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How To Be An Expert Recruiter Without Taking Away From Selling - Clark Manwaring
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Transcript
Taylor's Journey from $50 to 150 Deals
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 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.
What is a Solopreneur?
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
00:00:43
Speaker
Okay, what's going on?
00:00:44
Speaker
We are here.
00:00:45
Speaker
We got another exciting episode today, and we have got someone that is an expert on recruiting that we have been talking up in the previous episodes.
Introducing Clark Manwaring
00:00:54
Speaker
So we are welcoming today the one, the only, Clark Manwaring.
00:00:58
Speaker
Thanks for coming on the show with us, Clark.
00:01:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:01:01
Speaker
Thanks for having me, man.
00:01:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's going to be a good time.
00:01:04
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, you probably get sick of all the jokes about your name, but do you get like Clark Superman wearing?
00:01:10
Speaker
Is that like, is that what they called you in high school and stuff?
00:01:13
Speaker
Yes, sir.
00:01:14
Speaker
Dude, I wish they called me that.
00:01:16
Speaker
Yeah, but I've gotten Clark Kent Superman wearing.
00:01:18
Speaker
You got, I was a diver in high school, high school and college.
00:01:22
Speaker
So I got like man wearing a Speedo.
00:01:25
Speaker
You get the whole gambit, man.
00:01:28
Speaker
I'm sure.
00:01:29
Speaker
I'm sure.
00:01:29
Speaker
Well, glad you're used to it.
00:01:31
Speaker
But all jokes aside, we're going to be jamming on some recruiting today.
00:01:34
Speaker
And this guy definitely knows his stuff when it comes to recruiting.
00:01:38
Speaker
And we're going to hear about his background.
Clark's Roles and Industry Impact
00:01:40
Speaker
But right now, he started Surge.
00:01:42
Speaker
It's a recruiting, I guess, agency, right?
00:01:45
Speaker
Helping a lot of other companies, organizations with their recruiting.
00:01:48
Speaker
And then currently VP of Growth over at, what's the company?
00:01:52
Speaker
Sorry, I just forgot.
00:01:53
Speaker
It's a great.
00:01:55
Speaker
Yeah, okay.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:56
Speaker
Shout out to Bright Solar.
00:01:58
Speaker
My boy's over at Bright.
00:01:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yep.
00:02:00
Speaker
I keep seeing you with the V3 hat, man.
00:02:02
Speaker
So I keep wanting to say he's working with a V3.
00:02:04
Speaker
They make a comfortable hat, did some consulting with them, and I can't take it off my head, man.
00:02:09
Speaker
They put some glue on this thing.
00:02:10
Speaker
It's comfy.
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah, it looks comfy.
00:02:12
Speaker
No, V3 is good.
00:02:14
Speaker
You know Tanner Huber over there?
00:02:16
Speaker
He came on the podcast a while back.
00:02:18
Speaker
I actually don't think, I may have met him briefly, but not off the top of my head.
00:02:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:23
Speaker
Yeah, great guys.
00:02:24
Speaker
Great thing they got going over there.
00:02:26
Speaker
Yeah, good company.
00:02:27
Speaker
Well, so let's get into your background here, Clark.
00:02:30
Speaker
You came and did a meeting with our company here pretty recently, a week or two ago.
00:02:35
Speaker
And yeah, just the stuff you shared with us was mind-blowing.
00:02:39
Speaker
And already we're seeing stuff that we're changing.
00:02:41
Speaker
We're implementing recruiting techniques and just onboarding all types of stuff that you shared with us.
00:02:48
Speaker
And so before we get into the nitty-gritty of all that, do you want to give us just like your background and background?
00:02:54
Speaker
Pretty crazy stat you shared with us.
00:02:56
Speaker
And I want to, I want to hear behind this, but you, you claimed or have recruited 45% of the entire industry.
00:03:03
Speaker
Is that true?
00:03:04
Speaker
Yes, sir.
00:03:05
Speaker
Um, I don't know if I can take credit for that.
00:03:07
Speaker
Me personally, but that would be either me or a recruiter that I have trained.
00:03:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:12
Speaker
So anybody that uses my same method that has been trained by me where we take up 45% of the industry.
00:03:19
Speaker
Yes, sir.
00:03:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:20
Speaker
Well, that's insane and pretty astounding fact.
00:03:24
Speaker
When you think about that, a lot of soul reps out there.
Clark's Sales and Recruiting Evolution
00:03:27
Speaker
So yeah, Clark, tell us how you got in the recruiting and how this kind of became your bread and butter and what you're doing now.
00:03:33
Speaker
What's your background in all this?
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah, I can do.
00:03:37
Speaker
So yeah, I've been in sales for about nine and a half years.
00:03:40
Speaker
Um, I include my LDS mission as part of that.
00:03:43
Speaker
Same, same.
00:03:43
Speaker
That's a, that's a, that's that first in sales.
00:03:46
Speaker
I didn't have any experience before that, but when in that went and knocked doors out in Columbia for two years, um, super awesome experience.
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:56
Speaker
Shout out to Columbia.
00:03:58
Speaker
Where I was too.
00:03:59
Speaker
Um, yeah, it was an awesome experience.
00:04:05
Speaker
Came back from my mission, went to BYU, did terrible.
00:04:11
Speaker
I am an awful student.
00:04:12
Speaker
I learned that very quickly.
00:04:14
Speaker
But yeah, love the time there.
00:04:16
Speaker
I actually worked at the missionary training center.
00:04:19
Speaker
So a lot of that was teaching missionaries how to get good at going out into the field and just being effective missionaries, learning the Spanish language.
00:04:27
Speaker
Then I was a director over the language program for a while.
00:04:31
Speaker
So
00:04:31
Speaker
I'm creating a curriculum for missionaries to go out and be successful learning a different, like a foreign language.
00:04:37
Speaker
I sold suits for a while.
00:04:39
Speaker
A large stint of my sales experience was spent actually in real estate.
00:04:44
Speaker
So I wholesaled homes.
00:04:46
Speaker
I flipped a few homes, but wholesaling was kind of my bread and butter.
00:04:50
Speaker
So the first doors that I ever knocked.
00:04:52
Speaker
I was out in like West Valley City, Utah, like magnet area.
00:04:57
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And it's a rough knock, man.
00:04:59
Speaker
It's not like solar.
00:05:00
Speaker
You know, you're trying to bring the conversation to a place where you can tactfully tell the person your house sucks.
00:05:08
Speaker
It looks terrible.
00:05:09
Speaker
I want to buy it at half price.
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:12
Speaker
So that was my first time knocking doors, did that for a long time, about, let's see here, like four years or so.
00:05:19
Speaker
From there, that's how I moved into solar.
00:05:22
Speaker
So I got hired on to kind of be a part of their virtual team over at Blue Raven Solar.
00:05:30
Speaker
They kind of had like the beginnings of a recruiting department.
00:05:33
Speaker
I tell people like, hey, I was recruiter number one.
00:05:35
Speaker
I wasn't.
00:05:36
Speaker
There was one other dude that was out there recruiting.
00:05:40
Speaker
Shout out to Randy.
00:05:41
Speaker
Awesome dude.
00:05:42
Speaker
So he kind of laid the foundation for what the recruiting program ended up becoming, but very, very rudimentary.
00:05:50
Speaker
We were bringing in maybe like...
00:05:52
Speaker
one or two reps per recruiter per week.
00:05:54
Speaker
It was, it was not impressive by any means.
00:05:58
Speaker
Probably didn't merit the salaries that we were getting.
00:06:02
Speaker
So we probably blew through a little bit of that corporate piggy bank there, but it turned into something really special.
00:06:10
Speaker
So I got the privilege of being their top performing recruiter and then kind of helping head up that department and teach
00:06:18
Speaker
setter and closer recruiters how to get good at what they did.
00:06:21
Speaker
So forming a lot of those systems and processes, helping write scripts, training people on how to interview and really sell a candidate on solar on going out and knocking doors full time.
