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The #1 Secret To Dominating Business, Sales, And Life... (How To Focus)
56 Plays7 years ago
Do you want to know the #1 secret to crushing your sales game? How about your business or you life? Well that's why today I want to share the #1 strategy that helped me grow Seven Figure Solar to the business it is today, and be on track to do over 8 figures in 2019... and more importantly what you can do to apply it to your own success.
Do you want to know the #1 secret to crushing your sales game? How about your business or your life? Well that's why today I want to share the #1 strategy that helped me grow Seven Figure Solar to the business it is today and be on track to do over 8 figures in 2019... and more importantly what you can do to apply it to your own success.
Https://www.sevenfiguresolar.com/broker
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Transcript
Keys to Success in Solar Industry
00:00:00
Speaker
What's the key to having success in sales, business, and in life in the solar industry?
00:00:06
Speaker
That's what we're going to talk about on today's episode of the Solarpreneur Podcast.
00:00:12
Speaker
Look, in the solar business, there's really only two types of people.
00:00:15
Speaker
There's the ones that crush it, make six, seven, and eight figures, and then there's everyone else.
00:00:20
Speaker
The question is, which one will you be?
00:00:24
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.
00:00:35
Speaker
So how do these solarpreneurs do what they do and what makes them so successful?
00:00:40
Speaker
This podcast is your answer.
00:00:42
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.
00:00:54
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast.
Commitment to Consistency and Changes at 7 Figure Solar
00:01:03
Speaker
What's going on, Solarpreneurs?
00:01:04
Speaker
This is James Swiderski, co-founder at 7 Figure Solar.
00:01:09
Speaker
Look, I want to come out right up front and apologize.
00:01:12
Speaker
It has been forever since we've put out some quality content for you guys.
00:01:17
Speaker
We've been neglecting this audience and enough is enough.
00:01:20
Speaker
Today, Ford, we're going to be consistent as it gets with this podcast.
00:01:25
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
00:01:33
Speaker
two months.
00:01:33
Speaker
I've changed a lot of business practices and kind of our sales model as well at 7 Figure Solar and Solarpreneur.
00:01:41
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.
00:01:49
Speaker
So,
00:01:50
Speaker
Going forward with this, I want to make sure I am on the forefront of this podcast some more.
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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.
00:02:03
Speaker
You guys have great interviews, but I'd love to hear more of you.
00:02:06
Speaker
So I'm going to give you guys what you've been asking for.
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Speaker
I'm going to make sure that I'm on the podcast consistently.
00:02:13
Speaker
that we continue to bring higher quality guests for you guys.
00:02:16
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.
00:02:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:27
Speaker
So guys, solarpreneur, in case you're new here, solarpreneur is designed for not just the sales professional who is in solar, but
00:02:37
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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.
00:02:47
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I want to give you the tools if you're not in solar to go and thrive in other industries.
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But I'm going to cater to solar because that's the industry I'm in.
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It's the industry a lot of our listeners are in.
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And it's the industry I believe that is going to change the world and has the most impact.
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And I want more people to be involved.
00:03:05
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Solarpreneur is...
00:03:06
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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.
00:03:13
Speaker
So that's the direction of Solarpreneur.
00:03:15
Speaker
We're working on getting a lot of additional guests.
00:03:18
Speaker
I'm going to name drop some
Upcoming Interviews and Expansion Plans
00:03:20
Speaker
guys here.
00:03:20
Speaker
If you know Ryan Steumann or Steven Larson from ClickFunnels, we got both of those guys on the podcast coming up here.
00:03:29
Speaker
Next week, we're going to post that episode with Steven Larson.
00:03:32
Speaker
is the Dynamite interview, guys.
00:03:34
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You do not want to miss that.
00:03:35
Speaker
And then Ryan's coming a little bit later this summer.
00:03:38
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.
00:03:46
Speaker
And we want to expose you guys to because at the end of the day,
00:03:50
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Quality content is not as easy to find these days, especially in this industry.
00:03:56
Speaker
So I want to make sure I'm providing that tool set for you guys.
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So that's the first announcement I want to go over.
00:04:03
Speaker
The second one is about my company, Seven Figure Solar, actually.
00:04:08
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.
00:04:18
Speaker
We have actually in the last three months.
00:04:21
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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.
00:04:33
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And we're expanding that network.
