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The 1 Thing That Prevents Most People From Hitting Sales Goals
42 Plays4 years ago
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and 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. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask 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 2 (00:44):
The 1 thing that prevents most solar salespeople from hitting their goals and closing deals. That's what we're going to be jamming on today. That and much more coming up on today's podcast. My name's Taylor Armstrong. I'm here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in this great solar industry. Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving, good time with your family. Hope you took the day off. That would be a good day to go and knock. Some doors hit up some people, but I hope that you can take Thanksgiving and Christmas off at least from knocking doors, but a great Turkey day. Great time with friends and family. Hopefully you enjoyed it today. We're going to be talking about something a little bit different, and I love this topic because it's something that I have a lot to learn on. So I love hearing from experts on the topic and that is the topic of finances.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Then I'm going to tie that into what that has to do with closing deals and hitting your goals. But it's actually been a big piece. That's helped me out tremendously to close more deals is thinking more about the financial side of things. And the reason we're talking about this a little bit more right now is because if you miss the big announcement we brought on our first ever sponsors of the show, and that is our friends over at Pi Syndicate. If you hadn't noticed, we brought Jerry, if you sell him the show and he started this financial mastermind basically to help people get their mind, right? When it comes to the money piece of the puzzle. So big thank you to them. And if you want to get, you know, your finances, right, definitely hit them up. Tell them you heard about them from the podcast and they're going to hook you up.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
They're going to take care of you. So go over to Pius in the get.com. We'll post their a website in the show notes of this, go check them out, let them know you appreciate them sponsoring the show and next up. So we're gonna actually hear from their CFO, his name's Austin. And he's going to share a little bit more about their vision and goal is with Pi Syndicate. But anyways, back to the topic at hand of the show today, and so something that prevents people from closing deals more than you think is they have no financial plan in place. And I've talked about this book a lot recently, a lot of podcasts, but closer survival guide by Grant Cardone. He lists this matter of fact is one of the top 10 reasons that closers fail is they don't have a financial plan in place. And we're going to get into what exactly is a financial plan, because I didn't even know what this was when I first read it.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
It's like, what is he talking about? Financial planning. What was that to do with closing deals? So I didn't expect it. Maybe you don't expect that either, but before we talked about what is a financial plan first, I just want to mention that you need to get your head right around money. If you're like, I don't know if anyone's like me, but I had an enormous scarcity mindset around money. And most you've heard my story. I was in college at Southern Utah university. I was
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Transcript
Introduction to Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
Speaker
I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
00:00:19
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.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solarpreneur, you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
00:00:42
Speaker
The one thing that prevents most solar salespeople from hitting their goals and closing deals.
00:00:50
Speaker
That's what we're going to be jamming on today.
00:00:51
Speaker
That and much more coming up on today's podcast.
00:00:56
Speaker
My name's Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:57
Speaker
I'm here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in this great solar industry.
Balancing Work and Holidays in Solar Sales
00:01:06
Speaker
Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving, good time with your family.
00:01:10
Speaker
Hope you took the day off.
00:01:12
Speaker
That would be a good day to go knock some doors, hit up some people, but I hope that you can take Thanksgiving and Christmas off at least from knocking doors.
00:01:22
Speaker
But a great turkey day, great time with friends,
00:01:25
Speaker
Friends and family.
Financial Awareness in Closing Deals
00:01:27
Speaker
Hopefully you enjoyed it today We're gonna be talking about something a little bit different and I love this topic because it's something that I have a lot to learn on so I love hearing from experts on the topic and that is the topic of finances and I'm gonna tie that into what that has to do with Closing deals and hitting your goals, but it's actually been a big piece.
00:01:50
Speaker
That's helped me out tremendously
00:01:53
Speaker
to close more deals is thinking more about the financial side of things.
00:01:58
Speaker
And the reason we're talking about this a little bit more right now is because if you missed the big announcement, we brought on our first ever sponsors of the show.
00:02:07
Speaker
And that is our friends over at Pi Syndicate.
00:02:09
Speaker
If you hadn't noticed, we brought Jerry Fussell on the show.
00:02:14
Speaker
And he started this financial mastermind basically to help people get their mind right
00:02:22
Speaker
When it comes to the money piece of the puzzle.
00:02:25
Speaker
So big thank you to them.
00:02:28
Speaker
And if you want to get, you know, your finances right, definitely hit them up.
00:02:34
Speaker
Tell them you heard about them from the podcast and they're going to hook you up.
