pay your mortgage.
Speaker: You can't lie about not paying your power bill.
Speaker: They turned their power off.
Speaker: With your mortgage, you can lie about that.
Speaker: You can hide that.
Speaker: I actually missed a mortgage three times years ago.
Speaker: People ask me like, Mikey, what keeps you motivated?
Speaker: I never want to miss three mortgages ever again.
Speaker: Well, it's funny here in California, at least San Diego, people can miss power.
Speaker: Since COVID, they put like a policy in place where like they can miss power bills and they don't shut the power off.
Speaker: That's actually an objection.
Speaker: Strangely enough, that's an objection I've had to overcome in solar out here.
Speaker: because they're like, well, SDG&E, they let me miss my power bill.
Speaker: So with solar, can I just skip payments a few times if I want to?
Speaker: And I'm like, no, not really.
Speaker: So that's something I've had to kind of overcome.
Speaker: I'm like, man, they're just letting some people skip power bills without really a payment or a penalty.
Speaker: But I don't know.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: Hopefully they change that.
Speaker: I don't get it very often.
Speaker: When you're the monopoly, you can do whatever you want, I guess.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty funny.
Speaker: Don't worry.
Speaker: We'll just put it on rears.
Speaker: We'll put it on the back end.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: I know, it's crazy.
Speaker: But that's good.
Speaker: Good things.
Speaker: And yeah, I love what you're doing again with the podcast, Mikey.
Speaker: And so something I wanted to get into just touch on, I know we talked about this in the podcast, me and you did together as well.
Speaker: But I know another common thing that we talked about in our podcast is a lot of these guys have systems in place.
Speaker: And I know you're big on like virtual assistants, systems in your own business.
Speaker: And that's something I talk about as well.
Speaker: So from you that's had assistants, community
Speaker: Can you talk about that?
Speaker: Like how maybe people could apply that and I don't know, possibly get like VAs, like what systems you have in your business that you'd maybe recommend for other people trying to like build a brand or maybe things that could help as they're trying to kind of offload things, offload tasks.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: So this podcast is brought to you by google.com.
Speaker: You should use Excel or Google Sheets.
Speaker: The first thing you need to do is write out what details happen in every job to move the job from sale to PTO.
Speaker: If you don't have that written out, like what's the first thing?
Speaker: Sales.
Speaker: Sign docs.
Speaker: Okay, what's the second thing?
Speaker: Did I turn the docs in?
Speaker: What's the fourth thing?
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Or the third thing, rather, did we schedule a site survey?
Speaker: The fourth thing, the site survey happened.
Speaker: Like people are not tracking that, the crucial things.
Speaker: Like I signed it.
Speaker: Did I turn it in?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Site survey scheduled.
Speaker: Did it happen?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, so it's like first thing I would say is the only way that a Golden Door Award winner goes from a single Golden Door to a double Golden Door or triple Golden Door Award winner is is having a system in place, which I will gladly talk about with virtual assistants.
Speaker: And it doesn't necessarily have to be virtual assistants.
Speaker: Michael Donald, Troy Benowitz, those guys, Val, those guys at Sun Solar, they don't have virtual assistants.
Speaker: They've got American highly paid people in person.
Speaker: I typically will use Australian, Costa Rican, Mexican, and then Filipino virtual assistants or executive assistants.
Speaker: I don't, I don't know.
Speaker: Like the whole like idea that the two, three, $4 virtual assistants is, it's as a project manager, you pay for what you get.
Speaker: My top, my top, my top girl right now makes almost $20 an hour.
Speaker: And if you look at her benefits and everything she gets, she gets almost 30 bucks an hour.
Speaker: And that, but that's my right hand.
Speaker: That is like, you know, running all the businesses.
Speaker: If I were to, you know,
Speaker: miss a meeting, she could go in there and negotiate, do the exact same things I can do.
Speaker: But the hard part, the easy part is everyone knows.
Speaker: So when they're going to listen to this, they're like, okay, I'm going to go get a virtual assistant.
Speaker: I'm going to go on Upwork, Fiverr, find virtual assistant, project manager.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: That's the easy part.
Speaker: It's not, it's, I actually wrote an article on entrepreneur about this, entrepreneur.com about this.
Speaker: You can't,
Speaker: You can't just think that you're going to hire a team of virtual assistants or assistants, whatever, of people.
Speaker: And then without you having a standard operating procedure, they're just going to be able to do it.
Speaker: Like, do you understand how complicated it is to do solar?
