Transcript
Speaker: What's the key to having success in sales, business, and in life in the solar industry?
Speaker: That's what we're going to talk about on today's episode of the Solarpreneur Podcast.
Speaker: Look, in the solar business, there's really only two types of people.
Speaker: There's the ones that crush it, make six, seven, and eight figures, and then there's everyone else.
Speaker: The question is, which one will you be?
Speaker: Over the last four years, we've studied the sharpest solar sales and marketing professionals and how they build multi-million dollar incomes using only the best sales and marketing strategies.
Speaker: So how do these solarpreneurs do what they do and what makes them so successful?
Speaker: This podcast is your answer.
Speaker: Join us and thousands of sales pros, marketers, and entrepreneurs as we take the solar industry by storm and uncover what it takes to sell more solar with less effort.
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast.
Speaker: What's going on, Solarpreneurs?
Speaker: This is James Swiderski, co-founder at 7 Figure Solar.
Speaker: Look, I want to come out right up front and apologize.
Speaker: It has been forever since we've put out some quality content for you guys.
Speaker: We've been neglecting this audience and enough is enough.
Speaker: Today, Ford, we're going to be consistent as it gets with this podcast.
Speaker: And I wanted to make a few announcements about the new direction with Solarpreneur, where we're going with things, what I've been up to in the last month
Speaker: two months.
Speaker: I've changed a lot of business practices and kind of our sales model as well at 7 Figure Solar and Solarpreneur.
Speaker: I want to keep you guys up to speed and go over some quality content to get you guys fired up over the weekend here and crushing it.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Going forward with this, I want to make sure I am on the forefront of this podcast some more.
Speaker: I get a lot of comments from people who say, hey, James, we love your content, man, but you're not on a lot of episodes in Solopreneur.
Speaker: You guys have great interviews, but I'd love to hear more of you.
Speaker: So I'm going to give you guys what you've been asking for.
Speaker: I'm going to make sure that I'm on the podcast consistently.
Speaker: that we continue to bring higher quality guests for you guys.
Speaker: And we bring in other individuals that are killing it and solar entrepreneurship, sales, all of the above so that you guys could take advantage and one up your sales game.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So guys, solarpreneur, in case you're new here, solarpreneur is designed for not just the sales professional who is in solar, but
Speaker: But people who are interested in the solar industry, they're interested in entrepreneurship, sales, and it's all revolving around having success, whether you're in the industry or not.
Speaker: I want to give you the tools if you're not in solar to go and thrive in other industries.
Speaker: But I'm going to cater to solar because that's the industry I'm in.
Speaker: It's the industry a lot of our listeners are in.
Speaker: And it's the industry I believe that is going to change the world and has the most impact.
Speaker: And I want more people to be involved.
Speaker: Solarpreneur is...
Speaker: made to be that gateway to get more people in solar, change the industry for the better and give you the tools to crush and dominate.
Speaker: So that's the direction of Solarpreneur.
Speaker: We're working on getting a lot of additional guests.
Speaker: I'm going to name drop some guys here.
Speaker: If you know Ryan Steumann or Steven Larson from ClickFunnels, we got both of those guys on the podcast coming up here.
Speaker: Next week, we're going to post that episode with Steven Larson.
Speaker: is the Dynamite interview, guys.
Speaker: You do not want to miss that.
Speaker: And then Ryan's coming a little bit later this summer.
Speaker: So that's just to give you a little bit of an insight on, you know, the kind of caliber of individuals we want on this podcast.
Speaker: And we want to expose you guys to because at the end of the day,
Speaker: Quality content is not as easy to find these days, especially in this industry.
Speaker: So I want to make sure I'm providing that tool set for you guys.
Speaker: So that's the first announcement I want to go over.
Speaker: The second one is about my company, Seven Figure Solar, actually.
Speaker: If you guys have been following us at all, you notice we've changed our business model quite a bit in the last two, three months since I've really spoken to you on this podcast.
Speaker: We have actually in the last three months.
