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 fell.
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 Solarpreneur you might ask?
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.
Speaker: What's up, Solarpreneurs?
Speaker: Taylor Armstrong here.
Speaker: Today we're going to be talking about the good, the bad, the ugly, everything you missed at DoorDorCon and also the Noxstar event.
Speaker: These are the two flagship events of solar, I would say, right now.
Speaker: And hopefully we'll do a Solarpreneur event here soon that is in the works.
Speaker: But for right now,
Speaker: DoorDorkon and Noxstar are some of the best events that I believe you can get great training at.
Speaker: We're going to be going over a recap of those today and also just talking about some of the drama, some of the things that happened because there was some stuff that went down as well.
Speaker: Let's jump into it.
Speaker: Before, I just want to preface the episode by saying I did knock out probably seven or eight podcasts at these events.
Speaker: I did not see a lot of the speakers this year, unfortunately, but...
Speaker: That's because I'm bringing the speakers to you guys.
Speaker: I got a lot of great content, a lot of great speakers that jumped on the show.
Speaker: We did live podcasts at the event.
Speaker: So you're going to be hearing those trickle in over the coming weeks and months.
Speaker: And I did miss a few of the speakers, but I did see all the ones that I thought were the best.
Speaker: And I did go to all the ones that were solar related.
Speaker: At least I think I did.
Speaker: Okay, so let's jump right into it.
Speaker: And also, I want to say if you are not taking notes, you should be taking notes at events like this.
Speaker: I have brought this up before, but the best app for taking notes at events, at sales trainings, at even your correlations, it's called Notability.
Speaker: It's an app I've been using for a little while now, and if you haven't checked this out, you are missing out.
Speaker: It is the dopest app for note-taking, and here's why you can record the speakers at the same time you're taking the notes, and it will sync the note to the speaker.
Speaker: So what I mean by that is you can be taking a note, say you're listening to Michael O'Donnell or...
Speaker: Someone that's crushing it in solar and you hear a specific line they use, well, what it's going to do is the note you take at that exact moment that they're dropping their line or their...
Speaker: you know, expounding on whatever the point was.
Speaker: It's going to sync it up to that.
Speaker: You can go back later and you can hit play at that exact moment and you can hear what, you know, was said.
Speaker: So really cool, really useful, especially when there's specific one-liners that people are throwing down and, you know, stuff you want to go back and listen to.
Speaker: So that's what I took my notes with at the event.
Speaker: Okay, and so we're going to jump into a few of the speakers here.
Speaker: We had on Friday, Door-to-DoorCon was Friday and Saturday.
Speaker: A few of the speakers I got here, we heard from Mo Fala, which has been on the show.
Speaker: You can go listen to his episode.
Speaker: And then there was a solar panel.
Speaker: So that had a few of the all-stars in solar, like Michael O'Donnell, Oscar Luna,
Speaker: Matt Crowther, a couple of those guys have been on the podcast.
Speaker: And then on Saturday, one of the main speakers we had in solar was Jory Sullivan.
Speaker: So I'm going to be giving you a little highlight on those.
Speaker: And if you didn't see him live, if you weren't at the event, we missed you.
Speaker: And also I want to say thank you to all those that came and said, what's up to me at the event really means a lot.
Speaker: Love meeting our listeners and just love hearing the words of appreciation from you guys.
Speaker: That's what keeps me going in this podcast.
Speaker: That's what keeps us cranking out great content.
Speaker: Because I'll be blunt, I'm not a millionaire from this podcast.
Speaker: Just like all you, the main source of income is from me going out and closing deals.
Speaker: So if people think I'm becoming rich from this, that ain't true.
Speaker: I'm out there hustling just like you guys.
Speaker: And I'm doing this primarily to add value.
Speaker: And just really appreciate all the support that all the listeners have shown.
Speaker: So let's jump into Mo Folle.
Speaker: He talked about just kind of leadership in solar and really a lot of lessons he's learned as he started his own company.