Speaker: Like, I know you get it, but like taking somebody that's never even done like the sun run training, like they've never, they don't even know what PTO even means.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If you don't have a system in place of tracking start to finish these jobs and knowing how to solve the problems, whatever, it's going to be very hard to hire people and actually let them do it.
Speaker: You're going to be like, they're going to be frustrated.
Speaker: I'm paying this person $10 an hour, 15 bucks an hour, eight bucks an hour, whatever.
Speaker: You know, and they're not doing it.
Speaker: Well, you didn't teach them.
Speaker: And the hard part about hiring virtual assistants is it takes like three to six months to get them up and running, especially if you don't have standard operating procedures, especially if you don't have your own CRM built out.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: But you can just use Google Sheets and that works very well at the start.
Speaker: You can ask more direct questions about it.
Speaker: What do you think?
Speaker: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker: Well, I was just going to say with that, like, I wish I would have done that, whether you have assistance or not.
Speaker: I think this is something every solar rep, every person in solar should be tracking regardless, because I just think back, I think this was like a year and a half, two years ago, I didn't have any systems in place for this stuff.
Speaker: And I remember a deal, it was a pretty big system, like 10 kilowatt was going to make like 16, 17 grand on it.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: Three months go by, I'm like, man, this deal is taking a while.
Speaker: And I make a call to the installer and they're like, oh, we didn't even have a completed site survey yet for this.
Speaker: After three months, they didn't have that site survey done.
Speaker: And obviously that's like, you know, installation company issues too, but...
Speaker: Like, man, if I would have been tracking this and if I would have been like going through all my accounts, then I could have saved it because sure enough, I call the customer.
Speaker: I'm like, hey, we have to send someone out to do a site survey canceled on the spot.
Speaker: He's like, OK, it's ridiculous.
Speaker: Cancel it.
Speaker: And not much I can say at that point.
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, I agree.
Speaker: It is ridiculous.
Speaker: So I lost out on like 17 grand right there just because I didn't have a system in place.
Speaker: And yeah, I didn't have a CRM, didn't have a way to track this stuff.
Speaker: I think that's huge whether you're going to get an assistant or not.
Speaker: Like you track it yourself, throw it on a Google Doc at least, bare minimum.
Speaker: And hopefully you don't have like bad installation partners that are going to like keep track of all this stuff.
Speaker: But whether you do or whether you don't, I think it's important for you to be tracking it.
Speaker: But yeah, so like someone starting out, if someone were to hire their first like assistant in solar, do you think that'd be the most important thing you'd say is just someone to kind of like manage your projects?
Speaker: Or is there anything else you would get an assistant for like speaking to solar directly?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think anybody that intends on hitting a golden door needs a virtual assistant.
Speaker: Anybody that intends on being in any sales position, whether you're a manager, setter, or a closer, I think should have a virtual assistant.
Speaker: Now, can you team up with a couple of guys and get one and split the cost?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But anybody that's hitting 30 to a hundred deals a year needs a virtual assistant because here's the thing.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: This is like the rich dad, poor dad mindset.
Speaker: If my time is worth $627 an hour, why am I reaching out to my homeowner to give them an update?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Why am I, you know, why am I following up with my own, my own customers?
Speaker: Why am I, why am I mowing my, why am I mowing my own lawn?
Speaker: Now this is going to sound really, you know, haughty or whatever, but as a business professional, as an, as an owner, I have to understand that even though I love washing my own car and I actually like mowing lawns and watering my, my trees and garden, I can't do that anymore.
Speaker: I get paid $627 when I did solar, $627 an hour is what I made.
Speaker: So when I was out working eight hours a day, I was making $627 an hour.
Speaker: So if I'm back home and I have to go pick up my dog poop, dude, I'm just at the point where I wasn't even, it's gotta sound bad, but I wasn't even walking my own dogs.
Speaker: I had an assistant that would walk my dogs because it was important to me, first of all, that my dogs got walked.
Speaker: But second off, they need to be walked for like an hour or two hours, not just 20 minutes.
Speaker: So yes, should anybody?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Let's just say, for instance, let me give an exact example.
Speaker: Let's say you're a manager, you're an assistant manager.
Speaker: you have maybe another system manager or a manager with you, you should absolutely have your own virtual assistant.
Speaker: If you're doing individually 80 to 100 deals, absolutely.
Speaker: Why are you turning in your own deals?
Speaker: Why are you doing proposal creation and pipeline management
Speaker: And that doesn't make any money.
Speaker: I know it leads to money.
Speaker: I get it's directly connected, but why are you doing pipeline and proposal management when your assistant can do it?
Speaker: Trust me, Taylor, if you can do it, you're, you can teach your assistant how to do it.