00:04:35
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The goal is to get to around 1,000 individuals in the next year in our sales team using our platform.
00:04:43
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And it's taken a lot of work.
00:04:44
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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.
00:04:53
Speaker
And I think we're now ironing out the details enough where I can produce some quality content for you guys.
00:04:58
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But that's where I've been.
00:04:59
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That's why you haven't heard my voice in a while.
00:05:02
Speaker
And I hope to make that up to you guys.
00:05:04
Speaker
But that being said...
00:05:06
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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.
00:05:14
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I want you to take a careful look at our new program.
00:05:18
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It's the Virtual Solar Certification Program.
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You could go over to sevenfiguresolar.com forward slash broker.
00:05:26
Speaker
And basically, I'm just going to give you a quick rundown of what's going on, a little plug on this.
00:05:30
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This is not just a course where you learn how to sell solar, okay?
00:05:34
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We had our Solar Sales Academy before.
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That was great.
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We actually shut that down for reasons on the topic of today's podcast.
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But this new program is really, in essence, made to be a business opportunity for people who are in solar currently,
00:05:51
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or they want to get into solar.
00:05:53
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And long story short, it's a licensing program to where you get into our huge network of solar installers.
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We have over 100 solar installers nationwide, and we're working on international markets that you can tap into.
00:06:07
Speaker
And basically, you come in, and you become a part of that team, and you start your own solar brokerage.
00:06:13
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
00:06:21
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Over the phone and in multiple states in any market, you're not bound to one specific company.
00:06:26
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You have the ability to go to a homeowner and broker and say, hey, what's the best opportunity for you?
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Let's figure out the best fit and then move forward with that.
00:06:34
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So it's a very unique approach to the industry.
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And what I believe is the future of this industry and what's going to drive things forward.
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to really taking the solar sales process into the 21st century.
00:06:46
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So I'm not going to go into more details on that.
00:06:48
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You can head over to sevenfiguresolar.com forward slash broker.
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It's all over the podcast.
00:06:55
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There's links for it, all that great stuff.
00:06:57
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But go check that out.
00:06:58
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See if it's a good opportunity for you guys.
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We've had a tremendous amount of new students and people that have came on and they're absolutely crushing it.
00:07:06
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We're talking about closing 10, 12 deals in their first month over the phone and new markets they had no experience with.
00:07:13
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People that are brand new to solar and just absolutely dominating the industry.
00:07:18
Speaker
That program, just so you know,
00:07:21
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is geared towards individuals.
00:07:23
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So if you're a CEO or a business owner, feel free to contact us as well.
00:07:28
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We have different programs and things for that, but this program is exclusively for individuals.
00:07:34
Speaker
So anyway, that's enough of the promo stuff, guys.
00:07:36
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Let's dive into today's topic.
The Importance of Focus for Success
00:07:39
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And I want to talk about kind of the number one secret in any industry, entrepreneurship, sales,
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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.
00:07:54
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Of course, I'm going to talk about it from the perspective of a solar business owner and a consulting business owner.
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Speaker
So...
00:08:01
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Today I want to talk about focus, okay?
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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,
00:08:16
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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.
00:08:28
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It all came down to focus, okay?
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That's the name of the game.
00:08:32
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Information is in abundance.
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Information is out there everywhere.
00:08:36
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Hop on YouTube, you can learn any skill.
00:08:39
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You can learn how to build funnels, Facebook ads, close deals, learn about solar, all that stuff, right?
00:08:45
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So information is not new, it's not novel, it's accessible to everybody, which means the information is of less value.
00:08:55
Speaker
See, it used to be 10, 15 years ago when information wasn't as widely available that it was of more value.
00:09:04
Speaker
You could do more with it.
00:09:05
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If you had the information, you had a key advantage over somebody.
00:09:08
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But now anybody with an internet connection and a phone can go and get the same details.
00:09:14
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Everybody's executing on the same things.
00:09:16
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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?
00:09:26
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There's nothing new about it.
00:09:27
Speaker
Everybody is going the same direction, speaking the same things and just shouting at the rooftop.
00:09:34
Speaker
So what it comes down to is execution, right?
00:09:37
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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?
00:09:44
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?
00:09:59
Speaker
Well, you can't.
00:10:00
Speaker
That's what I wanted to talk about.