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:34
Speaker
And it became huge.
00:06:35
Speaker
It just blew up.
00:06:37
Speaker
Not overnight by any means, but it got to the point where by the time I left, we were recruiting about right along the lines of like 600 to 800 people that were onboarded and actually going out and attending trainings out in the field per month.
00:06:53
Speaker
It was it was blowing up.
00:06:55
Speaker
So we did multiple thousands of recruits out into the field.
00:06:59
Speaker
Really excellent starter program for people that don't have a lot of experience.
00:07:04
Speaker
But yeah, that's that's what it was.
Founding Bright Solar and Surge
00:07:06
Speaker
So.
00:07:06
Speaker
Did that up until the point where Blue Raven actually got acquired.
00:07:10
Speaker
So SunPower purchased Blue Raven.
00:07:13
Speaker
Then I left shortly thereafter.
00:07:15
Speaker
And that's when I helped start up Bright.
00:07:18
Speaker
So Bright didn't exist.
00:07:20
Speaker
It was only an idea at the time, but I helped Braden Braithwaite, a longtime childhood friend of mine, and Talent Tipped in, his partner, helped them get that off the ground, built up a recruiting department for them.
00:07:32
Speaker
Um, it got to the point where we were kind of overwhelming their managers.
00:07:35
Speaker
So we were sending like five to 10 new guys to their bootcamps every single week.
00:07:40
Speaker
That gets pretty overwhelming.
00:07:41
Speaker
That's a lot of training to do.
00:07:44
Speaker
Um, and so, um, we're, we're very of the opinion that a rising tide raises all ships.
00:07:50
Speaker
We want to elevate the entire industry.
00:07:52
Speaker
This podcast does exactly that.
00:07:55
Speaker
And so we kind of came in with that same thinking.
00:07:57
Speaker
And that's what gave birth to Surge, which is a third party recruiting platform.
00:08:03
Speaker
Can't say it's been the smoothest sailing.
00:08:05
Speaker
There's been a lot of changes in the recruiting landscape.
00:08:09
Speaker
especially against door-to-door jobs.
00:08:11
Speaker
But it's been an awesome experience.
00:08:13
Speaker
I've gotten to work with a ton of solar roofing, pest control, insurance companies all over the nation.
00:08:20
Speaker
If it's 1099 commission-based jobs, then that's our bread and butter.
00:08:25
Speaker
That's what we deal in.
00:08:27
Speaker
That's what we recruit really heavy for.
00:08:29
Speaker
So...
00:08:29
Speaker
That's how I came in contact with you through Voltaic, one of my consulting clients through Surge.
00:08:34
Speaker
So yeah, that's the full story, man.
00:08:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:38
Speaker
All right.
00:08:38
Speaker
All right.
00:08:39
Speaker
I love it.
00:08:39
Speaker
Well, so something I'm curious about, Blue Raven sounds like that's kind of where you got your start and started hitting heavy the recruiting game.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:49
Speaker
All the stuff you talk about now, the consulting you do, do you think this was the stuff you directly learned from your time at Blue Raven or has your process changed pretty drastically since then?
00:09:00
Speaker
Super drastically.
00:09:02
Speaker
So to put
Innovations in Recruiting Methods
00:09:03
Speaker
it in perspective, it takes an enormous department.
00:09:06
Speaker
in order to run what Blue Raven does.
00:09:09
Speaker
It takes a department of about 55 recruiters right now, give or take.
00:09:14
Speaker
It's a huge, huge recruiting department.
00:09:17
Speaker
It's got to be probably the biggest in the U.S. as far as door-to-door recruiting goes.
00:09:23
Speaker
If I were to go back to Blue Raven today, we could probably lay off about 53 out of those 55 people and run the exact same volume.
00:09:31
Speaker
Really?
00:09:32
Speaker
Wow.
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:32
Speaker
So...
00:09:34
Speaker
Has the process changed at all?
00:09:35
Speaker
It is night and day.
00:09:36
Speaker
It's so, so different from the foundation that we started over at Blue Raven.
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:44
Speaker
Well, so how much of what you do is, because you talk about all these things you do with the onboarding, with getting multiple sources for recruiting.
00:09:53
Speaker
Was this just stuff you came up with yourself through trial and error?
00:09:58
Speaker
Did you learn this from someone?
00:09:59
Speaker
Or how did you come up with all your systems and processes that you're now consulting people with?
00:10:06
Speaker
Yeah, some of it's learned.
00:10:08
Speaker
A lot of the sourcing, I learned by working hand-in-hand with my first mentor in recruiting, which is Randy Singh.
00:10:16
Speaker
Randy comes from a door-to-door background as well.
00:10:19
Speaker
He's worked with a lot of giants, so worked with...
00:10:23
Speaker
I believe Titan for a second, worked at Blue Raven, worked at Sales Rabbit.
00:10:27
Speaker
So he's got a good track record himself.
00:10:29
Speaker
So I learned a little bit about sourcing from him, but a lot of the rest was like, there were no SOPs for anything that we did.
00:10:37
Speaker
And what I currently do, all the rest has been kind of just trial and error.
00:10:42
Speaker
At this point now, I've spent over 25,000 hours actually in recruiting conversations.
00:10:49
Speaker
Wow.
00:10:51
Speaker
Over the last...
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, even past my career with Blue Raven over the last nine and a half years.
00:10:57
Speaker
So really, it's just actually doing the thing, right?
00:11:01
Speaker
Somebody asked for the secret sauce on the doors.
00:11:03
Speaker
It's probably the same answer.
00:11:04
Speaker
You just have to knock a thousand doors.
00:11:08
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:11:09
Speaker
Well, yeah, and it's crazy because most of us as sales reps, at least speaking for myself, recruiting isn't something we're actively doing.
00:11:16
Speaker
It's like you put us out on doors.
00:11:18
Speaker
We know the objections.
00:11:19
Speaker
We know the processes.
00:11:20
Speaker
We can do that all day.
00:11:21
Speaker
But I mean, I just did a podcast a couple of weeks ago.
00:11:24
Speaker
I think I told you about it where I recorded myself trying to like recruit my server at a cheesecake factory and like...
00:11:32
Speaker
I had like knots in my stomach because I knew I'm like, oh, shoot, how do I like actually bring this up?
00:11:36
Speaker
What do I say?
00:11:37
Speaker
If he has this objection, how am I going to overcome it?
00:11:39
Speaker
Like, I was like, for some reason, I was like nervous.
00:11:42
Speaker
So I'm like, man, I don't do this.
00:11:44
Speaker
I can go and put me in front of a door.
00:11:45
Speaker
That's fine.
00:11:46
Speaker
But like recruiting isn't something that I'm actually doing.
00:11:49
Speaker
And
00:11:49
Speaker
And like, if he's interested, what do I do from there?
00:11:52
Speaker
And it's just most people that I know, a lot of companies too, don't even have processors or SOPs or systems around it.
00:12:00
Speaker
So that's what I think is so cool about what you're doing is you're just, you know, helping us in this skill.
00:12:04
Speaker
That's not something we're, at least most of us probably aren't actively, you know, comfortable in and not doing as much as we should be.
00:12:13
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, is that something you see with the companies you go in and console?
00:12:16
Speaker
Is it like most of them you go in and they have very little processes and systems set up and you kind of have to just like do it from scratch?
00:12:23
Speaker
Or what do you what's your experience working with solar companies?
00:12:25
Speaker
And yeah, you're definitely not alone in that feeling.
00:12:30
Speaker
You know, the knots in your stomach.
00:12:32
Speaker
This isn't.
00:12:32
Speaker
comfortable territory.
00:12:34
Speaker
Um, but honestly, I think that Voltaic really had a better foundation than most companies that I I've worked with.
00:12:42
Speaker
Um, I mean, you guys already had a team of two recruiters that, excuse me, we're doing a little bit of volume.
00:12:47
Speaker
Um, but yeah, you really see the full gambit.