Speaker: There's two apps you need to use loom and tango and tango tango.
Speaker: And then, and then just a Google doc.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Step-by-step.
Speaker: I call it the operation buyer time back.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: method.
Speaker: Have a Google doc that has how to create a solo proposal.
Speaker: And then through Tango, it's a, it's a Chrome plugin on your computer, on your iPad, you go through the steps and then you adjust the, like you clean it up.
Speaker: You have to clean up a little bit because it's not exactly perfect.
Speaker: then it'll show you step by step how to walk you through how to create the proposal.
Speaker: And then you loom the whole thing, meaning it's screen recording the whole thing and you're talking back to it.
Speaker: So now you have, hey, Mr. Assistant, Mrs. Assistant, I'm going to show you how to create a solo proposal.
Speaker: I'm going to show you how to change the design in Sunrun.
Speaker: I'm going to show you how to change the design in SunPower.
Speaker: I'm going to show you how to do whatever, Taylor, all of it.
Speaker: Why are you doing any of these things yourself?
Speaker: But how to do that is using Tango, which is AI, and using Loom, which in theory is AI.
Speaker: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's so true.
Speaker: It's like I look back on my beginning years, especially if you think about like most of these proposal softwares have gotten a lot easier and quicker to use.
Speaker: So that makes it nice.
Speaker: But especially like back in the first couple of years I was in solar, it literally took like probably 20, 30 years.
Speaker: Yeah, like 20, 30 minutes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So like all the all those hours added up just making proposals and then you get an appointment.
Speaker: It's a no show.
Speaker: They weren't there and you spent 30 minutes making the proposal.
Speaker: It's like freak could have went out and got a couple couple more leads doing that.
Speaker: Yeah, all these things now, it's like so much time that it amounts to and that you're literally buying back, paying someone five, 10 bucks an hour to help with these things.
Speaker: So yeah, I think we talk all day.
Speaker: And I know we talked a lot about that in our podcast.
Speaker: We did as well, but...
Speaker: I 100% agree.
Speaker: It's something that most guys, most door-to-door people don't think about and huge opportunity guys are missing out on there.
Speaker: But yeah, and then like just to wrap up with that thought though, like for you and your business, what are all the things that you have?
Speaker: I know you mentioned this, some of them, some of them already, but...
Speaker: Is there anything else that you have your VA's assistants do that save you a bunch of time?
Speaker: Yeah, so I built out a software for, I built out a software actually for Solar People that does the, it's an automated customer experience software.
Speaker: So we build out workflows, we built out workflows
Speaker: be able to talk with your homeowner every time it moves stages from site survey, design, permitting, install, so on and so forth.
Speaker: And then it contacts the customer 18 times after install.
Speaker: So it keeps in contact with them.
Speaker: So it automates customer experience from sale to PTO.
Speaker: And then it's a referral machine after that.
Speaker: It automatically sends handwritten thank you cards to the homeowners, sends out flyers, things like that.
Speaker: Happy Veterans Day.
Speaker: So a bunch of them got...
Speaker: Happy Father's Day.
Speaker: All the fathers got Happy Father's Day headwritten cards from Taylor Armstrong to their home.
Speaker: It was really, so that's, you want to stay in front of your customers, you want to get referrals.
Speaker: That's how to do that.
Speaker: So that, so they built, my assistants build those things out as well as in my own personal business.
Speaker: So my two main businesses is, you know, the Mikey Lucas brand, which gets a lot of time and then the American Energy Fund.
Speaker: So inside of those, my assistants are continuing to make sure like, hey, we have to, we have to put out a, you know, we have to put out four
Speaker: four articles a week, Entrepreneur, Inc.
Speaker: Magazine, LinkedIn, and Medium or whatever, Reddit.
Speaker: So it's like, hey, we've got all these topics.
Speaker: They're going to go through this podcast and see something that I talked about here.
Speaker: They're going to transcribe it using Otter.
Speaker: And then Otter, they're going to throw that in the chat, and they're going to have chat, find the key points that I talked about in here.
Speaker: And then they're probably going to get a VA article out of this.
Speaker: I guarantee you, watch.
Speaker: Um, they go and find that to be able to put out on the internet.
Speaker: So whenever somebody looks up, you know, whatever, right.
Speaker: How do I become more efficient, effective and productive, right.
Speaker: Or how do I maximize my solar leads, whatever.
Speaker: Like Mike Lucas has an article on entrepreneur or on ink or on LinkedIn about it.
Speaker: So now my, my personal brand is continuing to grow.