00:10:02
Speaker
You cannot do all this.
00:10:04
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.
00:10:18
Speaker
I've only been able to do that by saying no to opportunities.
00:10:22
Speaker
So today I want to give you three distinct advantages that are going to give you extreme amount of focus.
00:10:29
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.
00:10:36
Speaker
You're going to be the best sales guy.
00:10:38
Speaker
Rather than making six figures in this industry, you can make seven and eight figures.
00:10:43
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I know guys that do both.
00:10:45
Speaker
And that's not gross sales, that's actual commissions.
00:10:50
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These are guys that clear $10 to $20 million in contracts every year.
00:10:55
Speaker
And they do that by focusing.
00:10:57
Speaker
So the three things I want to go over.
00:10:58
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.
00:11:15
Speaker
See, if you've seen the movie Yes Man by Jim Carrey is the guy in Yes Man, right?
00:11:22
Speaker
Funny movie.
00:11:24
Speaker
But it's a terrible example of what entrepreneurs are going through right now.
00:11:28
Speaker
Most guys in the industry, most gals in the industry are saying yes to too many things.
00:11:34
Speaker
They're saying yes to a new podcast.
00:11:36
Speaker
They're saying yes to a new YouTube channel.
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Speaker
They're subscribed to like 75 influencers on Instagram and they watch all their pieces of content every single day.
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They go to five business conferences in February.
00:11:50
Speaker
And what happens?
00:11:51
Speaker
They get new ideas.
00:11:53
Speaker
They get lost.
00:11:53
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They get confused.
00:11:56
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And they start to pivot.
00:11:58
Speaker
See, I'm not the guy...
00:12:00
Speaker
who's been in business long enough to tell you that it takes 10 to 15 years to be successful.
00:12:06
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.
00:12:18
Speaker
You can't switch industries and opportunities every 6, 12, 18 months if it's not working out.
00:12:26
Speaker
You need to go all in on one industry.
00:12:29
Speaker
That's what I've chosen to do with solar in the last two and a half years.
00:12:33
Speaker
I haven't pivoted.
00:12:34
Speaker
I became close.
00:12:36
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I'm passionate about a lot of other businesses.
00:12:38
Speaker
I have tons of great ideas flowing in my head for businesses.
00:12:42
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But if I go and I pivot and I say, hey, maybe I'll just do this on the side.
00:12:45
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Maybe I'll do this as a hobby.
00:12:47
Speaker
Maybe I'll dive into real estate.
00:12:48
Speaker
Maybe I'll start a drop shipping business.
00:12:51
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I'm going to get distracted.
00:12:52
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And if you're pulled in five, six different directions at once,
00:12:56
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You're going to suck at all of them.
00:12:59
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So it comes down to going all in.
00:13:02
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.
00:13:07
Speaker
So I assume if you're listening to the Solopreneur podcast,
00:13:12
Speaker
Some part of you is interested in solar, right?
00:13:14
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?
00:13:31
Speaker
These are all reasons I'm excited to go into solar for.
00:13:34
Speaker
Why is the industry I've chosen to be in
00:13:38
Speaker
for the long haul for the next 5, 10, 15 plus years, right?
00:13:43
Speaker
And because I'm so passionate about it, I need to say no to other opportunities.
00:13:49
Speaker
I do this with business partners, friends, family.
00:13:53
Speaker
They all give me ideas for new things.
00:13:55
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I'm the guy who started out, you know, doing a Shopify store.
00:13:59
Speaker
I started a supplement company, right?
00:14:01
Speaker
I did real estate.
00:14:03
Speaker
I did sales.
00:14:04
Speaker
I did all of these different businesses.
00:14:06
Speaker
Over 12 businesses in a period of about two years,
00:14:10
Speaker
And because I went through that shiny object syndrome, I was unsuccessful at all of them.
00:14:16
Speaker
And it wasn't until I completely dived into solar and I said no to everything else, that's when I was successful.
00:14:23
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.
00:14:29
Speaker
Avoid the yes man disease.
00:14:31
Speaker
You don't want to be Jim Carrey here.
00:14:34
Speaker
So...
00:14:35
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?
00:14:47
Speaker
We used to provide our solar sales academy to them.
00:14:50
Speaker
We had a mentorship program where we would actually get on the phone and coach them with our solar coaches.