Speaker: Created a nationwide sales team of over 100 sales professionals that are selling solar nationwide over the phone, on video, or in person as well.
Speaker: And we're expanding that network.
Speaker: The goal is to get to around 1,000 individuals in the next year in our sales team using our platform.
Speaker: And it's taken a lot of work.
Speaker: That's why you haven't heard a lot of me is this new process has really taken a lot out of me, man, a lot more than we expected.
Speaker: And I think we're now ironing out the details enough where I can produce some quality content for you guys.
Speaker: But that's where I've been.
Speaker: That's why you haven't heard my voice in a while.
Speaker: And I hope to make that up to you guys.
Speaker: But that being said...
Speaker: If you're in solar currently or you're new to the industry or you just have an interest in solar, I know there's a lot of you guys out there.
Speaker: I want you to take a careful look at our new program.
Speaker: It's the Virtual Solar Certification Program.
Speaker: You could go over to sevenfiguresolar.com forward slash broker.
Speaker: And basically, I'm just going to give you a quick rundown of what's going on, a little plug on this.
Speaker: This is not just a course where you learn how to sell solar, okay?
Speaker: We had our Solar Sales Academy before.
Speaker: That was great.
Speaker: We actually shut that down for reasons on the topic of today's podcast.
Speaker: But this new program is really, in essence, made to be a business opportunity for people who are in solar currently,
Speaker: or they want to get into solar.
Speaker: And long story short, it's a licensing program to where you get into our huge network of solar installers.
Speaker: We have over 100 solar installers nationwide, and we're working on international markets that you can tap into.
Speaker: And basically, you come in, and you become a part of that team, and you start your own solar brokerage.
Speaker: And what you could do at that point is we provide the marketing tools, the funnels, all of that stuff to where you could just focus on selling
Speaker: Over the phone and in multiple states in any market, you're not bound to one specific company.
Speaker: You have the ability to go to a homeowner and broker and say, hey, what's the best opportunity for you?
Speaker: Let's figure out the best fit and then move forward with that.
Speaker: So it's a very unique approach to the industry.
Speaker: And what I believe is the future of this industry and what's going to drive things forward.
Speaker: to really taking the solar sales process into the 21st century.
Speaker: So I'm not going to go into more details on that.
Speaker: You can head over to sevenfiguresolar.com forward slash broker.
Speaker: It's all over the podcast.
Speaker: There's links for it, all that great stuff.
Speaker: But go check that out.
Speaker: See if it's a good opportunity for you guys.
Speaker: We've had a tremendous amount of new students and people that have came on and they're absolutely crushing it.
Speaker: We're talking about closing 10, 12 deals in their first month over the phone and new markets they had no experience with.
Speaker: People that are brand new to solar and just absolutely dominating the industry.
Speaker: That program, just so you know,
Speaker: is geared towards individuals.
Speaker: So if you're a CEO or a business owner, feel free to contact us as well.
Speaker: We have different programs and things for that, but this program is exclusively for individuals.
Speaker: So anyway, that's enough of the promo stuff, guys.
Speaker: Let's dive into today's topic.
Speaker: And I want to talk about kind of the number one secret in any industry, entrepreneurship, sales,
Speaker: As I said before, we're opening up Solarpreneur to new avenues, new insights that are not just relevant to solar, but any industry in particular.
Speaker: Of course, I'm going to talk about it from the perspective of a solar business owner and a consulting business owner.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Today I want to talk about focus, okay?
Speaker: I know focus is not the most exciting of topics for people to talk about, but I could tell you as a 22-year-old entrepreneur who was able to build a nationwide sales team in California,
Speaker: Typically, about less than 120 days, I was able to do that while running a consulting business, keeping up with the pipeline, managing a team, all that stuff.
Speaker: It all came down to focus, okay?
Speaker: That's the name of the game.
Speaker: Information is in abundance.
Speaker: Information is out there everywhere.
Speaker: Hop on YouTube, you can learn any skill.