Speaker: That's all my VAs, my, my, my assistants.
Speaker: I don't call them VA as a, sometimes a negative connotation.
Speaker: I don't even like saying VA, but, um, my assistants, my team members, um,
Speaker: I treat them like humans because they are humans.
Speaker: They have families, right?
Speaker: I buy their kids' Christmas presents on Christmas.
Speaker: It's cool.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: But yeah, they're pushing the Mikey Lucas branding and then pushing the American Indian Fund branding.
Speaker: So I just hired a girl last week.
Speaker: because now we've got all the social media stuff to you.
Speaker: I don't post on my social media.
Speaker: I am in the DMs, but I don't post on social media.
Speaker: There's two people that are in charge of posting on my social media and making sure that the messages and things like that.
Speaker: So a lot of times if it's like a lead that wants to get the mastermind or whatever, like they know how to push that through.
Speaker: But if it's like a normal conversation, like Mikey, what about taxes?
Speaker: What about investing?
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: I'm the one doing all of that.
Speaker: And they will screenshot that, send that to me or put it in a section called starred in our software.
Speaker: And I'll have to go through and make sure that I answer back to those, those messages.
Speaker: So they help me organize Taylor.
Speaker: You probably do too.
Speaker: Hundreds of messages a week.
Speaker: I mean, I'm talking hundreds, bro.
Speaker: Hundreds can't, I can't keep up to all of them, but they'll filter out the ones that are like, Hey, like this is pretty urgent.
Speaker: This guy wants help.
Speaker: Do you want me to put them on your calendar or whatever?
Speaker: So,
Speaker: They help manage my calendar.
Speaker: They help manage my travel.
Speaker: They help manage, dude, like my assistant books my haircuts.
Speaker: Like I get haircut.
Speaker: Like she's, she, they, they know like, you know, what, where is Mikey humming at the best?
Speaker: Like, like, like it's almost like tuning a race car.
Speaker: Where's Mikey humming at, you know, at 6,000, 5,000 RPM.
Speaker: Where's he humming at?
Speaker: You know,
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because a lot of solar guys are, you know, moving around and they're like, they don't organize.
Speaker: So my assistants helped me with all of my life, too.
Speaker: You know, Mikey, you know, looks like, you know, there's a deal at the movie theater that you guys love to go to.
Speaker: Why don't you take Ryan on a date?
Speaker: Like, dude, they just look out for things like that for me.
Speaker: And I've trained them to look for things like that for me, too.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: That's so cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that's every guy's dream.
Speaker: I also do recruiting, too.
Speaker: So you can have your people out.
Speaker: I've helped hire virtual assistants.
Speaker: Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there, but I forgot about that.
Speaker: Let me talk about your listeners.
Speaker: You can have your virtual assistants, your assistants in your Instagram, posting on social media for you, going to Canva, finding a cool quote that you like from Elon Musk or from you, yourself, putting that in Canva and posting it on the internet and come up with like 30 of those a month, just posting pictures.
Speaker: You don't have to do videos or whatever.
Speaker: Everyone thinks like, I got to go find all these.
Speaker: I got to pay 10 grand a month for a videographer.
Speaker: No, you don't.
Speaker: Just take your camera, go outside and say, I'm knocking on doors today.
Speaker: Follow for more, whatever, right?
Speaker: And then your virtual assistant can be reaching out to people, liking, commenting, sharing their stuff.
Speaker: And then bottoming, bada boom, now you're building your recruiting file.
Speaker: Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker: Yeah, and I love it.
Speaker: That's something I'm trying to build out because I've seen you have it super dialed.
Speaker: And I'm like, man, Mike, he's like all over the place on social media.
Speaker: How is he doing this?
Speaker: I'm like, okay, he's probably not doing it all.
Speaker: He's got a team.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I listened to Gary Vee, right?
Speaker: Gary Vee said, if you don't have a personal brand, which you've obviously been doing and doing great at you, so you know, you might think you're behind me, but you're only like a couple posts a month behind me.
Speaker: You're not very far behind me.
Speaker: You're right there.
Speaker: But Gary Vee says, dude, if you don't have a social media, a brand like the Taylor Armstrong brand, the Solarpreneur brand, if you don't have that, you're going to be irrelevant in a few years.
Speaker: So you've already been building yours.
Speaker: You're already 10 steps ahead of everybody else, which is great.
Speaker: But the other side of it is,
Speaker: you know, you gotta just, it's just posting more stuff.
Speaker: So finding, you know, finding people, which you've obviously are starting to post on YouTube now.
