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 fail.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solarpreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs.
Speaker: Today, we're going to be wrapping up a blitz, or rather talking about a blitz that just wrapped up.
Speaker: I'm going to tell you some lessons we learned, some successes, a little bit of just a recap of our blitz.
Speaker: So just kind of a story about what's going on.
Speaker: So I think you can take a lot from it.
Speaker: We'll jump right into it.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker: We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: We're recording this right before Thanksgiving.
Speaker: Black Friday coming up, deals galore.
Speaker: Make sure you utilize these days of deals, create some offers with your solar program around it.
Speaker: We just finished up a competition in a blitz and something I think I mentioned a few times, but I would definitely recommend structuring your competition seasons around times where other people tend to step on the brakes, right?
Speaker: You look at the holidays, Christmas, Thanksgiving,
Speaker: A lot of people just burn out and they're like, you know what?
Speaker: I'm going to take the rest of the year off.
Speaker: We'll just pick it back up in the new year.
Speaker: But I think it's a mistake.
Speaker: You should be putting your foot on the gas.
Speaker: That's what separates the pretenders from the contenders.
Speaker: So it separates the golden door winners from people that don't do as many deals.
Speaker: So if you are in charge of maybe structuring competitions at your company, not a bad idea to throw a competition right before Thanksgiving, right before Christmas.
Speaker: Give your guys a reason to grind a little bit harder and get out there.
Speaker: For us, we got three weeks before Thanksgiving.
Speaker: Now we're coasting until Thanksgiving, but we went full force for the last three weeks.
Speaker: So definitely consider that.
Speaker: Hey, but a few lessons I learned from this latest blitz we had.
Speaker: We did it for a, it was a three week competition.
Speaker: We had two weeks where it was just kind of like a in market blitz.
Speaker: Everyone just working the blitz schedule, but in our regular market.
Speaker: And then the last week we went and did
Speaker: a out of town blitz where we booked the whole Airbnb, did the typical thing, got the team together, great camaraderie and grinded it out for the last week.
Speaker: So we got some good results.
Speaker: I think there's some things we could have done better, but I'm going to speak to the good things first, share some things that we could have improved on.
Speaker: And I think hopefully you'll be able to use this as lessons for your team, whether you're blitzing or whether you're maybe structuring competitions in the future or whether you're just trying to
Speaker: get a better team camaraderie, team environment, things you can do.
Speaker: Okay, so I think the best thing, I was just reminded of how important it is to just have that team bonding experience and how being in a blitz
Speaker: You got to rely on each other.
Speaker: You're all in the same place.
Speaker: You got to overcome conflicts.
Speaker: You've got to work together.
Speaker: And it just reminded me you can't really replicate these things when you're just working normal.
Speaker: You can't really replicate these things when you're not on a blitz.
Speaker: Like when are you going to be in the same house with your entire team, breaking bread together, sharing most of the meals together?
Speaker: being out on the doors together in similar areas.
Speaker: So definitely created that just team camaraderie, good environments, helped us trust each other more.
Speaker: So especially if you have a team that maybe, I don't know, you feel like you're not as well connected, or maybe you're far apart, I would recommend doing
Speaker: maybe that once a quarter blitz or whatever, just figure out a way to get people together.
Speaker: Because, you know, if you don't have that connection, I think results will suffer.
Speaker: Results aren't as good if you're disconnected as a team.
Speaker: So that's the biggest thing.
Speaker: We ran a couple of cool incentives.
Speaker: We, you know, we get up together, we go to the gym, we did a team basketball day.
Speaker: It's a good time.
Speaker: We all went to the LA Fitness down here.
Speaker: And, you know, everyone gets the guest passes.
Speaker: These people are probably looking at us like, how wise are you?
Speaker: 15 people coming in and getting a guest pass at the same time.
Speaker: I had my own pass and get a few people in, but that was a good time.
Speaker: We did some team bowling.
Speaker: We did the place we're staying at had the pool and the hot tub.
Speaker: It's colder outside.
Speaker: So we use the pool as a cold plunge and then nice just warming up in the hot tub.
Speaker: So that was a good time.
Speaker: We did, I think, incentive worked out pretty well.
Speaker: We went and saw the new Gladiator 2, and we did that for anyone that booked three appointments plus on the day with a bill and everything, a solid appointments.