Speaker: You can learn how to build funnels, Facebook ads, close deals, learn about solar, all that stuff, right?
Speaker: So information is not new, it's not novel, it's accessible to everybody, which means the information is of less value.
Speaker: See, it used to be 10, 15 years ago when information wasn't as widely available that it was of more value.
Speaker: You could do more with it.
Speaker: If you had the information, you had a key advantage over somebody.
Speaker: But now anybody with an internet connection and a phone can go and get the same details.
Speaker: Everybody's executing on the same things.
Speaker: How many products do you see on like Facebook and your feed or LinkedIn or anywhere that are just the same messages over and over and over again, right?
Speaker: There's nothing new about it.
Speaker: Everybody is going the same direction, speaking the same things and just shouting at the rooftop.
Speaker: So what it comes down to is execution, right?
Speaker: We all know that execution is the name of the game, but how do you execute if you've got all of these ideas floating around in your head?
Speaker: If you've got one shiny object over here, or you've got another idea over here, or you want to build a funnel for this sales pipeline while you want to build a team over here and train these guys and run this ad and this ad, how the heck are you going to do all of that at once?
Speaker: Well, you can't.
Speaker: That's what I wanted to talk about.
Speaker: You cannot do all this.
Speaker: And that's something I've really realized the last four or five months as I've tried to expand out my business, build this nationwide team, and do all of these insane things I never would have thought was possible in the last two years.
Speaker: I've only been able to do that by saying no to opportunities.
Speaker: So today I want to give you three distinct advantages that are going to give you extreme amount of focus.
Speaker: And this focus is going to carry you to the next level and you're going to outlast your competitors whether you're in solar or not.
Speaker: You're going to be the best sales guy.
Speaker: Rather than making six figures in this industry, you can make seven and eight figures.
Speaker: I know guys that do both.
Speaker: And that's not gross sales, that's actual commissions.
Speaker: These are guys that clear $10 to $20 million in contracts every year.
Speaker: And they do that by focusing.
Speaker: So the three things I want to go over.
Speaker: Number one is if you know what you want to do, if you know what you want to focus on, what niche, which topic you want, what you're most passionate about, you need to say no to almost everything else.
Speaker: See, if you've seen the movie Yes Man by Jim Carrey is the guy in Yes Man, right?
Speaker: Funny movie.
Speaker: But it's a terrible example of what entrepreneurs are going through right now.
Speaker: Most guys in the industry, most gals in the industry are saying yes to too many things.
Speaker: They're saying yes to a new podcast.
Speaker: They're saying yes to a new YouTube channel.
Speaker: They're subscribed to like 75 influencers on Instagram and they watch all their pieces of content every single day.
Speaker: They go to five business conferences in February.
Speaker: And what happens?
Speaker: They get new ideas.
Speaker: They get lost.
Speaker: They get confused.
Speaker: And they start to pivot.
Speaker: See, I'm not the guy...
Speaker: who's been in business long enough to tell you that it takes 10 to 15 years to be successful.
Speaker: But I could tell you that my mentors, people I work with that are much wiser, much smarter than me, they all say the same thing, that it all comes down to your ability to focus for a long term.
Speaker: You can't switch industries and opportunities every 6, 12, 18 months if it's not working out.
Speaker: You need to go all in on one industry.
Speaker: That's what I've chosen to do with solar in the last two and a half years.
Speaker: I haven't pivoted.
Speaker: I became close.
Speaker: I'm passionate about a lot of other businesses.
Speaker: I have tons of great ideas flowing in my head for businesses.
Speaker: But if I go and I pivot and I say, hey, maybe I'll just do this on the side.
Speaker: Maybe I'll do this as a hobby.
Speaker: Maybe I'll dive into real estate.
Speaker: Maybe I'll start a drop shipping business.
Speaker: I'm going to get distracted.
Speaker: And if you're pulled in five, six different directions at once,
Speaker: You're going to suck at all of them.