Speaker: So if you guys aren't listening to Solarpreneur on, on, on YouTube, make sure that you find the link below and subscribe to the YouTube channel as well, because there's a lot of really good nuggets there too.
Speaker: Taylor puts out that he doesn't put out on his regular podcast apps.
Speaker: YouTube is cool too, but you just gotta be posting slightly more.
Speaker: And then Alex Tramosi says, you know, if you're posting 30 times a month, you need to be posting 80 times a week.
Speaker: So I post 80 times a week now.
Speaker: I just, I'm not the smart one.
Speaker: I just, again, invest like a billionaire, not like a millionaire post on social media, like a billionaire, not like a millionaire.
Speaker: So I'm just doing a quote unquote 10 X or what everyone else is doing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's money.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you need more virtual assistants for your social media, let me know.
Speaker: I just interviewed like four of them.
Speaker: I had one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, no, I'd love to talk more because I've got one virtual assistant right now and she's trying to do a lot.
Speaker: But yeah, sometimes it's like, yeah, a lot even for her.
Speaker: I overloaded mine.
Speaker: I'm like, I feel so bad.
Speaker: I didn't even realize.
Speaker: I'm like, oh my gosh, dude, I feel so bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But then it's like, like you said, it's just cause you get a VA doesn't mean you're going to start doing all these things.
Speaker: Like you got to create the systems.
Speaker: So that's been my mistake too, is I was just like, Oh, I'm going to go do what Mikey's doing.
Speaker: But then I don't, we don't have a system for her responding to comments.
Speaker: We don't have a system for her posting.
Speaker: So of course it's not, not going to be as dialed in because you got to create all these things.
Speaker: So I'm helping Ashton.
Speaker: uh, or, or, or both of our good friend Ashton, helping him out with it.
Speaker: Um, I'll love, I can jump on another call and show you, I mean, under the hood, exactly what I'm doing.
Speaker: There's no secret here.
Speaker: It's just, you just need a, you just, I know what most superpreneurs like yourself need is you just don't want to make the wrong step.
Speaker: So it's like, you're just going to try to keep going because it's working, but to get to the next level, you're like, dude, I don't want to make the wrong step up there because I make the wrong step.
Speaker: Everything, everything below that crumbles.
Speaker: So yeah, dude, I'll jump on a call and show you under the hood exactly what I'm doing.
Speaker: Sweet.
Speaker: Thanks, man.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Abundance mindset.
Speaker: I'll have my assistant send you the calendar right now.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Oh, cool, man.
Speaker: Good boy.
Speaker: Yeah, just to start transitioning or start wrapping up here.
Speaker: I know you're a busy guy, Mikey, but last thing I want to touch on before we say goodbye here is obviously you're helping guys with their finances.
Speaker: And you know, it's like we're all making great money in solar, but there's so many guys that are still broke.
Speaker: There's so many guys that don't have investments, that don't have passive income.
Speaker: And I'm just now starting to get more into that, which is something I would have thought about before.
Speaker: But and I know you've helped me with my finances before in the past.
Speaker: And we've talked a little bit about that, too.
Speaker: But yeah, can you speak to that?
Speaker: Just I don't know, maybe some basic things to wrap up, like what are the mistakes these solar guys are making?
Speaker: And how do you get people these five figure passive investments?
Speaker: How much money does it take?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Maybe it's just like some frequently asked questions you get around that.
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: So I'll give you kind of my, my like 30 second elevator pitch on this.
Speaker: So most, most accredited investors or most investors know that there's a fortune to be made in the energy industry, right?
Speaker: Usually it's reserved to the elite of the elite, right?
Speaker: The top 1% of the 1%.
Speaker: And it also comes with a super high risk, right?
Speaker: So when you align, this is the key here, when you align with insiders that specialize in locating, filtering, structuring these specific profitable deals, investments, in other words, have a seat at the table, you can actually capitalize, create a sustainable economical future through investing in American infrastructure and technology, which is why the American Energy Fund does what we do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When you're a traditional trader, venture capitalist, institutional investor, you already know that it's very hard, but yet important to locate these specific deals.
Speaker: So the hard part is Taylor's finding the deals.
Speaker: When you're a Golden Door winner, you're doing Golden Door stuff all day long.
Speaker: So how do you locate these deals?
Speaker: How do you find time to do that?
Speaker: But also something that aligns with your risk tolerance and you can partner with funds that you need to have funds and syndications that have a clean track record and that can actually deploy your capital
Speaker: without really the government stepping in and saying, oh, we're shutting down the solar industry over here or we're shutting down the real estate side over here or whatever.