00:12:50
Speaker
So we work with companies all the way from, uh, we've never even touched a door.
00:12:55
Speaker
I work with a roofing client right now where the two owners have never knocked the door.
00:13:00
Speaker
probably never will, but they want a door-to-door team and know nothing about what that looks like from a culture standpoint, recruiting, sales training, production, field operations.
00:13:13
Speaker
It's brand new to them.
00:13:14
Speaker
So we work with companies on that end of the spectrum all the way up to really, really large recruiting.
00:13:21
Speaker
operations.
00:13:21
Speaker
Like we work with another roofing company that
Importance of Partnerships in Business
00:13:24
Speaker
already has 19 branches across the US.
00:13:27
Speaker
And we just help them bring in a little bit more sourcing volume.
00:13:31
Speaker
They have a massive recruiting operation already going on.
00:13:34
Speaker
So you see all types really.
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, I bet.
00:13:37
Speaker
Well, does ever, are you ever like nervous?
00:13:39
Speaker
Cause I mean, someone that hasn't knocked doors and they're asking you to like start it from scratch.
00:13:45
Speaker
For me, that would be, I mean, I know you're the pro, but for me, I'd be like, man, these guys know nothing.
00:13:50
Speaker
This is like almost a ton of work and I'm not like babysit them constantly type thing.
00:13:55
Speaker
But do you ever like turn people down or is that like a, I mean, are you guys used to doing that?
00:14:00
Speaker
Just starting people from scratch that have no experience like that.
00:14:03
Speaker
Yeah, we do turn a lot of people down.
00:14:08
Speaker
If I feel like our morals, our ethics, our work ethic don't jive, then I just know it's going to be a nightmare for both of us down the road.
00:14:17
Speaker
So that's probably somebody we'd turn away.
00:14:19
Speaker
But does it give some nerves working with a company that has absolutely no experience?
00:14:25
Speaker
Yes and no.
00:14:26
Speaker
Yes, if I were the only one working on it.
00:14:29
Speaker
But I think that part of entrepreneurship is knowing that you have blind spots.
00:14:34
Speaker
I feel very, very confident in what I do in recruiting.
00:14:38
Speaker
And I'm a good sales trainer, but I'm not a great sales trainer.
00:14:42
Speaker
And that's where I have partners.
00:14:43
Speaker
I've got Talon and Brayden helping me out with stuff like that.
00:14:47
Speaker
So anywhere where I feel like there's a blind spot in building a system up from the ground up that's not recruiting related...
00:14:55
Speaker
That's where I really have great partnerships that I can turn to and make that happen.
00:14:59
Speaker
So thank goodness.
00:15:01
Speaker
Yeah, no nerves because I get to pass that all to my partners.
00:15:06
Speaker
Okay, makes sense.
00:15:08
Speaker
Well, so I want to make this super valuable because we have all types of people in slower lists in this.
00:15:13
Speaker
We have just reps, companies, we got owners, we got managers.
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:17
Speaker
So not everyone listening to this is going to be an owner that's going to reach out and work with you, Clark.
00:15:24
Speaker
But so just speaking for our reps, say it's an individual rep listening to this.
00:15:29
Speaker
They're at their company.
00:15:30
Speaker
Their company has no recruiting processes set up.
00:15:34
Speaker
So I don't know if you work with individual reps, but what are some things, say I'm a rep at a company and my company doesn't have that set up, what are some things that I could put into place personally to
00:15:45
Speaker
Or like, what would you tell a rep that just like their company doesn't have any recruiting systems put in place and they want to start recruiting more?
Setting Realistic Recruiting Goals
00:15:52
Speaker
What do you tell these guys?
00:15:53
Speaker
You just say go to a different company where they have better systems in place?
00:15:57
Speaker
Or do you suggest they like start to set up some of this themselves, be their own mini recruiting department?
00:16:02
Speaker
Or what do you tell a rep like that?
00:16:04
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:16:06
Speaker
I would say just know what you want to accomplish right off the bat.
00:16:10
Speaker
So have an actual goal in place.
00:16:12
Speaker
So if it's like, yeah, I want to recruit 500 people.
00:16:15
Speaker
Well, hey, that's a that's a full time commitment.
00:16:18
Speaker
It's going to take you off the doors.
00:16:19
Speaker
It's probably not going to be as lucrative as actually being on the doors.
00:16:23
Speaker
So maybe it's not a realistic goal.
00:16:26
Speaker
It's not a realistic goal, but I would say that if you've got a realistic goal in mind, like let's say I want a team of 20 for this summer, then great.
00:16:33
Speaker
You have a benchmark that you need to work for.
00:16:35
Speaker
And then very much like, like being on the doors, it's a numbers game where it funnels down to that 20.
00:16:41
Speaker
So the first thing that we want to do in that pipeline is we want to source and source leads from.
00:16:47
Speaker
And I would say anywhere where you can,
00:16:51
Speaker
bring attention to what you do is going to be a source, right?
00:16:55
Speaker
So can you put out a really wide net through Indeed?
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:17:02
Speaker
I would talk to your company before doing something like that.
00:17:06
Speaker
Don't interfere with their own corporate recruiting.
00:17:09
Speaker
But an idea for that might be something like reaching out to a local influencer through their DMs and saying, hey, if you can post for me about this job opportunity and bring me guys, I can make you a kickback, right?
00:17:24
Speaker
So we can work through an unknown network in that way and bring in recruits that way.
00:17:29
Speaker
It might be, it could even be
00:17:33
Speaker
actually going out and talking to people out on the street, right?
00:17:36
Speaker
Like it sounds crazy that you'd knock doors, not only for solar sales, but actual recruiting, but I've done it.
00:17:43
Speaker
You can actually knock doors to go find people to join your team.
00:17:46
Speaker
So if you are completely exhausted in your personal network, there are people out there that are dying for an opportunity like this.
00:17:54
Speaker
It doesn't take some Indeed ad to do it.
00:17:56
Speaker
It really just takes like, how do I get access to a channel that draws attention to my offering, to the value that I bring?
00:18:05
Speaker
And you can get super creative on that.
00:18:07
Speaker
There's a lot of ways to source.
00:18:09
Speaker
But that would be the first way to start is really just identify like, where are my strong suits?
00:18:14
Speaker
Where can I find an audience really quick?
00:18:17
Speaker
And how can I deliver, you know, really poignant value about recruiting to that audience as quick as possible?
00:18:23
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, well, and with solar, I think a reason why some people are hesitant to get into recruiting, because there's a lot of, you know, I have a lot of friends that have just that dealer set up.
00:18:33
Speaker
It's like two, three guys.
00:18:35
Speaker
They're just running with their dealers.
00:18:36
Speaker
And they're hesitant to recruit hard because it's like they can go spend time just knocking a few doors and they can get a sell that week and make $10,000 on a single commission.
00:18:46
Speaker
And so sometimes their thinking is like, okay, what's the time if I go spend time recruiting?
00:18:52
Speaker
It can maybe make me money like later down the road, but it's going to be a lot of work for it.
00:18:56
Speaker
Or I can just go knock this week and make that quick 10 grand.
00:19:00
Speaker
So like from a times perspective, I don't know, is there like a time if you're just like a, say a one man deal or a rep, say you want to get to that 20 people on your team, what's like a realistic amount of time that you think is required to spend on recruiting and kind of setting up these systems?
00:19:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:18
Speaker
That's a great question.
00:19:19
Speaker
It's going to depend on the sourcing that you're using, right?
00:19:22
Speaker
So if we're going through a job board, then that's easy.
00:19:26
Speaker
We can get 20 people probably in three days.
00:19:30
Speaker
Not hard to do, right?
00:19:31
Speaker
What is the quality standard on those 20 people?
00:19:34
Speaker
Probably not amazing if you're doing it in three days.
00:19:37
Speaker
But if we're talking about, let's say I'm down in San Diego with you, right?
00:19:41
Speaker
We go to SDSU and we're just knocking on dorm doors.