Speaker: And again, go listen to his episode if you haven't, but just a couple highlights from his presentation.
Speaker: He said a focus should be on income producing activities.
Speaker: Some people focus on things that aren't really making them money.
Speaker: In a business, 80% of the focus or almost all your focus should be on the stuff that makes you money.
Speaker: So when you are out there closing deals, when you're out there knocking, how much time are you spending on the income producing activities?
Speaker: Great point he had with that one.
Speaker: Another few highlights.
Speaker: He said, get good at one thing and make one million on that rather than trying to diversify.
Speaker: What he meant by that is so many people, they think to become a millionaire, you have to be going, you know, you have to be doing a lot of different things and making a little bit of money from all of them.
Speaker: He says, no, double down on one thing, make money on that.
Speaker: and then diversify.
Speaker: A lot of people try to do the opposite.
Speaker: Another piece of advice, only take advice from someone you would want to trade places with.
Speaker: So this is a good one for people that maybe aren't reaching the levels of success they've desired, right?
Speaker: How much good advice, how much good material are you getting from your leaders?
Speaker: Would you want to trade places with them?
Speaker: Something to consider.
Speaker: Another really cool thing he talked about, you must be sold on yourself before anything else.
Speaker: And he also talked about just how important it's been for him to give up drugs and alcohol.
Speaker: I know in this industry, a lot of partiers, I've seen it, I've seen a lot of people getting wild on things, but it comes with a price.
Speaker: Everyone that's successful, two guys that come to mind is Mo Fala and Alex Smith, both guys that have been on the podcast, both guys that were big partiers in their heyday.
Speaker: In order to reach the level of success that has, you know, just catapulted their success, they had to give up drugs and alcohol.
Speaker: Okay, so, you know, consider that.
Speaker: So yeah, I think that's the main highlights of that.
Speaker: Don't want to get too deep into this because really we could be here all day, but just want to give you guys a brief recap of some of the most important points.
Speaker: Another thing he said just to end on his presentation is you should have company minimums.
Speaker: Even if your company doesn't have minimums right now, set a minimum number for yourself.
Speaker: Okay, what's the standard?
Speaker: What's the number of deals that you need to close no matter what?
Speaker: Okay, so his deal, his standards in his company is starting out.
Speaker: He expects everyone to have two deals closed their first month, three deals closed their second month, then month four.
Speaker: And just after that always is four deals.
Speaker: Okay, and if people dip below that, then he sits down, has a talk with them, puts them on basically a probation basis.
Speaker: So he's not tolerating mediocrity.
Speaker: Because all of us were capable of doing a lot more than we think.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And the next little recap we have here was about the solar panel.
Speaker: It was really cool.
Speaker: They brought up, like I said, Michael Donnell.
Speaker: Matt Crowther, Oscar Luna, a few other guys up there, and just kind of a Q&A, a panel up there.
Speaker: And there was some drama that happened, and you're going to hear about that actually on a podcast we did with Michael O'Donnell.
Speaker: He is going to be on probably an episode here in a couple weeks.
Speaker: You're going to hear kind of what went down if you weren't at the event, but...
Speaker: We had a little debate on stage, which was cool.
Speaker: The other piece of drama we have, well, this wasn't drama, but they didn't have a mic at the Q&A at the panel.
Speaker: So guys were just like trying to yell, and that was, I guess, you know, the bad of the event.
Speaker: Hopefully they'll improve that piece, but...
Speaker: I was like, come on, get a microphone for these guys.
Speaker: We can't hear the questions.
Speaker: So that was not so good on that piece.
Speaker: But besides that, it was good.
Speaker: Good questions.
Speaker: And just a couple highlights of the solar panel.
Speaker: Matt Crowther, he is one of the best of the best in the industry at getting referrals.
Speaker: So he talked about just the importance of that and becoming the mayor of where you're selling solar.
Speaker: Something that he does, he gets to know the HOA president, if possible.
Speaker: He gets to know influential people in the neighborhood.