Speaker: Did that, got our guys bought into that.
Speaker: Gladiator 2 I think is better than the first one so I would recommend it go see Gladiator 2 if you have not yet but yeah all these all those things it's like multiple incentives you can run and multiple things you can do to bond with the team a lot of things like there doesn't necessarily cost you money right we ran incentives for going to see Gladiator but I think everything besides that is
Speaker: It's like we were just bonding as a team, going to the gym, didn't cost anything.
Speaker: Playing the team basketball didn't cost anything.
Speaker: So a lot of things you can do to bond and strengthen your team without needing to necessarily spend a bunch of money.
Speaker: So those were the good things.
Speaker: And of course, we did produce at a higher level too.
Speaker: We had guys, I think our team of...
Speaker: We got like 13 guys on our squad right now.
Speaker: We threw down 35 deals plus or minus about 35 deals in the three weeks of the competition.
Speaker: So proud of our guys, you know, always in room for improvement.
Speaker: But I think that was one of our better three week stretches combining all our numbers.
Speaker: So proud of the results we got.
Speaker: I fell short of my personal goals.
Speaker: I was trying to get 15 deals in the three weeks.
Speaker: Ended up getting eight.
Speaker: So crashed and burned a little bit.
Speaker: But hey, some bigger deals that I sold and still should be definitely a profitable three weeks for me and just taking the lessons I learned, trying to improve.
Speaker: So I'm going to tell you some of the mistakes I personally made too.
Speaker: But on the blitz, a few things that I think we could have done better that hopefully can apply to your teams or if you are running your own blitzes.
Speaker: make sure you get your guys bought in on the schedule.
Speaker: When are you going to be out working?
Speaker: When are you going to be getting back?
Speaker: It shouldn't just be a free for all.
Speaker: And I did see that a little bit, you know, and I need to do a better job as a leader addressing that and set that setting the expectations beforehand.
Speaker: But we had some guys that were getting out a little bit later.
Speaker: We had some guys that were maybe coming back a little earlier.
Speaker: And so it should be like, hey, what's the schedule we're going to commit to as a team, guys?
Speaker: Let's pick the schedule.
Speaker: Let's commit to it.
Speaker: And let's get max results, max effort for these for this week while we're out here on the Blitz.
Speaker: And part of it was we had guys cooking their food.
Speaker: You know, the cleaning up stuff.
Speaker: And so I know some guys were waiting on like showers too.
Speaker: So between that, we had some, you know, a little bit of chaos going around.
Speaker: So learn that we need to organize that part of it a little bit more.
Speaker: So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
Speaker: And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
Speaker: But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Speaker: Then we discovered an app called SolarScout.
Speaker: But it's not a door-knocking app.
Speaker: It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
Speaker: It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
Speaker: I'm going to be one of the first to use Solar Scout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
Speaker: But I told them, hey, if I'm going to talk about Solar Scout on my show, you need to give my listeners a great deal.
Speaker: And they did.
Speaker: So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them, and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up.
Speaker: That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show.
Speaker: And I actually heard, you're going to be hearing this podcast, should be coming up the next one actually, but did a podcast with Sean Holmander and he, this guy, he started Rise Solar.
Speaker: They do a purely Blitz model for his company.
Speaker: And something he was telling me is they actually hire a chef to cook all their meals during their Blitzes and clean up the dishes, stuff like that.
Speaker: So I've got my gears spinning.
Speaker: I'm like, man, probably something we should consider.
Speaker: Not a bad idea.
Speaker: Hey, but things like that, we probably spent too much time cooking, cleaning, doing little things.
Speaker: We need to optimize that a little bit more.
Speaker: And then another thing, we just had so many appointments fall through.
Speaker: So I think leading up to a blitz, probably more trainings on things we can do to set stickier appointments.
Speaker: And then also just trying to push for more same days.
Speaker: walk in same days, which is another thing you'll hear on the next podcast coming up with Sean.
Speaker: But those things help because if you can get in the same day, they're not really canceling.
Speaker: So I think we could have had a more concerted effort.
Speaker: Let's see what everyone do to set same days as much as possible and get in those same days appointments.