00:02:37
Speaker
They're going to take care of you.
00:02:40
Speaker
So go over to Piesyndicate.com.
00:02:42
Speaker
We'll post their website in the show notes of this.
00:02:46
Speaker
Go check them out.
00:02:47
Speaker
Let them know you appreciate them sponsoring the show.
00:02:51
Speaker
And next episode, we're actually here from their CFO.
00:02:54
Speaker
His name's Austin.
00:02:56
Speaker
And he's going to share a little bit more about what their vision and goal is with Pi Syndicate.
00:03:03
Speaker
But anyways, back to the topic at hand of the show today.
Overcoming Financial Struggles and Mindset Shift
00:03:08
Speaker
And so something that prevents people from closing deals more than you think is they have no financial plan in place.
00:03:17
Speaker
And I've talked about this book a lot recently, a lot of podcasts, but Closer Survival Guide by Grant Cardone.
00:03:25
Speaker
He lists this, matter of fact, is one of the top 10 reasons that closers fail is they don't have financial time in place.
00:03:34
Speaker
And we're going to get into what exactly is a financial plan, because I didn't even know what this was when I first read it.
00:03:40
Speaker
Like, what is he talking about?
00:03:41
Speaker
Financial plan.
00:03:42
Speaker
What does that have to do with closing deals?
00:03:46
Speaker
So I didn't expect it.
00:03:48
Speaker
Maybe you don't expect it either.
00:03:50
Speaker
But before we talk about what is a financial plan, first, I just want to mention that you need to get your head right around money.
00:04:00
Speaker
If you're like me, I don't know if anyone's like me, but I had an enormous scarcity mindset around money.
00:04:09
Speaker
Most of you have heard my story.
00:04:11
Speaker
I was in college at Southern Utah University,
00:04:14
Speaker
I was donating plasma to pay my rent basically.
00:04:19
Speaker
My summers of pest control didn't go as well as I hoped, so I didn't even have money to pay my rent at the time.
00:04:25
Speaker
I was donating plasma and I was that kid on campus that was going to every single club event, every single thing to try and get just some free food.
00:04:36
Speaker
If you've been on campuses, you know they do those events all the time where they're handing out free pizza,
00:04:41
Speaker
where they're inviting you to come check out the clubs.
00:04:44
Speaker
I wasted so many hours going to these events, listening to pointless meetings, just because I knew there was going to be a slice of pizza at the end.
00:04:53
Speaker
So that's how desperate I was.
00:04:54
Speaker
I literally did not want to spend a dime out of my pocket if I knew I could go get free food somewhere.
00:05:01
Speaker
And that was just the tip of the iceberg.
00:05:03
Speaker
I was the guy that our school had this discount card.
00:05:07
Speaker
It's called the Starving Student Card.
00:05:10
Speaker
where every single restaurant in town, they had a deal for college students.
00:05:16
Speaker
It was mostly like buy one, get one for eat burgers or I don't know, some sort of like bonus you got with your meal.
00:05:24
Speaker
Every single date I went on in college, I refused to go to any place that was not listed on this card.
00:05:30
Speaker
I'm like, I'm not paying a dime over what I should.
00:05:34
Speaker
I'm going to get some type of deal.
00:05:35
Speaker
I'm going to get some type of discount or else I'm not going there.
00:05:40
Speaker
So that was me.
00:05:41
Speaker
Pretty sad, right?
00:05:42
Speaker
And I didn't have money, so I mean, I was driven by that.
00:05:46
Speaker
That's not like, you know, that was kind of the factors.
00:05:49
Speaker
When you're broke, you do pretty crazy stuff.
00:05:54
Speaker
And the craziest thing I probably did was we even went on a trip with some buddies freshman year of college.
00:06:03
Speaker
We decided, hey, we're going to go out to California.
00:06:05
Speaker
We're going to go to Six Flags, Knott's Berry Farm, I don't know, a few different places.
00:06:12
Speaker
And we went there.
00:06:13
Speaker
I was so broke.
00:06:15
Speaker
I was literally finding leftover concessions on people's tables
Adopting an Abundance Mindset
00:06:20
Speaker
at Six Flags.
00:06:21
Speaker
I was going around.
00:06:22
Speaker
If I saw a piece of pizza or some fries that looked like they hadn't been touched, I was snagging people's foods off tables.
00:06:30
Speaker
Pretty nasty, right?