Speaker: So it comes down to going all in.
Speaker: And the way you do this is you say no to things that you're not passionate about and you don't want to do.
Speaker: So I assume if you're listening to the Solopreneur podcast,
Speaker: Some part of you is interested in solar, right?
Speaker: Whether it's maybe saving the planet, saving people money, adding value to people's homes, all the reasons people go solar, selling a product that you can actually believe in and you're excited to help move forward, revolutionizing an entire industry, the energy business, right?
Speaker: These are all reasons I'm excited to go into solar for.
Speaker: Why is the industry I've chosen to be in
Speaker: for the long haul for the next 5, 10, 15 plus years, right?
Speaker: And because I'm so passionate about it, I need to say no to other opportunities.
Speaker: I do this with business partners, friends, family.
Speaker: They all give me ideas for new things.
Speaker: I'm the guy who started out, you know, doing a Shopify store.
Speaker: I started a supplement company, right?
Speaker: I did real estate.
Speaker: I did sales.
Speaker: I did all of these different businesses.
Speaker: Over 12 businesses in a period of about two years,
Speaker: And because I went through that shiny object syndrome, I was unsuccessful at all of them.
Speaker: And it wasn't until I completely dived into solar and I said no to everything else, that's when I was successful.
Speaker: So guys, if you know what you want to do, if you know the industry you're passionate about, say no to other things.
Speaker: Avoid the yes man disease.
Speaker: You don't want to be Jim Carrey here.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: One of the big changes we made with Seven Figure Solar recently is a good example of this is we used to train individual salespeople in solar or who wanted to get into solar, right?
Speaker: We used to provide our solar sales academy to them.
Speaker: We had a mentorship program where we would actually get on the phone and coach them with our solar coaches.
Speaker: And what I noticed is this was just a teeny piece of our business.
Speaker: It wasn't bringing in any revenue.
Speaker: That wasn't really the point of it.
Speaker: It was really just for impact.
Speaker: And we decided to get rid of that.
Speaker: About a month, month and a half ago, we decided to say no.
Speaker: We cut out the Solar Sales Academy because it wasn't focused and it wasn't moving us towards our main focus, which is to impact more home and business owners.
Speaker: That's where we wanted to focus our time at.
Speaker: And this was distracting us from that.
Speaker: So we cut it out.
Speaker: Now we only do consulting with
Speaker: Solar companies, of which we have a pretty rigorous qualification program and we're picky about.
Speaker: And then we have our virtual solar broker program, where you come in and you broker with us and you start selling.
Speaker: Those are the only two things 7 Figure Solar does at this point.
Speaker: And because of that focus, we've been more successful, not only with revenue and impact, right?
Speaker: But we've been able to expand out that nationwide sales team.
Speaker: But if we would have said yes to, oh yeah, we'll do marketing for this client, or we'll do recruiting services and consulting for this client, we'll coach these dozen salespeople, that's time, effort, money that's spent on places that aren't moving us forward.
Speaker: So we had to say no, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So look in your own life, look in your own business sales pipeline.
Speaker: What can you be saying no to right now?
Speaker: Give that some thought.
Speaker: Now let's get into step number two here.
Speaker: which is you need to focus on the 20% of actions that will take your business to the next level and produce 80% of your results.
Speaker: The 80-20 principle, you've heard it a million times, right?
Speaker: And it's so vitally important to everything you do.
Speaker: I review the 80-20 principle twice a day, morning, evening, and I do a weekly and a monthly 80-20.
Speaker: And then now I'm actually implementing a yearly 80-20 analysis where I look back in my last year and I say, what 20% of actions did I do that produced 80% of the results?
Speaker: And the key thing with the 80-20 principle, I think nobody talks about.
Speaker: And what I really struggled with is you need to get out of the perfection mentality.
Speaker: Realize that getting something out there, starting something is more important than doing it perfectly.
Speaker: Yes, you want to fine tune.
Speaker: You want to get better at your process and your system and improve on that based off of feedback.
