Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Speaker: Hey, what's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Today we're going to talk about how to make door knocking healthy again, how to make solar healthy again.
Speaker: Hey, if you're listening to this at the time of the recording, you know Trump just got elected.
Speaker: Let's go, baby.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: you know, love him or hate him.
Speaker: It was a landslide victory, but he recently, I guess, named Robert Kennedy Jr. as his guy over health, I think over secretary of the health department.
Speaker: If you've been listening to it, the whole motto was make America healthy again.
Speaker: So it just got me thinking so many solar guys are not healthy.
Speaker: So many guys are just grinding, not taking care of the body the way they should.
Speaker: So today we're going to talk about how can we make solar healthy again.
Speaker: Hey, let's get into it.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: Hope you're closing lots of deals.
Speaker: Hope you're having lots of success and hope you are...
Speaker: getting used to selling in the dark, knocking doors in the dark, if you're knocking doors.
Speaker: And making that adjustment was a little bit tough for me, just getting used to being out there in the dark, addressing people's concerns that I'm out when it's past dark.
Speaker: But hey, we're getting it done.
Speaker: And we'll probably do extra episodes on that.
Speaker: We might do some content on working in the dark.
Speaker: But today it's going to be all about how can we be healthier as a solar industry.
Speaker: And so my first experience to the whole door to door industry in general came in 2012.
Speaker: Many, you know, I started in pest control and I got out there.
Speaker: I was 18 years old at the time.
Speaker: 18, I think you kind of eat whatever.
Speaker: You're not too concerned about the health.
Speaker: I could pound whatever food, really cheeseburgers and wouldn't affect me too much.
Speaker: But I just saw the culture of pest control.
Speaker: Guys were grinding for a summer.
Speaker: I think it came down to like two schools of thought where there were two different types of people.
Speaker: There were guys that would just like constantly eat junk all day long, go to the gas station, get candy, fast food.
Speaker: I was selling in Texas.
Speaker: We had this place.
Speaker: It was like a pizza buffet called CC's Pizza Pizza.
Speaker: Shout out to my Texas people.
Speaker: You probably have seen those around.
Speaker: I think they're still around.
Speaker: And it was like, I think it was like five or six bucks at the time for just all you can eat pizza.
Speaker: So we would just pound pizza, just stuff ourselves because that was our one meal.
Speaker: And then we'd go back out, hit the doors.
Speaker: We'd come back, we'd eat frozen burritos.
Speaker: We'd eat more frozen pizza.
Speaker: And that's just how it went.
Speaker: And definitely gained weight over the summer.
Speaker: You know, didn't feel great looking back.
Speaker: And, you know, combine that with the extreme intake of energy drinks, caffeine, guys just down in coffees.
Speaker: Yeah, it gets a little out of control.
Speaker: So hopefully if you're listening to this, hopefully you're a little bit better than I was when I first started.
Speaker: But I have learned some lessons over time.
Speaker: And I think part of it is as you get older, not so young anymore, 31 right now.
Speaker: And so as you get older, you start to notice that, hey, if I eat like three frozen pizzas tonight, I'm going to feel super bloated.
Speaker: I'm going to feel terrible in the morning.
Speaker: I'm going to be on the toilet half the morning.
Speaker: Probably not a good idea.
Speaker: It wasn't necessarily like that when I was younger.
Speaker: So if you are a younger guy or gal listening to this podcast, then just know maybe you can treat your body that way right now, but it's going to change quickly.
Speaker: And I would recommend just start to get some good habits in place right now.
Speaker: And just to preface this before we get into a few points here, I'm no health expert.
Speaker: We probably should bring on some health experts.
Speaker: But I've talked to guys that are super healthy.
Speaker: I've tried quite a few diets myself, done a lot of workout plans.
Speaker: And so I consider myself, I would say, above average healthy person, no expert.
Speaker: But I want to share some things that I've learned over time just being in door-to-door
Speaker: mistakes I've made, lessons I've learned.
Speaker: So let's get into a few different points here.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so the first one is just stick to a schedule as much as you can for sleep.
Speaker: And especially, you know, as you're younger, this is another thing.
Speaker: A lot of people, they're out partying on the weekends.
Speaker: They're pulling all-nighters, you know, Saturday, Sunday.
Speaker: You come buying alcohol in there.