Speaker: Maybe there's cops in the neighborhood, teachers, doctors, whatever people that the neighborhood would recognize.
Speaker: And if he can get to know them, even if they already have solar from another company, or maybe they're not interested, if you can get to the point where you can drop their name and they're okay with that, that is something that has been a secret to his success.
Speaker: And I know he's selling right now like 80% of his accounts off referrals.
Speaker: So really cool to hear some of the ideas behind that.
Speaker: And then another point they had, I didn't write out exactly who said what.
Speaker: So don't expect me to remember exactly who.
Speaker: There was one out of five chance that it was Michael O'Donnell or Oscar Luna.
Speaker: I think there's two other people.
Speaker: I'm forgetting who they were.
Speaker: But someone said, don't cheat the grind.
Speaker: Do the basics over and over and the numbers will follow.
Speaker: Are you cheating the grind?
Speaker: Are you out there hustling?
Speaker: Are you expecting to close deals just from people calling you up?
Speaker: Or maybe you're just focusing on following up.
Speaker: Okay, everyone up there is still knocking doors.
Speaker: They're not cheating the grind.
Speaker: Even if you are Matt Crowther, even if you're getting tons of referrals, he is still out there knocking every day.
Speaker: Even if he's getting referrals.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Something else.
Speaker: I think it was Michael O'Donnell.
Speaker: He said, take one or two guys with you.
Speaker: That's how you teach.
Speaker: You have to sacrifice your own selves to grow your team.
Speaker: Maybe that was Oscar Luna, actually.
Speaker: But someone just asked, how do you train good setters?
Speaker: And that's the way you do it.
Speaker: Just pretty much always have someone shadowing you, especially if you're a manager.
Speaker: And especially if you're struggling to motivate yourself to go out there and knock, just always take someone with you.
Speaker: That's actually one of the best ways to get yourself out.
Speaker: on the doors is by training someone say hey meet me at this Starbucks we're gonna go hit some doors and no Michael O'Donnell do that does that a lot as well hey someone asked how do you minimize the learning curve and the panel responded treat solar like real estate you have to be the person that becomes a confidant with your solar deals
Speaker: And that's really the secret.
Speaker: I've done previous episodes on that, but solar really should be treated like real estate, right?
Speaker: We're not a summer program that's just going out getting quick sales.
Speaker: It should be about treating the industry like real estate long-term thing.
Speaker: You're following up with your customers.
Speaker: You're updating them.
Speaker: You're making sure they don't cancel, right?
Speaker: You're keeping a CRM.
Speaker: You're collecting referrals at a later date.
Speaker: That's why solar should be treated like real estate.
Speaker: Okay, and then the last speaker that I'll give a little highlight of at Door-to-DoorCon.
Speaker: is Jory Sullivan.
Speaker: Before we jumped into those highlights, another piece of drama we had at the event is, I'm not going to drop names here, but people just fighting.
Speaker: Unfortunately, there was some disagreements over, I guess, past business practices.
Speaker: So we saw one guy that came in the event.
Speaker: Maybe it was three different times, got kicked out twice.
Speaker: The third time he came back in and I guess they didn't kick him out after that.
Speaker: But just kind of funny.
Speaker: You see a drama in this industry.
Speaker: Someone called it like a bunch of millionaires to act like middle schoolers.
Speaker: I thought that was funny.
Speaker: But it's funny.
Speaker: If you were in solar, you don't need to bring the drama.
Speaker: It's funny sometimes to see the drama that happens in this, but...
Speaker: You know, pointing fingers and guys saying that someone that came was doing bad business practices, trying to kick them out of the events.
Speaker: Pretty funny.
Speaker: But anyways, let's jump into Jory Sullivan.
Speaker: Just want to keep it real, right?
Speaker: Want to give you the good and the bad.
Speaker: So Jory Sullivan, he talked also kind of about leadership and what he's learned.
Speaker: If you haven't listened to that episode, go check it out.