00:19:45
Speaker
We're offering a summer job or summer internship that we set up through SDSU, and we're just helping people.
00:19:54
Speaker
We're drawing attention to that and then collecting phone numbers.
00:19:57
Speaker
You can probably knock out 20 people with a consistent two to three hours of prospecting on a weekly basis for a month.
00:20:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:06
Speaker
That's cool.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:07
Speaker
Well, and you mentioned an internship.
00:20:10
Speaker
I'm curious.
00:20:10
Speaker
I have seen some people set up like internships.
00:20:13
Speaker
So tell me about that.
00:20:14
Speaker
Is that a hard to do?
00:20:16
Speaker
Is that something you like help people do is set up these like internships with colleges?
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:20
Speaker
So it's, it's usually something where you have to go to the college first.
00:20:23
Speaker
So it's very front loaded effort wise.
00:20:27
Speaker
I would just say that there's like drawbacks to it.
00:20:31
Speaker
And then there's going to be some pluses to a plus might be the retention factor.
00:20:35
Speaker
So somebody that's in an internship is like, oh, there's an actual credit on the line for this, right?
00:20:40
Speaker
And that shows on my record that I missed out on half of a credit for doing this job.
00:20:45
Speaker
So there is definitely like a reason for them to stay even when the times get tough and they get their teeth kicked in on the doors.
00:20:52
Speaker
I would say also though that you really, you get the kind of behavior that you tolerate, you get the kind of behavior that you source for.
00:21:01
Speaker
The type of candidate that you're going to get where you're trying to use an internship as the lure to bring in more recruits, it might not be the type of long-term recruit that you're looking for because recruiting, like you said, is a longer play.
00:21:14
Speaker
Like it requires that you are fully devoted to the industry, probably fully devoted to the company that you're with and see like a future.
00:21:23
Speaker
You see some longevity.
00:21:24
Speaker
Then you want people that see that same vision and are in it for the long haul, just like you are.
00:21:30
Speaker
That's,
00:21:30
Speaker
that's where there's actual return for you to start up recruiting.
00:21:35
Speaker
So I would say, yeah, there are definitely some drawbacks to doing something like that.
00:21:40
Speaker
You might not get the type of person that wants to be in this with you for, you know, a year round program or maybe even come back for a second summer.
00:21:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:49
Speaker
So generally you'd say that's, would you say that's maybe not like super high priority for companies doing like the internship thing?
00:21:59
Speaker
I would say the more transparency, the better.
00:22:01
Speaker
And I would kind of identify what the ideal recruit looks like to you.
00:22:09
Speaker
So if it's a recruit that really only is knocking one summer with you, that's probably no skin off your back.
00:22:15
Speaker
And that's a great recruit to go for.
00:22:17
Speaker
If you're looking for a dedicated team that's going to be blitzing with you,
00:22:22
Speaker
either summers or year round, if we're talking about a college student, then maybe we need to approach it a little bit differently.
00:22:30
Speaker
We're not looking for somebody to do an internship so much as a job.
00:22:35
Speaker
We should approach it from that angle when you start working with them.
00:22:38
Speaker
So you say, this is a job.
00:22:40
Speaker
This is the time requirement for the job.
00:22:42
Speaker
This is the effort requirement.
00:22:43
Speaker
This is what it pays.
00:22:44
Speaker
So
00:22:46
Speaker
very different approach than an internship but also might target that ideal recruit avatar way closer to what you envision okay gotcha well speaking of uh ideal recruit avatar i know that's something that you've talked to us about and um i'm guessing you talk about that with every company you can sell and work with um so can you walk us through like
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah, it was really powerful exercise you walked us through just identifying, hey, what exactly do we want in our recruits?
Defining the Ideal Recruit
00:23:14
Speaker
What are we looking for?
00:23:15
Speaker
And and we didn't like when you're talking to this, it took us a minute because like we weren't exactly sure and probably a lot of people.
00:23:24
Speaker
I think that's something I'm sure you see is that people don't know exactly what they're looking for.
00:23:28
Speaker
And I think you brought that up to us too.
00:23:31
Speaker
So can you walk us through that?
00:23:33
Speaker
What's this exercise you go through with companies and why is it so important to identify this kind of avatar and ideal recruit you talk about?
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah, really, I think that it comes down to the same principles that we believe in when we're knocking doors or closing appointments that you need to have a specific actionable goal that you're striving towards or else you're kind of putting an effort on a treadmill, right?
00:23:59
Speaker
You're putting in a lot of effort.
00:24:00
Speaker
But there's no actual traction.
00:24:02
Speaker
You're not moving forward.
00:24:03
Speaker
And the same is very true of recruiting as well, that we want to have a really tangible vision of what we want to accomplish.
00:24:11
Speaker
And so when we do that, the exercise that I'll usually bring my consulting clients through is exactly what you said, that ideal recruit avatar.
00:24:21
Speaker
What that means is that you're thinking in your head, if I were to receive somebody that could replace me at, let's say, a manager, original manager level, right, where I can train them to be just as good as me, if not better, which is the goal of all this.
00:24:36
Speaker
Right.
00:24:37
Speaker
21st law in the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership by John Maxwell is the law of legacy.
00:24:43
Speaker
We want to eventually bring the people that we lead to that level.
00:24:47
Speaker
So we think to ourselves, OK, what is that type of person?
00:24:50
Speaker
What do they look like?
00:24:52
Speaker
Right.
00:24:52
Speaker
And we're not we're not talking about skin color.
00:24:54
Speaker
We're not talking about religion, gender, any of that.
00:24:56
Speaker
We're talking about what does that look like in practice?
00:24:59
Speaker
Right.
00:25:00
Speaker
What does that person do?
00:25:01
Speaker
How do they act?
00:25:02
Speaker
How do they talk?
00:25:04
Speaker
What types of things do they do without me even asking?
00:25:07
Speaker
And then we try to target for that type of person during our sourcing.
00:25:12
Speaker
So one of the biggest problems and the reason why I think that there's been such a lack of legitimacy in door-to-door recruiting for the last 20, 30, 40 years is that if somebody says, yeah, I'll knock doors and they can speak moderately good English, boom, we hire them onto our team.
00:25:29
Speaker
We're like, this is a great recruit.
00:25:32
Speaker
When in all actuality,
00:25:34
Speaker
That's a huge scarcity mindset, which is so funny from an industry that boasts abundance over scarcity that you hear people that are like, we'll take anybody on your team.
00:25:45
Speaker
That contradicts everything that you believe in in your sales process, right?
00:25:50
Speaker
So we believe in abundance.
00:25:54
Speaker
We on this podcast believe in abundance, right?
00:25:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:57
Speaker
Uh, that being said, by having a specific type of recruit, what you're doing is you're narrowing that playing field.
00:26:05
Speaker
There might be a hundred people that say they'll knock doors, but only one of them is somebody that could replace you at the manager level.
00:26:11
Speaker
Um, and, uh,
00:26:12
Speaker
Which would you prefer?
00:26:13
Speaker
Do you want to spin your wheels with 99 recruits that don't give you the result that you want?
00:26:19
Speaker
Or would you prefer one recruit that just provides huge value and changes your org forever?
00:26:24
Speaker
For most people, it's going to be option number two.
00:26:27
Speaker
So the exercise that we ran through when last Friday at Voltaic was...
00:26:34
Speaker
just kind of drawing up on the board, like, what do we want in a recruit?
00:26:38
Speaker
What don't we want in a recruit?
00:26:40
Speaker
And just like knocking doors is not an acceptable answer, right?
00:26:44
Speaker
So we talked about things like, we want to know what their track record looks like at other companies.
00:26:49
Speaker
We want to know what their time commitment is.
00:26:52
Speaker
We want to give them a quota.
00:26:54
Speaker
So like, hey, you're hitting 100, 200 doors per day, right?
00:26:58
Speaker
Are you going to be able to keep up with that?