Speaker: But you need to get started.
Speaker: So if you're waiting for solar, right?
Speaker: If you're waiting to get involved in sales and you're just binge watching videos and courses and listening to podcasts like this and you're hesitating, you're
Speaker: Get into the industry head first.
Speaker: Dive fully in the water, right?
Speaker: You're going to mess up.
Speaker: You're going to look like an idiot, right?
Speaker: But you're going to learn faster than anybody else.
Speaker: And the guy who's stuck on the couch watching videos on YouTube, right?
Speaker: That's what the industry is really lacking right now is people who go all in.
Speaker: So focus on the 20% of actions.
Speaker: This goes across the board with multiple, multiple things, right?
Speaker: This could be your prospects, right?
Speaker: So if you're a salesperson in this industry right now, look at your pipeline.
Speaker: Open up your CRM, pop open your bid machine, whatever you want to call it, and check out your prospects.
Speaker: Which prospects are most likely to close?
Speaker: Which 20% of that pipeline is most likely to close?
Speaker: And then look at the ones who are going to waste most of your time.
Speaker: You know who they are, right?
Speaker: The tire kickers, people who aren't super interested.
Speaker: Look at the 20% of prospects that'll waste 80% of your time and effort and avoid those people.
Speaker: Avoid them.
Speaker: Yeah, you're going to cut out business.
Speaker: You're going to miss out on opportunities.
Speaker: But that's a scarcity mindset.
Speaker: I would rather lose 10 deals and save 20 hours of my time in a week that could be spent on acquiring more than 10 deals, right?
Speaker: I'd rather lose out on profit so I can make more profit.
Speaker: So you got to be willing to lose out on opportunities.
Speaker: That's the key.
Speaker: That's why I believe scarcity and abundance mindset is the foundation to everything in sales.
Speaker: If you're scared where your next appointment's going to come or your next commission check is, that just means one of two things.
Speaker: You lack the skills and you lack the focus, right?
Speaker: You lack the skills and the knowledge and the execution that it takes to go out and get more customers on demand.
Speaker: Or you lack the focus and you're trying to do too many things and you're not able to dive in on one and do well at one.
Speaker: So focus on the prospects, right?
Speaker: If you have a prospect that's wasting your time, they're asking a lot of questions, fire them, get rid of them.
Speaker: If you have a customer in your business that's taking a lot of your time, get rid of them and go get somebody new.
Speaker: That's why we don't work with every solar company on the block.
Speaker: They have to be willing to train their salespeople.
Speaker: I'm not going to hold your hand and drag you through my program.
Speaker: I want a sales team who's already doing pretty decent and they have a good process.
Speaker: I'm not here to fix just a shit show, right?
Speaker: I'm not here to fix a terrible company.
Speaker: I'm here to help people who are doing well and take them to the next level.
Speaker: That's my criteria.
Speaker: So figure out your criteria when you're dealing with prospects, homeowners, business owners, whatever it is.
Speaker: Next is focus on the systems.
Speaker: What systems can you produce?
Speaker: What 20% of systems and processes can you produce that are going to maximize your results?
Speaker: That's something I've been focusing on really, really deep lately is replacing myself out of my businesses.
Speaker: Focusing on the systems, hiring employees, hiring people to help you.
Speaker: so that you're not just an employee in your business or your pipeline, but you actually have a process that continues to work while you sleep, while you do whatever it is, right?
Speaker: So for salespeople out there,
Speaker: What kind of systems can you put in place to get rid of those menial daily tasks that you do every single day that don't move you towards your goals?
Speaker: You know what they are.
Speaker: Answering the emails, right?
Speaker: Responding to Facebook messages, texting, reminding prospects, following up.
Speaker: Figure out a system that could take care of this for you.
Speaker: We're gonna get into that with tip number three a little bit deeper.
Speaker: But the next thing is focus on third-party resources.
Speaker: I talk about these all the freaking time, right?
Speaker: Videos, webinars, social media posts, podcasts like this.