Speaker: It's just a recipe for disaster.
Speaker: Okay, so cut out the alcohol.
Speaker: Cut out the partying.
Speaker: If you're going to be in door-to-door in solar to last, you need to embrace the weekends.
Speaker: And I would just cut out all partying, all alcohol, really, if you're going to be in this career, in this industry.
Speaker: But if you are doing that, it's like you need to shift your schedule.
Speaker: The weekends, those are our prime times, right?
Speaker: Friday, Saturday, I take Sunday off, but some guys work Sunday.
Speaker: These are when people are home.
Speaker: It's when people are out and about.
Speaker: It's when you should be catching people and it's when you should be having the most appointments with homeowners, right?
Speaker: Because they're actually home.
Speaker: But if you're staying up all night, if you're partying, it's not going to be great.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Either you're not going to be working as much as you should on the weekends or you're
Speaker: just going to feel terrible on appointments.
Speaker: You're not going to be able to close deals as effectively otherwise.
Speaker: So point number one is just cut that crap out.
Speaker: Stop the partying.
Speaker: Stop the alcohol.
Speaker: Stop going out on the weekends.
Speaker: Like, you know, it's okay here and there, but don't be pulling the all-nighters.
Speaker: And if you are going to go out or whatever, it's like,
Speaker: You know, this is the life you got to embrace.
Speaker: Do it during the week as much as possible.
Speaker: Hey, I would shift it to guys are going to take time off.
Speaker: Take, I don't know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, one of those days off.
Speaker: But weekends, you got to embrace them.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then stick to a schedule for sleep.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So if you're going to stay up later, I what I've learned is don't don't deviate from your typical sleep schedule by more than like an hour if you can, because it's just going to mess with things where it's going to take longer to recover.
Speaker: So try as much as you can.
Speaker: Stick within an hour of your regular sleep schedule.
Speaker: Point number two, limit the caffeine.
Speaker: Hey, when I, you know, got into solar too, in the beginning, we would have guys passing out energy drinks, passing out coffees, passing out Adderall.
Speaker: Hey, Adderall was like, you know, there's still teams I hear about where it's like, they're like, everyone's on Adderall.
Speaker: So, so it's not going to be sustainable long term.
Speaker: It's one thing if you actually have ADD, most of us, and a lot of sales guys, we got ADHD.
Speaker: And so Adderall is kind of like a lot of guys do it in solar.
Speaker: But so many people I started in solar and it's like so many people on my team.
Speaker: I remember looking back, they couldn't even sell if they didn't have an energy drink in Adderall.
Speaker: They couldn't sell.
Speaker: And I think it was this like mental balk they put on themselves that they needed those things.
Speaker: They had to have them and they became almost dependent on them.
Speaker: So I don't do any energy drink occasionally.
Speaker: I would say maybe once every two, three weeks max.
Speaker: So it's like the point is just do it in moderation.
Speaker: Don't become dependent on this stuff.
Speaker: I do not think that you should have to have an energy drink to go out and sell.
Speaker: If you're tired, then there's this crazy thing you can do.
Speaker: And this might be controversial for some of you.
Speaker: But you can take, it's called a nap, right?
Speaker: Take a nap.
Speaker: So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
Speaker: And as we were gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
Speaker: But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Speaker: Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout.
Speaker: But it's not a door knocking app.
Speaker: It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
Speaker: It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
Speaker: I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
Speaker: But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show.
Speaker: You need to give my listeners a great deal, and they did.
Speaker: So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them, and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up.
Speaker: That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show.
Speaker: And some sales managers might be listening to this and be like, dude, that's crazy.
Speaker: Don't be telling my guys to nap.
Speaker: But you can take a nap in your car.
Speaker: And I was hesitant to even bring this point up.
Speaker: But one of what I consider the top dudes in the industry, Ryan Allen, buddy of mine,
Speaker: makes over a million a year, just self-gens, I think does about 200 installs a year, self-gen.
Speaker: One of the top guys, he tells me he takes naps all the time in his car.
Speaker: He'll pull over, take a little snooze, get back at it.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not saying sleep half the day.
Speaker: I'm not saying stay up all night, then nap in your car half the day.
Speaker: But if you're tired,
Speaker: yeah, just pull over, lean the seat back.