00:27:01
Speaker
We're talking about running them through like, hey, if I give you some material, sorry, some material to practice, like a door approach, are you going to be able to take criticism?
00:27:11
Speaker
Are you going to be able to adapt when I give you that criticism and do it over again?
00:27:15
Speaker
Are you going to get frustrated or you can quit early?
00:27:18
Speaker
It might be, tell me about a failure that you had in a past job.
00:27:21
Speaker
What did that look like?
00:27:22
Speaker
How did it affect you?
00:27:24
Speaker
Right.
00:27:24
Speaker
What did you learn from that?
00:27:25
Speaker
How did you change as a human being?
00:27:28
Speaker
So it's it's way more three dimensional than just, you know, we want somebody that that has a pulse and knows how to put their knuckles on a doorstep.
00:27:38
Speaker
And the more specific, the better.
00:27:40
Speaker
But, you know, we talked about like this analogy that you hear all the time in recruiting, which is throwing mud up against a wall and seeing what sticks.
00:27:48
Speaker
Can you imagine how much like I mean, hey, I don't think anybody wants that, but that's very much the approach of the industry.
00:27:55
Speaker
That was my approach, even when I started at Blue Raven.
00:27:58
Speaker
You know how much damage that does to our industry?
00:28:01
Speaker
Like how many doors have you knocked on, Taylor, where somebody has knocked on that door before you?
00:28:07
Speaker
and just spewing a whole bunch of stuff that's totally not true about tax credit or about the cost of, you know, you get worse and worse doors over time.
00:28:17
Speaker
So I think that really the approach is not throwing mud at a wall.
00:28:22
Speaker
Am I arguing that the raw product is mud?
00:28:25
Speaker
Not at all.
00:28:26
Speaker
These first recruits that we source generally are not going to be a pure product.
00:28:31
Speaker
They're not going to be our ideal recruit avatar.
00:28:34
Speaker
But if we put in enough
00:28:36
Speaker
filters, like we put in nine, 10 filters, then what you get is less, well, less quantity, but a way, way higher quality recruit at the end of that process.
00:28:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:47
Speaker
Well, I love that.
00:28:48
Speaker
And I think it's just a shift in thinking that's something you're talking about to us as well as just like so many of us are used to just like begging people to come try the opportunity and
00:28:58
Speaker
It's like we're trying to sell these people.
00:29:00
Speaker
And I think the comparison you gave is if someone went and interviewed with Apple or with like Google or something, you would never hear their recruiters being like, hey, what's it going to take for you to come work with us or whatever?
00:29:12
Speaker
It's like the other way around.
00:29:14
Speaker
And so a lot of times that's how I think us as sales reps are thinking about recruiting.
00:29:18
Speaker
It's like we're begging people.
00:29:20
Speaker
We're.
00:29:20
Speaker
throwing out a hook and just trying to get people to buy it on it where it should be the opposite.
00:29:25
Speaker
You should keep a high standard.
00:29:27
Speaker
And so that's why I think it was really powerful just going through that exercise.
00:29:30
Speaker
And I think for our listeners, it's something whether you are a company owner, a manager, or even just a rep that's trying to get some people on.
00:29:37
Speaker
Just like I think it's a very powerful exercise to go through, write down exactly what are you looking for in the recruit?
00:29:42
Speaker
How many hours?
00:29:43
Speaker
What do you want them to commit to?
00:29:45
Speaker
And questions, because these are things since you said that I'm already changing the way I interview, too, because I was kind of interviewing.
00:29:53
Speaker
I mean, I knew that I shouldn't be like begging them to work with us, but like.
00:29:57
Speaker
Some questions I think are important to ask, like, hey, can you commit to this amount of hours?
00:30:01
Speaker
Can you take the criticism, feedback, things like that that I didn't really think about before?
00:30:06
Speaker
So I love that.
00:30:08
Speaker
It really is kind of a dance.
00:30:10
Speaker
It's a choreography, right?
00:30:12
Speaker
Where we're dancing between, yes, I want you in my organization.
00:30:16
Speaker
But at the end of the day, I don't even know who...
00:30:19
Speaker
kind of coined the phrase, but you've probably heard it.
00:30:22
Speaker
Whoever needs the interaction less wins.
00:30:26
Speaker
And that's very true in recruiting as well.
00:30:29
Speaker
That person needs a job.
00:30:31
Speaker
So I can kind of interact any which way I want.
00:30:34
Speaker
I don't need to always be pulling with like, hey, this is how much money you're going to get.
00:30:39
Speaker
This is, you know, look at all these cool perks and stuff like that.
00:30:43
Speaker
I can pull away from that for a good amount of time.
00:30:47
Speaker
In fact, for a majority of the interview, I
00:30:49
Speaker
to really make it like, why should we want you over the next person that I'm going to talk to?
00:30:54
Speaker
Because I talked to dozens and dozens, if not thousands of people in a year.
00:30:59
Speaker
So yeah, you're absolutely right.
00:31:00
Speaker
It's a shift away from that to favor something more like I'm interviewing with 20 people.
00:31:06
Speaker
Why you?
00:31:08
Speaker
Right.
00:31:08
Speaker
I can only bring on three.
00:31:10
Speaker
Why, why are you one of those three?
00:31:12
Speaker
Yeah, I love that.
00:31:13
Speaker
And even just sales in general.
00:31:15
Speaker
I mean, I think that's a good mindset to have in your sales because people can sniff out the neediness, the sales, the commission breath, even as
Mindset Shift in Recruiting
00:31:23
Speaker
we're selling.
00:31:23
Speaker
So it's just, you know, in general, as we're out selling solar, it's important to have that mindset.
00:31:30
Speaker
be like, hey, we're helping dozens of people, not everyone qualifies.
00:31:33
Speaker
So it can be useful.
00:31:36
Speaker
It makes your job seem safe, right?
00:31:38
Speaker
If the end of my pitch, my recruiting pitch for them is, so do you want to do this?
00:31:44
Speaker
Right?
00:31:44
Speaker
Then what does that say to a recruit?
00:31:47
Speaker
It's like,
00:31:47
Speaker
Red flag, this is dangerous.
00:31:49
Speaker
This is a job that nobody wants.
00:31:51
Speaker
This is scary.
00:31:52
Speaker
Whereas if I say something like, I don't even know if I really think that you're a fit, right?
00:31:58
Speaker
We're doing what we do on the doors.
00:31:59
Speaker
We're making it, this is safe.
00:32:02
Speaker
This is something that multiple people want.
00:32:05
Speaker
This is rigorous.
00:32:06
Speaker
We don't just take anybody.
00:32:07
Speaker
We need to see some improvement.
00:32:09
Speaker
We need to see something, a better version of you in order to fit our culture.
00:32:15
Speaker
We might think that we're losing out on an opportunity to bring in a recruit, but in all actuality,
00:32:21
Speaker
What you're doing is preemptively retaining that person.
00:32:25
Speaker
You're giving them the expectation, you know, of somebody who says this is a safe job that I'm going to stay at for years.
00:32:31
Speaker
Yeah, I love that.
00:32:33
Speaker
And something I didn't get to ask you when you're at our office the other day, Clark, is this is actually something I experienced just yesterday or the day before.
00:32:42
Speaker
But I was doing an interview with somebody and this person wasn't like the typical, you know, Indeed person.
00:32:48
Speaker
He actually was working with the solar company before.
00:32:52
Speaker
And so his frame was like, hey, I am checking out a few different companies.
00:32:56
Speaker
And he was trying to kind of flip it on me, be like, hey, why should I like what's different about you guys?
00:33:01
Speaker
Why should I work with you?
00:33:02
Speaker
And then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, shoot.
00:33:04
Speaker
Now I have to like, now he's like putting me in his frame and I have to tell him.
00:33:08
Speaker
So I told him my experience and like, you know, told him why I think we are a good company to work for.
00:33:15
Speaker
But then I then I tried to like flip it on him a little bit.
00:33:18
Speaker
But like be like at the end of the day, it's not for everyone.