Speaker: This is a third-party resource.
Speaker: This podcast I'm recording right now is gonna be out on the internet for years to come, educating entrepreneurs, salespeople, and solar professionals worldwide.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's going to be doing that for me.
Speaker: So rather than having to answer a message on Facebook, because I get the same questions over and over again, I go into my LinkedIn.
Speaker: I literally get 45 to 50 DMs a day from solar people on LinkedIn.
Speaker: And rather than saying and answering the same questions and wasting hours of my time, I could send them over to a podcast and have a resource for them to listen to, learn what I do, learn about the virtual broker program, learn about tips it takes to be successful, right?
Speaker: And they could take away from that.
Speaker: I could provide value.
Speaker: So this, recording a podcast, is a good use of my time.
Speaker: It's a small action that takes 30, 45 minutes to
Speaker: And it's going to be able to educate people forever and save hours and hours of my time.
Speaker: So look in your business the resources you could do.
Speaker: If you're prospecting in solar, rather than door knocking, for example, or sending the same messages out, produce a video.
Speaker: produce a video that you could send out to people when you're door knocking and build a list.
Speaker: What if, I never understand this, when people focus exclusively on door knocking, what if instead of just going and hitting the door, hearing a no and forgetting it, what if you went to the door and you actually gave them a resource and collected information in exchange, just like an opt-in on a landing page?
Speaker: What if you went to somebody's door and you said, hey, you know what?
Speaker: I know you're busy and you don't want to stand here and talk to me about solar forever.
Speaker: What do you say I just send you a video real quick?
Speaker: Just give me your phone number and your email real quick.
Speaker: I'll send you a video to give you everything you need to know about solar.
Speaker: And if you like it, you can hit me up online.
Speaker: Sound fair enough?
Speaker: You're going to get a 90% yes response rate because they don't want to talk to you on the door.
Speaker: And now you could follow up with them with an automated process online and you never have to go to their door again.
Speaker: See how much revenue people are missing by not doing those kind of tips.
Speaker: That's just one thing.
Speaker: So figure out what kind of resources you could put in place that are going to replace the actions you do on a consistent basis.
Speaker: And they're going to give you 80% of your results or more.
Speaker: Now, tip number three, guys.
Speaker: is you need to focus on the activities that only you can do and then create a system or outsource the rest of them.
Speaker: This is vital.
Speaker: This has been the number one secret to us growing this business so quickly.
Speaker: This is why we're on track to do eight figures in 2019.
Speaker: It's because of this reason alone.
Speaker: You need to evaluate what only you could do, the skill set only you could provide as the sales professional, as the business owner in your solar company.
Speaker: Are you doing activities that could be outsourced, that could be automated?
Speaker: If the answer is yes, you need to get rid of them at all costs because it's costing you everything.
Speaker: If you think just letting one little thing slide, right?
Speaker: Maybe it's you as the solar CEO right now.
Speaker: And you're the one who's going out on appointments and making the sales calls.
Speaker: Is that really where your time should be best spent?
Speaker: Is that really the highest amount of skill that you could provide in your company is being the sales guy?
Speaker: How about the salespeople?
Speaker: Is the highest amount of skill that you could provide as a sales professional sending out emails to prospects?
Speaker: for four or five hours a day is the highest amount of skill you could provide as a sales professional knocking 80 to 100 doors a day?
Speaker: Is that all you can do?
Speaker: I think the answer is no, and you know the answer is no.
Speaker: You know you're capable and you have more skill than that available and at your fingertips.
Speaker: So why the hell is everybody wasting their time?
Speaker: Why are we wasting our effort with these things?
Speaker: It's a question I want you to really think about.
Speaker: Why are you wasting your time on activities that you can go hire somebody to do?
Speaker: I see CEOs and business owners of solar companies every day that are knocking doors with their guys, that are building sales funnels themselves when they have no idea how to use it, right?
Speaker: Why don't you go pay somebody $15, $20 an hour to do that for you?