00:06:32
Speaker
I did some extreme stuff.
00:06:35
Speaker
I was broke.
00:06:36
Speaker
And this caused me just like some crazy distress in my head.
00:06:40
Speaker
Caused some crazy thoughts about money that I was never going to have money.
00:06:44
Speaker
I was always going to be short on money.
00:06:47
Speaker
I was always going to be strapped for cash.
00:06:50
Speaker
It just caused this enormous scarcity mindset.
00:06:53
Speaker
And I've seen it in a few of my friends.
00:06:55
Speaker
I didn't grow up.
00:06:56
Speaker
My parents, you know, weren't broke or anything.
00:06:59
Speaker
My dad's a dentist, so.
00:07:01
Speaker
you know, upper middle class, we always had money.
00:07:04
Speaker
We always, you know, never went hungry, nothing crazy like that.
00:07:09
Speaker
But I just never really had jobs.
00:07:12
Speaker
I was a music major.
00:07:13
Speaker
So I was always practicing my drums, my percussion.
00:07:16
Speaker
I didn't have time to go work.
00:07:19
Speaker
So if you're like me, if you had these, if you've had these types of thoughts in your head, they're likely still carrying over to this day.
00:07:29
Speaker
And that's part of what I struggle with now is I still find myself having these thoughts where I don't have money.
00:07:38
Speaker
I'm not going to be able to provide for my family.
00:07:40
Speaker
I'm going to be short on cash.
00:07:43
Speaker
And it's not an issue now, but they still creep up just because it was so ingrained in my head back in my college days and back growing up that I didn't have money to buy what I wanted.
00:07:58
Speaker
Guys, this is the first step.
00:08:00
Speaker
Before you create a financial plan, you can get your mindset right around money.
00:08:04
Speaker
It's a work in progress for me, but think, how can you get your mindset right around cash?
00:08:12
Speaker
Someone that I look up to a lot that talks about this topic all the time is River Skinner.
00:08:18
Speaker
He was a guest on the podcast, but he has this whole abundance kind of movement, he calls it.
00:08:25
Speaker
He's always preaching about being more abundant.
00:08:29
Speaker
He's always going to gas stations and like cheering that he's paying four or five bucks a gallon for gas because he's abundant.
00:08:38
Speaker
So think, how can you be more abundant?
00:08:41
Speaker
How can you get rid of those scarcity mindset feelings around money?
00:08:46
Speaker
Because if you don't do it, it's going to be holding you back in your financial goals.
00:08:50
Speaker
It's going to make it tougher to close deals.
00:08:52
Speaker
It's going to make it tougher to have success in the solar industry.
00:08:57
Speaker
So be abundant.
00:08:59
Speaker
Something that helped me is just actually having physical cash, handling it.
00:09:05
Speaker
These days, most people don't carry around physical cash.
00:09:07
Speaker
Most people don't even look at their dollar bills, right?
00:09:10
Speaker
It's all in Venmo.
00:09:12
Speaker
It's all in PayPal.
00:09:13
Speaker
It's all in Cash App, whatever.
00:09:15
Speaker
But they're not seeing the physical cash.
00:09:18
Speaker
So if you can't see it, how are you going to know you have the money, right?
00:09:21
Speaker
You can go look at the bank account.
00:09:23
Speaker
But something that actually helped me tremendously, go...
00:09:28
Speaker
Go get withdrawal of actual physical cash Yeah, I kept in an envelope for months.
00:09:35
Speaker
I should do this again Probably help now um, but something I did for months I would get I had $100 bill $50 bill $20 bill $10 bill I would take them out and I would physically handle them every day and I would just envision myself having extra cash and
00:09:56
Speaker
I would envision myself never being short on that money I was handling in my hand.
00:10:02
Speaker
I was doing affirmations around it.
00:10:05
Speaker
So try that.
00:10:06
Speaker
Go print out some physical cash.
00:10:08
Speaker
You can't print it out, but go withdraw some physical cash.
00:10:12
Speaker
Have it in an envelope and maybe get your mind wrapped around that.
00:10:20
Speaker
You have an abundance of cash.
Financial Planning and Investment Strategies
00:10:23
Speaker
Okay, so that's step number one.
00:10:24
Speaker
Make sure you get your mind right around money.
00:10:30
Speaker
And then step number two is get that financial plan in place.
00:10:34
Speaker
Okay, again, Grant Cardone talks about this as one of the reasons why closers fill.