00:33:21
Speaker
I don't even know if you'd be a for sure fit for us.
00:33:24
Speaker
And it was kind of back and forth like that.
00:33:26
Speaker
But so for you, as you're coaching these companies up, what do you how do you recruit these people different?
00:33:30
Speaker
If it's someone in the industry that you're trying to recruit, bring over to your company, how can you do that and kind of make sure it's not just going to be like this entitled door to door rep that's worked with 10 companies.
00:33:41
Speaker
They want to sign on bonus and like they want to be treated like they're the king of the castle, whatever.
00:33:46
Speaker
How do you treat these people and interview them different versus just like your brand new guy?
00:33:52
Speaker
I love that question because these are actually where like, I, I, I'm not on autopilot.
00:33:57
Speaker
I don't have to sleep through an interview, which, you know, you'll get to a place where you pretty much can sleep through an interview and you can still get somebody fairly decent into the door.
00:34:08
Speaker
So I love that you asked that.
00:34:10
Speaker
I think that it really comes down to, and this is the same in the sales process, right?
00:34:14
Speaker
Recruiting is sales.
00:34:15
Speaker
If you don't think of recruiting as sales, there's a good chance you're missing out on good recruiting opportunities, right?
00:34:21
Speaker
Or you're not.
00:34:22
Speaker
performing the way that you should.
00:34:25
Speaker
In sales, when I train teams, I'll ask lots of times, what are going to be the biggest objections?
00:34:32
Speaker
And they're like, oh, I don't like the look of the panels.
00:34:35
Speaker
It's too expensive.
00:34:36
Speaker
When am I going to see a return on investment on these things?
00:34:39
Speaker
All of those things are smoke that is connected to a fire.
00:34:43
Speaker
And the fire always comes down to one thing, and that's value.
00:34:46
Speaker
Right.
00:34:47
Speaker
But value is a hard thing for a lot of people to define.
00:34:51
Speaker
But I love the way that Alex Hormozzi defines it in his book, $100 Million Offers.
00:34:56
Speaker
If you haven't read it, incredible reading.
00:34:59
Speaker
Incredible listening even read by the author on Audible.
00:35:03
Speaker
He's a very engaging speaker, but just a refresher on that.
00:35:07
Speaker
He defines value and I would agree with him as you've got kind of this medium in between this math equation.
00:35:14
Speaker
And the top half of the equation is the dream outcome.
00:35:17
Speaker
What does this person want to achieve?
00:35:19
Speaker
times the likelihood that they'll actually achieve it divided by this bottom section, how much time does it take to achieve it and how much effort does it take to achieve it?
00:35:30
Speaker
So all four of those elements need to be there in order for value to be completely identified and both sides need to agree on it for them to come to close an agreement.
00:35:42
Speaker
And so it's the same thing in recruiting.
00:35:45
Speaker
The problem that we see, and I think that it's maybe not even the reps fault, maybe it's the company's fault that they've created these entitled reps, is when we think of a traditional recruiting meeting, like, hey, we're at Ruth's Chris dropping a ton of money and just kind of kissing ass for lack of a better word.
00:36:00
Speaker
Of those four things, how many of those four things are actually talked about?
00:36:06
Speaker
chances are very, very good.
00:36:08
Speaker
It's only that top left portion.
00:36:10
Speaker
It's only the dream outcome.
00:36:11
Speaker
This is how much money you can make with us.
00:36:14
Speaker
There's nothing about like what's the likelihood of actually getting there, which is huge.
00:36:20
Speaker
We don't talk about how much more quickly you could do that with us than another company.
00:36:25
Speaker
We don't talk about the effort.
00:36:26
Speaker
So for example, let's talk about Voltaic for a second, right?
00:36:31
Speaker
That's the company that you're working for.
00:36:33
Speaker
What is the unique value proposition for Voltaic?
00:36:37
Speaker
Well, I'll tell you what, there's really nothing unique about the pay structure.
00:36:42
Speaker
I work with companies all over the country.
00:36:45
Speaker
Red lines are about the same pretty much everywhere you go.
00:36:49
Speaker
Nothing changes unless it's in a very nominal way, right?
00:36:53
Speaker
So can you earn just as much money in solar with Voltaic as you can with another company?
00:37:01
Speaker
Probably.
00:37:02
Speaker
Maybe not.
00:37:02
Speaker
And that has nothing to do with the money there.
00:37:05
Speaker
That has nothing to do with the actual red line itself that gets you to that place.
00:37:09
Speaker
It may have more to do with those other three factors.
00:37:12
Speaker
And that's where we can start to really craft up an original value proposition that's different from these other companies.
00:37:19
Speaker
So let's talk about likelihood of achieving it.
00:37:22
Speaker
If I tell somebody you're going to make 300K this year working with one of two solar companies, right?
00:37:28
Speaker
And one of them's got this ultra, ultra low red line, super high commissions on every deal.
00:37:33
Speaker
But company number two has a slightly higher red line, but recruits a team for you where you have 25 people underneath you.
00:37:43
Speaker
Doesn't matter.
00:37:44
Speaker
The red line ceases to exist in that case.
00:37:47
Speaker
So what's the likelihood of them actually hitting that number?
00:37:50
Speaker
That's where we have to do some critical thinking.
00:37:52
Speaker
Is it the recruiting that gets me there?
00:37:55
Speaker
Is it that I have access to world-class leader and training platforms?
00:38:00
Speaker
Maybe in the case of Bright, I'll throw out a line for Bright.
00:38:02
Speaker
We've got Jens Bunnell is a member of our C-suite team.
00:38:06
Speaker
So he offers as much as you want performance psychiatry Zoom meetings with you.
00:38:12
Speaker
That's an original value problem.
00:38:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:15
Speaker
Right.
00:38:16
Speaker
We move into time.
00:38:17
Speaker
Right.
00:38:18
Speaker
So you guys are your own installer.
00:38:19
Speaker
That's a value proposition above all these dealers in L.A.
00:38:23
Speaker
Right.
00:38:23
Speaker
We're going to get you to install quicker than you would with another company.
00:38:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:27
Speaker
Right.
00:38:27
Speaker
You've got the amount of effort like, you know, it's going to take this long to achieve this because.
00:38:35
Speaker
You're going to have to learn these things by trial and error.
00:38:37
Speaker
Vultaic's already figured it out.
00:38:39
Speaker
This is what is unique about our path of progression.
00:38:42
Speaker
This is how quickly you get promoted.
00:38:44
Speaker
These are the trainings that help you get there.
00:38:47
Speaker
So it ceases to be this 2D conversation that is only about the money and becomes...
00:38:52
Speaker
the money might be there at every company.
00:38:54
Speaker
We're just going to help you get there with less effort, less time.
00:38:58
Speaker
And the likelihood of actually getting there is actually possible.
00:39:02
Speaker
Whereas there's a 2% chance you hit it at company X, right?
00:39:06
Speaker
So we've steered the conversation completely away from where's my bonus.
00:39:11
Speaker
It's like the bonus is that you are a part of an organization that nails a 10 out of 10 on each of those portions of the value equation.
00:39:20
Speaker
Right.
00:39:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's a nugget.
00:39:22
Speaker
Love that fire.
00:39:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:24
Speaker
And yeah, I think part of the issue with solar is we all hear the red lines.
00:39:29
Speaker
You know, some people get so caught up in these red lines.
00:39:32
Speaker
What's the most I can make per deal?
00:39:34
Speaker
But like you said, if you can get away from that thinking and that's that equation is awesome.
00:39:39
Speaker
Just like break it down to the other aspects that a lot of people don't think about.
00:39:43
Speaker
Yeah, I can see that there's way more value in that.
00:39:46
Speaker
And so as you're like, if you were in my shoes interviewing someone with the experience like that, so you take them through all these different, you know, kind of value propositions, build up the reasons why we're different.
00:40:00
Speaker
Do you kind of like turn the tables on them or what's, what's like your line?