Speaker: Why don't you go get a team of appointment setters that qualify appointments for you?
Speaker: Why don't you develop a quality hiring process rather than going out on appointments by yourself?
Speaker: And if you're having a difficult time hiring quality people, evaluate those skills and go find somebody who knows how to hire people.
Speaker: See, there's really no excuse, guys.
Speaker: If you don't know how to do something well, go find somebody who knows how to do it.
Speaker: Personally, I'm not the best marketer or funnel builder in the world.
Speaker: I know my way around.
Speaker: I'm better than 80, 90% of people at it.
Speaker: but I want the best for my business.
Speaker: That's why I go hire and I go find partners that are better at marketing than me.
Speaker: My partner, Will, he's been in the marketing industry for over 10 years.
Speaker: That's half of my lifetime.
Speaker: Of course, I'm not going to be able to market as well as he can, right?
Speaker: That's why I go hire agencies and I find people who know what they're doing so they could give me that edge over the competition.
Speaker: But if I didn't recognize that I'd be wasting my time by learning and attempting to try and be as good as them, I would just be stuck, be stuck in a rut.
Speaker: So focus on the activities you do.
Speaker: And the easy way to do this is make a list of everything that you've done, any task you've done in the last 30 days.
Speaker: And I'm not just talking about sales and business.
Speaker: I'm talking about everything.
Speaker: Laundry, shopping for groceries, washing your car, filling it up with gas, following up with prospects, answering LinkedIn messages, browsing your Facebook feed for no reason.
Speaker: What activities have you done?
Speaker: List every single thing.
Speaker: It should be a massive list.
Speaker: Then I want you to basically analyze
Speaker: which tasks can only you do to move you towards your goals.
Speaker: If you don't know your goals, you got to define those things.
Speaker: That's key.
Speaker: You got to know what you want and where you want to go before you could do this.
Speaker: But after you've done that, figure it out.
Speaker: Figure out what can only you do.
Speaker: So take me, for example, activities that I used to do as a business owner.
Speaker: I used to record content for social media and podcasts.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: I used to edit that content.
Speaker: It would take me four, six hours a day of editing.
Speaker: I used to cold call business owners, cold message them on LinkedIn, follow up with them, train salespeople, hire new salespeople, develop my process for the virtual sales team, create marketing ads, target them on Facebook or LinkedIn or YouTube or whatever we're doing.
Speaker: I used to do all of these things.
Speaker: I used to do my laundry, right?
Speaker: used to go grocery shopping.
Speaker: All of these different tasks, right?
Speaker: But once you realize how much time and where your time's being spent, it's a total game changer.
Speaker: If you know the value of your time, if you know I make X dollars per day, I need to make $2,000 a day, divide that by the number of hours that you have in a day,
Speaker: And that's where your focus needs to be.
Speaker: So if that activity, like washing your car, is not worth, say, $200 an hour, then why the crap are you doing it?
Speaker: Get somebody to do it for you.
Speaker: Even for you guys who don't have a lot of money and you're just starting out.
Speaker: I did this as a beginning sales rep at one of the startup companies I worked with.
Speaker: I was making like $50,000 a year, about $1,000 a week or so.
Speaker: And by the time that I got out of my comfort zone, I stopped going grocery shopping.
Speaker: I started having somebody clean my house.
Speaker: I had somebody cook meals for me.
Speaker: I hired an assistant to take care of emails.
Speaker: That's when I was able to focus on the skills that I could provide the best, which was closing deals and educating homeowners.
Speaker: So right now in seven-figure solar,
Speaker: Rather than editing videos, I have Christian.
Speaker: Christian does a fantastic job at editing content.
Speaker: He's kind of the brains behind Solopreneur and the content, and he helps execute on that.
Speaker: And I know he's better at it than I could be, and that's why he does it and I don't.
Speaker: I focus on what I do best, which is training people, which is showing up on social media and podcasts and producing content for you guys and the angle and perspective that nobody else in the industry can provide but myself.