Speaker: I've taken naps in some crazy places and yeah, occasionally you'll get some crazy neighbor clinking at the door wondering what you're doing, but
Speaker: Most of the time, nothing's going to happen.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: And so we got two, three other points here.
Speaker: Make sure you stay till the end.
Speaker: The last one you probably haven't heard of and a little bit interesting.
Speaker: So you're going to like it.
Speaker: But the last three points here is number three, stay hydrated.
Speaker: This one's a sleeper.
Speaker: Like so many people, they're not staying hydrated or they are drinking energy drinks.
Speaker: They're drinking soda, whatever.
Speaker: They're not hydrating themselves.
Speaker: And if you're not hydrated, you're fatigued, you're getting headaches, you're not thinking clearly, just so many things can be traced back to being dehydrated.
Speaker: And the first thing I think, if I'm tired, if I have a headache, I would say 90 plus percent of the time, it's because I haven't drank enough water.
Speaker: And this is something that took me a long time to learn.
Speaker: You ask anyone that's roomed with me in college.
Speaker: And the joke was I would wake up in college, the house we were sharing, we were sharing a house.
Speaker: This was back in 2012.
Speaker: And I would, I would pee and my pee would come out like practically neon, just like so dark, so neonish just because I was not drinking coffee.
Speaker: water at all.
Speaker: And I remember one time one of my roommates saw, I don't know if I forgot to flush the toilet or whatever.
Speaker: And he was like literally concerned because my pee was so dark.
Speaker: He's like, dude, do you ever drink water?
Speaker: I'm like, uh, no.
Speaker: And this time I didn't carry around water bottles.
Speaker: It's just like, I'd walk around the college campus and
Speaker: maybe drink at a drinking fountain every once in a while, but that was it.
Speaker: So I think the biggest secret for this is just carry around a water bottle, right?
Speaker: Get yourself one of those insulated bottles.
Speaker: You can get the knockoff brand off Amazon, super cheap.
Speaker: You can get the Stanley cups, whatever.
Speaker: Get something that you feel good about carrying around.
Speaker: carry it around, keep it cool.
Speaker: You can put some little drink mixes, whatever you need to in there, but just stay hydrated.
Speaker: If you carry around the bottle, you're probably going to drink it.
Speaker: So that's the secret.
Speaker: Number three, stay hydrated.
Speaker: Hey, and then the last few things on here just goes without saying, but don't be eating junk food all day.
Speaker: Don't be eating fast food all day.
Speaker: I would recommend getting like a snack bin.
Speaker: I think I've done a few episodes on this about some of my favorite snacks for door knockers for solar guys.
Speaker: But just get some healthy snacks, put them in your car.
Speaker: Then you don't have to be running the gas station.
Speaker: Taylor McCarthy, he always talks about getting like a big cooler drinks he puts in his car.
Speaker: Yeah, you can do that.
Speaker: You can get put stuff in there, keep your food, food cool, but just get snacks.
Speaker: You know, I get like the hard boiled eggs.
Speaker: You can get a bunch of these at Costco, like the big packs of hard boiled eggs, the beef jerky, the protein bars, the protein shakes, so many different healthy, high protein options.
Speaker: It's going to keep you high, full.
Speaker: It's going to keep your, your muscles growing.
Speaker: It's going to keep you looking good out there.
Speaker: help you stay confident.
Speaker: So get you some healthy snacks, put it in the car, share it with your setters, tell your setters or other people on your team, stop buying that crap, those candy bars at the gas station, save some money, just buy in bulk, get those healthy snacks.
Speaker: A few of my favorite protein bars, you got the Built Bars, super delicious, I think better than most candy bars.
Speaker: Another one is the Bear Bells protein.
Speaker: I think that's how you say it.
Speaker: Bear Bells protein bars.
Speaker: These things so good.
Speaker: So tasty.
Speaker: And I'm not positive what's in them.
Speaker: So someone could fact check me on this.
Speaker: Maybe there's some stuff that isn't the greatest.
Speaker: They taste good.
Speaker: They taste like pure candy, but very delicious protein bars.
Speaker: And Costco, you can get those ones aren't as tasty, but they're a little bit more economical.
Speaker: Save you some money if you want to go to Costco.
Speaker: So yeah, get stuff like that.
Speaker: Stay satiated, stay hydrated.