00:40:04
Speaker
Are you like, okay.
00:40:06
Speaker
Um, cause how do you make them want it instead of feeling like you're having to just sell them on it and like convince them that we're the best.
00:40:14
Speaker
Do you, uh, bring them in for like, cause, cause I know you talk about your whole like funnel while you're funneling down the ideal recruits.
00:40:20
Speaker
So is it the same funnel you put people through with their experience like that?
00:40:24
Speaker
Or is there any difference?
00:40:26
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's the exact same funnel.
00:40:29
Speaker
So it might start in the same way that an objection would happen during a close, right?
00:40:36
Speaker
Where we're agreeing right off the bat with the prospect.
00:40:38
Speaker
So you can say, yeah, you know what?
00:40:40
Speaker
I agree.
00:40:41
Speaker
Like, I'll tell you what, you're going to find a higher red line than my company 50 times, right?
00:40:47
Speaker
And in fact, it's not going to be incredible.
00:40:49
Speaker
It's going to be a pretty nominal difference.
00:40:52
Speaker
You know, our organization might not be the best fit for you.
00:40:56
Speaker
In fact, solar might not even be the best fit for you.
00:40:59
Speaker
If somebody says, you know, pest is best, solar is going to be best.
00:41:04
Speaker
Oftentimes it's like, I don't argue against that.
00:41:06
Speaker
Like if you think that the likelihood of hitting your dream outcome is higher in pest, then pest probably is best for you.
00:41:12
Speaker
Right.
00:41:13
Speaker
It's the exact same conversation.
00:41:16
Speaker
When we're talking to somebody who's experienced in solar, it's like my organization might not be best for you, especially if you're asking for some sort of sign on bonus right off the bat.
00:41:26
Speaker
Our culture is that we earn it.
00:41:28
Speaker
Right.
00:41:29
Speaker
This is an example of that.
00:41:31
Speaker
this is how you would fit into the culture.
00:41:33
Speaker
And if you don't, then the conversation probably isn't worth having right now.
00:41:37
Speaker
Right.
00:41:38
Speaker
But I think that at the end of the day, we could probably take it to exactly what we just talked about.
00:41:43
Speaker
So let's, let's say we're in that, that conversation and they say, well, you know, I'm fielding offers from multiple companies.
00:41:51
Speaker
I would say two things.
00:41:52
Speaker
I would say, okay, okay.
00:41:54
Speaker
Well, first off, we also are vetting out multiple experienced candidates.
00:41:57
Speaker
We want top tier talent on our team.
00:42:00
Speaker
So why you over the other five experienced people that I'm meeting with this week?
00:42:04
Speaker
That might be an approach.
00:42:07
Speaker
Approach number two might be something like, well, what's the unique value, maybe not value, but unique value that you see in your second favorite company that you've met with this week?
Strategies for Recruiting Experienced Candidates
00:42:18
Speaker
Assuming I'm your first, what's the unique value that you see in your second favorite offer?
00:42:24
Speaker
And they'll talk about that.
00:42:25
Speaker
That's where you can make it a teaching moment.
00:42:28
Speaker
Nothing sells a salesperson better than a good story.
00:42:32
Speaker
And so we can bring that story back to exactly that.
00:42:36
Speaker
Hey, I want to teach you something about unique value propositions.
00:42:39
Speaker
Having worked with multiple companies, this, what you're experiencing with that other company is a dime a dozen in our industry.
00:42:46
Speaker
This is a unique value proposition that my company offers that allows somebody with your skillset to earn double what somebody without that training platform or that unique value prop.
00:42:58
Speaker
would, you know, that they're, they don't have with that other offer.
00:43:02
Speaker
So I would say I would take it to one of those two roads, make it a teaching moment or turn it back, um, using some sort of pullback, like, Hey, I'm also meeting with multiple experienced candidates.
00:43:14
Speaker
We have two closer roles available or two manager roles available.
00:43:18
Speaker
What's going to make you a top tier candidate for me, not the other way around.
00:43:22
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:43:23
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it goes back to just the abundance mindset because I think there's been times where I've been so afraid to not recruit the rep.
00:43:33
Speaker
You start throwing stuff at them.
00:43:35
Speaker
You start trying to convince them.
00:43:37
Speaker
And I think at the end of the day, they're probably going to respect that you have the type of person that you're looking for.
00:43:44
Speaker
I think of like Ricardo Richie we talked about.
00:43:47
Speaker
He used to work with.
00:43:48
Speaker
He's running his own dealer.
00:43:50
Speaker
They're super strict on who they bring in.
00:43:52
Speaker
And they've got multiple setters making, you know, 200 plus grand.
00:43:57
Speaker
They've got closers making over a million and they just have like a super tight knit team.
00:44:02
Speaker
They turn down tons of people.
00:44:03
Speaker
People are coming to them to work with them.
00:44:05
Speaker
And so I think it's like, if you can have that abundance mindset, look for the people you're trying to bring in.
00:44:10
Speaker
That's like, you probably don't want a lot of those guys that are begging for sign on bonuses and some other companies probably going to take them that's desperate.
00:44:17
Speaker
And then,
00:44:18
Speaker
Who knows, maybe they're going to be terrible for that company.
00:44:21
Speaker
And it wasn't good either way.
00:44:24
Speaker
I was going to say, I don't think, and I feel like I've recruited some top tier talent.
00:44:30
Speaker
My organization has recruited top tier talent.
00:44:33
Speaker
Speaking of like Bright, right?
00:44:35
Speaker
Amazing, amazing talent working on our setter team.
00:44:38
Speaker
We've got Brandon on our team leading our setter training efforts.
00:44:43
Speaker
I'll tell you what, if anybody had more of a reason to ask for a sign on bonus, it would be this dude.
00:44:51
Speaker
He's burnt at multiple solar companies in the past.
00:44:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:14
Speaker
I will give just as a cautionary tale here, having worked with people that do ask for a sign-on bonus, I don't think I've ever seen one that ever actually pans out.
00:45:27
Speaker
I mean, there's got to be at least one out there, but I've just never seen it.
00:45:31
Speaker
And I've been involved in those conversations.
00:45:35
Speaker
I think that anybody asking for front-loaded value really hasn't captured the types of core values of many of these companies that I work with is that you do work to earn money.
00:45:48
Speaker
your share i guess yeah yeah one it's like i just had john soriano who is you know one of the like regional vps or whatever over at legacy and he's like well if you're such a successful rep shouldn't you have money like why do you need a sign-on bonus if you're like that good you should deserve it so i'm like that's a good point yeah why do you need a sign-on bonus so yeah i agree
00:46:12
Speaker
But anyway, we'll just to wrap, kind of start wrapping up here, Clark.
Addressing Retention and Firing Quickly
00:46:16
Speaker
The last thing I wanted to touch on a little bit before we say goodbye is just, I know a lot of people get these recruiting systems going.
00:46:24
Speaker
They lose reps, guys stick for like a week or two, and then they fall off.
00:46:30
Speaker
And I know just, we didn't talk a ton about your whole funnel where you're being strict with the people you bring on.
00:46:36
Speaker
And I know that's definitely going to help companies.
00:46:38
Speaker
But what do you think are the main reasons why people can't retain reps?
00:46:42
Speaker
Is you think it's just more like being strict with the people you put them through the funnel?
00:46:46
Speaker
Or like for you, what's the main things you see why these people can't retain reps in all the companies you work with?
00:46:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:55
Speaker
That is an excellent question.
00:46:58
Speaker
I would probably say that it comes down to less of people fizzling out.
00:47:04
Speaker
I think that when we ask them, what does retention mean to you?
00:47:09
Speaker
And they're like, well, we want less people fizzling out.
00:47:12
Speaker
I think the problem is using the word fizzling out.
00:47:14
Speaker
That really should not exist on any type of sales team.
00:47:19
Speaker
What I mean by that is that
00:47:21
Speaker
Usually on teams that I work with, we go through this three step process where we source more candidates, we bring in more recruits than anybody in the world.