Speaker: So my fund does give access to those niche investments that create a sustainable growth without the retail level risks and high level requirements to actually get into and that actually provides a path
Speaker: to a diverse portfolio, cash-flowing assets, and a profitable exit.
Speaker: So obviously, people investing in stocks, bonds, ETFs, real estate, public companies, whatever, binary options, S&P 500, life insurance, all that, you may know that in other words, the energy... I'm sorry.
Speaker: So you can know that basically you don't have access to these high level of investments because...
Speaker: it's extremely complicated to get into, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But the key here is that there's plenty of hedge fund managers, risky option traders, and these guys on the internet, and even on social media, TikTok, talking about all these foolish, optimistic investments, right?
Speaker: That's why you see like Bitcoin, all these Bitcoin rich guys that are, you know, they're not rich anymore.
Speaker: Where are they at?
Speaker: Where's all these NFT guys at?
Speaker: Not that NFTs are going to make a comeback.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Cause I'm probably sure they will, but where's all those guys at anymore?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And maybe you're tired at, maybe you're tired Taylor of having, not having access to insider knowledge and that provides you with consistent deal flow and, you know, having solutions through unsustainable speculations and high risk.
Speaker: Maybe you, maybe you are tired of that.
Speaker: That's where, that's where you need to have a specific company and partnerships, right?
Speaker: Your network, which is what ultimately it comes down to Taylor is if you don't have a network that has those good jockeys, then it's going to be, you're going to work forever, make bad decisions because you're, you don't have the time to look at those.
Speaker: like thoroughly and actually do great due diligence on them.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's the elevator pitch.
Speaker: If you don't have that time, cause you're out family, business, running an office, recruiting, social media, podcasts, everything you need to find through networking, these people that have already done it, that have a good clean track record.
Speaker: And I've got 30, over $30,000 a month of passive income.
Speaker: I have done a lot, a lot, a lot of
Speaker: bad things and mistakes when it comes to financial investing.
Speaker: And that is why I know I'm confident that I'm making much better decisions.
Speaker: And it's hard.
Speaker: It's like, you know, it's like in solar, like why working under Taylor Armstrong?
Speaker: Because Taylor has had a golden door, has hit the golden door, right?
Speaker: Taylor has a successful marriage.
Speaker: Taylor has good kids.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Why do I want to work for Taylor Armstrong is because Taylor has the track record.
Speaker: Why do you want to invest into guys that have good track, like good track records is because you want to work for 10 years in door sales in the summer and the heat and then go bankrupt.
Speaker: OK, you can't just think you can't think that you're not going to hit.
Speaker: You're not going to go bankrupt.
Speaker: You're not going to lose it all.
Speaker: Kurt Schilling, Money Mayweather, Mike Tyson, Michael Jackson, all these people, they had hundreds of millions of dollars.
Speaker: Mike Tyson was paid a half of a billion dollars and he's like negative $26 million.
Speaker: How is that possible?
Speaker: Because they didn't have a strategy.
Speaker: So the mistake these guys are having is one, they're doing too much emotional, Taylor, emotional investing.
Speaker: Anybody could make money in 2020, 2021, 2022.
Speaker: I don't care if you can make money in that.
Speaker: I'm going to show people, and this is what I do.
Speaker: I show people how I made money and I'm going to continue to make money when the market goes down.
Speaker: that's what the key is.
Speaker: Anybody can make money when the market's up, but the key is networking with people and saying, Hey, let me pay for your time.
Speaker: Show me how to make money in a down market.
Speaker: Anybody can make money in an up market Taylor.
Speaker: It's super easy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: So just like in general, how much to start getting in these investments and all that, like how much do people need?
Speaker: If someone's listening is like, Oh, I can't afford this.
Speaker: Mikey, like how much do people really need to start kind of make doing some of these investments with you guys?
Speaker: So with us personally, with American Energy Fund, they need a hundred grand minimum.
Speaker: Here's the, here's the basics, right?
Speaker: You, you, you, you got to think about in a hundred grand increments.
Speaker: So saving, putting aside a hundred grand is, is roughly with like the S and P 500 or just an average 10% rule.
Speaker: The 10% rule, I call it is $833 a month in passive income.
Speaker: So if you, if you get a 10% return with a hundred grand, every hundred grand you invest should give you 833 a month.
Speaker: So if you need, you know,
Speaker: $2,400 a month in passive income, you need, right?
Speaker: $300,000, which is what you should be shooting for.
Speaker: So think about it in $100,000 increments and roughly a 10% return.
Speaker: You're not going to get 10% return investing in a single-firing properties, I'll tell you that.