Speaker: Personally, myself, I think some of the bigger mistakes I made personally that's affected not hitting my goals is
Speaker: is when I, days when I did have appointments lined up, whether it was my own personal self-generated appointments or from setters, I noticed that the ones that were falling through, which on some days it was the majority, I, those days I was driving all over the place.
Speaker: And then when the appointment fell through, I was just kind of letting myself hang out for like 20 minutes and just be like, uh, what should I do now?
Speaker: How much time do I have till the next appointment?
Speaker: Should I get out and knock a little bit?
Speaker: Should I see if I need to go motivate another one of our setters, get out with them?
Speaker: And I didn't really have a plan of what I was going to do.
Speaker: And so between just like, I don't know, feeling sorry for 10, 15 minutes because appointments canceled or ghosted or whatever.
Speaker: I let it affect me for probably like 20, 30 minutes just between figuring out what to do, not having a solid plan.
Speaker: And I think if I added up all the time driving appointments and falling through and then not having like a backup plan or not knowing exactly what I'm going to do because the appointment fell through, probably added up to hours and hours of wasted time or ineffective time.
Speaker: So for you, if you are, whether you're blitzing or whether you are just knocking a regular schedule with appointments that you set or set or set, just what's the backup plan if you don't get in your appointments, right?
Speaker: Don't let it affect you mentally.
Speaker: Don't get all down.
Speaker: But are you going to go hit the homes around it?
Speaker: Do you have an area that's close by that you can just go straight to?
Speaker: You shouldn't be getting in your head and just having it affect the whole rest of the day and wasting tons of time because of it.
Speaker: And for me, that was the difference probably between hitting my goals and only doing eight deals because I was not as efficient with my time as I could have been.
Speaker: And then I had some wasted time.
Speaker: You know, a few times I would get on social media, distract myself.
Speaker: Worst thing you can do, right?
Speaker: Don't just get on social media when your appointment falls through.
Speaker: Have a solid plan.
Speaker: What are you going to do?
Speaker: So that was probably the major lesson that I learned for myself.
Speaker: And I think the biggest thing that held me back from hitting my goals.
Speaker: And then just as a team, I think we could have done a better job of setting like daily goals on the Blitz.
Speaker: We didn't do really like correlations during the Blitz.
Speaker: It's kind of just like everyone gets out there, which might have been good to do a few.
Speaker: But I think the very least we should have had just a little, I don't know, 10 minute like, hey, what's the goals for the day?
Speaker: What are some objections that you guys have been struggling with?
Speaker: How can we overcome these?
Speaker: What held us back from yesterday?
Speaker: Just kind of like a recap of the previous day.
Speaker: So if I could go back, I wish I would have added that in.
Speaker: Just have like a little recap and little troubleshooting and then set the goals.
Speaker: How many appointments, how many closes, how many door knock, whatever metrics you're tracking and then get out there.
Speaker: Little word chant and get out there.
Speaker: I think that would help to stay a little more focused, get a little more dialed in and motivated.
Speaker: And I think we had probably better results for it.
Speaker: So that's my recap.
Speaker: Hey, and I think if you're listening to this, it is helpful whether you finished a blitz or whether you finished a competition or even just the week.
Speaker: It's helpful to go reflect back on your results and your team results.
Speaker: Like what went well?
Speaker: What can be improved?
Speaker: What am I going to continue doing?
Speaker: What am I going to stop doing?
Speaker: These are all things you should be asking yourself to continuously improve.
Speaker: Because if you're not improving, you're probably getting worse.
Speaker: So make sure you reflect on these times after competitions and blitzes.
Speaker: Do a little recap, do a little highlight.
Speaker: And I hope whenever you're listening to this that you are making forward progress because if you're not improving, you're getting worse, most likely.
Speaker: Okay, so happy Thanksgiving or whenever you're listening to this, happy whatever holiday is coming up and make sure you tune in to next episode because again, we're going to have the one, the only Sean Holmander come on.
Speaker: This guy is, he's got a golden door.
Speaker: He's got a team that's cranking on their blitz schedule.
Speaker: So he's doing some unique things, including getting personal chefs.
Speaker: So make sure you tune in that podcast and we'll see you guys on the next one.
Speaker: Peace out.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
Speaker: What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day.
Speaker: For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
Speaker: That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals
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Speaker: This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day.
Speaker: Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
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Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