00:14:55
Speaker
And what I noticed is this was just a teeny piece of our business.
00:15:01
Speaker
It wasn't bringing in any revenue.
00:15:02
Speaker
That wasn't really the point of it.
00:15:04
Speaker
It was really just for impact.
00:15:07
Speaker
And we decided to get rid of that.
00:15:10
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About a month, month and a half ago, we decided to say no.
00:15:13
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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.
00:15:23
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That's where we wanted to focus our time at.
00:15:26
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And this was distracting us from that.
00:15:28
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So we cut it out.
00:15:29
Speaker
Now we only do consulting with
00:15:31
Speaker
Solar companies, of which we have a pretty rigorous qualification program and we're picky about.
00:15:36
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And then we have our virtual solar broker program, where you come in and you broker with us and you start selling.
00:15:42
Speaker
Those are the only two things 7 Figure Solar does at this point.
00:15:47
Speaker
And because of that focus, we've been more successful, not only with revenue and impact, right?
00:15:52
Speaker
But we've been able to expand out that nationwide sales team.
00:15:56
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.
00:16:11
Speaker
So we had to say no, right?
00:16:13
Speaker
Right.
00:16:13
Speaker
So look in your own life, look in your own business sales pipeline.
00:16:16
Speaker
What can you be saying no to right now?
00:16:20
Speaker
Give that some thought.
00:16:22
Speaker
Now let's get into step number two here.
00:16:25
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.
00:16:34
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The 80-20 principle, you've heard it a million times, right?
00:16:37
Speaker
And it's so vitally important to everything you do.
00:16:40
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I review the 80-20 principle twice a day, morning, evening, and I do a weekly and a monthly 80-20.
00:16:47
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?
00:16:58
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And the key thing with the 80-20 principle, I think nobody talks about.
00:17:02
Speaker
And what I really struggled with is you need to get out of the perfection mentality.
00:17:07
Speaker
Realize that getting something out there, starting something is more important than doing it perfectly.
00:17:15
Speaker
Yes, you want to fine tune.
00:17:16
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You want to get better at your process and your system and improve on that based off of feedback.
00:17:21
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But you need to get started.
00:17:23
Speaker
So if you're waiting for solar, right?
00:17:25
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
00:17:33
Speaker
Get into the industry head first.
00:17:35
Speaker
Dive fully in the water, right?
00:17:38
Speaker
You're going to mess up.
00:17:39
Speaker
You're going to look like an idiot, right?
00:17:41
Speaker
But you're going to learn faster than anybody else.
00:17:44
Speaker
And the guy who's stuck on the couch watching videos on YouTube, right?
00:17:48
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That's what the industry is really lacking right now is people who go all in.
00:17:52
Speaker
So focus on the 20% of actions.
00:17:55
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This goes across the board with multiple, multiple things, right?
00:18:00
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This could be your prospects, right?
00:18:02
Speaker
So if you're a salesperson in this industry right now, look at your pipeline.
00:18:07
Speaker
Open up your CRM, pop open your bid machine, whatever you want to call it, and check out your prospects.
00:18:15
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Which prospects are most likely to close?
00:18:18
Speaker
Which 20% of that pipeline is most likely to close?
00:18:22
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And then look at the ones who are going to waste most of your time.
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You know who they are, right?
00:18:26
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The tire kickers, people who aren't super interested.
00:18:29
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Look at the 20% of prospects that'll waste 80% of your time and effort and avoid those people.
00:18:36
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Avoid them.
00:18:37
Speaker
Yeah, you're going to cut out business.
00:18:38
Speaker
You're going to miss out on opportunities.
00:18:41
Speaker
But that's a scarcity mindset.
00:18:43
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?
00:18:55
Speaker
I'd rather lose out on profit so I can make more profit.
00:18:59
Speaker
So you got to be willing to lose out on opportunities.
00:19:02
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That's the key.
00:19:03
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That's why I believe scarcity and abundance mindset is the foundation to everything in sales.
00:19:11
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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.
00:19:17
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You lack the skills and you lack the focus, right?
00:19:20
Speaker
You lack the skills and the knowledge and the execution that it takes to go out and get more customers on demand.
00:19:28
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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.
00:19:37
Speaker
So focus on the prospects, right?