Speaker: That's the kind of value I provide.
Speaker: So focus on building a system.
Speaker: Whether you're a sales rep, whether you're an entrepreneur,
Speaker: You need to have the system.
Speaker: That's going to help you focus.
Speaker: So guys, those are the top three things, okay?
Speaker: When it comes down to it, the name of the game is focus and getting rid of distractions.
Speaker: You do that by doing these three things to review.
Speaker: Say no to everything that does not move you towards what you want to do and you're passionate about.
Speaker: If you don't know what you want to do yet, go ahead and explore out.
Speaker: Go into all the shiny objects you want.
Speaker: But once you find something that you like, that you truly are passionate about, get rid of all the rest.
Speaker: Say no to distractions.
Speaker: Stop going to conferences.
Speaker: Stop reading other books and focus all in.
Speaker: Avoid the yes man disease.
Speaker: Number two, focus on the 20% of actions that will take your business or your pipeline to the next level and produce those 80% of results.
Speaker: Avoid the perfectionist mindset.
Speaker: Realize it's not going to be perfect.
Speaker: You want 80% or better, right?
Speaker: You're looking for 80%, almost there, quality results that take care of business for you.
Speaker: Buy your bad prospects, get rid of homeowners that waste your time.
Speaker: Don't waste them.
Speaker: Focus that time elsewhere.
Speaker: Develop systems.
Speaker: Use third-party resources, videos, podcasts, social media to educate people for you.
Speaker: And then focus on the activities only you can provide, whether it's closing, it's hiring, maybe it's developing systems, maybe it's producing content.
Speaker: What could only you do and what can you get rid of and outsource with the rest?
Speaker: Evaluate that daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.
Speaker: List out those activities and get rid of the distractions.
Speaker: So guys, that is today's episode, okay?
Speaker: Something I'm very passionate about, focus is the key to all of this.
Speaker: While everybody has so much content available, your ability to focus and say no and focus on the 20% of activities that are gonna give you 80% of the results and spend all of your time in that area, you're gonna be light years ahead of the competition.
Speaker: So guys, if you enjoyed this episode, like, comment, subscribe, whatever it is, right?
Speaker: Go leave us a review.
Speaker: We're going to blow Solapreneur up in the next 30 to 60 days.
Speaker: It is my sole mission.
Speaker: It's my 20% of activities.
Speaker: that I'm gonna focus on is growing solopreneur.
Speaker: I guarantee from where we're at right now, a couple of thousand listens a month, we're gonna 10X that in the next 30 to 45 days.
Speaker: You have my word.
Speaker: This is a public commitment to you who listen.
Speaker: I'm going to grow Solapreneur because it's my obligation to do so to help more entrepreneurs and salespeople get exposed to this great industry that I love and has really created a new life and opportunity for me and many, many others.
Speaker: If you guys enjoyed this, you're an individual, you're looking to get in the industry or you're looking to take it to the next level, go check out the Virtual Solar Broker Program, sevenfiguresolar.com forward slash broker, guys.
Speaker: Check it out.
Speaker: So until next time, take care.
Speaker: Go crush it.
Speaker: I'll see you in the next episode.
Speaker: Next week, we're going to have Steven Larson.
Speaker: Russell Brunson's right-hand man from ClickFunnels.
Speaker: He's live in person in studio.
Speaker: It's going to be pretty freaking awesome.
Speaker: So I'll see you guys next time.
Speaker: Later.
Speaker: Wow, what another amazing episode of the Solarpreneur Podcast.
Speaker: Now, before we take off here, do us a favor and go leave an honest review on your platform of choice or wherever you're listening to this podcast.
Speaker: It helps us get the word out about the Solarpreneur Movement and impact more entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and marketers just like you.
Speaker: And hey, don't forget to head over to Facebook and join the Solarpreneur Group for more daily content,
Speaker: It's going to impact you and help you take your sales game to the next level.
Speaker: See you guys in the next episode.