Speaker: But why does everybody, Taylor, why does everybody, what's the first thing you want to invest into?
Speaker: Real estate.
Speaker: Well, if a billionaire says when everyone's optimistic, you should be pessimistic.
Speaker: And when everyone's pessimistic about it, you should be optimistic about it.
Speaker: That's why I stayed in energy and I didn't get into real estate.
Speaker: I have a big real estate portfolio, but it's not single family properties.
Speaker: I've got one single family property.
Speaker: Everything else, commercial, land, industrial.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You should think about it in $100,000 increments.
Speaker: People can do $50,000 increments as well and do other syndications and things like that.
Speaker: But you should think about it in $100,000 increment.
Speaker: And it is not as complicated as you think it is to get the $100,000 because that $100,000 is $833,000 a month.
Speaker: And our fund, our target is actually $1,600 a month for every $100,000.
Speaker: It's actually not $833,000.
Speaker: So it's 20%.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's our target right now.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so if I'm a rep listening to this and want to do investments, because some people are like, oh, I'm just going to invest like a thousand here, a thousand there, throw it on Robin Hood, whatever.
Speaker: So like you suggest instead of like, I don't know, just throwing a thousand bucks around here and there.
Speaker: Is it better to just like put this money in a separate account and get to a hundred grand and then make these big investments?
Speaker: Is that like generally what you suggest people do?
Speaker: So here's what I did.
Speaker: And this is what got me to 30,000 over 30, just over, just over $30,000 a month of passive income.
Speaker: I needed to be in the game.
Speaker: I automated two investments, one in energy transfer, which is a pipeline, uh, stock.
Speaker: And the other one was realty income.
Speaker: So I wanted to get my foot in the door with energy and with real estate.
Speaker: So I started an automation inside of Robin hood, um, that was buying a hundred dollars a week into real realty income.
Speaker: and into energy transfer.
Speaker: So I was continually getting the, hey, you're an investor in energy transfer.
Speaker: Why don't you jump on the calls?
Speaker: So I would listen to the calls every once in a while and I would read the reports, portions of the reports, not all of it, but I would read it.
Speaker: So I started to get like knowledgeable about it.
Speaker: And then I started looking at myself like,
Speaker: Oh my gosh, I am an energy investor.
Speaker: I'm investing in energy.
Speaker: Warren Buffett owns Oxy and Chevron.
Speaker: He's the largest shareholder of these companies.
Speaker: He owns them.
Speaker: I wanted to get myself to think like I'm an energy investor.
Speaker: Then in real estate, instead of going and buying a single family property, I invested.
Speaker: If you guys are listening, you can't do $100 a week, do $10 a week.
Speaker: automate the system maybe not go spend a thousand dollars here and there automate the system where you can do ten dollars a week twenty dollars a week whatever hundred dollars a month whatever you can automate it through reoccurring purchases and robin hood and do that that's what i did and then put the rest of the money 10 20 30 percent of your paycheck into a separate account called your freedom fund or investment fund and just label it hey 100 grand this is what this is what i'm gonna this is what i'm gonna i'm gonna
Speaker: Wait till I have 100 grand and then start investing.
Speaker: But at the same time, you're getting little micro investments and you're getting monthly and quarterly paychecks from energy transfer and realty income.
Speaker: So you're now, and you're thinking like an investor and you're continually investing every single day, technically every day, right?
Speaker: Into those, into those stocks.
Speaker: That's what I did.
Speaker: That worked very, very well because it was always like really cool to like every, every few weeks or whatever you'd see like, like, oh, you just got paid $3.82 from realty income.
Speaker: Like, yes, passive income.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think the other huge key in this is, like you said, taking a percentage of what you make and just put it in the Freedom Fund.
Speaker: I remember that's one of the biggest things I learned from you, Mikey, and something that like Tony Robbins talks about money, master the game.
Speaker: Most guys don't do this.
Speaker: Just like taking that set percentage and just having it automatically go away every time I think is massive.
Speaker: And yeah, how you just do it without thinking about it.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: I don't even, I don't notice, I don't notice a hundred dollars a week.
Speaker: So find out what that is as you, as a listener, find out what that is.
Speaker: If it's $5 a week, $10 a week, like $5 should be like, you know, a tall coffee at Starbucks, right?
Speaker: It's 2023.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: tall coffee at Starbucks, five bucks.
Speaker: That's a coffee a week that you're putting toward.
Speaker: And again, that might not seem like a lot, but also guess what I did because I talk about coffee a lot like that.
Speaker: I actually started buying $25 a week in Starbucks.