00:47:31
Speaker
That's step one.
00:47:32
Speaker
Step two is that we're firing quickly.
00:47:36
Speaker
So we're getting rid of people that we see immediately are not following standards, don't fit into the culture of our team, and then we promote even quicker than we fire.
00:47:47
Speaker
And that one's hard to do, especially if there's no guideline for what promotes a rep.
00:47:52
Speaker
But I think that what ultimately makes for fizzling out reps is number one, a manager that doesn't know how to fire.
00:48:01
Speaker
Um, and maybe they don't have guidelines for it there.
00:48:03
Speaker
We're not really taught how to fire people on a team in, in door to door solar.
00:48:06
Speaker
So it's going to come down to number two, not only having a manager that knows how to fire efficiently, but it comes down to the company actually having guidelines like, Hey, these are quotas and minimum standards.
00:48:18
Speaker
and a skeleton outline day by day of what a recruit should be experiencing and doing for their first 60 days.
00:48:25
Speaker
And if we see that there's some gaps, that's when you can start firing, right?
00:48:30
Speaker
Hold them against something that they have had a clear expectation from the beginning against that they should be completing at, at penalty of losing their job.
00:48:41
Speaker
Right.
00:48:42
Speaker
And then I would say number three,
00:48:44
Speaker
is that when we keep around people that shouldn't be on the team, it's a detriment not only to that person, they'll end up fizzling out, it's going to be a detriment to the entire team.
00:48:54
Speaker
So if I've got somebody who does not take the opportunity seriously on my team,
00:49:00
Speaker
who is just bumming around, super negative attitude, you know, does not hit quotas and things like that, but is still kept around on my team.
00:49:09
Speaker
And I am a top performer on that team.
00:49:12
Speaker
That makes me feel so, so crummy and undervalued that I'm sharing the same airspace with somebody that really does not give a damn about what is important to me.
00:49:23
Speaker
It's going to make me fizzle out just as well.
00:49:25
Speaker
It's going to be like, oh, I'm going to find a place that fits more with me where there's more me's on the team or people that I can grow from.
00:49:32
Speaker
They don't even have to be me.
00:49:33
Speaker
I hope they're even higher skilled than me.
00:49:37
Speaker
And so when we keep around low tier talent or detriments to the team, you're hurting more than just that person by keeping them there.
00:49:44
Speaker
And also you're feeding into that scarcity mindset by not firing people that shouldn't be on your team.
00:49:52
Speaker
So I'd say retention at the end of the day might have less to do with keeping reps and keeping every single person.
00:50:00
Speaker
It has more to do with getting rid of people that don't fit the culture to allow for new growth to happen on your team.
00:50:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:50:09
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:50:10
Speaker
Well, and yeah, speaking of firing and then we'll wrap up after this, but, um, so that's something that I struggle with cause I'm naturally, I struggle with the nice guy syndrome where I'm just like too nice and want to give people always the benefit of the doubt and just keep them on the team.
00:50:25
Speaker
So for guys like me, like what's, how do you fire people?
00:50:28
Speaker
Like how do you like know?
00:50:30
Speaker
And cause you know, if people have a bad attitude, if they're not hitting numbers, that's one thing.
00:50:34
Speaker
But maybe they're hitting low numbers and they have a bad out there and you're like, all right, we just can't keep them on the team.
00:50:40
Speaker
But it's kind of tougher to justify.
00:50:42
Speaker
How do you like, what's the conversation we have with these guys to actually fire them?
00:50:47
Speaker
It's a two-part conversation.
00:50:49
Speaker
The first is front-loaded.
00:50:50
Speaker
The second one is five seconds long.
00:50:53
Speaker
The first front-loaded conversation is on the day of their orientation.
00:50:57
Speaker
The first thing that we go over is these are the minimum standards.
00:51:01
Speaker
I love that.
00:51:02
Speaker
Minimum standards.
00:51:03
Speaker
This is the floor, not the ceiling level, but the floor to stay on my sales team.
00:51:09
Speaker
Ideally, it's locked into that document that I was talking about earlier, where it's like, hey, here's a skeleton outline day by day, play by play of what you should be doing in order to keep your job.
00:51:21
Speaker
This is the very minimum that I need you to be doing.
00:51:25
Speaker
If they know that from moment one, then it's not going to be a surprise when that five second conversation happens where you pull them aside.
00:51:33
Speaker
You take a look at that sheet together and say, boom, boom, boom.
00:51:36
Speaker
These three things weren't done.
00:51:38
Speaker
It seems like your interest, passion and overall commitment to this don't fit in with the ultra fired up teammates that are on this team.
00:51:49
Speaker
I don't want to hurt them.
00:51:51
Speaker
I certainly don't want to hurt you.
00:51:53
Speaker
Good luck in your next career move.
00:51:55
Speaker
And that's the conversation.
00:51:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:58
Speaker
And like over the phone, in person, either way.
00:52:01
Speaker
Doesn't matter.
00:52:01
Speaker
In person, if possible, over the phone, second choice.
00:52:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:52:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:52:06
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:52:08
Speaker
Yeah, I need to get better at doing that because they're tough conversations, man.
00:52:13
Speaker
It's not easy, but some of us got to overcome that nice guy syndrome and just do it for the sake of the team.
00:52:19
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I've got to give no more Mr. Nice Guy a second readover and then just...
00:52:26
Speaker
pump yourself out and or pump yourself up and and take them out of the team i know yep one of my favorite books a lot of a lot of things they're playing so cool um well clark it's been awesome having you on and just to wrap up here if guys want to connect more with you or potentially like work with you for their teams um and do you work with people individually or more just like teams and companies
00:52:51
Speaker
Yeah, we work across the board.
Connect with Clark for Consulting
00:52:54
Speaker
As far as surge goes, surge right now is completely book full.
00:52:57
Speaker
So we are not taking on any new clients.
00:53:00
Speaker
But if you'd like to work with me personally, then that is a conversation that I'm willing to have.
00:53:06
Speaker
It would be on the bright side of things.
00:53:08
Speaker
So you'd be working with me at bright.
00:53:09
Speaker
You can hit me up at Clark underscore sales recruiter on Instagram.
00:53:15
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:53:17
Speaker
Well, it's been awesome having you on Clark.
00:53:18
Speaker
And even if you don't want to work with Clark right now, which you'd be crazy not to, but either way, hit him up and give him a shout.
00:53:27
Speaker
Give him a shout out for coming on the podcast today.
00:53:29
Speaker
We're going to be releasing this soon.
00:53:31
Speaker
And so yeah, tag it, like it, share it.
00:53:33
Speaker
And
00:53:34
Speaker
We look forward to hearing more about your recruiting skills and we'll probably have to do a follow-up episode because we just started working with you, Clark.
00:53:41
Speaker
So imagine six months from now when you've got us like, you know, office of a hundred down here in San Diego, then we're really going to have stuff to talk about.
00:53:48
Speaker
So looking forward to that.
00:53:50
Speaker
Hopefully not a hundred.
00:53:51
Speaker
Hopefully, hopefully 10 just snuds, right?
00:53:53
Speaker
Exactly.
00:53:54
Speaker
No mud at a wall, but yeah, I appreciate you having me on.
00:53:57
Speaker
It was a pleasure, man.
00:53:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:59
Speaker
I appreciate it.
00:54:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:54:00
Speaker
Thanks again.
00:54:02
Speaker
Hey Solarpreneurs, are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your sales increase?
00:54:08
Speaker
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00:54:14
Speaker
So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time we are doing a free sales diagnostic.
00:54:20
Speaker
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00:54:27
Speaker
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00:54:30
Speaker
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00:54:31
Speaker
Don't miss out.
00:54:33
Speaker
What you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
00:54:38
Speaker
That's taylor at solarpreneurs with an S dot com.
00:54:42
Speaker
I'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out the time that works best.
00:54:46
Speaker
So shoot that email and let's increase your sales.