Speaker: But he says business is a 24-7 sport and we can't, okay, I'll skip that part.
Speaker: But something I really liked that he talked about was just really how to divide your attention on your teams.
Speaker: Maybe you're running a team or maybe you're trying to step up into management at your company wherever you're at.
Speaker: He goes by something called a 10-80-10 rule.
Speaker: What he says is 10% of your reps don't need attention and will work by themselves.
Speaker: These are like your all-star reps, right?
Speaker: 80% need your attention and you give it to them.
Speaker: Okay, so that's like the majority of the team.
Speaker: They need to be given a lot of attention and helped a lot.
Speaker: But 10%, the last 10% of your team are attention suckers.
Speaker: that aren't really going to work that you should cut.
Speaker: You should be looking for those people just to cut from your team.
Speaker: And that's kind of the splits that get divided on a typical sales team.
Speaker: So if you're in leadership at your company, if you're running a team, if you're trying to get into leadership, take a look at that.
Speaker: Okay, 10% of your reps just don't give any attention.
Speaker: They're going to go out and work.
Speaker: 80%, you got to give the attention, help them out, motivate them, cheer them up.
Speaker: And then the last 10%, you got to look for those people that just should be cut.
Speaker: They're not working.
Speaker: And what do a lot of us do?
Speaker: We give, we try to give all our attention to the 10% that should be cut because we're trying to go, you know, get them to work and all that.
Speaker: But something that I thought was super valuable that he shared with us.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then another cool thing he talked about was doing hell week in solar.
Speaker: Okay, that's like any of the football players, you know they have like a hell week typically as you're getting ready for your big games.
Speaker: So what that is, it's 9 a.m.
Speaker: to 9 p.m.
Speaker: just working straight.
Speaker: And I'll be honest, I have never actually done that in solar.
Speaker: But I have done like many hell weeks.
Speaker: It's really cool to see just what you're capable of.
Speaker: His point was just we don't really know what we're capable of until we push extremely hard.
Speaker: That's the point of doing hell weeks is just pushing yourself as hard as you can.
Speaker: Then you really see what's possible.
Speaker: He suggested starting with a three-day hell mini week, right?
Speaker: Three days, nine to nine.
Speaker: and then ramp it up, do like a full week.
Speaker: I've seen companies go out and have a ton of success just by doing like blitzes, turning your hell week into a blitz and just really, you know, getting your guys in an Airbnb, pushing in separate areas.
Speaker: And it's really cool to see what guys can go out and hit just pushing extremely hard.
Speaker: And he just talked about having abundance mindset and just really impactful for leadership.
Speaker: Every three to four months, go spend money on your people.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Talked about how his region at Legacy is giving away a car, a Tesla.
Speaker: And I think he said the managers, most of the managers are the ones coming out of their pocket to spend extra on this.
Speaker: It's not necessarily just the company.
Speaker: So spend money on your reps.
Speaker: Take care of them.
Speaker: And don't be afraid to treat them like kings.
Speaker: Treat them good.
Speaker: That's how they're going to stay.
Speaker: So those were a few of the highlights from a door-to-door con.
Speaker: Hey, obviously there are the big speakers.
Speaker: You had Jim Quick.
Speaker: You had Jesse Itzler.
Speaker: You had Eric Thomas.
Speaker: A few bigger guys, which were awesome too.
Speaker: But just to keep it brief, we're not going to go into all of those things.
Speaker: I'm just going to talk just kind of about the solar specific guys.
Speaker: Okay, and then just to wrap up here, I'll give just a quick highlight of the Noxstar event, which by the way, Noxstar is doing another event, I think in March.
Speaker: And then, of course, you got SolarCon in April.
Speaker: So if you didn't come to these events, guess what?
Speaker: There's more to come to.
Speaker: So you can come to those ones if you did miss out on DoorToDoorCon.
Speaker: But just to briefly recap, Noxstar, that was a two-day event.
Speaker: And that one was more like a retreat, I would call it.