00:19:39
Speaker
If you have a prospect that's wasting your time, they're asking a lot of questions, fire them, get rid of them.
00:19:44
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.
00:19:52
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That's why we don't work with every solar company on the block.
00:19:55
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They have to be willing to train their salespeople.
00:19:58
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I'm not going to hold your hand and drag you through my program.
00:20:01
Speaker
I want a sales team who's already doing pretty decent and they have a good process.
00:20:06
Speaker
I'm not here to fix just a shit show, right?
00:20:09
Speaker
I'm not here to fix a terrible company.
00:20:11
Speaker
I'm here to help people who are doing well and take them to the next level.
00:20:15
Speaker
That's my criteria.
00:20:16
Speaker
So figure out your criteria when you're dealing with prospects, homeowners, business owners, whatever it is.
00:20:22
Speaker
Next is focus on the systems.
00:20:23
Speaker
What systems can you produce?
00:20:25
Speaker
What 20% of systems and processes can you produce that are going to maximize your results?
00:20:31
Speaker
That's something I've been focusing on really, really deep lately is replacing myself out of my businesses.
00:20:38
Speaker
Focusing on the systems, hiring employees, hiring people to help you.
00:20:43
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?
00:20:53
Speaker
So for salespeople out there,
00:20:56
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?
00:21:05
Speaker
You know what they are.
00:21:06
Speaker
Answering the emails, right?
00:21:08
Speaker
Responding to Facebook messages, texting, reminding prospects, following up.
00:21:13
Speaker
Figure out a system that could take care of this for you.
00:21:17
Speaker
We're gonna get into that with tip number three a little bit deeper.
00:21:19
Speaker
But the next thing is focus on third-party resources.
00:21:23
Speaker
I talk about these all the freaking time, right?
00:21:27
Speaker
Videos, webinars, social media posts, podcasts like this.
00:21:32
Speaker
This is a third-party resource.
00:21:34
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.
00:21:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:46
Speaker
It's going to be doing that for me.
00:21:48
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.
00:21:56
Speaker
I literally get 45 to 50 DMs a day from solar people on LinkedIn.
00:22:03
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?
00:22:20
Speaker
And they could take away from that.
00:22:22
Speaker
I could provide value.
00:22:24
Speaker
So this, recording a podcast, is a good use of my time.
00:22:29
Speaker
It's a small action that takes 30, 45 minutes to
00:22:33
Speaker
And it's going to be able to educate people forever and save hours and hours of my time.
00:22:37
Speaker
So look in your business the resources you could do.
00:22:39
Speaker
If you're prospecting in solar, rather than door knocking, for example, or sending the same messages out, produce a video.
00:22:48
Speaker
produce a video that you could send out to people when you're door knocking and build a list.
00:22:53
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?
00:23:09
Speaker
What if you went to somebody's door and you said, hey, you know what?
00:23:12
Speaker
I know you're busy and you don't want to stand here and talk to me about solar forever.
00:23:17
Speaker
What do you say I just send you a video real quick?
00:23:19
Speaker
Just give me your phone number and your email real quick.
00:23:21
Speaker
I'll send you a video to give you everything you need to know about solar.
00:23:24
Speaker
And if you like it, you can hit me up online.
00:23:26
Speaker
Sound fair enough?
00:23:28
Speaker
You're going to get a 90% yes response rate because they don't want to talk to you on the door.
00:23:33
Speaker
And now you could follow up with them with an automated process online and you never have to go to their door again.
00:23:40
Speaker
See how much revenue people are missing by not doing those kind of tips.
00:23:44
Speaker
That's just one thing.
00:23:45
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.
00:23:51
Speaker
And they're going to give you 80% of your results or more.
00:23:56
Speaker
Now, tip number three, guys.
Outsourcing and System Creation for High Impact Activities
00:23:59
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.
00:24:09
Speaker
This is vital.
00:24:10
Speaker
This has been the number one secret to us growing this business so quickly.
00:24:14
Speaker
This is why we're on track to do eight figures in 2019.
00:24:18
Speaker
It's because of this reason alone.
00:24:23
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.
00:24:32
Speaker
Are you doing activities that could be outsourced, that could be automated?
00:24:38
Speaker
If the answer is yes, you need to get rid of them at all costs because it's costing you everything.
00:24:44
Speaker
If you think just letting one little thing slide, right?