00:10:39
Speaker
They don't have the plan in place.
00:10:42
Speaker
So if you have the book,
00:10:43
Speaker
It's step number seven.
00:10:45
Speaker
It's on page 66.
00:10:48
Speaker
He talks about this.
00:10:49
Speaker
You can go read the whole thing if you want.
00:10:51
Speaker
He just has a couple pages on it.
00:10:53
Speaker
But just to summarize it, he talks at the end, saying most people correctly estimate their financial needs or never created a financial plan at all.
00:11:04
Speaker
Get a financial plan today and make sure it's going to do more than pay the bills, but also create financial freedom for you and your household.
00:11:12
Speaker
You will start closing more deals and you'll quit underestimating the amount of effort, energy, and enthusiasm it takes to get a deal closed.
00:11:19
Speaker
The bottom line is this.
00:11:21
Speaker
If you underestimate what it takes to create real financial freedom, then it only makes sense that you will underestimate what it takes to close a deal.
00:11:29
Speaker
Mic drop right there, right?
00:11:32
Speaker
And I can personally attest to this.
00:11:34
Speaker
One of the recent best months of sales that I had,
00:11:39
Speaker
recently is we were investing in this rental property.
00:11:43
Speaker
Some of you that follow me over on Instagram, I talked about how we're getting a rental property.
00:11:49
Speaker
We're in an Airbnb over in Utah.
00:11:54
Speaker
And that month, I just had this excitement.
00:11:57
Speaker
I'm like, man, I want to go out and create this money so I can put it towards that property.
00:12:01
Speaker
And that month, I had, I think it was 14 deals closed, 13, 14.
00:12:08
Speaker
where the previous months I was closing, I don't know, six, seven, eight.
00:12:13
Speaker
But I had that extra level of excitement that I was putting my money towards something that I was excited about, towards an investment for my future.
00:12:23
Speaker
And that's part of having a financial plan in place, is you're planning for how you're going to create extra income, and you're planning the investments you're going to make with that extra income.
00:12:34
Speaker
You're planning your future with it.
00:12:36
Speaker
You're not just paying the bills.
00:12:39
Speaker
And you think of these companies that just cut costs, cut costs, cut costs, just strict budget.
00:12:44
Speaker
And you'll also follow these people like Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman.
00:12:49
Speaker
You follow Matt Cardone, he bashes on them all the time because what do they talk about?
00:12:53
Speaker
They talk about just living by a super strict budget, cutting costs, chopping up your credit cards, right?
00:13:01
Speaker
And just, you know, living as slim as you can.
00:13:06
Speaker
But I think it's super powerful, especially in sales.
00:13:10
Speaker
Go out and close more deals to create your financial freedom.
00:13:15
Speaker
I want to live like a king and have extra money for my investments.
00:13:21
Speaker
And obviously, there's a balance.
00:13:22
Speaker
You're not going to go blow insane amounts of money.
00:13:26
Speaker
You shouldn't be dropping thousands of dollars at the club every weekend.
00:13:30
Speaker
So within reason.
00:13:31
Speaker
But think, how can you create that extra income to live how you want to live?
00:13:36
Speaker
and then have that extra money for your investments.
00:13:40
Speaker
So I think the first step in creating that financial plan is yes, figure out how much money you need to live.
00:13:48
Speaker
You do want to figure out what is your budget, what exactly you're going to do, how much money do you need to live, right?
00:13:57
Speaker
And how much money do you need to fund future retirement plans, vacations, children's education, all that stuff like that.
00:14:04
Speaker
And then second,
00:14:06
Speaker
Grant Cardone talks about this, figure out how much money you actually need to bring in monthly in order to create solvency and get all that you want accomplished.
00:14:16
Speaker
Which solvency is the ability of an entity to pay its debts with available cash.
00:14:22
Speaker
So your financial plan should include clearly stated monetary goals, exactly how you're going to create surpluses of money, what to do with the surpluses and investments,
00:14:34
Speaker
So this is very important.
00:14:36
Speaker
Go and write down, have your financial plan written down.
00:14:41
Speaker
How much do you need to live?
00:14:43
Speaker
You should be doing that.
00:14:44
Speaker
If you haven't done that, go track, figure out all your exact expenses, figure out how much you need to live to put away each month, but then figure out what is your surplus.
00:14:55
Speaker
So how much surplus do you want to have each month?
00:14:58
Speaker
What are you going to do with that?