Speaker: You're going to be feeling great as you are out there knocking doors.
Speaker: You're going to be less tired and you're going to have more energy to get after it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then this is the last point that probably most people have not heard of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I did one of these, I think it was like three years ago.
Speaker: And my buddy, Mikey Lucas actually introduced me to these.
Speaker: Shout out to Mikey.
Speaker: But he had me take, it's called a Viome test.
Speaker: And this is one of those things where you, they ship you a little box in the box.
Speaker: They have you take, it's like a poop sample.
Speaker: You scoop a little piece of your poop, you send it back.
Speaker: They do this analysis based on like your gut health and things you should not be putting in your body.
Speaker: And it's actually pretty shocking.
Speaker: They send you back this whole detailed report of foods you should stay away from, foods you should try to consume more than others.
Speaker: foods that you should eat in moderation.
Speaker: And for me, I was super surprised by the results because even things that I thought were healthy, it's like for me, came back, I should not be eating.
Speaker: You know, broccoli was one of them.
Speaker: Eggs were another one that said specifically egg yolks that I should limit, not eat very much of.
Speaker: I think there's asparagus, I think was another one that I was supposed to limit.
Speaker: Brussels sprouts said I should avoid.
Speaker: So just based on your gut health, there's different things.
Speaker: If you want to take one of these tests, I think they're like 100 bucks or so.
Speaker: But you can take one of these biome tests and it will tell you things that you should avoid, things that you should consume more of, things that you should eat in moderation.
Speaker: So that's another little hack there.
Speaker: Consider taking one of those tests.
Speaker: Okay, so we're all about staying healthy.
Speaker: We're all about doing what we can to improve our performance.
Speaker: And most of that starts with how we're treating our bodies.
Speaker: If you're putting low grade fuel in the body, then it's going to be tough to get good results.
Speaker: So this is, I think, a thing that a lot of guys don't think about.
Speaker: It's like if we want better results, it's more than just learning cell skills.
Speaker: It's more than just learning how to maintain a good mental positive state.
Speaker: But a big part of this is we got to treat our bodies right and we got to make solar healthy again.
Speaker: Okay, so share this episode.
Speaker: Help me make solar healthy again.
Speaker: Help me make door knocking healthy again.
Speaker: Let's all do what we can to just treat our bodies better.
Speaker: And I just think, you know, I'm like a, I would say decently in shape guy.
Speaker: I worked out every day.
Speaker: Um, try to do cardio at least like three times a week.
Speaker: I do jujitsu.
Speaker: So I was, and I'm knocking doors.
Speaker: I would say I'm pretty active.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, but I just think of myself, like I get fatigued out there on the, on doors.
Speaker: Um, if I go like a four hour stretch, I'm, um, maybe I'm not conditioned.
Speaker: as much as I need to be right now, but I am feeling a little bit tired by the end of that.
Speaker: So I just think other people that don't treat their bodies well, that they're super overweight.
Speaker: I'm thinking, how do they do this job?
Speaker: Because myself, decent lean shape person, I get exhausted.
Speaker: Hey, so let's all treat our bodies better.
Speaker: Let's do what we can to spread this message.
Speaker: So please share it.
Speaker: Let me know what you think of this or if you guys have any other biohacks, anything that helps you stay healthy and alert and just feeling better on the doors.
Speaker: We'd love to hear it.
Speaker: So and make sure you tune in to next episode.
Speaker: We've got some exciting guests coming up.
Speaker: Actually don't have the list in front of me.
Speaker: So I'm just going to say tune in.
Speaker: It's going to be a surprise who it is because I don't have the sheet in front of me here.
Speaker: But it's going to be a killer episode.
Speaker: Make sure you tune in and please share it.
Speaker: Please subscribe.
Speaker: Please leave a review if you have not already.
Speaker: And happy knocking this week.
Speaker: Happy closing.
Speaker: Hope you have tons of success and we'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker: What's up, solarpreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker: Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
Speaker: One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
Speaker: What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
Speaker: You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
Speaker: So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and I would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solopreneur.
Speaker: We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet.
Speaker: So go download it right now.
Speaker: It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We will have that in the show notes.
Speaker: Go download it right now.
Speaker: And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
Speaker: That's going to show you how.
Speaker: So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.