00:24:48
Speaker
Maybe it's you as the solar CEO right now.
00:24:52
Speaker
And you're the one who's going out on appointments and making the sales calls.
00:24:57
Speaker
Is that really where your time should be best spent?
00:25:02
Speaker
Is that really the highest amount of skill that you could provide in your company is being the sales guy?
00:25:08
Speaker
How about the salespeople?
00:25:11
Speaker
Is the highest amount of skill that you could provide as a sales professional sending out emails to prospects?
00:25:19
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?
00:25:28
Speaker
Is that all you can do?
00:25:32
Speaker
I think the answer is no, and you know the answer is no.
00:25:35
Speaker
You know you're capable and you have more skill than that available and at your fingertips.
00:25:42
Speaker
So why the hell is everybody wasting their time?
00:25:47
Speaker
Why are we wasting our effort with these things?
00:25:50
Speaker
It's a question I want you to really think about.
00:25:52
Speaker
Why are you wasting your time on activities that you can go hire somebody to do?
00:26:00
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?
00:26:14
Speaker
Why don't you go pay somebody $15, $20 an hour to do that for you?
00:26:18
Speaker
Why don't you go get a team of appointment setters that qualify appointments for you?
00:26:24
Speaker
Why don't you develop a quality hiring process rather than going out on appointments by yourself?
00:26:29
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.
00:26:38
Speaker
See, there's really no excuse, guys.
00:26:40
Speaker
If you don't know how to do something well, go find somebody who knows how to do it.
00:26:46
Speaker
Personally, I'm not the best marketer or funnel builder in the world.
00:26:53
Speaker
I know my way around.
00:26:54
Speaker
I'm better than 80, 90% of people at it.
00:26:58
Speaker
but I want the best for my business.
00:27:00
Speaker
That's why I go hire and I go find partners that are better at marketing than me.
00:27:05
Speaker
My partner, Will, he's been in the marketing industry for over 10 years.
00:27:11
Speaker
That's half of my lifetime.
00:27:12
Speaker
Of course, I'm not going to be able to market as well as he can, right?
00:27:18
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.
00:27:25
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.
00:27:37
Speaker
So focus on the activities you do.
00:27:38
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.
00:27:47
Speaker
And I'm not just talking about sales and business.
00:27:50
Speaker
I'm talking about everything.
00:27:52
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.
00:28:08
Speaker
What activities have you done?
00:28:09
Speaker
List every single thing.
00:28:11
Speaker
It should be a massive list.
00:28:14
Speaker
Then I want you to basically analyze
00:28:18
Speaker
which tasks can only you do to move you towards your goals.
00:28:23
Speaker
If you don't know your goals, you got to define those things.
00:28:26
Speaker
That's key.
00:28:27
Speaker
You got to know what you want and where you want to go before you could do this.
00:28:31
Speaker
But after you've done that, figure it out.
00:28:33
Speaker
Figure out what can only you do.
00:28:35
Speaker
So take me, for example, activities that I used to do as a business owner.
00:28:40
Speaker
I used to record content for social media and podcasts.
00:28:45
Speaker
Great.
00:28:46
Speaker
I used to edit that content.
00:28:48
Speaker
It would take me four, six hours a day of editing.
00:28:51
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.
00:29:13
Speaker
I used to do all of these things.
00:29:14
Speaker
I used to do my laundry, right?
00:29:17
Speaker
used to go grocery shopping.
00:29:20
Speaker
All of these different tasks, right?
00:29:23
Speaker
But once you realize how much time and where your time's being spent, it's a total game changer.
00:29:30
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,
00:29:43
Speaker
And that's where your focus needs to be.
00:29:44
Speaker
So if that activity, like washing your car, is not worth, say, $200 an hour, then why the crap are you doing it?
00:29:52
Speaker
Get somebody to do it for you.
00:29:55
Speaker
Even for you guys who don't have a lot of money and you're just starting out.
00:29:59
Speaker
I did this as a beginning sales rep at one of the startup companies I worked with.
00:30:05
Speaker
I was making like $50,000 a year, about $1,000 a week or so.
00:30:12
Speaker
And by the time that I got out of my comfort zone, I stopped going grocery shopping.
00:30:18
Speaker
I started having somebody clean my house.
00:30:21
Speaker
I had somebody cook meals for me.