00:14:59
Speaker
Write down your investments.
00:15:01
Speaker
And this goes into why I think joining something like Pi Syndicate is a great idea.
00:15:08
Speaker
Because if you don't know, if you're like me, you don't know what to invest your money in.
00:15:13
Speaker
I'll be honest, I am not a financial guru.
00:15:18
Speaker
I'm not good with investments.
00:15:19
Speaker
And that's why I never invested really in the past.
00:15:24
Speaker
That's why it's taken me until now to get my first rental properties because I just thought, oh, I don't know where to look.
00:15:31
Speaker
I don't know.
00:15:33
Speaker
I don't know how to tell if this is a good deal or if it's going to cash flow.
00:15:37
Speaker
But if you can be around a group of people who know what they're doing, a mastermind style, like Pi Syndicate, guys that have multi-multi-millionaires,
00:15:51
Speaker
that have tons of different investments that are super successful, that's going to jumpstart the process.
00:15:58
Speaker
So that's why I decided to have them as the sponsor for the show is because so many people in this industry, they can make money, but what are they doing with it?
00:16:08
Speaker
And are they paying all the Uncle Sam?
00:16:11
Speaker
That's the other thing that's super powerful.
00:16:13
Speaker
joining Python to get, you're going to learn how to actually take that money you would be giving to Uncle Sam and investing it and avoiding what you would probably pay in taxes otherwise.
00:16:26
Speaker
So that's the two big steps of the day.
00:16:29
Speaker
And this is why a lot of people fail.
00:16:32
Speaker
You don't have a financial plan.
00:16:34
Speaker
So today, wherever you are, after your workout, after your ride out to area, wherever you're listening to this,
00:16:41
Speaker
Sometime today, take out your notes app, take out a pad, a paper, write down what is your financial plan, how much do you need to have to live every month, and then how much surplus are you going to have every month?
00:16:55
Speaker
What are you going to do with that?
00:16:57
Speaker
Write it out, get it in front of you, slap it on the mirror, put it on a vision board if you're into that stuff.
00:17:03
Speaker
I think it's super cool to have.
00:17:05
Speaker
Maybe print out a picture to go with it.
00:17:07
Speaker
And then that's how you're going to create this excitement.
Motivation and Family Responsibilities
00:17:10
Speaker
I guarantee you, if you do this, it's going to motivate you to push harder in deals than you were before.
00:17:17
Speaker
It's something that I feel like I became a better closer when I had a kid.
00:17:23
Speaker
I actually just had my second kid.
00:17:25
Speaker
Now when I'm in deals, I know, okay, I want to feed my kids.
00:17:30
Speaker
I want to, you know, pond my kid's future.
00:17:34
Speaker
So it allows me to push harder to hang in deals longer than I would otherwise.
00:17:40
Speaker
So what's that motivation that you have?
00:17:42
Speaker
What stage are you in?
00:17:44
Speaker
How are you going to create that extra motivation to push hard in those deals?
00:17:49
Speaker
You're not going to be pulling people's teeth, but you're going to stick in that deal.
00:17:54
Speaker
And this is the way to do it.
00:17:56
Speaker
So that's the topic of today.
00:17:58
Speaker
Make sure you get your mind right around your money.
00:18:02
Speaker
And then step two.
00:18:03
Speaker
Have that financial plan in place.
00:18:06
Speaker
It's going to change your game in solar.
00:18:09
Speaker
I promise you.
00:18:09
Speaker
So let me know what you think of this topic.
00:18:11
Speaker
Let me know if you like these financial topics.
00:18:14
Speaker
Next episode, we're going to have Austin on the show.
00:18:17
Speaker
He's going to dive into a little more.
00:18:19
Speaker
He's the expert on this stuff.
00:18:21
Speaker
So you're going to hear from him.
00:18:23
Speaker
So don't miss out and get your finances right.
00:18:26
Speaker
Close some deals this week and we will see you on the next episode.
00:18:30
Speaker
Peace.
Introducing Solciety for Solar Professionals
00:18:32
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
00:18:34
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?
00:18:44
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.
00:18:56
Speaker
That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry.
00:19:07
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And it's called Solciety.
00:19:09
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This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors and
00:19:16
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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.
00:19:26
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Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
00:19:34
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So go to SoulCity.co to learn more.
00:19:38
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and join the learning experience now.
00:19:42
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This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to solcity.co and join.
00:19:49
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We'll see you on the inside.