Speaker: You know, a lot more close knit guys got to hang out sleeping in the house, all that good stuff.
Speaker: So just a couple highlights.
Speaker: You had guys like Ty Segan came, Jeff Mendez, the guy who basically built Vivint Alarms, right?
Speaker: And just a lot of like guys in solar that are, you know, maybe not as well known, but they're in solar and they've had success in the NOX star programs.
Speaker: That's the cool thing.
Speaker: You kind of got to hear success stories from Danny and Taylor specific teachings.
Speaker: So the biggest recap, I would say, and like I said, I was doing a lot of podcasts at this event, so I did miss a few of the speakers.
Speaker: But I just want to recap.
Speaker: Actually, Ty Segan, if you don't know him, I don't think he's even on social media, so you might not even know who this guy is.
Speaker: But he closed 250 deals last year, and he just barely became a setter, or sorry, a closer at his company, I think seven, eight months ago.
Speaker: Before that, he was purely setting deals.
Speaker: So really cool, really sweet what he's been able to accomplish.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And biggest takeaway we got from him is just be a workhorse.
Speaker: This guy is working 12 hour days, almost every day, seven days a week.
Speaker: And I'm not going to go out and do that.
Speaker: I'm not working near that much, but it's no secret why he's having success.
Speaker: This guy is just an absolute workhorse.
Speaker: We actually had him on the podcast, so his episode is going to drop here in probably three weeks or so.
Speaker: So you'll get to hear that.
Speaker: But he talked about a lot about area management, which we'll save that for the podcast coming up with him.
Speaker: And then just really treating the job like a professional.
Speaker: A lot of us expect to go out and make doctor money selling solar, which is super possible.
Speaker: OK, we should be making doctor money selling solar.
Speaker: But his point was, why aren't we training like professionals?
Speaker: Doctors, you know, get their degrees, go to years and years of school, and we expect to just come out tomorrow and go make doctor money without training?
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: So have some respect.
Speaker: Go out and train like a pro.
Speaker: Become an expert.
Speaker: And he just talked about the 10,000 hour rule.
Speaker: Have you got your reps in?
Speaker: Have you put in 10,000 hours to learn the art of selling solar?
Speaker: So ask yourself that question.
Speaker: And I think it's something that we should all should think about.
Speaker: Are we really treating this job as a professional, not an amateur?
Speaker: So that's just a little recap.
Speaker: Wanted to keep it brief.
Speaker: Wanted to give you guys just a little taste of what you missed out on.
Speaker: I hope to see you at these next events.
Speaker: I go to pretty much any solar cells event, almost all of them.
Speaker: Sometimes you've got to tone it down too.
Speaker: If you feel like you're going to too many events, maybe take a step back and really think, am I applying this stuff?
Speaker: Because sometimes you can get event overload.
Speaker: You don't want to be an event junkie either.
Speaker: Okay, so maybe going to every single one of these events is too much, but pick one a quarter, right?
Speaker: Pick a couple a year that you can go to, sharpen your saw, get a coach, get in Soul Society, our program, okay?
Speaker: Or you can apply for our coaching program as well.
Speaker: All things you can do to really just, you know, shorten the learning curve in Soul Society.
Speaker: So hope that episode was valuable to you.
Speaker: Hope to see you at the next events.
Speaker: Let me know what you thought of this.
Speaker: And lastly, thanks for all the support.
Speaker: Thanks for coming and saying what's up at the events if you were present.
Speaker: I can't wait to listen to the next episodes we have coming up.
Speaker: We knocked out seven or eight podcasts during the events.
Speaker: So can't wait for you guys to hear them.
Speaker: So that being said, we'll see you on the next one.
Speaker: Thanks for your support and go close some deals this week.
Speaker: Hey Solarpreneurs, quick question.
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?
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.
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.
Speaker: And it's called Solcite.
Speaker: This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors and
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: Currently, Soul Society is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
Speaker: So go to soulcide.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to soulcide.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