00:30:24
Speaker
I hired an assistant to take care of emails.
00:30:27
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.
00:30:34
Speaker
So right now in seven-figure solar,
00:30:36
Speaker
Rather than editing videos, I have Christian.
00:30:39
Speaker
Christian does a fantastic job at editing content.
00:30:42
Speaker
He's kind of the brains behind Solopreneur and the content, and he helps execute on that.
00:30:46
Speaker
And I know he's better at it than I could be, and that's why he does it and I don't.
00:30:51
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.
00:31:08
Speaker
That's the kind of value I provide.
00:31:11
Speaker
So focus on building a system.
00:31:13
Speaker
Whether you're a sales rep, whether you're an entrepreneur,
00:31:17
Speaker
You need to have the system.
00:31:18
Speaker
That's going to help you focus.
00:31:20
Speaker
So guys, those are the top three things, okay?
00:31:23
Speaker
When it comes down to it, the name of the game is focus and getting rid of distractions.
00:31:27
Speaker
You do that by doing these three things to review.
00:31:30
Speaker
Say no to everything that does not move you towards what you want to do and you're passionate about.
00:31:35
Speaker
If you don't know what you want to do yet, go ahead and explore out.
00:31:39
Speaker
Go into all the shiny objects you want.
00:31:41
Speaker
But once you find something that you like, that you truly are passionate about, get rid of all the rest.
00:31:46
Speaker
Say no to distractions.
00:31:48
Speaker
Stop going to conferences.
00:31:49
Speaker
Stop reading other books and focus all in.
00:31:53
Speaker
Avoid the yes man disease.
00:31:57
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.
00:32:05
Speaker
Avoid the perfectionist mindset.
00:32:07
Speaker
Realize it's not going to be perfect.
00:32:09
Speaker
You want 80% or better, right?
00:32:12
Speaker
You're looking for 80%, almost there, quality results that take care of business for you.
00:32:18
Speaker
Buy your bad prospects, get rid of homeowners that waste your time.
00:32:21
Speaker
Don't waste them.
00:32:23
Speaker
Focus that time elsewhere.
00:32:24
Speaker
Develop systems.
00:32:25
Speaker
Use third-party resources, videos, podcasts, social media to educate people for you.
00:32:31
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.
00:32:39
Speaker
What could only you do and what can you get rid of and outsource with the rest?
00:32:45
Speaker
Evaluate that daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.
00:32:49
Speaker
List out those activities and get rid of the distractions.
00:32:54
Speaker
So guys, that is today's episode, okay?
00:32:58
Speaker
Something I'm very passionate about, focus is the key to all of this.
00:33:02
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.
00:33:20
Speaker
So guys, if you enjoyed this episode, like, comment, subscribe, whatever it is, right?
00:33:27
Speaker
Go leave us a review.
00:33:29
Speaker
We're going to blow Solapreneur up in the next 30 to 60 days.
00:33:32
Speaker
It is my sole mission.
00:33:34
Speaker
It's my 20% of activities.
00:33:37
Speaker
that I'm gonna focus on is growing solopreneur.
00:33:40
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.
00:33:49
Speaker
You have my word.
00:33:50
Speaker
This is a public commitment to you who listen.
00:33:54
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.
00:34:10
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.
00:34:23
Speaker
Check it out.
00:34:25
Speaker
So until next time, take care.
00:34:28
Speaker
Go crush it.
00:34:28
Speaker
I'll see you in the next episode.
00:34:30
Speaker
Next week, we're going to have Steven Larson.
00:34:33
Speaker
Russell Brunson's right-hand man from ClickFunnels.
00:34:37
Speaker
He's live in person in studio.
00:34:39
Speaker
It's going to be pretty freaking awesome.
00:34:41
Speaker
So I'll see you guys next time.
00:34:43
Speaker
Later.
00:34:44
Speaker
Wow, what another amazing episode of the Solarpreneur Podcast.
00:34:49
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.
00:34:58
Speaker
It helps us get the word out about the Solarpreneur Movement and impact more entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and marketers just like you.
00:35:06
Speaker
And hey, don't forget to head over to Facebook and join the Solarpreneur Group for more daily content,
00:35:12
Speaker
It's going to impact you and help you take your sales game to the next level.
00:35:16
Speaker
See you guys in the next episode.