Speaker: That's one of my best performing stocks right now.
Speaker: I'm not a big stock guy, but I am a automation guy because I'm a, I wanted to, my stock portfolio of my investment portfolio, my stocks are less than 5% of the portfolio.
Speaker: But it's cool.
Speaker: It's like, it's fun.
Speaker: Like I'm still participating in the stock market and it might be $25 here, $25 there.
Speaker: It's really like about a thousand dollars a month I'll put into it.
Speaker: But that's such a small portion of my portfolio.
Speaker: But yeah, I buy, I buy my wife by Starbucks like every day.
Speaker: So like not every day now, but she used to for a while.
Speaker: So I was like, screw it.
Speaker: I'm going to make money on Starbucks.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Make money off her purchases.
Speaker: Smart.
Speaker: I actually have.
Speaker: No, it's not.
Speaker: I haven't given my money back, obviously, but you know, her money, it's whatever.
Speaker: You get the point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Well, cool.
Speaker: Mikey.
Speaker: Well, I know we could spend hours more on this stuff, but yeah, people do want to like join your mastermind, potentially start learning more of this stuff from you, get way more in depth.
Speaker: What's the best way to do that?
Speaker: And how could they potentially start working with you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, I mean, reaching out on Instagram is best way to go.
Speaker: I can get you some links.
Speaker: You can put the links in the show notes, whatnot too.
Speaker: Um, that way, uh, that way, you know, we could do, um, we can help, help, help Taylor back out and promote, you know, Taylor, Taylor's, Taylor's, uh, whole journey as well.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, Instagram at Mikey Lucas, that's the best way to go.
Speaker: Best way to get ahold of me.
Speaker: Like if you text me, it's probably not going to get answered.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, sweet.
Speaker: So for all the listeners, yeah, invest in yourself and yeah, go consider working with a guy like Mikey that can help you know the investments you should make.
Speaker: And if anything, go hit him up on Instagram.
Speaker: This guy is dropping fire content.
Speaker: Go follow his podcasts and yeah, get your golden door award if you haven't already.
Speaker: So just to end here, do you have any final words of wisdom or final advice that you give to like maybe a struggling solar rep or someone that's just starting out in solar cells, Mikey, that you could leave us with?
Speaker: Yeah, man.
Speaker: Let me try to do one that I haven't done in a long time or haven't done ever.
Speaker: Taylor, I think people are taking it too serious.
Speaker: I'll give you two.
Speaker: I think people are taking it too serious.
Speaker: I think you need to have more fun.
Speaker: I'm talking like strategic fun, like just by smiling, fun.
Speaker: I'm not talking like going, skipping school and going to the movies, skipping door to door and going to the movies.
Speaker: That's not fun.
Speaker: I'm not talking that fun.
Speaker: I'm talking like while you're on doors, freaking smile, dude, smile.
Speaker: First tip, freaking smile.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Second tip, Taylor would be if you don't, if you work for somebody else, so I don't care if you're work for somebody else or if you're the owner, you, the owner still works for your guy.
Speaker: You still work for your guys.
Speaker: You know that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: if you're like a setter, closer, manager, whatever, and you're not the owner, you need to become so valuable in that office, not region that they like that.
Speaker: They need you to continue to run their business.
Speaker: If you're not, if you're not like becoming more valuable to your office, like you want to know why you're not getting the attention and whatever is because you're, you're not, you want to know why you're not motivated to read more sales books or, or business books is because you don't think you need it.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: You don't think you need the information from those books.
Speaker: When you become so valuable that that company, that office needs you to continue to move forward, then brother, you're of extreme value.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Sweet.
Speaker: That's fire.
Speaker: So Mikey, thanks again for coming on.
Speaker: Guys, go shoot Mikey a follow.
Speaker: And yeah, enjoy the process.
Speaker: Smile when you're out there working today.
Speaker: And thanks again for coming on, Mikey.
Speaker: Thank you, Taylor.
Speaker: Appreciate it, man.
Speaker: Yeah, we'll talk soon.
Speaker: Hey, solarpreneurs, are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your sales increase?
Speaker: Well, so was I, and the truth is I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going wrong.
Speaker: So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time, we are doing a free sales diagnostic.
Speaker: We'll break down your sales process, figure out the holes in your business and see how we can help you improve.
Speaker: So at now we have six bucks for this month.
Speaker: So book a call now.
Speaker: Don't miss out.
Speaker: What you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: That's taylor at solarpreneurs with an S dot com.
Speaker: I'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out the time that works best.
Speaker: So shoot that email and let's increase your sales.
